Knights on the Beach

Thursday April 18th was a great day! It was my 10 year cancer-free anniversary and it was a good day to be alive and happy and on a cruise! After coffee at Ocean Plaza Bar, we grabbed a quick bite to eat and walked off the ship. But first we hid a couple pink ducks/flamingos. We stopped by the pool to say hi to Jeff and Patti, can't believe I didn't get any pictures there. Then we walked up the ramp to the Sky Bar. The views are gorgeous up there. All the tables by the rail were taken but there were two seats at the bar waiting for us. I had a couple pink drinks and we enjoyed our time there. We poked around in the shops and I bought a Christmas ornament, then we headed back to the ship. This one was not ours. LOL (I sent a picture of this to our son & DIL that day. They were on Mardi Gras this past week and made it a point to order one of these at the Sky Bar.) By the time we got back to the ship, we were HOT and needed something cold to drink! We stopped at the lobby bar and were happily surprised to find the fabulous Melissa working there. I was happy and mad all at the same time! We'd been on the ship since Sunday and here it was Thursday and we had no idea Melissa was even on the ship. We hadn't been to the lobby bar since embarkation day and she wasn't there then. Good thing we were on a B2B so we still had a lot of days left to see Melissa. Dinner that night was lobster night (yay for my husband, I'm allergic) so we went to the MDR for the first time that week. We ordered champagne with peach schnapps instead of peach puree. A Bellini, right? I couldn't get the waiter to understand that. He came back and told me it would counted as two drinks. What? I always drink that on Carnival and it's never been an issue. We looked at each other and said whatever, we're not going to hit 15 drinks anyway. So we ordered champagne and we thought one shot of peach schnapps but they brought two - about 10 minutes apart. So we split the shot between our glasses and took the second shot with us. lol Since I don't eat seafood, I ordered prime rib for Mark so he could get two lobster tails and I had chicken cordon bleu. Mark's apps. Mine. These spring rolls were delish. Mark had chocolate melting cake and I had creme brulee. So then we hightailed it to Ocean Plaza and got a couple glasses of champagne from Setyo to use our second shot of peach schnapps in those. Then went to see Melissa at lobby bar so I could get a proper glass of champagne/peach schnapps without it counting as two drinks. 😂 Melissa is actually the one who got me hooked on that drink back on Mardi Gras in 2021. I kept seeing this guy. What on earth? Then it dawned on me - it's 80's night. lol That's a wrap for 4/18. 🙂

You got chocolate chip, we got something else! I don't know what they were but they were delicious!

We ate in the MDR 3 times for dinner during our 2 weeks onboard Vista - it was OK. Not amazing but not awful. Diamond lunch was definitely way better. We also ate dinner at Jiji once (amazing) and steakhouse once (a step above MDR but not as good as it was on Freedom a couple years ago). Other nights we either grabbed a burger at Guy's, pizza (both as delicious as always), deli (pretty good for the most part) or something from the buffet. Buffet food ranged from awful to delicious. If we got something that wasn't good, we went up and tried something else - or got pizza. There were actually two nights that we found food in the buffet that was outstanding - better than our meals in the MDR. One night they had ham at the carving station and the other night they were carving some kind of beef (I can't remember what it was) and both were excellent. For lunch, we ate at Cucina and Jiji several times - both are just so delicious. Other days we had pizza, Guy's burgers or tacos/burritos from Blue Iguana. We may also have grabbed a snack here and there from the buffet during lunchtime. No complaints at all about anything we had for lunch. Breakfast was usually fruit from the buffet and/or Blue Iguana - everything was good. Every cruise I say we're going to sea day brunch or breakfast in the MDR and we rarely do, just don't want to spent that much time on breakfast.

That's odd - they had arepas on Mardi Gras, Celebration and Vista for sure. I can't recall if they did have them on Magic or Freedom but I thought they did. They were on the side with the huevos rancheros. The breakfast burritos were in a separate line.

Summoning @Jamman54 for his expert advice. 🙂 He's done it many times, we just did it for the first time last month on Vista out of Port Canaveral. Do you have the same room for both legs? If so, that makes it easier! We had the same room on Vista so we didn't need to pack up - everything was left in place. We spoke to our cabin steward early during the first week to make sure he was aware we were on a B2B and would be staying in the same room. He checked and verified that we were on the B2B list. He was moved to a different location the second week, so we looked for him the last day to give him an extra tip. At that time, he introduced us to our steward for the next leg. Early that week a plate of delicious cookies were delivered to our room. A B2B letter was left in our room on the last day of the first cruise with 2 drink coupons and 2 coupons for a B2B photo that could be used during the evening on the first day of the second leg. We got a second batch of cookies delivered that night as well - they were better than any other cookies we've had on Carnival previously. The morning of the switchover, we met in Reflections (MDR) at 8:45 am. Crew members were walking around to each table and gave us our new sail & sign cards. There were several delays including an issue with the escalators in the terminal. Shortly after 10:00 they had us all get up and walk out of the dining room only to be held up in the lobby area where they told everyone to find a seat because the ship hadn't been cleared yet. Once we started off the ship and into the terminal, it seemed to take a lot longer than I'd previously read and heard. Not sure what the holdup in the terminal was but once we got to the facial recognition part, it moved a little quicker. We walked back onto the ship around 10:45 and went straight to our muster station (which fortunately was in Reflections both weeks) where our new cards didn't work. At this point, priority embarkation had already started and we barely made it to the lobby bar to get seats (right by our muster station) before the masses swarmed it. It would have been nice to have a quiet ship to ourselves for a few minutes, but that was not meant to be. So the whole process took 2 hours from the time we were instructed to meet until we were back on the ship. Later in the day a bottle of champagne and a bowl of fruit were delivered to our room.

I apologize if you already said and I missed it, but were you on a Carnival ship last week? And if so, did you happen to ask at guest services if it would be a problem for you to leave the ship in Aruba on a future cruise without any issues? Seems like that would have been your best course of action. If you were on Celebrity, do they not have a cruise that will work for your dates?

I'm allergic to shellfish and don't eat any seafood at all. I don't like hibachi restaurants on land because I've had an issue every time I tried one. We've eaten at Teppanyaki on Mardi Gras twice and I absolutely loved it. I get the chicken/steak combo and found the food to be great.

On Grand Turk day, we repeated our morning routine of coffee (Pepsi Zero for me) with Setyo, breakfast at Blue Iguana and then walked a few laps on deck 12. We hid some ducks and found a couple, enjoyed some drinks and food and just totally chilled out. We took advantage of a less crowded ship and hit the hot tub by the Tides pool. After dinner at the buffet, we headed back to Ocean Plaza Bar for a couple drinks with Setyo and listened to the Vista Rock Band for a bit. For the rest of the cruise, I called them The Kids of the Kingdom after a Disney group that used to perform in front of Cinderella's castle in the Magic Kingdom. They were super animated. 🤡 We found out a little girl in our FB group had a birthday the next day and had not had much luck finding ducks. So we went to Cherry on Top, bought her a big duck and stuck one of our pink ones in with it to drop off at her cabin the next morning.

No wonder this sounded familiar - the same question was asked by the same OP. 😂 So did the Celebrity plan not work out?

I don't know the answer to this but this question seems very familiar. I recall someone asking it a few months ago and I think they were going to attend a wedding in Aruba so they wanted to take the cruise and leave the ship in Aruba. They were given all kinds of varying replies here but in the end the OP said they were given permission to do so by Celebrity so they decided to book their cruise with them.

Well apparently the food is back in the grab & go case this week. Our kids just sent me the below picture of their breakfast they picked up at Java Blue this morning. They said it was in the case to the left of the coffee. To the right of the coffee, they saw all kinds of pastries, croissants, raspberry danishes, sandwiches, etc. I asked them to send pictures of the cases if they go there tomorrow morning.

We originally had the trike tour booked in Aruba. About a week before our cruise we started watching videos and weren't crazy about most of the stops. This looks like one of those places and no thank you, big rocks are not my friend! So we cancelled it. Later I kind of wished we'd done it just so we had seen more of the island but we had a good day anyway. Heading back to where I left off now . . . . 😂

Our room on Vista last month could have been slightly cooler but it wasn't so warm that we were uncomfortable so we didn't say anything. On the other hand, Heroes Bar was so cold I couldn't stay there long. Every other place we went on the ship, I thought the temperature was perfect.

If I can count, Patti's surgery will be in 10 days. I know both of you are looking forward to getting that done!

Pig & Anchor is free for dinner on Excel ships but does have some extra fee items on the menu.