mitsugirly

Once the ship was situated, they started tendering people off. First the VIP people and those with Carnival excursions. As we waited for our turn, we stood on our balcony watching the boats along the shoreline and noticed this... Can you see them above my name? There was a VERY LARGE school of dolphins. Like really, so many of them! Look at this video and you'll be able to tell just how many there were. It was amazing! So now I've seen whales and dolphins and my life was complete! Just saying... We decided to head down to deck 3 and wait for our number to be called. They called tender tickets 1 & 2 and then it was our turn. We were on the tender by 10:55am. We will consider this Karl's first real boat ride. LOL It was a short tender ride over to the port and now we were headed to find our excursion. So what are we doing today....none other than going on a Whale Watching tour of course!!! After researching various companies for a tour, I had came across a vendor named Kelly Boat Cabo. We exchanged emails back and forth and they had good communication. I had told them I wanted to do a whale watching tour and also wanted to go to the Arch, see Pelican Rock and the Sea Lion area and then go to a beach afterwards for a little while. I had also mentioned maybe snorkeling if possible. Their website states they have 3 boats that can accommodate anywhere from 12-18 people depending on the boat. They offered regular tours and private tours. NOW.... according to their website, it said if you want a private tour they charged by the hour with a minimum of 1 hour. Included are pictures and bottled water. You can do a whale watching tour ($79), snorkel tour, or arch tour ($35) and then go to the beach offered as a group tour and they leave once the boats are filled up. When he gave me a quote on everything I wanted, he said $79/pp. I ask...is this a private or group tour and he replied "private" just us. Hmmm, that sounded weird to me. So I ask "Is this per hour or for the entire tour?" He replied "79 dls for the tour arch and whale watching and beach time (optional) everything". I still wasn't understanding and I quoted their website saying "I would really like to book this tour, but why does your website say private tours are by the hour with a 2 hour minimum? It states $79 per person for 1 hour. " He said "Arch and whale watching tour plus beach time in 79 dls per person the price is for all the tour not per hour.. don't worry" and then threw in "But if you want to pay $79 per person per hour that is better to me" LOL So, we booked. I mean...why wouldn't we? Why wouldn't anyone? A private tour for all of this for only $79/pp. Others were offering the tour for more and it was a group tour. I kept thinking there had a to a catch some where. But, I read online reviews and they had great reviews and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves to I was taking that chance!

Pulling into port and the ferry boats and pilot boat was coming our way. It looked like it was going to turn out to be a beautiful day. The clouds today 😶 Oh my gosh they were so pretty!!!

Our balcony was on the side of the Arch and I was happy that I had done my research and picked that side. I was able to get pictures of it as we pulled in. I had looked at a lot of pictures prior to this cruise and knew what land marks to look at (the Arch, Lovers Beach, Pelican Rock and so on). Lovers Beach (with Divorce Beach on the opposite side) The large rock in front of Pelican Beach that people climb on and jump into the water:

Coming into Cabo: I noticed that we were not alone in port today. This would be the first cruise that I didn't even bother to look up how many ships were in port with us. I don't know...for some reason I pictured us being the only ship cruising the Mexican Riviera. I don't know what I was thinking. LOL We would have a Princess ship with us today and it was already there.

April 1: CABO SAN LUCAS So today is our first port day!! I was super excited for this day and was hoping for the best. I didn't get much rest last night...you see for some reason our balcony door was whistling all night. You could hear the wind blowing right into the room and I would wake up to this whistling sound and it sure wasn't a "hey good looking" whistle either. Karl says "What is that sound???" Oh that? It's this hurricane outside didn't you know? I love messing with this newbie. I used the tv to monitor the weather outside this entire cruise. It said it was 64 degrees outside and the "apparent wind" was 38mph I had to keep reminding myself that I was NOT in the Caribbean. I honestly wasn't sure how my body was going to adapt to this. Today...we had an excursion booked that involved being on and in the water. YIKES! We all headed up to the buffet for some breakfast at 7:30am. I was completely shocked to find (or should I say not find)... Wait what? There's no bacon to be found? How can this be???? Bacon doesn't get a vacation while I'm on vacation. I need my protein! Is this a thing? I had no idea that Carnival does this. What is so special about the bacon getting a vacation on Carnival but NCL doesn't allow their bacon a bacation? I was so confused. I mean this was only day 3. They couldn't have ran out already...right? I managed to find the omelet station and found a couple pieces of what they called some type of sausage that didn't quite taste like the sausage I'm used to and actually it kinda reminded me of the Pig and Anchor Sausage links they serve. I guess that would be the extent of my "meat" for breakfast and I cheated with 2 hashbrown circles just because I was pouting about the bacon at this point. Ok, something I just have to mention (and praise) about Carnival. THE POP!! We would learn on this cruise that when you went up and ask for a pop, they gave you THE ENTIRE CAN!!! YES! This is with the soda package. They didn't pile your glass up with ice and pour pop out of a 2 liter that has been shaken up and lost it's taste. They gave you a glass of ice and the entire can! We absolutely LOVED this! No watered down pop this cruise. This alone has me wanting to cruise Carnival all the time. Everyone here knows how much I love my pop. It's my one luxury I give myself. People always think I'm weird because I wake up and drink pop. Well...don't you wake up and drink coffee? What's the difference? I get my caffeine in the morning the same way you do. Except I find yours bitter and mine sweet. 🤷‍♀️ I've just never acquired the taste for coffee as much as I've tried. So I'm looking at the time and I see we are pulling into port around 9:30am. I start to freak out thinking we are coming in late and thinkin we are supposed to meet for our excursion a little after 9. All these thoughts were racing in my head about them leaving us because we are not there yet. "I thought we were supposed to be here at 8am for some reason" I told the hubby. I raced back to the room to see what I had written down from my booking and was relieved to see that it was the excursion that said as soon as we arrive at 10am we are to come there when we could get there. Whew! And...the excursion place was supposed to be right off the dock within walking distance. I was relieved. We headed back upstairs and the kids played a little ping pong. A lot of the activities were going on up at the Sports Deck and people were on the ropes course as well. Now one thing about this cruise...I wanted to see a whale. I have been talking about it for months! The entire cruise I was constantly looking out the balcony window looking for a whale. While on the decks...you guessed it, I was looking for a whale. Karl was constantly saying "Look! Is that a whale" just to get me to look. I'm pretty sure I disowned him a few times already over the last few days of the cruise just for doing this to me. Sakari thought it was funny and started doing it too. Then she points out in the distance (on the side of the ship) and says "Is that a whale?" I glance over trying to not let them see...with a slight glimmer of hope but knew deep down in my soul knew that they were messing with me still...and I look to the back of the ship and said "NO BUT THAT IS!!!" I think they were waiting for me to say "GOT YA!' but.... Yep, there were whales playing in the water!!!! HA! I seen my whales now and was as happy as can be! Karl was amazed and him and Sakari couldn't stop talking about it. They thought I was joking when I said I was going to be spotting whales on this cruise!

Glad to hear you had a great time. I remember cruising on the Jade for my (only) birthday cruise I've done...back in the day when it was my goal to sail every NCL ship they had. I think the only older ship I still haven't done is the Gem. Glad you found it too! Good to have you here. Yea, our weather was COLD! (Something I'm definitely not used to on cruises) 🥶 I'm glad I'm not the only one that don't like sea days. I see a few saying the same thing. I always read people saying they cruise to relax and read a book and ..... maybe some day I'll be like that when I can no longer walk with this leg, but now...I still have to be up and moving or I'm bored. I love the land vacations we've had. Thinking about where we want to go next for a land vacation. This ship ornament thing is driving me insane. They are missing out on so much money. I've read so many people that collect them and can't find them. It's annoying. They are messing my cruise shelf up. LOL I check around here and there as well. Although the people on ebay and Amazon must know about us collectors because when you do find one (not the one's I'm looking for) they are an outrageous price! Oh, I guess I didn't realize there used to be a bar in the casino. Are they going to make all of Carnivals ship casino's without a bar now? I hope they realize people will still go down there and smoke whether there's a bar or not. I've seen it. I don't think they have enough employees to monitor just the smoking people not gambling. It's on every ship.

LOL, they are always up to something. You're welcome and hope you enjoy it. Glad to have you here. I hope you enjoy it. Confused. I never left? (We've been cruising with NCL still after cruising resumed and also doing land vacations). But glad you found me. 🙂 Yes, we know that Karl can order a second dinner. I'm just glad the cruise ship is feeding him and not us. LOL Aww, thanks so much. Oh how cool is that? I hope you had a wonderful cruise as well. Aww thanks so much. I'm glad the website/reviews have been of help in picking out excursions. That's the whole reason I do them. I just have to figure out my website issue still and get everything on there. I hope you have a wonderful cruise! Thanks so much. Ugh, so sorry you didn't get to do your Panorama cruise in 2020. Now you have to take that plunge! 🙂

Ok, gotta get ready for work. I'll attempt to come back later for our first port day. It all depends how busy I get. I hope you all are enjoying the review. So much more excitement to come....trust me!

We decided we wanted to see a show and we all love comedy. Tonight, at 6pm was Lisa Alvarado in the Limelight Lounge. We all headed there to find that it was VERY crowded...even standing room only in places. We laughed and had a good time and then headed back to the room for showers and to get dressed for dinner. I wanted to go to the MDR for Easter Dinner. We do anytime dining...it's just easier for us to go when we are hungry than when we have to go. To schedule your table, you get on the Carnival Hub app, put in for a table and then it notifies you when it's ready and gives you a table number. Your table number determines what floor you are on and where to go. Tables 200-400 was deck 3 and 500-700 was deck 4. We had a 40 minute wait when we scheduled our table. That gave us plenty of time to get ready. The app would update itself every 10 minutes. Then when the table was ready, it told you and you had 10 minutes to get there. We were seated at 8:04pm and they immediately had our drinks out to us (our pop) within 5 minutes. Wow, great service. Well, that's where the quick service ended. After that, it would be LONG drawn out night of waiting. When we ordered, Sakari wanted the Surf & Turf. Then we would discover they charged an extra $23 for it???? Seriously? I don't ever remember them charging for this? NCL doesn't charge extra for it. I thought that was weird and immediately told Sakari to pick something else. Our appetizers came at 8:49pm. I had the Spinach Artichoke Dip: Hubby had a salad: Our mains came out at 9:12pm Desert came at 9:33pm and Karl has discovered the Chocolate Melting Cake...help us all. There has been a lot of complaints lately about the chocolate being liquid and gooey. Well, they were right...it was! Not really cooked at all and it was like a soup. However, I'm pretty sure Karl licked the bowl anyhow. WE would discover that the MDR has sugar free ice cream!!! I'm not sure why you can't get this anywhere else. We love our nightly ice cream at home and this cruise...we were only going to get it if we came here. Kinda a disappointment. Plus 1 for NCL for having it every night in the buffet area. With our bellies full, we all headed back to the room for the night and was in bed by 10pm. I drifted off thinking about our first port day tomorrow and couldn't wait! Cabo here we come!!!

We decided to head out and find the kids. On our way to the pool deck I spotted an egg. Hmmm....did someone just leave this laying around? Nope, people were hiding eggs now AND ducks I guess. Inside was a Reese's cup. Karl begged for it and Karl got it. The kids changed and we all headed up to the "fun" and games area where the kids played a little bit of ping pong and then Karl challenged "Popa B" to a life sized chess game (he calls us popa and moma B). Guess who won...it wasn't popa! The Sky Ride was not open today...it was just too windy, however the ropes course was, which I found odd. However, Karl didn't have closed toed shoes on and the kids decided not to try it out yet. Once back in the room...THERE WAS A TOWEL ANIMAL!!! Oh how we've missed them! (NCL does not do them anymore...or maybe only does them if you ask for them??? I'm honestly not sure at this point but we have missed them so much). Sakari was so excited to show Karl. Carnival just upped NCL a few times on this cruise so far...they have towel animals and they serve Pepsi products...I know, the whole Pepsi versus Coke thing is a debate on here. I'm a Pepsi drinker, the hubby likes Coke. I win on Carnival, he wins on NCL.

All this waiting in line for tickets has made someone very hungry... Off for a big juicy Guys Burger for us!!! I opted for the Pig Patty because...well bacon is because! The line was super long for Guys and going all the way across the pool deck and over to the side with the burritos. I would only notice, once we got up there, that there was actually 2 lines and the other line was WAY shorter coming from the other direction!! It pays to pay attention I guess. .....as if a burger and fries wasn't enough... I had to have desert and headed inside to see what sugar free goodies they might have to counter act the carbs I just took in LOL We had planned on attending the Tina Turner Timeless Grooves Dance Class at Ocean Plaza but our lunch ran over too long and missed it. So, the kids decided they wanted to get in the hot tub. I'm still freezing to the bone with the cold air and refused to even consider this. They headed to the hot tub and we headed to the casino for a little fun. I found a few games that more than doubled my money for the day and was happy to walk away a "winner". My philosophy is always to put $20 in and if I double or come close to it, I cash out and walk away and try a different machine. This Fireball game was...well on fire! They had 3 of them lined up and I won on each one of them. I would rotate to the next and then to the next and so on. Then I actually started over again and still continued to win. I always seem to take a picture right when the machine starts counting the wins and it makes it look like I won a small amount. LOL I guess I should wait until it's done but oh well. I did find out that I was "charging" the wrong amounts in the slots. Every time I cashed out and went to another machine, I hit the charge room button. I didn't even notice that you could use the button for the winnings in the players bank. Oops. Every time I cashed out, it would go into the players bank. Before long, I had $180 in my players bank and had managed to charge my room $60. I learned after that thanks to the hubby. LOL Now one thing I want to mention about the casino here. There is NO bar that you can go up to and get a drink. This really sucks!!!! What kind of a casino doesn't have a bar in it? We are at the mercy of one of the few servers running around the entire casino to get you a drink. When I booked this cruise, it came with "free drinks on us in the casino while playing". How well do you think that went? I was in there playing for over 2 hours and NOT ONE person come up to ask if I wanted a drink! NOT ONE! I actually had to hunt someone down. When I did, they said "You earn your free drinks by your points and you do not have enough points yet". Um...might want to check my account. I'm supposed to get free drinks while playing...it came with my booking. They finally decided to get me a free drink, I went with a Bahama Mama, and then I'm pretty sure they hid after that because I never could find them again.

🙂 So she's not alone. Hi there and glad to have you back.

As we walked around, I was on the hunt for Ducks. I looked everywhere and everywhere I looked I would see little munchkins with them in their hands. How are they finding these? Where are they finding these? We came across the Library and decided to go in. It was time for a little competition. Now Karl had never played chess until a few months ago when Sakari showed him how. They challenge each other online in the evenings on their phones. Well, he's gotten pretty good, but don't tell him I admitted to that. We challenge each other to everything we do...trying to be the best and beat the other at games. The kid is smart I tell ya and he catches on quick. He beat Sakari. He beat the hubby. He challenged me...and beat me as well. Of course he gloated and I swore I wasn't talking to him the rest of the day...or feeding him. Oh wait, we're on the ship and he's already managed to learn how to get to the buffet. Ok, I have had enough of him making fun of beating all of us. I'm challenging him to a game of UNO. He won't beat me in that...and he didn't. I won over and over and over. My turn to gloat! Take that Karl! It had rained a bit while we were inside but the sun was out now. We decided to head outside and get comfy. But it was still cold. We wouldn't realize that the rain still had the cushions to the chairs wet (although you couldn't tell on the one's we sat on) and we would all get up with wet stains on our tush. Inside they were having a BIG SALE...like never before. End of season sale that I'm sure they end their season every 8 days. But this time, just for our cruise, it was a special event! As we continued to kill time waiting for 1:30pm to roll around, so that we could get the earliest tender tickets possible for Cabo the next day, we made our way up to the pool deck to find that the Easter Bunny himself was there. The kids took pictures with him/her but I did not purchase them. They also had an ice carving event going on around the pool. What would it be? It ended up being a fish...one of many I hope to see this cruise...only in the water. As soon as the fish was revealed, we briskly walked down to the Havana Bar area where they were going to be passing out the tender tickets. Karl took about 20 steps to get there and we took probably around 50...just saying. We would find that there was already a VERY long line waiting on the tickets at 1pm. I guess everyone had the same idea as us...get there soon to get the best tickets. We stood around waiting and at 1:30pm they started passing out the tickets. We got 3rd place in the race. I'm not sure if it was because everyone ahead of us took 1 & 2 or those tickets went to the VIP people.

SUNDAY MARCH 31: EASTER SUNDAY We were up by 6:45am and so was the sun already. I would find that it was still extremely chilly as I stood on the balcony reflecting on my decision to not sail somewhere that was warm. This is so not me. But I'm going to pull up my big girl britches and suck it up. I'm on vacation and the sun beaming through the dark clouds with rain off in the distance gave me a bit of hope. Karl was now awake and glaring at me. "What???" He said, "I need Melatonin tonight!" The audacity of him suggesting that I snored last night was ludicrous. No way...not me! I'm sure that when I woke up in the middle of the night with a completely dry mouth from having it open and not being able to breathe due to my sinuses being stopped up did not mean I snored. Geesh. Such white lies he told that morning. We headed up to the breakfast buffet to see what goodies they had. Mmmm bacon. Of course on Carnival, they have the bacon police and you must beg for your pork (unlike other cruise lines). But, just know they are willing to pile as much as you want on your plate so no worries (which really defeats the purpose of them monitoring it to begin with right?). I really don't understand why ships don't have shredded cheese out for breakfast. I love cheese on my eggs and there's none to be found. But, you will find sliced cheese available over by the fruit. Better some than none I guess. So let's see what is on the agenda today... I really don't like sea days. Even though there's a million things to do on a ship, I'm still bored and not sure what to do on those days. I would much rather have a port day every day of the cruise! I like to keep busy exploring and doing new things. We just walked around until it was time for the first event we had decided to do. The Fun Times listed a "Crafts" event and well, that's right up Sakari's alley right? It was held in the Ocean Plaza and they announced they would be making Easter Cards. The kids went up to get their supplies. They returned with a bunch of goodies and I could not wait to see what they would come up with. Sakari immediately got to work...cutting different shapes out and grabbing a pair of googly eyes while Karl looked on wondering what to do. The events person announced that they were not supposed to take the scissors from the stage area and only cut what they needed there because they did not have many pairs...and by not many pairs, they said they only had two!!! Yes, you heard that right...2!!!!! Um...you have an event like this with tons of people/kids participating and you only have two pairs of scissors for everyone to share? I thought that was odd. Then let's us talk about the glue bottles they provided to put things together...they were all dried up. You had to remove the top and dig the rubbery substance out. It was a mess. As Sakari would head back to the stage to wait for her turn for the scissors, Karl decided he liked the shapes that Sakari was cutting out and started stealing them one by one. When she returned, she was somewhat puzzled and went back up to cut more only for him to steal another and glue it on his card. Eventually she came back and caught a glimpse of his card and said "Wait a minute! There's where my shapes went!" She laughed and continued to design her card. She has such patience and so calm. See, I told you he answers to the given name of Karl by our family. He even signed his card Love Karl. LOL Sakari finally put her card together and showed us hers. Karl thought she was very creative considering the short time they had to do these and her having to cut her shapes out multiple times due to his pranks.

Oh gosh...I remind her of this often. It seems to come up in discussions here and there. She says "I remember that place!". She is making me feel old as well. It seems like just yesterday she was that little. She is a Sweet 16 now! She has...way too fast. Aww thanks. He definitely had the time of his life and such a great new experience. Hi and thanks! Ah ha! Yes...that's great and how me and the hubby met 22 years ago...our Mitsubishi's. Haha, thanks... great memories of our first cruise together in 2010 on the EPIC. What started it all. Not on the ship...but.... Aww thanks so much! I appreciate it. Back on Carnival, but have cruised with NCL still and land vacations of course on my website (if you've missed it). 🙂 Shameless plug.