pirate4me2

Ok, I do have to have a negative post right now tho before I forget to mention it. I love our room location and the balcony, but a huge negative about it is the a/c. I’ve never understood people that complain about their rooms being hot, I guess I’ve always been blessed with a good room with good a/c…until now. This room (9374) is ok during the day for the most part, but at night, especially last night, it gets stuffy and HOT. I don’t have a thermometer to see how hot it is, but it’s like our a/c stops blowing at some point and I wake up sweating. I’m not old enough for menopause, and I asked Chris if it was just me, it’s not. Last night I literally had to kick all the covers and sheets off me and I was still miserable. We’ve made sure the balcony door is shut and latched, and we have the thermostat turned all the way down and we hit the little snowflake icon and it’s just…hot. I don’t get it. Also, the room steward…I’m not impressed. He came by and never offered an option of morning or evening service, only morning. We had M&Ms under the bed the first day and left them as a test…they’re still there. He doesn’t remove empty wine/drink glasses until they pile up (maybe I’m supposed to put them in the hallway, but I HATE doing that so never have and all my previous stewards have always taken them when they clean), and we had a random pair of sunglasses hung outside our room yesterday on the number thingy. They are not new, not mine, so I asked him if they had a lost & found they could put them in in case someone was looking for them…he goes, “just leave them there, someone will come back for them.” WHAT? I’m just unimpressed with his service so far. Ok, enough complaining. Back to gazing out at the sea and reading my book.

After brunch, Chris and I decided to make use of the thermal pass. We changed and headed down, and I was suprised how NOT busy and crowded it was! We spent 2 hours alternating between the Tpool and the heated tile loungers. I may or may not have even fallen asleep on the lounger! It was restful and relaxing, exactly as it should be! I didn’t get any pics of the area as there were other passengers in there at all times, and I didn’t want to be a creep-o. We are now back at the room…Chris needed his nap, and I’m having much needed balcony time. I have this freaking amazing balcony and haven’t utilized it enough, so the next 2 days I’ve got to! As @Jamman54 said, it’s one of the few balconies that looks directly down at the water instead of being blocked by a lower deck. It’s also got an overhang giving me shade right now, so it’s the perfect afternoon hangout!

Hello from somewhere at sea! We awoke this morning at about 9:20 and got ready for sea day brunch. I checked us in at 9:35, and it said under a 10 minute wait. Great, just enough time to head to Java Blue and get go-go juice! The white chocolate caramel frappe was absolutely wonderful. I sipped on it and we settled in at Fortune Teller bar to wait for our table to be ready. Under 10 minutes me toosh…at 10:01 we were finally notified. Oh well, I’m on vacation and don’t have to cook/do dishes/clean, so I’m not gonna complain. We headed to the MDR and were sat at a table for 2, and the server today was wonderful. I ordered the Voyage burger since I felt like 10:15 was an ok time to eat one, and this would also serve as my lunch today. When it came out, it was messy, delicious, and everything I had hoped and dreamed it would be. PERFECTO!!

Yes, I had a really bad horseback riding accident several years ago. I’ve always been a firm believer in helmets, and that accident just really, really brought it home how important they are! HAHAHA!!!! They got it figured out quickly. Way to go to the engineers onboard! Steakhouse is $48/pp I believe. Holy moly, it was a delicious meal! Nap time is very, very necessary!!

It’s now 10:15, and honestly even tho I didn’t do much today…I’m ready to call it a day. Maybe if I get a good night’s sleep I can rebound and have a late night tomorrow. Goodnight all!

Ok, so where did I leave off earlier? Oh yes, dinner plans! We hung at Alchemy as we decided what we wanted to do for dinner. We had brought Drazen fresh expresso from Bar Della Rosa as he requested….he had a special drink In mind for us but needed that. His drink was PHENOMENAL yall. Oh my goodness! We finally decided at 7 to do the steakhouse at 8, so I made the reservation. We hung at Alchemy and had 1 more pre dinner drink, a “something spicy” from Angel. He’s secretly my favorite down there…everything he has whipped together has been spot on. We walked down to the steakhouse right at 8, and the service tonight was top notch! I got the baby spinach salad, which as always was good, and then the crab & mushroom risotto. It was ok, not my favorite I don’t think. For my main I got the shrimp….holy moly, those are the biggest shrimp I have seen in my life! They were delicious too. On the side I got mushrooms (mmmmm!) and Mac and cheese (meh). Dessert, which was unneeded because I was full, was the cheesecake…it was ok.

We are sailing again! Good job engineering team!!

Well, apparently MG is suffering from a propulsion issue. We are stopped in the water for engineers to work on it. I’ll update later when we hear how it’s going!

Tonight’s dinner menu. Unfortunately I had chicken parm last night at Cucina, so the MDR tonight is a no go. Any guesses where we are heading?

Have no fears!! That was my biggest worry prior to sailing MG last November. I despise crowds, ever since my TBI I get anxious in crowded situations. The first day can and will be hectic as everyone figures out “their” spot, but by day 2, the crowds have dispersed and are not at all like what you think they will be. As for showing up for shows…20 minutes will probably be ok for comedy (on this sailing at least) and theater, but the Center Stage (aka atrium) ones are a bit crazy to get seats for…so I just haven’t tried. They are more like an hr and people start camping out to reserve seats.

If you do the $5 chat feature thru the Hub app and they are your “friends” on there, then yes, you can all request to go to dinner together

The Mexican side of Chibang’s apps, didn’t load in my last post

Chibang menu

Cucina menu

Hub app info

Onboard MG now. First visit to each is free, the subsequent visits are $8/pp. reserve thru the Hub app onboard when they open. I’ll post menus in a sec

I didn’t want to go too far for lunch, so Guy’s it is. I’m not usually a fan of the burgers, but this one was GOOD. Hot and cheese was super melty. And maybe I’m in the minority, but the new fries rock…they’re crispy and I like the seasoning.

Absolutely!!! Got my book, clamshell, drinks…I’m not moving!

Today (Wednesday) Chris has a scuba dive excursion at Anthony Key, and had to meet them at 9 on the pier. He rolled out of bed at 8:30 and wasn’t really human. Poor guy, that’s what you get staying out late! Me, I rolled back over and snored some more until 9:30, then went in search of breakfast. I settled on Shaq’s, and the chicken was fresh and delicious. I am now camped out in the shade in a clamshell on Serenity. Score! I stole it from a CHOG. Can you believe the nerve of all these chair AND table hogs today?!

We had great plans for after dinner, wanted to go to the Love & Marriage Show, the Tim Young comedy set, and the Pirate deck party. However, we walked into the 7:45 L&M show and it was PACKED. We went to check out the comedy situation for Tim Young, and people were already lining up. Standing in line is really not my thing on vacation, and there were 2 empty seats at Alchemy next to friends we had made yesterday, so guess how our evening ended? Yep…drinks and laughter, and shutting down Alchemy. Tim Young has shows today, so I figured we could try again. Drazen wants us to bring him expresso tonight, he has drinks in mind for both me and Chris that need that. He also pulled out the bar book last night to get ideas for me that include absinthe, my weakness. YAY!!! At midnight we hit up the late night snacks at Pig & Anchor to get something. I tried the meatball sub (meh) and chicken tenders (good). We grabbed a bottle of water to go from the bar, and crashed around 1. At least I could sleep in today, I had no plans to get off the ship!

I got the arancini and the caprese as starters, I couldn’t decide. The arancini won, hands down. The caprese was good and fresh, but was missing something. For the main I got the chicken parm with a side of spinach, and that spinach yall…it was garlicky and DELICIOUS! The chicken parm was tender and good, but nothing special. Chris and I both agreed it was missing something, kinda like my caprese was. For dessert I got the tiramisu, and all I can say is YUMM!!

Cucina menu

We got back onboard the ship at about 2:30, and promptly took a nap after showering. That sun took it out of us! We sailed away from Costa Maya about 5:45, and we headed to Alchemy. Yeah I know, we are so predictable! Carolina made me a mojito-ish drink, and we headed to Cucina for dinner. The MDR menu was ok, but not thrilling either of us. Pics of it below.

We were welcomed with a rum punch, chips, guacamole and salsa. Yum! We ditched our stuff at our area (little shaded day bed, 2 recline chairs and a table), and got in the ocean with floaty chairs until noon. The water situation was just like last November, it’s not pretty water, but it’ll do. There is some seaweed in it, but i had fears with the giant seaweed problem this year it would be terrible…it wasn’t. At noon they said lunch was being served, and I needed some carbs to soak up the Oreo mudslides I had drank in the ocean. Lunch was PHENOMENAL y’all. All you can eat taco bar with homemade flour or corn tortillas, steak, chicken, fish, pork, beans, rice, fresh made pico, fresh made guac, cheese, onions, and 3 hot sauces. I tried the chicken and the pork, both were delicious, I can’t decide a winner. The medium hot sauce was good, but the HOT sauce…oh yeah, that was my jam! After lunch we returned back to the water, and stayed there until 1:30. When we got out of the water I got to see my friend Sheba, the calico kitty who hangs out by the pool area. I didn’t get a pic of her, but when we went to the bar area to wait for our 2:00 taxi ride back to the ship I saw the “bar manager”, Stella, who wasn’t impressed with the noise of the blender disturbing her slumber. There were also 3 dogs I saw, but this one is my favorite. He’s an old boy who reminds me of our old family Rottie who passed away earlier this year, he just laid around like a speed bump and barked to greet the new arrivals.

Yesterday’s shenanigans (Costa Maya): The ship was cleared earlier than planned, at 7:30 am. Chris and I got up and readied ourselves, and headed ashore at 8. We reached the meeting point outside the port for our excursion, Maya Chan, at 9:00 ship time (8 their time), so we had to wait a little bit for the representative to arrive. Once she did, my heart sunk…they said we had no reservation with them, it had been canceled! I know when I booked they had the wrong date on the invoice ( they had it for Thursday, not Tuesday) but I emailed and they said they’d fix it, then when I swapped my November cruise to another date I had to cancel that booking with them, so maybe they got confused and canceled the wrong one? Who knows. Luckily they said they had room, and we could come on, so my despair was short lived. After a bumpy 20-ish minute can ride, we reached Maya Chan. It was the same excellent service I remember from last time, and they have been doing a lot of work to the beach and water area. I didn’t take many pics because I was in the water most of our time there, but here are a few.