Carnival Magic and Western Carribean: Sept 20, 2015 Review

As promised a few days ago- here it is, a review of the Magic!

I hope this is helpful to some people, as I know the Magic is getting a dry dock and moving home ports, so a lot of the details won't apply. But the port details will apply to people going to those ports, and the ship details will apply to people going on the ship. Plus, reviews are fun!

About the cruisers:

My husband Kevin and I (Jessi) live in Iowa are on our 5th cruise, 4th on Carnival. We got our mustard yellow cards this cruise! (Um... gold?) We decided to take THIS particular cruise because we had to travel to Texas for a family event; but we already did a family event this year- so we needed something else to attach to the obli-cation (which I was happy to go for, it was my Aunt and Uncle's 40th anniversary and almost the entire branch of the family was there- but as much as I love my family and Texas, we drew the line on multiple trips per year a few years ago. We've lived out of state since we got married 11 years ago, December.) We have no kids, but I am currently pregnant. I boarded the ship at 22 weeks and a few days, so I just barely made the 24 week cut-off!

My sister-in-law J (Kevin's sister) and brother-in-law K (yeah, those initials are the same as ours- but if I use full names, it's us- and abbreviations, them) live near Austin and are joining us for their first cruise. This was an exciting vacation for them for many reasons. First- they had never been on an international vacation. Second- this year is their 10 year anniversary, so it was a good excuse. Third- they had never vacationed (since having kids) without their children, who are almost 8, 5, and 11 months.

Also joining us were S and E- second time cruisers from Arkansas. How do we know them? Well, from cruising! We met them on the Triumph, where they were on a super-duper (progressive) trivia team with us. We had so much fun with them, we asked if they could make it on this cruise, and thankfully they could!

(I'll have a photo of them later... but I don't have one to upload right now...)

Well, it's not a review if I don't go into too much detail about what happened before we got to the ship! So here goes...

We flew from Iowa to Texas on Friday before the cruise (which left on Sunday). We left our house at 4:30 a.m. to get to the airport, which means we woke up at 4:00! We flew on Delta, connecting through Atlanta to Austin.

We flew on points, and the tickets cost 32,500 points each- which was more than we thought they should be, but we found out why when we boarded the second plane.

Apparently we were in Comfort+.

I think it is a $30 upgrade normally. Honestly, even though the amenities were completely wasted on me, I think it is worth the money on a longer flight. You get a free alcoholic beverage (Kevin got a Sam Adams Octoberfest... they gave it to him closed. If I had known they would have done that, I would have gotten one too and stashed it in my bag!) and I think the seats are a bit wider too. Plus the legroom.

When you are 5'0", you don't really need the legroom...

(Honestly, I wish I had a footstool! I had a leg rest when I flew LAN to Ecuador... it was the first time I haven't had to reach my legs to touch the ground.) But look at all that space!

So after some uneventful flights, my mother picked us up at the Austin airport. The pick up area of that airport is an absolute mess. And I fly regularly for work... this had to be the worst I've seen for awhile.

We started the trip by heading to Costco where we got some soda and our 2 bottles of wine. Then home to plan for the family party. Which was fabulous.

I also surprised my parents with this. I had my anatomy scan on Tuesday before the trip, so we just found out it was a boy. (They were pretty excited... this is their 4th grandson. My in-laws got the same gift. MIL cried, from joy, when she saw it was a boy. She has 1 grandson and 3 granddaughters.)

Can YOU tell what the stamp is? My mother couldn't figure out what it was supposed to be... even after I told her and explained the various features.

My sister and 2 of her 3 sons came in that night for the party the next day, so I got to visit them for a few minutes, and the boys headed to bed.

Since this post still has nothing to do with the cruise, I'll move on to the next day. Saturday

We started by waking up to "throw apples at the deer". Apparently this is a favorite thing of my nephews to do at my parents house. They have a herd of deer in the neighborhood that everyone feeds, my parents put out apples. They throw them TO the deer, but the boys don't seem to have made the distinction. Thankfully the deer are skittish and the boys have terrible arms (they are 5)- so nothing actually gets thrown AT the deer. There were around 15 deer in the yard.

by , on Flickr

Then we went to breakfast at Kirby Lane Cafe with Kevin's family. It was only a few hours, but I am glad we got to see them on this trip! His brother's family was in California, but we saw his sister's kids, his parents, and his grandmother.

Up next was my family party- about 40 family members at my parent's house for a surprise party. It was so good to see everyone, as we all live very scattered!

Around 10:30, I excused myself to go to bed. We had to wake up early to get to Galveston!

Sunday!

So the day of the cruise is finally here! We were all very excited. My husband had been sending his sister a "fun ship fun fact" almost every day for months, so they were pumped.

My parents live in Lakeway, and Jill in Buda, so we had a bit of an organizational challenge to all get together in the morning. The day before, when we met his family for breakfast, we had borrowed a car from my parents to drive into Austin; then on the way home we also borrowed a car from his parents to drive back to Lakeway, where we also returned my parents car. So this morning, we drove Kevin's parents car back to his parents house, where his Mom then gave us a ride out to Buda. She had to go out there because she was staying with J and K's kids in Buda for the week. The told J and K we would be at their house at 7:00, so the journey started at 6:00 a.m., another early wake up!

We planned to be at their house at 7:00 to give them a bit of time to say goodbye to their kids, and be on the road by 7:30. K loaded up his truck with all our luggage, and goodbyes happened and we were on the road by 7:20!

The drive went pretty well. We took HWY 10 because we didn't want to pay tolls. It was a very upbeat ride- we were all so excited to go on the cruise. But it was also a very smelly ride (not to say rural Iowa isn't smelly too...) Ignore the crazy eyes, but I spent most of the drive like this. I think it was worse because I'm pregnant. It was so bad I facebooked the photo to document the moment. (This particular smell was oil. We also got cow fields and what seemed to be cigarrette smoke...) The smells were the worst in the fog!

As is tradition (we've done it twice- it's a tradition! I'm an Aggie after all.) for a cruise, we stopped at Whataburger for breakfast tacos (uh, taquitos) on the way. YUM! I promise, the food photos get better. We forgot on this one.

Whataburger: The Breakfast of Champions by

Kevin usually takes photos on our drives if he isn't driving, but he really slacked on this one. I called him out on it, and it yielded gems like this:

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We got to Lighthouse Parking in Galveston at about 11:15. (I know this from my phone records, when I was frantically calling my credit card companies to tell them I would be traveling. I totally forgot, despite having reminded J and K to do the same.)

This is the second time we've used Lighthouse. We pre-reserved a covered parking spot for 7 days. It cost (with tax) $70.36.

Last time we used them, a shuttle was waiting for us when we got to the lot, this time, we just missed one. Which worked out okay because it gave J a few minutes to pump (she is still breastfeeding her infant), and they nicely have a restroom in the parking lot, so we got a quick bathroom break. But maybe 30 minutes later, we were on our way to the port. The shuttle is really convienent, they drive around the lot to collect your bags right from beside your car, so you don't even have to carry them anywhere! The staff is friendly too, but not really a lot of talking going on. K's truck was just barely the right size for the space (a few lots he was technically "oversize" but only by like 2 inches- so we didn't really want to pay for oversize parking) but it worked out just right.

Guess what- the ship makes an appearance in the next update!

So up next- checking in!

I honestly feel like Galveston is a pretty easy port experience. We've also embarked at San Diego and Fort Lauderdale. Really, I've never had problems with any of them, but people in Galveston are so friendly.

One thing that was different this time is that the shuttle lots drop you off at a curb that is slightly separate from the terminal, instead of on the terminal curb. No big deal, a porter will come out and get your bags from there. However, there wasn't one there when we pulled in, and we didn't want to wait, so we dragged our bags up the ramp, across the entrance street, and to the terminal ourselves. I didn't even get a $2 tip for doing it. Because we didn't have a porter, we had to bring our bags ourselves to a room that was labeled "bag drop off". This part was a bit disorganized. It wasn't clear where we left the bags to ensure that the port workers would know they were left purposefully to get on the ship. After about 5 minutes of confusion, we found someone who assured us they were where they needed to be (ordered by deck on your luggage tags), and off we went to check in.

Check in is ALL THE WAY down the terminal from baggage drop off. It's a long walk. And it was freaking hot out. Whose idea was it to cruise in Texas while it was still summer?

But once we were in the terminal, there was air conditioning. Just before the terminal entrance there was a giant trash can of bottled water. They wouldn't let you take it in the terminal and a security officer was checking. I knew you couldn't board the ship, but I was surprised no water in the terminal.

So once inside the terminal, you first go through security lines downstairs. Lines were long, but moving. Because we had drinks in our carry ons, they had to be checked by security. The security actually removed the foil from the wine to inspect them- they looked to make sure the cork was intact, and the color seemed appropriate. A lot more than they looked last time.

Our soda cartons where opened and retaped (because I can only have 1 drink with caffeine a day, so we put 6 diet cokes and 6 sprites in one, and for variety the other was half Coke zero and half root beer, I think)- so they opened the boxes and took every single can out to ensure it was soda. That I was fine with, but they did it by punching a large hole into the top of the box. Thankfully, we had them in our bag, so it didn't matter- but I saw other people struggle to carry theirs with a hole in it! (For the record- J and K did not have their La Croix opened to inspect the cans. I don't know if it was because they had a different agent, or because their box was not tampered with like ours was.)

Alright- up next- another set of lines.

After security, you go upstairs to check-in. Here we got separated from J and K (who, as first time cruisers were nervous they'd never find us again.) We had passports and they had birth certificates, so the lines were different.

Pro-tip: At least on this cruise the birth certificate line to embark was much shorter than the passport line, J and K beat us on board by at least 15 minutes, maybe more.

When we got to the check-in desk, we found that despite having already checked in online, only my husband was checked in. Turns out that even though I sent the pregnancy documentation for special needs, they could not check me in without a paper copy (so make sure you bring it! They do tell you that online.) and verbal confirmation that I would not enter 24 weeks while on the cruise. So that slowed us down a few minutes too...

But we were finally handed these. Woo mustard yellow cruisers! With amazing perks befitting of the condiment level.

And now it was time to board the ship. All the zones had been called before we got there, so we just walked right on. We bypassed the embarkation photo.

We had told J and K if they got on the ship before us to go up to the Lido deck and we would find them there. We knew they did because we waved to them as we were still waiting on line. But they had a better idea. They didn't make it past the lobby bar.

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J enjoyed her first Mai Tai, and I believe K had a whiskey.

By this time, it was about 1:15. So from parking to on the ship, it took us 2 hours, but I think only an hour and a half of that was in the port, and J and K took even less than that. To me, that was reasonable.

Since it was almost time for the staterooms to be ready, I texted S and E who were in line in the terminal and arranged to meet at the first trivia and we hung out and waited for our staterooms to be ready (since that happens at 1:30).

We went to our staterooms to drop off carry on luggage and then up to the Lido deck for lunch.

Okay- so the ship didn't really make an appearance in this post- but at least now we are ON it. More to come...

Any review where the cruise starts with breakfast at Kerbey Lane has to be good! Looking forward to more. I'm living vicariously through Magic reviews while I wait for the next six months to creep by :)

Any review where the cruise starts with breakfast at Kerbey Lane has to be good! Looking forward to more. I'm living vicariously through Magic reviews while I wait for the next six months to creep by :)

I should have taken photos!

Kevin had French toast and I had a pancake. I really wish I could have gotten Kerby queso, but I just cannot eat much food anymore. Major sadness because cheese and guacamole! Honestly the whole cruise I didnt get to eat all the things I wanted.

I should have taken photos!

Kevin had French toast and I had a pancake. I really wish I could have gotten Kerby queso, but I just cannot eat much food anymore. Major sadness because cheese and guacamole! Honestly the whole cruise I didnt get to eat all the things I wanted.

I don't get to Austin as much as I'd like to, but try to eat there for breakfast at least once when I'm in town.

Great review so far!

Loving your review so far. We travel on the Magic in January and can't wait to hear the rest of your review.

So when I left off, J and K were enjoying a drink in the lobby bar and it was almost 1:30. We sat and chatted for a few minutes and went to our staterooms.

IMG_5060 by Jessi, on Flickr

I'm clearly a bad reviewer, because I don't have photos of our room. We were in 7267 which was a forward balcony cabin. It looked like every other standard balcony cabin I've seen; although I noticed the bed skirt and curtain were maroon- did those used to be more orange? If they changed, I liked it. We had the standard orange couch, a stool, a mini-bar, our bed was arranged in a king size arrangement as we requested. There was a pull down bed, but it always stayed up- however, that meant there was a ladder in one closet. That didn't bother us. The bottled water we ordered from the online Fun Shops was waiting for us; our Gold gifts were not yet in the room.

Scenic Galveston:

Scenic Port Galveston

Lots of people complain about the balconies on the Magic due to the deck 5 lanai wrap around; they say you cannot see the ocean. We did not find this to be a problem. If you stand up and lean over the balcony, you can people watch onto deck 5- but if you sit down or stand up and look out, all you see is ocean. The deck 5 wrap didn't bother us at all. We saw many flying fish and we saw porpoises leaving port, and on one of the sea days we saw dolphins/porpoises jumping in the waves. Plus, because of deck 5, I didn't feel like we were really high up- I kind of liked that about the balcony.

Here is the view of beautiful Galveston from our balcony.

I also thought the location was great. I like being forward because aft often has a lot of vibration (I didn't notice it much on the magic, but the aft dining room did have a lot of movement.) We were also near a stairwell and an elevator bank, but did not get any noise from them. One of the days it rained and an outdoor Mexican Fiesta got moved to the lobby. If we stood right near the door, some of the lobby noise filtered in, but we couldn't hear it at all from our room.

Another day 1 photo:

The bathroom was the same as all Carnival standard bathrooms. There was a dispenser in the shower for shampoo and body wash, and bar/round soap on the sink. There was not any sort of amenity sample basket this cruise. The water pressure was great and there was plenty of hot water.

We had more than enough storage for all our things, and I packed way too much (a lot of things never got worn- plus I had clothes for pre- and post-cruise), and still we didn't even touch the cabinets by the bedside. We only hung our formal clothes so there was more than enough hangers.

Pro-tip: Bring a laundry bag! We brought a mesh laundry bag and placed it in the closet with the life jackets (which stunk- though possibly that was a pregnancy thing... but it got to where at the end of the week I was making my husband open that door.) Whenever clothes were dirty, they went into the bag. Then when it was time to pack to go home, the bag just went straight into the suitcase. Easy peasy!

J and K were in room 1234, which was a forward deluxe oceanview. I'm not too certain about the specifics of their room, it was a connecting room, I know that- but there was one key difference to ours- they had a second bathroom, with a sink, shower, and tub (no toilet). The tub was very deep, but short. I am 5'0" and I could sit with my legs stretched out in it, but I touched the walls.

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However, they used this bathroom for showering, because they said the shower in the other bathroom the shower head slipped. They were glad to have it, though only went for the upgrade because oceanviews were sold out. They never complained about the location (just about the very noisy neighbors). Having stayed on deck 1- it is a fabulous location for getting back from ports quickly. We pick deck 1 whenever we get an oceanview.

Looks like we didn't get a photo of the full FunTimes- maybe there is one later that shows the tear off page... if I find one, I will post it.

Carnival Magic Funtimes Day 1

As you can tell from the last update, once they got their carry ons in their room, J and K came and joined us on the balcony. We marveled at Galveston for a bit, and then went to find lunch.

We all decided on the burrito bar; and the Kevin also got a sandwich.

Here is a photo of my burrito:

Cake pop and Burrito

It was okay, doesn't hold a candle to Chipotle or Freebirds. I didn't care for the tortilla, so I opened it up and ate the fillings. Everyone else really liked their burritos though, and got them more than once during the cruise. I just wish I had gone to the Tandoor, which I could smell, but we didn't walk far enough back to. Having not had a burrito on the ship before though, it was a must do. Well- it's been done. Until I'm on a ship with the Iguana Cantina, I'll skip it in the future. The cake pop was forgettable. I took a bite and passed it off to Kevin.

Like I said, after his burrito, Kevin also had a sandwich:

Turkey Sammich

And then we went exploring. We decided to start on the top deck and work our way down. We got distracted though, so it wasn't a good exploration and I don't have deck by deck photos of the public space.

What were we distracted by? The sports deck!

First, J showed off her skills:

Always a Gymnast

Then we played putt-putt. Somehow on all of our other cruises we've never had a game before. And then we never made it back for another one. It was really really hot out- it would have been more pleasant on a sea day, though the ship moving probably makes it harder- already the hole with the loop it was nearly impossible to not hit the ball off the course. (And when we were up there later in the week we got hit by golf balls straying off the paths...). So due to the heat, we played speed golf: as soon as one person hit, the next person did- and we all kept going. The fact that at the time only pink balls were available made this slightly more challenging. I got a hole in one on two holes though :)

In keeping with the ship tour theme, we weren't totally distracted, here are the waterworks:

If I am remembering correctly, after doing this we went to our room to look for our bags, and then it was getting near time for Muster Drill.

J and K's bag was at their room, but ours was not (it didn't show up until after we got back from dinner- but the steward brought it inside for us!)

The muster drill was held in the show lounge (well, that was our station, I assume there were others.) I kind of don't like that as a muster station. In an emergency, I'd rather go to the lifeboats, not down flights of stairs to get to the lounge, to then be herded and go up flights of stairs to the boats. What if time is of the essence? Of course, it seems most of the emergencies don't actually involve evacuation, so maybe it works... Evacuation of a ship is my biggest fear though, and what has kept me off large ships in the past (I still can't go on something bigger than this though.) Anyhow- it was nice that we didn't have to stand out in the heat, nor did we have to touch the smelly life jackets much less wear them.

The drill did not take that long. J and K had the same station as us, though we didn't find them until we were exiting the drill.

Then we got ready to enjoy the thing we cruise for: trivia! (Um, well ports really- but Kevin and I are very serious about our trivia.)

Oh hey- I did have a photo of the inside of the Fun Times, Kevin (photo guy) just didn't upload it. Here you go. Still no tear off page though.

IMG_5102

The trivia was held in the Ocean Plaza. We were very disappointed to find out that this area has a pretty heavy smoke smell. There are auto-opening doors to the smoking side of the lanai on one side of the Plaza, and an entrance to the casino right off the plaza. This put a major damper on our trivia plans, and we actually didn't attend that many. It definitely was a factor in Kevin determining this was our worst cruise- not a bad cruise, it was still a fun, inexpensive vacation- but our worst.

Like we planned, S and E met up with us for trivia, along with their friends H and T (who don't play trivia but are only there for moral support.) I was miserable at trivia and hungry again and the taste bar was open, so I gave up on trivia and went and tried a meatball and a crostini that had marscapone cheese and a sprig of basil. Both were yummy. I think the taste was Cocina del Capitain. I think the trivia theme was movie music, and it was done by playing a clip and as soon as you know the answer you yell stop and they stopped the clip. I actually really liked that aspect, on some ships they play a full clip like 3 times- not only did this make it go faster, but it was more challenging, because you had to get it quick. Kevin and S tied for the trivia win (with one other person), so they had a tie breaker question. But S shouted out the answer instead of writing it down, so she won. Kevin told me he knew the answer. Getting polite doesn't get you a ship on a stick!

IMG_5108

I don't really recall what exactly happened next. There may have been a second trivia. And I think we went to our room to check on our bags, but eventually we made our way to dinner, which I will put in the next update.

I'm back to tell you all about our first night at dinner!

We got to the dining room and were disappointed to find out that H and T read their cards wrong- they didn't have anytime dining, but were assigned to early dining in the same dining room (but upstairs). We couldn't eat together :(

So the rest of us requested a table for 6 and went to have dinner. It was early, but there was no wait.

The night's menu:

Dinner Menu 1 by Kevin Marks, on Flickr

Kevin ordered the flatbread. He enjoyed it.

Flatbread

J ordered the jalepeno poppers. (I think I did too, but don't remember. Or maybe K did. There were two orders on the table.) They were fine for what they were, but they were not jalepeno poppers. They were more like cheese sticks with small bits of jalepeno in them.

Jalapeño Poppers

I ordered the quesadillas. I didn't like them, but I think that was a pregnancy food issue, not a Carnival food issue. I took it apart and ate some of the tortilla with small bites of the filling.

Chicken Quesadilla

Next up entrees! (I had them all in one post and got told I had too many images...)

For our entry Kevin ordered the Mahi Mahi.

Mahi mahi

and, having found nothing on the menu I wanted to eat I ordered the kid's spaghetti. I do not recommend it. The sauce was not good.

Kids' Spaghetti

We hadn't quite worked up the nerve to ask everyone else to let us photograph everything they ate, so we don't have photos from the first night. K and E got flat iron steaks. They were both cooked much longer than ordered, but K really liked his chimichurri sauce. I don't recall what J or S ate. I think everyone also ordered a baked potato. I didn't order one, but they brought me one anyway. Since I didn't like the pasta, I was thankful for that. Even though I wasn't too happy with dinner, I left full!

There was no dining room show the first night.

Again, CC yelled at me for too many photos... I should start counting.

I do not have a photo of the dessert menu, but I do have a photo of many of the desserts.

J and E both ordered the chocolate melting cake. E ordered his with two scoops of ice cream, not knowing it would come with ice cream! So he got 4 scoops. (Whether it came with ice cream was inconsistent. I think J ordered this every night, some nights she got 2 scoops, some nights 1, and other nights none. She can't eat ice cream, so it didn't matter to her- but I think it would be helpful if it was always the same and described on the menu as such. Because with 4 scoops, that is a lot!)

Melting Chocolate Cake

K ordered the Hazelnut Cake (not sure if that is exactly the name.) He didn't care for it, and ate J's ice cream, since she couldn't.

Hazelnut Cake?

Kevin (?) ordered the Fig and Date pudding. I don't recall a review, but I don't remember complaints, so let's call it good.

Fig and Date Pudding

Someone ordered Strawberry Ice Cream. It looks like strawberry ice cream :) This wasn't mine, but I had plain vanilla ice cream. I think their dining room ice cream is good quality. I was happy.

Strawberry Ice Cream

Dinner was LONG and service was a bit slow, but with such good company, who is to complain. We really liked how there was water out on the table, and enjoyed the bread baskets left on the table too.

After dinner entertainment: Who am I kidding? I'm pregnant and had been exhausted from traveling for a few days. We went to bed! I had suggested the welcome aboard show to J and K, but they didn't make it up that late either. (They did try out a hot tub on the serenity deck after dinner though. I was told that a Carnival employee WILL appear out of nowhere if you try to take a wine glass in there. I think they ended up pouring their wine into a plastic cup, which was allowed. They said that the hot tubs were pleasant, not the luke-warm tubs I had always heard about.)

So after dinner we unpacked and went to bed. I love Carnival's comfortable beds- their squishy duvets and the great pillows.

Kevin did end up watching the Welcome Aboard show on the TV later in the week. The only thing I heard about it was at one point the cruise director asked for two volunteers- someone on their first ever cruise and someone who considers themselves a professional carnival cruiser. The guy who came up as a "professional" had a red card on a lanyard and said he was on his third cruise. The cruise director did make fun of him for this... "Pro" tip: Despite me (with only a gold S&S card) offering up "pro"-tips if the card around your neck isn't platinum or white, you aren't a pro :) We met a guy on the cruise on his 60th sailing!

Thanks for doing such a fun review. We'll be on the Magic in 24 days and are looking forward to it. You're reminding me of my pregnant, "everything stinks" days. Looking forward to the rest. --Pam

Thanks for doing such a fun review. We'll be on the Magic in 24 days and are looking forward to it. You're reminding me of my pregnant, "everything stinks" days. Looking forward to the rest. --Pam

LOL. Funny thing is- this cruise is the best I felt all pregnancy! It was PERFECT timing for me to go.

I had a really hard first 20 weeks (well, that's not quite true. The first 6 were fine, but for a lot of that you're not actually pregnant...) - I lost 17 pounds; so the order from my OB for this cruise was "eat everything and gain weight!"

Sadly, my dreams of gorging myself on yummy food were mostly unfulfilled (I did gain a pound over the course of the week though, so at least I didn't lose more weight). I just couldn't eat enough. I still wish I had tried another burrito (with a different tortilla), eaten at the Tandoor more, gotten more pizza (I only went once), ordered a room service BLT (never did it), had anything from the lunch part of the sea-day brunch, had chocolate covered strawberries (I went to buy them one day, and there were so many ship officers in line getting coffee that after a 15 minute wait I gave up...) and eaten more ice cream on the Lido (one cone the whole time!).

Looking at my list though, I'll tell you- lunch on the ship was much yummier than dinner was. There is one dinner entree I wish I could have again (it was a tomato and quinoa thing that will appear later)- but of course, you can't do that anyway. There just were not enough opportunities to eat lunch!

How could I forget? The day ended with a towel seal!

Seal

Day 2 dawned, and due to the side of the ship we were on, we did not get up to watch the sunrise. Kevin usually likes to do that so he can take photos, but we weren't going to be out of the cabin onto a public deck that morning, so we just stayed in bed. First time on a ship he didn't wake up day 1 to see the sunrise.

So, no sunrise, but I do have Fun Times for you! Once again, we took the photo after the tear off sheet was removed. But no worries, I have them in tomorrow's photo batch!

(This, and all my other pictures can be viewed larger if you go to Flickr and click on them.)

by , on Flickr

Kevin ordered the eggs benedict with salmon. The yolk of the egg wasn't very runny, but it otherwise got good reviews.

There is no photo of my breakfast because, well, I had a bagel. That's kind of boring. It was plain and had cream cheese. But it was a very good bagel in a "not from a NY bagel shop" kind of way.

So now we were well fed and off to enjoy our fun day at sea. What are some of the things we did? (These may be a bit out of order.)

Well, we checked out the Fun Shops. Both K and Kevin were interested in buying some duty free alcohol, so we checked prices so that we could compare at the ports. This was kind of moot, because we immediatly forgot the prices. In the end though, Kevin decided the deal offered in Roatan for 2 bottles of Johnny Walker Black (never found a real good deal on Gold), and 2 bottles of Tanquery (not the regular kind, but I don't know enough about Gin to know what made this stuff different) was a great deal, and we purchased there. I don't know if it was a BETTER deal, and so as to not kick ourselves, we did not go back and check the FUN Shops :)

Kevin did NOT get to buy this:

The John Walker

It was also not offered for sampling, so no idea if it is better than the standard :) Actually- the "liquor tasting" where they give you the tiniest sip of various liquors in a super crowded fun shop never seemed to be in the Fun Times. We also never saw a rum cake tasting. I'm okay with that- but we had told our newbies to expect these things, and they weren't available.

We took goofy photos (surely this is part of your Fun Day at sea too?)

We checked out the men's hairy chest contest:

The guy who got second place didn't have a hair on his chest, and I think it may have been rigged for "good abs contest". We actually didn't stick around for the whole thing... it went very long, and eventually changed into a "dress up in women's wear" contest- having never actually watched one before, I'm not sure if that is normal. Since Kevin was my photographer, there are no hairy chest photos... just while their shirts were still on :)

And we listened to the mixology contest from the upper decks. But we were not down on the lido- why? Because we went and put closed toed shoes on and went to be there for the opening of the Sky Course!

This was our first ship with a Sky Course so it was a MUST DO for me.

Thankfully, I was tall enough. (You must be 48"... I'm 60" LOL)

We got harnessed up by the friendly entertainment staff (I am pretty sure the girl who did my harness was the lead singer, Jessica. If not, she was some other Jessica. Joe, who mostly did trivia, put everyone else's harness on.)

And off we went. It was pretty fun- some obstacles were a little harder than others. And it rained for few minutes while we were up there, so that was different.

by , on Flickr

If you are scared of heights, it might still be worth trying- you aren't very high up. Close enough to the next deck, that I was able to yell down to the people below me "you're gonna catch me when I fall, right?"

Some of these ropes were quite the reach for me!

Each set of bridges there were two choices and you moved your rope along a track to select a choice (they were done like ski trails- green, blue and black for difficulty). I mostly went for the harder option. We meant to do this again, but never did. So I never got to try the other things.

Baby's first ropes course. There was a warning, but not a prohibition if you are pregnant. The harness was not uncomfortable on my stomach.

We went to Sea Dogs for lunch (no photos). Everyone was happy with their dog, but they were just plain dogs with basic condiments. (I don't recall if onions and relish were available. I think everyone just had ketchup and/or mustard.) These were the THICK hot dogs, so I didn't get one. I like thin dogs.

Because I did not have a hot dog a few hours later I was hungry. We ordered room service, as I LOVED the chicken tortilla wrap on the Freedom and the Spirit (we never could get room service to work on the Triumph- the phone was never picked up.) I usually ordered it with a BLT too (after a long port day)- but skipped the BLT because I can't eat much right now.

Fruit, Veggies, Chicken Wrap by Kevin Marks, on Flickr

Well- this was a BIG MISS. See the plate that is basically all one color? Yep, that's the wrap and chips. And there was no side of sour cream and salsa. It was pretty bland, and none of the filling was as good as I remembered. (Though looking at an old photo, except for the sides missing, it appears to be the same thing. I blame pregnancy- and lack of sides. Which are important.) (Later in the week, J ordered it and she did get the sides.) I picked at it, but mostly didn't eat. I was so so sad- as this was one of the cruise must haves I was most looking forward to. I am so glad I ordered the veggies and fruit too, as that meant I got something to eat.

Kevin enjoyed the cake and mousse, but it was too sweet for me.

Chocolate Cake

It did come in about 30 minutes though- so at least the wait wasn't too long, and nicely, Carnival still offers free room service. But lesson learned: next time get the BLT too.

Okay- here it is, the complaining post. And this is one you guys are going to laugh at. But this majorly contributed to my "worst cruise ever" (but still very fun overall) stance.

I mean it isn't quite "there were no table cloths..." but on a complaint scale, close.

So I told you that we cruise for trivia and ports, right? Well, the ports were great. The trivia- it was not. I've already mentioned how smoky the Ocean Plaza was. Well, there was one other HUGE disappointment.

We LOVE "Super Duper Trivia" (also called Progressive Trivia on some ships). The key to winning: steady attendance. Our team formed, and kicked ass, on the Triumph and had so much fun playing together, we got back together for a redo on the Magic. So today was the day- Super Duper Trivia would begin.

We are in the Ocean Lounge, we just completed an individual trivia, we are pumped up and are ready to play- and Joe announces "alright men on the left side of the room, women on the right". Um, what?

That's right- we wouldn't play in our own teams, nor consistently with the same people through the whole cruise- we'd play men vs. women.

So we dutifully split up.

And then comes the first question to the women. "Which ocean is the saltiest" (or something like that). I say "Atlantic". Women start yelling "Mediterranean Sea", "Dead Sea"- they all kind of agree on "Dead Sea" and I say "That's not an ocean! You have to pick an ocean." So someone says Pacific, and I yell "It's the Atlantic, Pacific might be the least, actually.". Thankfully, although some people are still yelling Dead Sea, we answer Pacific- at least it is an ocean.. We are wrong- it is the Atlantic. I cannot take this.

Yes, when you play in a team, your answer is not always the one selected- but when half your team is picking things that aren't even oceans? This is not trivia! You cannot work to convince 50 people of an answer. This will not do. I can't play on a giant team of strangers.

So we all leave. (Well except S, who drops out of the team, but plays along keeping her own score seperately. She says she did really well. The team, not so much.)

After the disappointment of Super Duper Trivia, we really didn't go to many other trivias during the week- selecting only a few with key topics that interested us- but there was one other reason why: there were NO TRIVIAS scheduled after "all on board" times on port days. EVERYTHING took place during the day. This made NO sense to me. Don't most people go and enjoy the ports? And then to have nothing when people were back on the ship. So being incompatible with the style of SD Trivia, and then having zero options on port days- well it completely changed how we cruise. There was a lot more time sitting on the balcony or playing cards than normal.

Major letdown by the entertainment staff.

This concludes the "why you should ignore "worst cruise ever" pronouncements by strangers- because chances are, what ruined it for them, won't even matter to you."

But since we didn't have to take time to play Trivia, J and I did do our nails for formal night. Hers are the pink and white, mine are pink and silver. I am obsessed with Jamberry (I don't sell them)- and it was her first time trying them.

S is a beauty trainer for a major department store (probably not her actual job title, but my understanding of it) so she did my makeup for formal night.

I highly recommend bringing a makeup artist on a cruise. It really helps the photos to have someone with a professional understanding of contouring! I don't own any makeup, so this was a treat for me.

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She did J's makeup too.

Here are J and K before dinner. K was super excited about the opportunity to wear a suit!

Kevin and I dressed down a bit so he didn't have to pack a jacket.

So we head to the dining room where we receive our second set of messed up dining schedule news. In a bid to get H and T transferred to anytime dining, they and S and E have been moved to LATE dining. They have no idea how this happened, because when they went to talk about the move, it was clear they all wanted to be in the anytime dining S and E were already in. So now NEITHER of them can eat with us. (In the end, H, T, S, and E were all moved to early dining- but S and E could not get anytime back and H and T couldn't get into it at all. They said the maitre'd was quite rude. ) So after the first night we never got to eat dinner with S and E again, and never with H and T.

Well, quite honestly, S and E dodged a bullet with elegant night dinner. They were in and out of their dinner in an hour. Ours took TWO AND A HALF HOURS! It was painful.

And it wasn't leisurely, the service was bad. On elegant night they do not leave water on your table. Our glasses sat empty for most of the meal- getting a refill took asking 3 times.

The feast menu also was really small. Not much to choose from. I found it ironic that the "feast" menu was a single sheet, where the regular menu was multiple pages.

American Feast

For appetizers, J ordered a Caesar Salad. Though we warned her, she said it was too fishy. IMO, they always are on Carnival.

Caesar Salad

K got the fried oysters. He said he liked them.

Kevin got the mushroom soup. I don't recall a review.

And also the pork tenderloin tart. I think these were rated as good.

Me, the normal appetizer queen (I tend to order lots of appetizers and skip the main course) couldn't find one that I wanted, so I got a cheese plate. I hate half the brie and skipped the bleu, since you aren't supposed to have either pregnant. The grapes were the best thing I ate at dinner that night, though the cheese was very good.

So, I have to eat my words on cruise critic before I left. I said that I had never seen napkin swinging before. Well, this cruise featured napkin swinging.

The worst part- this got set on the serving station just a few minutes before the maitre'd announced to go get ready for the show. So we sat and stared at them all while the waiters disappeared, while the waiters performed, and then while the waiters went to get rid of their costumes.

I wonder if others complained, because on subsequent nights we noticed the assistants continued to distribute food until the show began. We didn't complain because we didn't realize yet that there was going to be a pattern of bad food service on this cruise.

So, when those finally arrived, here is what we got:

Kevin ordered the striped bass:

J ordered the lobster, which she didn't care for.

K ordered the prime rib and it was WAY over cooked (a theme of dinners). He actually sent it back it was so overcooked. The new one came out in just minutes and was much better. He also got a baked potato.

I ordered the Indian Vegetarian. It was way too much food but I really enjoyed it. Especially the potato dish. (I didn't eat much of the dal, and didn't eat the cheese in the red dish, but ate some of that sauce with the rice.) I just wish that, like on the Lido deck, you could get Naan. Sadly, the Lido Tandor is not open for dinner, or I'd just go there!

So much food it comes on two plates!