mitsugirly

I will be back after work to give my final thoughts on everything....stay tuned. I hope everyone enjoyed the review and maybe found some of the things we did interesting and it possibly helped you in deciding if it is something you might (or might not) want to do when in some of these ports. As always...happy cruising and enjoy the memories!

We arrived in Columbus safe and sound but man was we tired! It was such a long day. The time change difference really throws you off for sure. At least we had grown accustomed to the California time zone and it felt as if it was only around 11pm, that's still past our bedtime. Even though Columbus is a major city, our airport is pretty small compared to others. I honestly don't think a lot of people fly into it during the very late night hours. It always seems so abandoned after getting off the plane. We always try to have a "different" colored luggage than most so that we can easily spot them. I would notice that people are starting to catch on to this and there was a lot of color on that baggage carousel. Sometimes it's hard to spot your luggage now. We were in Karl's suv and our normal food stop on the way to our city was closed. It was later than we've ever arrived at home. We went ahead and headed home, greeted our eager dogs at the door...then back out to find SOMETHING to eat because we were all starving at this point. We ended up at Waffle House and I believe the kids darn near fell asleep at the table. Poor babies. They were so tired. We eventually made it home and in bed by around 3:30am....and life is back to normal.

I believe we had something like a little over 5 hours to wait for our next plane to home. We explored the airport, got something to eat (of course and Karl ate twice I believe), charged our phones and.... ....actually made some money while we waited. We went to play the slots several times during our layover and walked out with more than we walked in with so that was a plus. There was a little "store" that was a self serve check out. I've never seen anything like this before. You put your items in this area and it scans everything there and somehow knows what you have and then gives you the total price and you pay using your card. As we continued to wait for our plane, we made new friends and talked cruise and Caribbean talk. She and her friend were such lovely people. I told her about our adventures and my website and cruise critic and she told me of all the places they've been. Hi Debbie if you managed to find me on here. 👋 Then we got a notice on our phones...our flight was delayed. We were supposed to leave at 6:25pm, but now...it would be 6:47pm. Well, it wasn't much longer and we had yet another delay... Our time was getting later and later to arrive back home. It was definitely going to be a longer day than expected. We were now going to arrive back to our home airport of Columbus at almost 2am!! Yikes!! We were boarding the plane by 6:33pm and time to give us a little bit of luck and safety. The sunset approaching was giving off a pretty pinkish color to the mountains in the distance. We took our spot in the Southwest line of planes and awaited our turn for take off. We were airborne at 7:10 and FOUND THE SPHERE all lit up. Look how big it looks from above:

I think it was around a hour and a few minutes flight to Vegas and we could immediately see the "strip". Both Sakari and I were trying to find 1) The Luxor, which we stayed in when we came to Vegas once and 2) the new giant sphere they built since we've been there. We managed to find both easily. And we had officially landed and I managed to capture the plane going by the Luxor. I honestly did not realize the airport is THAT close to the strip. I knew it was close and you can see the planes coming in and out from the hotels, but geesh this seemed very close.

It was a fairly short flight over to Las Vegas and the scenery along the way was absolutely gorgeous! Just look at those beautiful mountains!

It was time to board the plane and back outside we went to head up the stairs...I find boarding outside instead of walking down the loading bridge so Caribbean style. I love it! Off we went... We could see the cruise port in the distance: And of course our beautiful Panorama:

APRIL 7: SUNDAY AND BACK IN CALIFORNIA. Well there would be no Fun Times to view today...they were officially kicking us off the ship so I'll give you debarkation information instead. We were up a little before 7am and coming into port. We headed up to get some breakfast and I had one of my favorite breakfast goodies that I've always liked on every cruise I have been on. No they are not sugar free. Yes, I cheated most of the cruise. After pulling into port we headed back to get our things out of the room. At this point I stopped taking notes and my mental capacity is in overload so hopefully I'll get the days events in order from looking at my pictures I took that day. Sorry in advance if I miss something or get them out of order. I always find that last day of getting off the ship and trying to get to the airport in time a mass blur filled with various emotions and anxiety and hoping that nothing goes wrong. As we waited for them to call us to depart from the ship, I looked at my hub app and noticed the times had changed. Ok, now what's going on here? That's not what the app had told me before when I booked. I would notice that they were calling self assist off the ship before they started calling those who had checked their luggage. Was there a blooper in the scheduling system when I had decided to check our luggage over self assist with the times? I'm not sure. That was the only reason why we had picked that instead. I know I was getting worried for sure. Eventually we did make it off the ship and winding our way to the lines inside the port. Now I know this was a topic of conversation on these boards about whether or not to use a birth certificate or a passport. What WE experienced was the passport line was extremely long and somewhat slow moving...from the time we got off the ship and all the way down the winding ramps inside the building. They had us move aside, to the left, and made the right side the birth certificate line. The people with a b/c was just zooming past us all. Like there was barely a line. I can remember back in the day, when we first started cruising all the time, barely anyone had passports and we were the one's zooming by everyone. It's a different world now and I guess everyone has decided to get a passport. It really had me wondering if we would have been better off with our b/c instead. I know there's more involved at security with a b/c, but I still believe they moved quicker. Once we finally made it up to security it was easy-peasy with facial recognition and then we were out the door. I summoned for our Uber and he was there within 5 minutes. Some have said it's easier to just walk over to the Queen Mary hotel area and be picked up, because of the traffic jam at the port, but it didn't affect us at all. Arriving at the beautiful airport at Long Beach...gosh I love this small airport! After checking in and getting our tickets, we headed over to security and we noticed something...Karl was considered VIP this time with a TSA precheck listed on his ticket. Hmmm, that was weird. Did they just give this to him because we had it? They sure didn't do that on the way to CA. I found it weird that they had people line up in the middle of the walkway instead of over by the windows like it usually is at most airports.

Well Oops. My JiJi post was taken down because I mentioned the waiters name on here. I guess that's not allowed? I had no clue and my apologies. For those that missed that portion of the review: The kids finally woke up from their nap and I had almost everything packed so Karl started to complain he was hungry. I bet you couldn't have guessed that one! We decided to go some place new this time and headed upstairs to JiJi for some free Asian food. We did get there before they opened and there was already a very long line, down the hall, out the door, and past the elevators. Another lady in front of us said the line moves very slowly and usually takes at least 30 minutes to 1 hour to get into the place to be seated. She wasn't lying. The place is kinda small so not many seats and people take their time and then sit around talking afterwards. We finally made it in and was seated. They hand you a paper and you fill out what you want. You can pick the stir fry, which will come with noodles and whatever meat you pick or you can pick the broth and it comes without the noodles and in a soup form. The kids picked the broth and we picked the stir fry. Now this is where everything went downhill for us. They brought out mine and the hubby's within 5 minutes of ordering. We ordered the combo: chicken, steak and shrimp. My meal had 4 pieces of chicken, 2 pieces of steak and 1 shrimp. The hubby's had 1 of each. Seriously? A lady came back over and ask Karl about his order...He had originally marked stir-fry, then erased it, then marked broth and they wanted to make sure that he was wanting to broth. Sakari ordered the chicken broth soup and it came out another 11 minutes later: Karl continued to wait and wait and wait. We had all finished our meals and he was still waiting. We really didn't understand what the hold up was. Finally Sakari decided to get up and go over and ask someone (so not like her but she felt bad for Karl) and everyone completely ignored her. Then she went over to another person where they were cooking to ask. They told her "It takes a long time to make these" so we continued to wait. Finally I waved down the waiter again and ask about his food. Then he proceeded to tell me "You only ordered 3 meals" WAIT WHAT??? No, no we didn't, we ordered 4. There's 4 of us sitting here, we all ordered something and you collected the tickets from all of us. He actually stood there arguing with us "No you didn't. I collected 3 and 3 is all you gave me". Then the lady came over (the head)....and she also started arguing about it "You only turned in 3 orders". So then, "Explain to me how YOU came over to verify HIS order that he "didn't turn in"??? You want to explain that one???" I'm getting heated about now because if you would have heard the tone in their voice (BOTH OF THEM) and the way they were talking and arguing with us...it was enough for anyone to get heated. They rudely ask Karl what he had ordered and he told them and they ask his name. After awhile, they brought him out something that wasn't anything that he said (it was noodles with some type of sauce on it). He sighed and said "I'm just going to eat it". The rude waiter came back over after Karl had started eating and said "Sorry, I think I found your ticket". Now I think this pissed me off even more because him and the lead lady had argued with us non-stop and was so rude about it and they got so loud that everyone was looking over at us....and now all of a sudden they have his ticket in their hand WITH his name on it. I took the ticket and pointed at his name and said...there ya go. That's him. That fourth person that you said didn't order and you wanted to argue with us about it. He tried to grab the ticket back and I pulled away and refused to give it back to him. Yep, there's the ticket (I blanked out his name at the bottom) Meanwhile, they must have discovered they gave him the wrong meal and brought him out the correct one. Sakari said, "I'll try your other meal" and then Karl was happy. Well Karl being Karl, he wasn't full and wanted to head down to the buffet for more food. The hubby was still hungry as well because he didn't eat many of his noodles (he's more strict with the Keto diet than I have been) and that 1 piece of chicken, steak and shrimp wasn't cutting it. I decided I'd make up for my cheating with whatever sugar free desert they had and it was some type of chocolate (which I don't like but was willing to give it a try) and I believe the cake part was missing because it was just some type of mousse or something. They also had a chocolate buffet going on but they are nothing like they used to be back in the day (well at least what NCL used to have). They had a chocolate fountain and you could get various items at a station, dipped in the chocolate and smothered with different kinds of candy.

Yea, it wasn't the greatest. Good to know it's better at dinner. Probably because it's an added cost during that time. Thank you HAHA...oh whoops. Well, there you have it. Garret one t (what we sometimes call him among the names Gearbear, Uberret-because he says he's Sakari's Uber) and how we got Karl outta that name...go figure. No where near his name. LOL 😄 Oh my gosh so cute! One of our huskies (the girl) has REALLY large ears compared to the other two and when she does something wrong we always ask if she heard us...then follow up with we KNOW you did!

The hubby and I headed outside into the freezing cold because I wanted to take more pictures of the ship. The kids said they were going to walk around and find something to do. They ended up at the Awesome with Deon Talk and said he was hilarious...as always. She said he talked about what it was like to work on a cruise ship and other topics and it was a question and answer session. We all met back up at the room to find this lovely heart on our bed. What a great last gift on our last day. I wanted to grab some more of our gift cards to apply to our account and make a few more purchases...no need to walk the walk of shame if our room card declined suddenly. Then it was off to the comedy club for an early show with the same comedian as the other day, Spencer James. They said it would be the same show as the night before, however it had a lot of different material in it and we were glad we decided to stay. A few pictures of the sunset to remind us how beautiful this world is a we are just a small part of it all. Cherish every moment and we are grateful how blessed we are. You guessed it...someone was hungry already. Since it was the last night of the cruise, it's always so hectic with getting everything together and prepared for the next day that we just decided it would be easier to go to the buffet. They had my yummy sugar free desert that I liked so much from before: It may be a hectic last day, but we were going to fit in everything we could into our schedule...up next...Fun Farewell with Deon! He was in the atrium and it was time to sing and dance and get your groove on! Does anyone ever wonder if he's ever fallen off the bar during one of these shows? He really dances around a lot... And the shows don't stop here. Off to the next.... In the Liquid Lounge was a lady named Tenna Torres. As many others, she was on American Idol, actually twice. She had such a beautiful voice. However, they are not doing her justice with this show. It was kinda boring because she just stood up there and sang. Or, she would sit on the steps and sing. They need to give her some props or dancers or something...anything. She deserves so much more to make it interesting. We ended up having to leave the show early because I needed to get back to the room for last minute packing and to get our luggage out the door to no return... After everything was done, I noticed I still had $7.00 left on our account. I decided to go to the candy store to see if I could find the kids anything. I managed to spend $6.90. It doesn't get any closer than that folks! It was getting late and we would actually be on a time schedule tomorrow so off to bed we went.

Alrighty, I thought I'd try to do a few more "episodes" this morning. I didn't sleep well with my leg aching all night. HAPPY MOTHERS DAY to all the mothers out there! Today is a double whammy for my husband because not only are we celebrating Mothers Day but it's also our 19th Anniversary today. It's a day of celebration for us. I forgot to mention, when we purchased our pictures, they also handed the hubby this: Well since the kids were napping, we missed several things we had on our "entertain ourselves while at sea" list that we missed: Towel folding demo, the dance class and...THE DEBARKATION PRESENTATION!! Rut Row. This was definitely something I should have went to because I had absolutely no idea how this new way of getting kicked off the ship worked now. So, let's talk this new digital system.... Now a few days before now, I had played around with the Carnival Hub app, trying to find this system that I heard Dion mention. I have to say, for some reason every time I tried to find it within the app, I struggled with it. 🤷‍♀️ Maybe it was just me...idk. But it kept looking at it and trying to figure out which "time" we should pick. I went back and forth between just carrying off our luggage ourselves to putting them outside the door. Well, when I went to look the last time (after we had just decided to carry off our luggage) this is what I was shown. Notice the time of 9:40-10am? Well, if I picked a time to just get off (with checked luggage), this is what was shown: Um ok. Does that really make sense? You can get off the ship EARLIER if you check your luggage? So someone explain this to me....is this for real? Do they really allow some of the checked luggage people off before those bringing their luggage? I always thought it was the other way around. Well, I've heard what a mess getting off the ship and the port is so we wanted to get off as soon as we could. When we booked our airflights, I had made the decision to book an earlier flight than what we normally would because either way we were going to have a layover and what better place to have a layover than....VEGAS! That just sounded more appealing to me (and to give us something to do...gamble) while we were waiting for our flight. So, I just ended up picking the checked luggage time since it was earlier. We didn't end up getting our luggage tags and I had to call Ida to have him bring us some. I'm really hoping 16 is our lucky number!

Cheese=😍 Another thing that one of my patients taught me was grilled cheese with pepperoni on it too. It's amazing as well. Haha, he is. He said some day I'll grow into my body. lol That happens to be his weight too he said. Nope you didn't miss it. I never said it. 🙂 OMG I LOVE THIS! I told them and they laughed. Same here. The side of mine is screaming help about right now. Kendra started me on this. I'm sure there's probably a bunch of places I've missed (or have too many of a certain place) lol Costa Rica is always some place I've wanted to go and haven't been yet. Maybe some day. I hope you some day take the plunge with the Olympus. I love mine so much! If you get the tg 6, you can also buy lens for it. I have a wide angle lens as well. (Something the older models can't do)

There was no Dr Seuss music playing, there was no singing or dancing and I have to say it was pretty disappointing. I won't do it again. Thank goodness I have no more small children. (I did noticed adults coming to this with no children, and like I said, even elderly couples) That was a $60 meal that I would have rather spent somewhere else. We also felt extremely rushed the entire time. We were walking in at 8:15am, seated, pictures, food came, then leaving by 9am. We headed back to the room to pack and...the kids needed a nap already. LOL All that sugar and now they were crashing. Here's a collection of my magnets I bought while in port (I always collect them from everywhere we go). In between packing, we decided to go to check out our photos from the week. Man they take a lot of them! It was so hard to pick from. Then when we were in PV, they had a bird that Sakari took pictures with. I didn't purchase them because...well she has a bird at home and that's good enough. She was just excited to hold it.

The shenanigans immediately started and we vetted Karl on how to wear his "tie". Then the Things arrived and started coming around to greet everyone at the tables...and of course to get a picture. They had us ordering right away and this was the menu: They used to hand out menu's that looked like a Dr Seuss book, but everything has went digital now. Once again, someone came around to ask if we'd like freshly squeezed OJ...yes it cost. I came in a VERY small glass. Nope, I'll take my free large glass instead. When our meal came out, it was lack luster to say the least. No green eggs and like I said, mostly what you could get at the buffet. There was nothing colorful on my plate. I swore there was more to it back in the day. Such a disappointment to say the least. Karl got the waffles I believe and then the regular egg meal as well. Sakari tried really hard to get just cereal and I told her "Oh no you're not. You better get something with color for $15" She ended up with the waffle as well. I was really hoping she would pick something different (in color). Sigh The deserts were about as interesting as it got. Of course since we were celebrating a birthday...

APRIL 6: Saturday and yet another sea day Now even though it was a sea day, we had to be up at a certain time, so I had set my alarm to get up by 7:30am. Any other day I'm up at 6-7am but not today. I slept all the way until the alarm went off. So unlike me. So why did I need to be up at a certain time? Because we were headed to Thing 1 & Thing 2's Birthday Breakfast!!! (These guys must be so old celebrating every week). Now we have done the Dr Suess breakfast several times (back when Sakari and Brayden were young of course) and they always loved it. The extremely "odd" food was always the reason for going and they got a kick out of it. However, now that Sakari is older, I would never think twice about going. Been there, done that right? HOWEVER, Karl was the contributing factor in this decision. Sakari wanted him to experience the fun, the singing and dancing, the weird looking food. So we decided to book it. BUT, the Dr Suess Breakfast was sold out! I kept watching for them to add some more reservations on there but they never did. Oh well.... Then a few weeks before the cruise, they added this Thing 1 & 2 Birthday Breakfast. Hmmm, ok, that will have to do. Now mind you, this is the same kind of food you can get anywhere else, it's just colored and "different" (the deserts) at the same time. Is it worth $15/pp? Absolutely not. But, it's all about the experience. We hurried and got dressed and headed down stairs. The doors were closed and there was another family waiting there. We waited for awhile and then started thinking about this...it was almost time for it to start and no one else was here. Hmmm, there has to be a different entrance and off we went. We arrived in the atrium to find this is where we needed to be. The Cat in the Hat showed up for a few pictures: Then we headed inside. It was set up just like I had remembered it. These tables though....oh my gosh. You had to be about 50# to squeeze in between them. They were so close I could eat off someone's plate at the table beside us. I really wonder why they put them so close. People were having issues getting between them and dragging the table cloths along with them and I watched an elderly couple with walkers have a lot of difficulty with this. Like WHY??? They didn't even use the entire dining room area. I honestly thought there wasn't really a big turn out for this. Maybe because others had went to the Dr Seuss Breakfast instead? (From what I had read, they were phasing out the Dr Seuss Breakfast and it was only going to be the Thing 1/2 Breakfast now).