mamiamjo

Love the popping bubble pics 😎

I definitely see the appeal of the Excel class ships, just so many options for food , drinks etc. The Celebration is our current favorite. We have the Jubilee booked next year so we’ll see how that compares ( should be pretty close). 😎

Just saw your review, didn't know you were sailing again so soon. Following along 🙂

Following along. 😎 for your B2B were you able to get the same cabin on both legs of the trip?

All the surprises we received in cabin were from the casino, including the food options. In addition to the alcohol, we got a ton of cookies, a fruit basket, a cheese tray, a chocolate surprise, the tuxedo strawberries. We also received a deck of cards, a picture frame, a tote bag, an insulated cup/can holder and the Elite Lanyards as well. Each evening at 11:00PM they had drawings to play little games for cash. I think the most I saw was one person won $1,000. They were fun to watch, but alas, we did not get our names drawn :(.

And the worst part is that they're watching "Color TV" so you end up hearing the sound of the dialog and the colors 🙂

We enjoyed their sandwiches and tenders but especially the fries! I would recommend for lunch. For breakfast, the omelette was good (just cheese and egg though), the biscuit not so much.

These were casino "gifts" as part of the casino offer. They were good but we received the strawberries and three different sets of cookies which just seems like a bit of overkill. Would have rather had some OBC or credit at Cherry on Top or one of the specialty restaurants so we could use it as we liked.

Unfortunately I ended up with Covid which I’m still trying to get rid of and haven’t been able to get to the gym nor muster the will power to control my diet. Hopefully in a couple of days I can get back on my routine

A regular Blue Card Magnet! 😂

That’s great! I gained 8 pounds on our cruise 🤬

“Just one more day!” The returning from vacation theme song 😉

Yeah, I was going to say that name was taken. 😂

Welcome home Sid, we missed you 😎

I realized that I didn’t put a grade for the bars. I think there are plenty of options and probably something for everyone. Overall Grade: Very Good

So you'll have to stay up to 3:00am to make up for the late dinner. 😉

It's a regular class reunion! Good thing you didn't have your nametag on for this one 🤣

Bars & Lounges: Overall we really enjoyed the plethora of bars including several themed bars on this class ship. With that said however, we didn't even come close to getting to all of them. I tend to prefer to order from the bar itself rather than using a bar waiter/server as I find it's most often faster that way. The exception, on this cruise was in the Punchliner where we did use a server. DW also used a waiter while playing in the casino (although I did not) and she found the service to be a bit erratic at best. The following are my thoughts on my experience at the bars I ordered from. I had no problem getting a drink directly from any bar within 5-12 minutes. Now, I do tip $1-$2 for each drink order which I find helps get us better service. Not surprisingly, I received the fastest and friendliest service from the bar that I frequented (and tipped) most often, which was the Casino Bar. Ravi was the best bartender that I encountered there, but there were quite a few that were also quick and friendly (sorry I need to do a better job of recording all their names). I really enjoyed the Watermelon Crush from The Watering Hole, but sadly, we never made it back there after embarkation day 😞 . Maybe due to our cabin location, which was on 17 Forward, we just didn't really make it back to the Deck 8 Aft section very much at all after our initial tour which means we also did not get a drink from the bar in Summer Landing. Another bar on deck 8 that we did not use was the Havana Bar. It was closed for a private function (wedding I think) as we embarked and was used for trivia and other functions on a couple of days that we went by there so we missed this one as well. I really liked the decor and vibe from the Red Frog Tiki Bar. It was crowded on embarkation day (as expected with only one Beach Pool area bar) but I was still able to get a drink (Hula Girl) within 12 minutes. Later during the cruise and on port days it was less crowded and easier to get a drink even faster. I enjoyed the second level (deck 17) better as the view of the Lido deck was better from up there. We also liked the Serenity Bar, but we only got a drink once from there The Aquaria Bar was nice for when we were watching something at Celebration Central but I'm not totally sure what their hours are. The Alchemy Bar is one of my usual favorites but we really only made it there once as we waited for dinner one night. This is probably due to the way things are spread out and the fact that they have Latitudes and Golden Jubilee themed bars one deck below. Fahrenheit 555 has a great bar set up on this ship as well as it is visible and accessible to anyone walking down the hall in that area. We used it once plus the drinks we had when were having dinner at 555F. I also liked the theming of the Golden Jubilee and the Latitudes bars on deck 6. I especially liked the Pimm's Cup from Latitudes which reminds me of the Cucumber Sunrise from Alchemy. For whatever reason, we did not make it the Tropicale Bar nor the Piano Bar on this cruise (maybe on Jubilee). Another bar we missed was Bar 820. I did look at their menu and nothing really jumped out at me at the time. So as you can see, with all the variety of options we missed quite a few bars but we still had plenty to drink and we had a great time. We received very good service from each we bar we did visit and we are looking forward to visiting some of the ones we missed on the next Excel Ship we sail (we have Jubilee currently booked for next year).

Sorry about the losses 😞 We had a 90 minute wait on Lobster night last week also

So is that your new target? Based on $12,000 in?

You’ll be featured in next year’s student production of “I know what you did last summer”, the musical! 😂

I'm no expert but I had read somewhere that cruise ships didn't have a set minimum average return 🤔

"Great Scott Marty!" 🤦‍♂️

Got to keep Anus cleaning or is that gotta keep cleaning the Anus?

Restaurants: Overall we really enjoyed the various food option on this ship. We had Your Time Dining which is pretty standard for us now a days as we really like the flexibility and options it provides. In no particular order here's what we thought of the different restaurants on board... MDR: We only ate in the MDR twice. Once for Sea Day Brunch and for the second Elegant Night. It seems from this and our previous cruises that the SDB has gone down a bit in service and quality. This cruise we saw a longer than anticipated wait for a table only to find that there were many tables not being used, so I can only surmise that the issue is staffing and not capacity. The service for brunch was also slow. Slow to get our drinks, place our order and receive our food. Also the quality of my Steak & Eggs was not the best. My eggs were way over cooked (supposed to be over easy) with almost crispy whites and mostly dry yolks. The steak was similar to the striploin offered at dinner, but nothing special. For our Elegant Night Dinner, it did take 90 minutes to get a table, but it was peak dinner time on lobster night so that really didn't surprise me. The service this night was much better than brunch and the food was really pretty good. We enjoyed it 😎 Lido Marketplace: We tried the buffet for lunch and dinner and weren't really impressed. It seemed that the choices were very limited and the quality was so-so. I tried the roast beef from the carving station on two days and it was very tough and not too flavorful both times. The best thing I found at the buffet was the Gelato station 🙂 Especially the coconut and the salted caramel flavors!. Shaq's Big Chicken: Overall we enjoyed Shaq's and especially their fries which we like better than Guys Burger Fries. The chicken was pretty good, but didn't see the need to have every sauce be a version of BBQ. Even the ranch was BBQ Ranch. How many BBQ sauces do you need? We liked the Omelet but the biscuit tasted like cardboard or some other weird material, not like any other type of biscuit I've ever had. Guy's Burgers: Guy's tasted the same as on other ships and we did enjoy it for lunch. I would like to see them make their fries like Shaq's though. Don't get me wrong, we liked them but not as much as we liked Shaq's Time Fries: We liked having the options that Time Fries offered but with limited hours and having only one option each day kind of limits it. Chi-Bang: We only tried it for dinner, and it was ok, but not as good as our local Mexican or Chinese restaurants. I would probably not eat here if it were to become an upcharge restaurant. Fahrenheit 555: The steakhouse was very good as usual and we really enjoyed it Cucina del Capitano: This restaurant was as expected. I don't particularly care for pasta and I'm not the biggest Italian food fan (unless you count pizza), but the Chicken Parmesan was good and the Tiramisu was very good (but small). The Spinach side though was more of a pureed spinach than what I had expected, but it tasted ok. Rudi's Sea Grill: We were both very pleased with Rudi's. The service was great, and the food was very good. Add to that watching the sunset while eating dinner and it really made our evening. Miami Slice & Deco Deli: We enjoyed the pizza and the deli on two occasions each and liked the food and especially how quickly the lines moved and we were able to get served. Much better than the other class ships we've cruised We never made it Emeril's, Java Blue or Blue Iguana on this cruise and didn't even miss them which just speaks to all the different options they have. Next year when on the Jubilee, we'll need to be sure to add them to our list. Overall Grade: Good+