My LONG Celebration Story - 11/26/23 to 12/03/23

[mlshum]

2 hours ago, AKR2011 said:

I'm so happy to read another one of your reviews. Thank you for sharing with us ❤️⚓️

Aww, shucks!  Thank YOU for reading along again!

[brookie848]

56 minutes ago, mlshum said:

That’s great!  I’ve never been there but I enjoy them in CLT.  Thanks for reading along!

BWI also has them. They are in the walkway to the B gates.

 

I'm enjoying your report!

[mlshum]

34 minutes ago, brookie848 said:

BWI also has them. They are in the walkway to the B gates.

 

I'm enjoying your report!

Thanks so much and thanks for reading along!  I WAS in BWI twice in this trip and I missed the chairs.  Boo!  I’ll have to look if I’m there again.  Thanks for the info!

[jimbri]

Great review and photos!

[mlshum]

2 hours ago, jimbri said:

Great review and photos!

Thanks so much and thanks for reading along!

[iheartmarshall]

Thank you for sharing your adventures with us.  I'm excited to read it! 

[HolySpearit]

Great start, looking forward to following along! 

[mlshum]

1 hour ago, iheartmarshall said:

Thank you for sharing your adventures with us.  I'm excited to read it! 

Thanks so much for reading along!  I see that you are a Marshall fan from West Virginia!  My mom attended Marshall.  My nephew and brother are WVU fans.  Every time they sit down to watch any game between the two schools, she always crashes the party wearing her Marshall shirt.  LOL

[mlshum]

10 minutes ago, HolySpearit said:

Great start, looking forward to following along! 

Thank you and thanks so much for reading along.  It looks like you were on Celebration very recently yourself.  I hope you had as much fun as we did!

[iheartmarshall]

2 minutes ago, mlshum said:

Thanks so much for reading along!  I see that you are a Marshall fan from West Virginia!  My mom attended Marshall.  My nephew and brother are WVU fans.  Every time they sit down to watch any game between the two schools, she always crashes the party wearing her Marshall shirt.  LOL

I am!  Grew up in a Marshall household although I did work for WVU Extension for a few years so I like to think I support both haha.  I'll always choose that green and white though! 

[ninjacat123]

1 hour ago, mlshum said:

Thank you and thanks so much for reading along.  It looks like you were on Celebration very recently yourself.  I hope you had as much fun as we did!

@HolySpearit wrote a great review as well!! 👏👏👏

[mlshum]

1 hour ago, ninjacat123 said:

@HolySpearit wrote a great review as well!! 👏👏👏

Thanks!  I’ll definitely need to check that out!

[TxTeach79]

Thanks for doing this - and LOVE the square interiors. Had one twice on the Mardi Gras and have one booked again here in a few weeks on Celebration! They just feel so much roomier!

[Frank12]

I like the look of that square room! We booked one for our upcoming Mardi Gras cruise. Had a balcony our first time on her.

[mlshum]

Monday, November 27^th – Sea Day

 

I slept until a little after 8, which is pretty late for me.  Ron was just enjoying reading an relaxing while he waited for me to awaken.  We went up to Lido for breakfast as soon as I finished showering.  Neither of us are big breakfast eaters so we don’t usually do Sea Day Brunch.  We’re more of a “grab something quick” pair.  The plan was to play all day after breakfast and first up was morning trivia.

 

 

Trivia is held in the Limelight Lounge.  We were some of the first ones there and there were probably a total of about 20 people playing.  The trivia host was Jareel.  He was probably my favorite trivia host ever!  He told us if we had trouble understanding him it could be because he was from Michigan but he could also be from Alabama.  He also said that since Carnival Celebration was one big happy family, to call him “Cousin Jareel”.  He was a lot of fun and was the only trivia host we had that week.

 

 

We played 3 games for the morning session.  We got some on all of them but never enough to win.  It was OK!  The week was young and we already had the solid gold plastic ship on the stick from the night before so we were completely fine with whatever. 

 

It begins....

 

 

Oh, I nearly forgot to tell you about a man that we met while wandering around!  He recognized Ron from his appearance in the “Activate the Fun” show and stopped us to talk and tell Ron that he’d enjoyed the show.  We did the normal “where are you from” conversation and, having driven through his area a few years ago, made some polite remarks about the area.  When he asked where we were from and we told him, he immediately started smirking and making snide comments.  Listen, I know that West Virginia has problems, but I think that EVERY place has their own set of problems!  I also think it’s quite rude to make such comments to people who have just told you they are from that area.  We were polite for a minute but got away from him as quickly as possible.  Of course, the universe has a sense of humor, so we saw him pretty much every day during the cruise.  LOL

 

 

Trivia finished, we decided to go to the ropes course next.  This is another thing I really enjoy, and we have done on most of our cruises.  This ropes course, being Excel class, also had the zipline section.  There were some new obstacles and some we’d seen before.  The course had several people on it but it wasn’t too crowded.  We went around twice and hit all of the obstacles.  There were photographers on the course with us.  One was at the end of the zipline portion.  When you started across the zip line he would yell to do a “starfish”.  Of course, we bought those pictures!  LOL  One thing to remember, you MUST have closed toe shoes to do the ropes course.

 

 

 

After playing on the ropes course for a while, we decided to ride Bolt.  There were no sign-ups available on the app but there was a crew member at the bottom of the stairs checking in the riders.  Ron asked him if there was any availability that day and he said yes, if we wanted to go right now we could.  That works!  Sign us up! 

 

I snuck a pic of the loading area before I had to put my phone in the cubby

 

It seems to be pretty close to the deck!

 

 

And here's a picture of our picture!

 

Bolt is a lot of fun.  It’s a unique experience.  As far as rollercoasters go, it isn’t particularly large or fast.  The uniqueness is in the location.  How many opportunities do you have to ride a roller coaster on a cruise ship??  Three, to be exact.  (At least it will be three as soon as Jubilee begins sailing regularly.)  We had already ridden the Bolt on Mardi Gras and we were definitely riding it again!  One thing to remember about Bolt; if you think you want to ride it, go ahead and do it as soon as possible.  If the weather turns bad or something happens, it may not be open.  It has somewhat limited hours that I haven't been able to determine.  Check the HUB app.  It’s best to go ahead and ride it as soon as possible so you won’t miss the experience.

 

We climbed the stairs, put our belongings in a shelf and hopped aboard.  It wasn't much of a wait at all. There are height and weight requirements.  I don't remember exactly what they are but you can probably find them on the website or in the HUB app.   You also have to wear closed toe shoes, just like the ropes course.  There is a "boost" button that gives you a little burst of speed.  You can use it twice.  When you're coming back into the station to disembark, it sometimes will slow down considerably right in the curve.  It's quite an angle and I felt a little like I was going to fall off.  This is the point where the photographers are waiting.  You can't hold your arms up when you're actually riding but when you're going that slow coming back into the station and they are taking my picture, you can bet I'm holding up my arms!

 

 

By the time we had finished playing, breakfast had worn off and it was time for lunch.  I wanted to go to Time Fries and get some Philly Cheesesteak fries.  They're my favorite!  Ron also got some and he went to the Steam Dream stall next door as well.  I don’t remember exactly what he had but he said it was good.  We finished it all off with some hazelnut gelato.  It was pretty good but not exactly my favorite.  I took a few bites and opted for a cookie instead.  You can’t go wrong with a cookie!

 

Philly Cheesesteak fries

 

 

 

I was tired.  More tired than normal.  I didn’t even realize it at the time, but I would later learn why.  We went back to the room and I fell asleep for a little while.  I felt perkier when I woke up and went in search of a duck.

 

 

I know there were lots of ducks hidden on this cruise.  I hid one each day myself.  I kept seeing pictures on our Facebook group of all the ducks people were finding.  I’m not great at finding the ducks.  I’m not great a finding Easter eggs either.  Maybe I’m not as observant as I should be?  Anyway, we didn’t find a duck but we DID find a piece of pizza.  I’d only had the French fries for lunch so I was happy to get some pizza. 

I put out a duck near Alchemy Bar

 

We headed out to Summer Landing in search of a soda and out onto the deck.  Summer Landing is on Deck 8.  It was a beautiful Sea Day and the loungers were mostly occupied.  I didn’t want to land in the direct sun.  Instead, I was searching for a quiet place to enjoy my soda and read my book.  On Deck 8 we found a little hidden space that we would return to several times during the week.  If you go out of Summer Landing to the pool, turn right and walk past the Guy’s Pig and Anchor lunch area and past Rudi’s and Cucina’s outside dining areas, you will find a small area of seating for about 8 tucked away at the end beside a crew door.  The seats were comfy, it was off the beaten path and there was no traffic.  It was shady.  Perfect!  This would be my go to spot when I needed a place to read or to take a break.  It was never crowded and I rarely saw anyone there.  I settled in with my book and soda and passed a very relaxing couple of hours.

 

Ready to relax

 

It was a beautiful day with glassy seas

 

It was time to go get ready for dinner.  This would be our first elegant night.  We went back to the room, got dressed and headed out to take a couple of pictures before dinner.  We were looking for something that looked Christmasy.  We usually take several pictures thinking that surely, out of all of those pictures, at least one will turn out!  We call  that the "splatter theory".   While we were taking pictures Ron signed us in for dinner at the Festivale restaurant.

 

Not a professional pic but we liked this one.

 

It wasn’t a long wait at all when we were notified that our table was ready.  We went to the restaurant and were seated immediately.  Our waiter for the evening was Nopta.  He was from Indonesia.  He was the best server of the cruise and the only one whose name I remembered, unfortunately.  As a matter of fact, this would be the best dinner of the cruise as well.  We both had a steak.  I had melting cake for dessert.  Ron had a banana split. 

 

 

We finished dinner and decided to go get seats for Celestial Strings in Celebration Central.  I have a love hate relationship with this venue.  On one hand, it’s a beautiful area with the open, confetti ceiling and the three deck backdrop.  There is a lot of seating but not that many GOOD seats.  Often, the sight line is blocked.  We had a partial line of sight to the stage one deck below.  The lady sitting slightly in front of me and to the right had saved a chair for her husband.  I could see pretty well until he arrived.  He was considerably taller than me.  I was able to catch a good bit of the show but between the taller guy and the action happening on the floor below since they didn’t stay on the stage, it left much to be desired.  I had this same problem on Mardi Gras.  If you want good seats, you’ve got to be there EARLY.

 

I think Celestial Strings is probably the most visually beautiful shows done on Carnival.

 

The violinists are top notch.

 

 

After Celestial Strings, we wandered over to the piano bar, which was just opening.  We were some of the first people that night and we met Misso from Brazil.  We had sailed with Misso before on Sunrise.  He’s an excellent pianist and does all sing-along and requests.  That’s my favorite type of piano bar.  I much prefer that to someone who simply plays and we sit there quietly and listen.  The worst was a guy who not only didn’t want to do a sing along, but he had written all of his own music and it all sounded alike.  I don’t remember his name or which ship we saw him.  Misso always has “cheers” and comes up with funny toasts.  He’s one of my favorite piano bar performers from our cruises.

 

Misso wears his Elton John glasses when he plays an Elton John song.

 

We stayed in the piano bar for quite a while and then decided to get a soda and call it a night.  It had been a good day and tomorrow was Cozumel!

 

[mlshum]

4 hours ago, TxTeach79 said:

Thanks for doing this - and LOVE the square interiors. Had one twice on the Mardi Gras and have one booked again here in a few weeks on Celebration! They just feel so much roomier!

I agree 100%!  This was our first time getting one but I’ll definitely be looking for them in the future.  Thanks for reading along!

[mlshum]

2 hours ago, Frank12 said:

I like the look of that square room! We booked one for our upcoming Mardi Gras cruise. Had a balcony our first time on her.

I really liked this one!  We’ve had balcony rooms and they’re always nice but we often default to an interior because we don’t spend enough time in our room to really enjoy it.  We do have a balcony booked for an upcoming Alaska cruise.

[Frank12]

10 hours ago, mlshum said:

I really liked this one!  We’ve had balcony rooms and they’re always nice but we often default to an interior because we don’t spend enough time in our room to really enjoy it.  We do have a balcony booked for an upcoming Alaska cruise.

We think the same.  Interior saves so much money which allows us to go on more cruises! Plus, we spend very little time in the room.  However, Alaska ALWAYS requires a balcony for us! 

[mlshum]

1 hour ago, Frank12 said:

We think the same.  Interior saves so much money which allows us to go on more cruises! Plus, we spend very little time in the room.  However, Alaska ALWAYS requires a balcony for us! 

I agree completely!  This will be our first trip to Alaska but we knew a balcony would be the way to go for that one.  I'm hoping to see whales!

[mlshum]

Tuesday, November 28th – Cozumel

 

Cozumel is one of my favorite ports.   Every time we’ve visited, we’ve managed to find something unique and really interesting to do.  I think most of my favorite shore excursions were in Cozumel.  One of my all-time favorites was in 2014 when we ran the Amazing Cozumel Race.  We have talked about that one many times over the years.  Since it had been nine years and the description sounded like there were some changes, we decided to do the race again.  We actually won it the first time.  This time we were nine years older and had nine more years of arthritis, so we didn’t expect to try to be really competitive but to just take it easy as we went.  I’ve got to tell you, Liz laughed pretty hard with I told her that.  She knows me well and knows that “competitive” is going to kick in whether I want it to or not.

 

 

Up to Lido for our normal quick breakfast.  Back down to our room for final preparations and to grab my backpack.  We were gearing up for a fun day even though there was a 47% chance of rain.  I mean, that's less than half, right?   I have a rain jacket and a waterproof outer covering.  Bring it on!

 

 

Our rain jackets are pretty good but they only cover down to just below the waist.  It took about 30 seconds until we were soaked.  Bless the photographer’s hearts, they were still out there in the deluge trying to take pictures.  That’s dedication!  We walked to the end of the pier, through the Dufry shop and out into the port area.  It would slack up occasionally but would also go back to the torrential rain in just a few minutes.  We were on a mission.  We had been to the downtown area a few years before, during our first race, and didn’t get to spend as much time as we would have liked.  Our race didn’t start until 11 so we had time to grab a cab and head downtown.  That’s exactly what we did.

 

Let the adventure begin!
 

It cost about $8 and the ride was 10 minutes or less.  Pretty soon our cab dropped us off downtown.  When we were there before it was very well kept and beautiful.  On this day it was under construction.  There were installing some sort of pipeline right down the middle of the road.  It made for a lot of mud and closed areas.  It wasn't nearly as nice as the first time. That was kind of disappointing.  We visited the scuba statue that we remembered from before.  We didn't remember that it was a SCUBA statue.  We thought it might be a statue of Neptune but after consideration, I believe Neptune is the statue on the Virginia Beach Boardwalk.  We stopped at the ferry dock, waded in the surf, visited the park with all the colorful statues, got a few souvenirs and generally had a lot of fun.  It alternated between raining a lot and raining a little.  Yes, we were soaked from the waist down.  It was ok, and we were making the best of the situation.

 

It stopped raining for a few mintues!

 

This park was full of colorful statues

 

 

Shipwreck 

 

I WILL wade in the surf but wanted to keep my backpack as dry as possible

 

Made it to the scuba statue and my jacket had kept my hair pretty dry...at this point...

 

I think the dragon was my favorite

 

It was getting close to time to begin our race, so we got another cab and went back to the port area.  Our meeting place was with all the other excursions just outside the Dufry shop.  We found a couple of chairs under the Ron Jon awning and sat down to wait.  A little after 11 our guide showed up.  I think he was kind of surprised to see us.  We were the only ones who were crazy enough to have shown up to the race. He gave us our supplies and went to look for more people.  There were supposed to be four others.  We waited for a little while to make sure no one else was coming.  He went to check with his supervisor and at that point, our race was officially cancelled due to weather.  The policy is that there must be at least four people to do an excursion.  It was OK.  Carnival refunded our money, we had fun anyway and we are still UNDEFEATED on the Amazing Cozumel Race!

Waiting for the race to begin

 

Race info

 

We’d been in port for several hours and both of us were ready to head back to the ship.  We got back on board, showered and changed and took a few minutes to hang up all of our wet clothes.  I have a bunch of strong magnetic hooks.  These things are great!  We use them to keep things out of the way, like backpacks and hats, but they’re also great to hang up wet things since there really isn’t much space on the clothesline in the shower.  Conveniently, all of our walls and ceilings were metal, so we hung things everywhere.  Those hooks are one of my “don’t forget” items for all our cruises and one of the best purchases I've made.

 

Once we were cleaned and dressed, we headed up to Lido for some Blue Iguana.  We were feeling the need for some tacos.  We’re in Mexico, after all!  Blue Iguana offers three options for tacos…..chicken, pork and fish.  I don’t like fish at all, so I got one pork and one chicken.  Ron got one of each because he couldn’t decide.  The lady in front of me while we waited told me that her son was a crew member and both she, and apparently he, along with the rest of the world, insisted that the pork was the only taco necessary.  LOL  I actually like the chicken best myself but that’s why they have several flavors!  Fortunately, we don’t all like the same things.  How boring would that be?!?!  After tacos we stopped by for a dessert.  I forget what I got but I was reminded again that I miss the whole cakes on some of the other ships.  Grumble, grumble.  One day, maybe this day, there was a salted caramel cheesecake.  I probably enjoyed that most of the Lido desserts.

 

All the choices for Blue Iguana tacos

 

 

We were tired.  We’d had a good time in port, but we decided some down time was in order.  This year has been an odd one for us.  We have had a number of really unusual things happen in our lives that have taken a lot of time and effort.  Both of our sons have moved.  Both of them needed help getting their former homes ready to be sold or turned back over to the landlord.  One of the most complicated things we faced was helping some of our dearest friends remodel a rental house. The tenants had absolutely destroyed the house before moving out.  They had been going through this ordeal with the house for months.  Our friends had hired a contractor who simply wouldn’t show up.  They fired that one and hired a second one who attempted to cut corners in an effort to steal money.  He did really stupid things like trying to glue wallboard to the wall with caulk so it would stay long enough for him to be paid.  He had to be fired, too.  They were desperate to get this house fixed and on the market, and everything seemed to be working against them.  Ron has completely remodeled 5 or 6 houses and I have helped, so we volunteered to help them finish it out so it could be sold.  The four of us worked our regular jobs through the day and every evening we worked at one of the other projects.  We, along with our friends, did that every evening and every weekend for several months. The house was finally finished and sold in the fall.  In the course of all the various remodeling projects, some of our family members were facing serious illnesses and Ron had started accepting commercial work. All of those things started to be resolved late in the fall, but life still rolled along. In short, we were tired…..very tired.  This cruise was our first chance to step away and take a break.  We were taking full advantage of that opportunity.

 

A dry spot on a rainy day

 

 

After a nap, we woke up and realized it was time for sail away.  We went up on deck where we could get a good view as we were leaving port.  There were several people paged and a couple of pier runners.  I later heard that three people were left in Cozumel that day.  I don’t know if that’s actually true.  I hope not.

 

 

We decided to go get ready for dinner and we wanted to go to Cucina that night.  It was probably around 6pm at that point.  We got dressed and Ron checked us in on the app only to learn that the wait for Cucina was more than an hour.  We looked at the menu at Chibang and nothing looked particularly appealing.  Ron wasn’t feeling bar-b-que so we just went back to Festivale.  We wanted to go watch Family Feud that evening and knew if we waited for Cucina we wouldn’t make it.  We learned to check in to Cucina early if you wanted to avoid a long wait! 

 

Nice to be dry and clean again!

 

I didn’t write down what we had that night but afterward, we went to the Grand Spectrum Theatre for Family Feud.  I always enjoy Family Feud.  It’s a fun show!  Both families were from Ohio this time.  They both did a great job.  Neither won the big money game but we still enjoyed watching them.  I am quite certain that it’s a whole lot easier to come up with the answers to questions while I’m sitting in the audience that it would be standing on stage!  I am hoping that a group of us can audition for Family Feud on our group cruise on Mardi Gras in September.  I don’t know if we’ll make it, but my fingers are crossed!  That way, I, too, will be able to forget everything I know while being embarrassed in front of hundreds of other cruisers. Can't wait

 

Grand Spectrum Theatre

 

Family Feud was ready to begin

 

After the show we went to the piano bar to sing along with Misso for a while and then decided to go back to our cabin and go to bed.  I was dragging by that point.  I didn’t really take time to wonder why I was so tired that evening but the next day, I would learn.  It was very windy that evening and the ship was rocking some.  I overheard someone say that the winds were 40 – 70 mph.  I don’t know if that is true or not.  It WAS rocking.  It WAS creaking.  I quickly went to sleep and didn’t worry about it again!

[pe4all]

Don't tell us you got the big "C" on the cruise.  I can't tell you how many people we know are coming off their cruises with covid, flu or rsv.  

[mlshum]

4 hours ago, pe4all said:

Don't tell us you got the big "C" on the cruise.  I can't tell you how many people we know are coming off their cruises with covid, flu or rsv.  

lol. I promise it was not COVID!

[jimbo5544]

Love the review style and all the pics.  Really enjoying your review.

[mlshum]

20 minutes ago, jimbo5544 said:

Love the review style and all the pics.  Really enjoying your review.

Thank you so much and thank you for reading along!  I just realized I left out an entire segment out of my Cozumel day.  lol. I’ll have to fix that tonight.  Thanks again!

[jimbo5544]

1 minute ago, mlshum said:

Thank you so much and thank you for reading along!  I just realized I left out an entire segment out of my Cozumel day.  lol. I’ll have to fix that tonight.  Thanks again!

I have found that doing reviews help keep the great memories of the cruise fresh and assists in enjoying the experience further.