Sabalon

You either have to get off the ship and figure it out then, or do research before you get there, and sometimes even book then. In Grand Cayman, we overslept and missed our excursion. Went into port, basically booked the same thing (mostly brokering taxi rides and tickets to the place). Guy even told me to go to the excursion desk and let them know you missed it and they'll probably give you on board credit - and they did. This one was very much seat of the pants thing. For Freeport our first time, we found a place online ahead of time with great reviews so did that. I think we had "booked" it ahead of time, which was basically "when you get off the ship, go here." I've usually found the prices to be close enough that the extra guarantee via Carnival is worth the little extra. It also depends on the port and type of excursion. Getting around a small island is one thing...going on a two hour trek into Belize or something, I'm not risking that one! TripAdvisor, Yelp, etc are your friends in trying to sus out what feels legit, and more to the point, what makes you feel like you're not going to miss the ship!

Guess no one wants to go on a one day cruise. I actually wouldn't mind if they brought back the cruises-to-nowhere. Guess it's hard to sell excursions on those though!!!

Things that I learn a couple weeks too late!!!

Yeah...I get this!!! I have some people that bypass the help desk, bypass my desk phone and just call me straight on my work cell and expect me to be happy to walk them through something there have been emails, guides, etc made. Last time I was out, my out of office had a map with a "You are here" and a "I am here" with a dot in the middle of the Gulf. (Though when I got back I did get admonished by staff and our HR directory for answering e-mails) I like going with the limited connectivity, port was busy low bandwidth, etc.. Never mind my phone works all over Latin America just fine 🙂 On board - keep airplane mode on (which will disable cellular and sms) and let Wifi do it's thing. Even if they didn't block it, there is a certain amount of quality of signal and connection you need before it'll activate - I doubt it even would over the ship wifi. In ports, depends on if you have international coverage or not with your plan. I turn my cellular on, but am very selective about what I will answer. Let the world turn without you for a few days and nights and enjoy yourself!!!

We would hit up the water and ice dispensers in Lido several times a day. The water comes out luke warmish, so the ice melts fast...it is a fine dance of ice-water-ice-water to fill it up and keep it cool. I always forget to go and redeem my free water bottles as well. But the tap is fine for me so it doesn't bother me much...not like the fridge would cool it down that much anyway.

When we were in Cozumel, my wife found a ring she liked. Her justification was "yeah..it's a little pricey, but I figure so is your alcohol bill." Wish they had a way to let just one person do it - I fully understand the reasons, but my wife can't drink alcohol, can't drink coffee, etc... I could get my moneys worth, but there is no way I'd spend 2 peoples worth in drinks.

I saw that elevator on the map but never did find it. Just took the stairs. Now that I have it up on my desktop I can see where you get to it. Oh well - adventures for next time!

So to answer my own questions... the Atrium had some acts (nice violinists and others) there, and you could watch from several decks. As other said, Deck five is where the bands normally play around midship, and trivia, and games, etc... And nicely enough, the Red Frog Pub is right there too. As for areas to sit and chill, we found Serenity to be too sunny when up there (don't like the clamshells - no air flow). On the sides of Deck 11 by the funnels we found some loungers that depending on how the boat was aimed had some nice shade and breeze. Also, on the back of deck 11 were some comfy red cushioned chairs that occasionally we could get one of. Eventually, Deck 5 turned out to be my favorite place. They had a number of loungers out, nice ocean view, nice breeze, and more often than not, you could find some shade on one side or the other.

Just as a followup, the hotel we were at (YVE) had a desk in the lobby with VIP tours (or something like that) where they would take you to the port ($8/pp) and then to the airport ($20/pp) so we ended up doing that. Called them and about 40 minutes later they picked us up. Another group said they had waited about 1h40m to be picked up (don't know the veracity of that). Looks like Lyft would have been about $23 from the terminal to the airport. No idea of the price of the many many other shuttles there...heard rumors of them gouging up to $40/pp at the port, but that was also from the person trying to sell the $20/pp rides!.

We did one and our oldest was 17 and youngest 14 (months away from 15) I think. The youngest didn't want to hang out with the younger kids and wanted to stay with her sister. I seem to remember there was some maybe, maybe not, but eventually they allowed her in. I don't recall them really spending that much time with it, but that was 8 years ago and I've slept once or twice since then.

We just did this on the Magic yesterday. Since you have to be out of your room by 8:30, we chose 8:40-9:00 (the times are in 20 minute windows). We got up, had breakfast, came back and grabbed our stuff and at about 8:20 headed down one deck to Deck 5 to wait. We were carrying our luggage instead of picking it up. We found a seat near the coffee bar and sat around catching up on the real world. At about 8:50 the Carnival Hub app told us it was our time to make our way off. We wheeled the luggage through the casino to the atrium. You could see the line to get off the ship on deck 3. Not sure how long it was honestly. If we could have, we would have taken the steps down, but they were roped off. While waiting on the glass elevators, one of the regular elevators that had an X opened up and there was a Fun Squad member. She was doing express from deck 5 to deck 2 for disembarking. So we got on. They took us down to two and a short walk down the cabin hallway, lo and behold, there was another gangway there. And no line! One last scan of the cards and into the terminal. This was the easiest I've ever had getting off a ship. Luggage works the same way as before - you either tag it and put it in the hallway or carry it yourself. Other than that it's more a chill out til we call you thing, trying to reduce mass lines. I know the cruise director came on and said something like "don't come down until we call you. If you try, we know when we scan your card and we will send you back until you are called." Truth or not to that, who knows. We didn't pick our time until I think Thursday, and it seemed that we could have chosen from a wide variety of times. I don't recall the earliest that was available when we chose ours, but from what the CD said, it's first come first serve...so you could in theory pick your departure time as soon as you an register your folio to the Hub app. It shows up under My Happenings I believe.

Glad you liked the humor. Love throwing those in. As for the next, not sure yet. Gotta hurry up and get to Platinum so we need to pick up our pace. I know after the heat this year, my wife said we should go during her winter break (Feb) next time (works at a school). Gotta decide if we're taking our girls (25 and 22) with us. Also we've been trying to get some of our closer friends to go with us as well - heaven knows we've been talking about it for 5 years!

We found her by going to the port and looking for the big white ship that said Magic 🙂 lol... 8 ships in port, not as easy as it sounds...took a while to scroll through the different ships and what terminal they were at. We left from Terminal D, which seemed nice...have been out of Miami 3 times and no idea if it's been the same terminal each time or not. When we came back, we were in Terminal F instead of D - no idea why, but we had a letter saying if you were parked in D they would offer you a shuttle to get to your car. I'm not one to nitpick, so unless it was something pretty egregious, I probably wouldn't care. The ship seemed nice and well loved. Didn't notice anything like torn seats in the common areas or signs of "meh...we don't feel like fixing it." One night outside the 3rd level entrance to the Northern Lights dining room, they had one of the doors closed and a team working on a leak. When we left, we had to exit via the 4th floor, but the next night it was back to normal. That could happen on any ship. This was the newest ship I've sailed on, so to me it looked great! About the only thing that I thought felt dated as the lighting. It seemed to all be old-school fluorescent tubes in the bathroom cabin and balconies. I guess it would be a big undertaking to swap them out with modern LED ones and don't know if it would turn into energy and then fuel savings. But when you have the Symphony of the Seas parked across the dock from you, it's the little things you can see between the balcony layouts - how they do the connectors between them, the additional room etc. Maybe one day I'll get on one of the newer ships and see what has been designed and built in the last 5 years. Looking at videos of say the Celebration, the room décor just seems very dated, but regardless, I wasn't in my office so it looked great to me! We're from McDonough, though right before the cruise I was at Lake Lanier for a conference...first time I'd ever been up there...very nice. Don't care for college ball though, but if they had beet Bama in Dec I would have had fun giving my sister crap for weeks! 🙂 Hope you get around better without the scooter and have a great time!

I thought about getting the vinyl mat that they have for the luggage when you get to the room, but it got shoved way under the bed so we just hoped for the best. Like the floormat idea - with a little light it should stand out. In the past we've done the door thing and it does help.

I think one night a group was playing tag at around 10 or 11. And sometimes the hot tub outside our room got noisy. But nothing major. Seeing the happiness outweighed anything else.