IRMO12HD

@JNichols, I found that later in the day, and at sunset, other people had found and were using "my" private balcony.  Invariably, though, it was vacant and ready for me to use first thing in the morning.  There's one on each side of the ship.
On your VB screen, I would recommend getting your steward to demonstrate the use of the remote (and the fact that it actually works -- as I indicated, I really think my remote's issue was batteries and that they were replaced).  IT kept on insisting that the camera feed was working, even though I told them repeatedly (on the phone) that it couldn't be, because if the Bridge Cam had enough light to show its feed, then the VB camera also had to have enough light.  I was not happy with their insistence that "the problem is on the other end."

WOW!  I took French in grade school and Latin in HS.  I did a quick French refresher when I went to France on a business trip.  I knew enough to read signs and be sort-a understand a French speaker even though I really could not speak the language myself. I thought it was funny that I was translating for my husband with what little knowledge I had.   Italy is brand new for me.  I like the Duolingo feature that you can slow down the speaker.  Unfortunately, that feature is not available on all screens. 

@FireFishIII've used Duolingo so far to learn or review Danish, French, German, Russian, Spanish, and Latin.  I've used it for just under a year, and really enjoy it.  My language choices are kind of eclectic; some I''ve had some formal schooling in, some I've learned "on the job" so to speak, and some are brand new to me.  I wanted to:
(1) learn Danish for my September 2022 Transatlantic (Copenhagen-Boston)  It helped quite a bit in terms of understanding signs and instructions; I did also try to speak it and the Danes were (to their credit!) very kind and understanding and even appreciative of my efforts.
(2) review and reinforce my familiarity with and use of German and French (French especially as I'm in the process of planning a joint Mother-Daughter trip to France in the fall with my daughter and her best friend/best friend's mom -- I'll be the only one on the trip with knowledge of the French language 🙂
(3) learn Spanish in time for this cruise -- again helpful in terms of signs, but I didn't try to speak it except in very limited situations)
 
 

Day 4
First move this morning was to the Solarium hot tub at about where I again encountered my “tubmates” from Alaska, who were discussing the -20 temperatures they had left behind.  Made the hot tub temperature seem even higher, and my sore leg muscles from yesterday’s treks were delighted!  Then back to the cabin for a shower and get ready for the day.  VB screen is still blank (except for the simulated balcony railing) so called Maintenance who said thy would check it. Off to breakfast in the MDR, where I’m welcomed with smiles and a window side 2 top - so nice!
Sea day today, and it’s lived up to its name — lots of sea, and running high!  A fair amount of wind, too, and not very warm, so most people are staying inside.  Went to the Captain’s Corner with Captain James and CD Thiago.  Really well done, although kind of sparsely attended. Got a nice fact sheet on Navigator which was very informative. Captain James is a great communicator and is very engaging.
So, on to Sob reason #2: I decided to watch the GU-UConn elite 8 game in my cabin; listened to some of the radio broadcast during dinner (my AirPods were hidden by my hair, and I was careful not to outwardly react to what I was hearing.). Dinner was Mixed salad and arancini for appetizers, and New York Strip with baked potato and roast vegetables (broccoli and carrot slices).  I asked for Medium — and I got Medium!  The baked potato was perfect, and the broccoli, although I didn’t get any “roasted” impression, was nicely done without being soggy.  BTW, I don’t eat cooked carrots if I can avoid it, and this time was no exception.  So, I made a happy plate with just two carrot slices and a little strip of fat from the steak left on it.  No dessert, as I had plans.
On the way back up to the cabin, I grabbed a little slice of cake and two coconut cookies from Cafe Promenade, and two glasses of wine (to last the rest of the evening, I thought). OK, ready for the rest of the game!  Well, no, I wasn’t ready for THAT outcome.  At its conclusion, I turned off the TV and just kind of vegged for a while.  Figured I would go to the Production show, and JUST as I reach deck 5, there’s an announcement that due to technical difficulties on the stage, the show will be postponed until Day 5. So there are hundreds of sad people around me now. Time for a Kraken and Coke, and a retreat to my cabin to work on language skills with Duolingo and vocabulary skills with Wordscapes.  Oh, and did I mention that my VB screen is frozen once again?
Tomorrow, Ensenada, where I can kayak my cares away!  One piece of good news is that it should reach high tide right around the time we’ll be near La Bufadora (2 pm), so the water “geyser” should reach pretty good heights!

Day 2 (continued — and on to) Day 3:
Yeah, no (now there’s an oxymoron for you!).  I will try to right this sinking blog by reverse blogging -  to bring me back to where I was two days ago;-)
 
TODAY is Day 5 (sob reason #1). We are now heading through the Ensenada harbor towards our berth which will be catty-corner (as usual) to the Carnival ship which is already there. Personally I prefer our berth as the VB camera points out towards sea and the upper decks have a great view of Ensenada.
My long-awaited kayak excursion to La Bufadora doesn’t leave until noon (it’s now 8:09 a.m.) so I’m having a leisurely breakfast in the MDR. I woke up about 6 am to see that my VB screen stil had no live image.  I checked the Bridge cam on the TV, and sure enough, it was morning outside!  Since this is the second morning this has happened (I called “Maintenance” yesterday morning about it, and by the time I got back from breakfast, it was “fixed,” so I assumed they had been by), I checked in at Guest Services, who said they would contact IT.  Of course, by the time I got back from watching the sunrise, it was working again. That is just the way things work!  Then IT called me; I tried to describe the recurring “outages” and they insisted it was because it was too dark for the camera feed to work. To make a longer story shorter, I will note what time it goes “off” tonight, and what time it comes back on tomorrow morning, and note it on my survey.  I really like the Virtual Balcony cabins, and that live view is an integral part of the experience.
Breakfast pix!

By “ the front” I mean towards the bow. There are exit doors right beside the access doors to the elevators.  Anyway, I then surveyed the pool area — no chair hogs yet! That could be related to the air temperature, I guess.
went for a mile walk (8 laps of the track), and then headed to the Windjammer for a cup of coffee.  Ok, now I’m awake enough to realize I’m hungry, so I head to quiet spot #2 — breakfast in thé MDR!

My dinner plans worked perfectly, at least in terms of timing.  I was first at my table and the wait staff brought my two crab cakes right away. Delightfully warm and crispy.  I was just starting on the second one when two of my table mates came in and sat down. I explained that I would be eating and running due to the Izumi reservation and they declared they wanted to do the same(I had been at the entrance to the MDR when they opened the doors at 5:15, so had a head start).  I still had about 20 minutes to kill, so did the little art gallery scavenger hunt and then headed up to Deck 14 for Izumi.
Great window side 2-top and such great food!  Started with the edamame and then had the tofu-ginger salad (it’s pretty large!), the spicy crispy shrimp roll, the champagne lobster roll and matcha ice cream for dessert.  True, the rolls were only 4 pieces each, but I definitely had enough to eat!
After Izumi, I headed down to Studio B and had an amazing view from the second row back on the short side of the rink, two seats in, so I had a great view of both the ice and the cast members’ entrance.  Then bed!

Onboard and working on drink #1 — no cream available at Schooner Bar for a Mudslide so l “settled” for a Kraken and Coke!
 
I walked my suitcase over at about 8:45; had to wait until about 9 to find a porter to take it off my hands, then walked back to the hotel for a shower, fresh Keurig coffee and a scone, and charging my phone.  Walked back over at about 10:15 and hit my 10:30 checkin time on the nose;-). Queuing for the initial passage in to the Security tent was a little kluge-y, as there were actually three lines set up in the tent but nothing to indicate you could use any of the three.  After crawling under the ropes two times -getting snagged once on my backpack! — I found one that was relatively clear and showed my boarding pass to get ito the queue leading into Security.  THEN, of course, the X-ray machine in my line decided to give up the ghost just as I put my stuff on the loading counter; as I mentioned, flexibility is key — and an extra dose of patience helps as well.
i made a beeline fore Shore Excursions to enter my request for a single kayak in Ensenada, and then went to the MDR to check on my table.  I put in a request for a 2-top, but am not optimistic.  My “assigned” table is a 6-top by a wall on the 4th deck, which sounds like a “fill-in-a-family” size scenario which I’m not too wild about.  We’ll see.
Lunch was a chicken burrito and a chicken taco at El Loco Fresh — no line, and the burrito was obviously freshly made.  I was trying to find a 110 v outlet to charge my phone — no luck in the Star Lounge or Schooner Bar or R Bar — so it’s on my mini battery pack for now.  BTW, I have found several UK 220 v outlets in Schooner and in the R Bar.
Next up — my plans for dinner with appetizer in the MDR and then dinner in Izumi!

Thank you for the tip on the "private" balcony! I will be on Navigator at the end of May also in a VB cabin. It is on deck 10 forward so it will be easy to jump up a deck and enjoy the space. 
I will also be curious to see if the VB also has off times/issues in my cabin. 

My VB would be completely black around 9pm and I could see nothing but feel the faint hum of the screen. I just assumed because it was dark, now I am wondering......🤔

I just started Duolingo for my summer trip to Italy.  What language are you learning? 
I agree that the shore excursion desk could have done a better job reaching out to people.  At a minimum, they could have had a sign about the cancel shore excursion at the gang plank.  

I was debating making this post but it's too good not to share.  Currently if you're a C&A Diamond or above, there's a backdoor way to get a match to Caesar's rewards diamond status and a way to keep that status indefinitely.  The main benefit of having a Caesar's diamond is no resort fees, but there are a lot of other nice perks as well.  Personally I think the Caesar's rewards are superior to the MGM rewards.  Note that this backdoor does require that you've never had a Caesar's rewards account before and you'll need to make a trip to Vegas (or some state that has an MGM casino) sometime before the end of the year (12/31/2023).
 
First, get the MGM match to Gold tier for C&A diamond and above.  Jenna has a great post about how to do it and the benefits.
Next, head to Vegas!  While there stop by any MGM property and get a physical players card that has your name and status (Gold).  Then go to any Caesar's property and stop by their players club and ask for a Diamond tier match from your MGM card.  They will verify you've never been a member before and then sign you up and create an account on the spot.  You'll also get a little bit of free play and match play for signing up (around $10).  Note that your new Caesar's diamond benefits don't start until 7 days after you sign up, so you won't be able to use benefits like the $100 meal credit or waived resort fees until the next visit.
 
If you want to try and keep the status indefinitely past this year there's a little more work and you'll need to keep up with it each year.  First, create a Hyatt account if you don't already have one and match your MGM gold status to get Hyatt explorist status.  Next create a Wyndham account if you don't already have one and match your new Caesar's diamond status to Wyndham diamond status.  Since each status expires at different times each year, you can just keep matching statuses back and forth when one expires.
January 1st, Wyndham resets so match back from Caesar's status before the end of the month.
February 1st, Caesars resets so match back from Wyndham before the end of the year.  Hyatt also resets so match back from MGM before the end of the month.
March 1st, MGM resets so match back from Hyatt (or call in for C&A match again) before the end of year.
 
I can personally vouch that this method works as I performed it myself this past week while in Vegas.  I can already see several comp rooms available at several properties available to me throughout the year (non-weekends of course) on the Caesar's rewards app and it's a true full comp as the resort fees are waived.  I only played the new sign up match-play while I was there so I'm not receiving any benefits based on gaming (I only have 19 tier points out of 15,000 needed for true diamond status).  I have reminders set for the beginning of Jan, Feb, and March to try and keep the status match gravy train going!

Adding here what I also added above:
Thank you everyone for your comments below, it's enough for me to get started on this project.
For anyone with technical chops: I was thinking of using ListingPro Wordpress template, which apparently there's also a React Native template for making into an app, something I've zero experience with. Down the road, if anyone could help with this, that'd be awesome

By “ the front” I mean towards the bow. There are exit doors right beside the access doors to the elevators.  Anyway, I then surveyed the pool area — no chair hogs yet! That could be related to the air temperature, I guess.
went for a mile walk (8 laps of the track), and then headed to the Windjammer for a cup of coffee.  Ok, now I’m awake enough to realize I’m hungry, so I head to quiet spot #2 — breakfast in thé MDR!

My dinner plans worked perfectly, at least in terms of timing.  I was first at my table and the wait staff brought my two crab cakes right away. Delightfully warm and crispy.  I was just starting on the second one when two of my table mates came in and sat down. I explained that I would be eating and running due to the Izumi reservation and they declared they wanted to do the same(I had been at the entrance to the MDR when they opened the doors at 5:15, so had a head start).  I still had about 20 minutes to kill, so did the little art gallery scavenger hunt and then headed up to Deck 14 for Izumi.
Great window side 2-top and such great food!  Started with the edamame and then had the tofu-ginger salad (it’s pretty large!), the spicy crispy shrimp roll, the champagne lobster roll and matcha ice cream for dessert.  True, the rolls were only 4 pieces each, but I definitely had enough to eat!
After Izumi, I headed down to Studio B and had an amazing view from the second row back on the short side of the rink, two seats in, so I had a great view of both the ice and the cast members’ entrance.  Then bed!

Onboard and working on drink #1 — no cream available at Schooner Bar for a Mudslide so l “settled” for a Kraken and Coke!
 
I walked my suitcase over at about 8:45; had to wait until about 9 to find a porter to take it off my hands, then walked back to the hotel for a shower, fresh Keurig coffee and a scone, and charging my phone.  Walked back over at about 10:15 and hit my 10:30 checkin time on the nose;-). Queuing for the initial passage in to the Security tent was a little kluge-y, as there were actually three lines set up in the tent but nothing to indicate you could use any of the three.  After crawling under the ropes two times -getting snagged once on my backpack! — I found one that was relatively clear and showed my boarding pass to get ito the queue leading into Security.  THEN, of course, the X-ray machine in my line decided to give up the ghost just as I put my stuff on the loading counter; as I mentioned, flexibility is key — and an extra dose of patience helps as well.
i made a beeline fore Shore Excursions to enter my request for a single kayak in Ensenada, and then went to the MDR to check on my table.  I put in a request for a 2-top, but am not optimistic.  My “assigned” table is a 6-top by a wall on the 4th deck, which sounds like a “fill-in-a-family” size scenario which I’m not too wild about.  We’ll see.
Lunch was a chicken burrito and a chicken taco at El Loco Fresh — no line, and the burrito was obviously freshly made.  I was trying to find a 110 v outlet to charge my phone — no luck in the Star Lounge or Schooner Bar or R Bar — so it’s on my mini battery pack for now.  BTW, I have found several UK 220 v outlets in Schooner and in the R Bar.
Next up — my plans for dinner with appetizer in the MDR and then dinner in Izumi!

Almost there!  Carryon only achieved!
I have to say, joining Alaska’s Lounge last year has worked really well for me.  I got the membership last year because we had a huge long layover in Seattle, and it has been so worth the $350 for the year.  Its hours, its people, its facilities and its menus (both food and bar) are incredible. Flew into Seattle yesterday afternoon, took the train into downtown, met my daughter and spent last night with her. She brought me down to SeaTac about 6 am, made it through security and up here enjoying breakfast by 7 am! This will be my 6th time using it, and I have 8 months and three more trips to go!  It does make it much easier (and comfortable) to travel with planned (or unplanned!) layovers.
 
 

Edit for Day 5 — ultra sob reason — got back up to the cabin after posting and started to get my kayaking excursion stuff together (go pro + harness, change of clothes, zip lock bags — oh the phone message light is blinking?  Maybe IT has new revelations about the VBscreen?). Sooo I press the message button  and learn that as of 8:30, my excursion is canceled (huge sobbing face emoji here)!  I guess the only bright side was that I didn’t walk into town right after breakfast as I had planned — because I wouldn’t have found out until I tried to join the non-existent line on the pier. (I encountered a couple of folks on the pier at about 11:40 who apparently hadn’t seen the message light on their phones).  Given the small ( like maybe 20?) size of this excursion, I think the Shore Excursion staff could have exercised more effort in reaching out to the affected passengers besides just leaving a message on the phone.  The couple I encountered didn’t even notice they had a phone in their cabin!
I walked over to the Riviera del Pacifico and wandered around for a bit, dodging the various tour groups, and then came back to the ship. Upon seeing the hot tubs and pool in the Solarium packed with bodies, I retreated to the 13th deck sun deck, found a vacant covered bed, and read and practiced Duolingo.  At least I got some exercise — I had to, because I treated myself to one of those “adult” spiked milkshakes!  The Beach Blast, with Captain Morgan, banana and strawberry mix, and ice cream - it was very good, but it tasted like some more, so I had to leave the ship before temptation overtook willpower;-)

Day 4
First move this morning was to the Solarium hot tub at about where I again encountered my “tubmates” from Alaska, who were discussing the -20 temperatures they had left behind.  Made the hot tub temperature seem even higher, and my sore leg muscles from yesterday’s treks were delighted!  Then back to the cabin for a shower and get ready for the day.  VB screen is still blank (except for the simulated balcony railing) so called Maintenance who said thy would check it. Off to breakfast in the MDR, where I’m welcomed with smiles and a window side 2 top - so nice!
Sea day today, and it’s lived up to its name — lots of sea, and running high!  A fair amount of wind, too, and not very warm, so most people are staying inside.  Went to the Captain’s Corner with Captain James and CD Thiago.  Really well done, although kind of sparsely attended. Got a nice fact sheet on Navigator which was very informative. Captain James is a great communicator and is very engaging.
So, on to Sob reason #2: I decided to watch the GU-UConn elite 8 game in my cabin; listened to some of the radio broadcast during dinner (my AirPods were hidden by my hair, and I was careful not to outwardly react to what I was hearing.). Dinner was Mixed salad and arancini for appetizers, and New York Strip with baked potato and roast vegetables (broccoli and carrot slices).  I asked for Medium — and I got Medium!  The baked potato was perfect, and the broccoli, although I didn’t get any “roasted” impression, was nicely done without being soggy.  BTW, I don’t eat cooked carrots if I can avoid it, and this time was no exception.  So, I made a happy plate with just two carrot slices and a little strip of fat from the steak left on it.  No dessert, as I had plans.
On the way back up to the cabin, I grabbed a little slice of cake and two coconut cookies from Cafe Promenade, and two glasses of wine (to last the rest of the evening, I thought). OK, ready for the rest of the game!  Well, no, I wasn’t ready for THAT outcome.  At its conclusion, I turned off the TV and just kind of vegged for a while.  Figured I would go to the Production show, and JUST as I reach deck 5, there’s an announcement that due to technical difficulties on the stage, the show will be postponed until Day 5. So there are hundreds of sad people around me now. Time for a Kraken and Coke, and a retreat to my cabin to work on language skills with Duolingo and vocabulary skills with Wordscapes.  Oh, and did I mention that my VB screen is frozen once again?
Tomorrow, Ensenada, where I can kayak my cares away!  One piece of good news is that it should reach high tide right around the time we’ll be near La Bufadora (2 pm), so the water “geyser” should reach pretty good heights!

Day 2 (continued — and on to) Day 3:
After breakfast ( I tried to be good; oatmeal and fresh fruit plate; the pineapple was especially delicious), I went to Next Cruise to gather ideas for, well, a next next cruise, and then to the top tier event.  Over 3900 passengers, about 25% of whom have C&A status:
Gold 643
Platinum 117
Emerald 67
Diamond 111
Diamond+ 39
Pinnacle 13
 
After a pretty speedy lunch in the MDR of lamb pitas, I watched the Flow Rider for a while, figured out how to incorporate my Sweet 16 watching clothing into French Night/Dress Your Best, and went to dinner at my newly-assigned 2-top.
More on “The Game” and how I watched it later!
 

Edit for Day 5 — ultra sob reason — got back up to the cabin after posting and started to get my kayaking excursion stuff together (go pro + harness, change of clothes, zip lock bags — oh the phone message light is blinking?  Maybe IT has new revelations about the VBscreen?). Sooo I press the message button  and learn that as of 8:30, my excursion is canceled (huge sobbing face emoji here)!  I guess the only bright side was that I didn’t walk into town right after breakfast as I had planned — because I wouldn’t have found out until I tried to join the non-existent line on the pier. (I encountered a couple of folks on the pier at about 11:40 who apparently hadn’t seen the message light on their phones).  Given the small ( like maybe 20?) size of this excursion, I think the Shore Excursion staff could have exercised more effort in reaching out to the affected passengers besides just leaving a message on the phone.  The couple I encountered didn’t even notice they had a phone in their cabin!
I walked over to the Riviera del Pacifico and wandered around for a bit, dodging the various tour groups, and then came back to the ship. Upon seeing the hot tubs and pool in the Solarium packed with bodies, I retreated to the 13th deck sun deck, found a vacant covered bed, and read and practiced Duolingo.  At least I got some exercise — I had to, because I treated myself to one of those “adult” spiked milkshakes!  The Beach Blast, with Captain Morgan, banana and strawberry mix, and ice cream - it was very good, but it tasted like some more, so I had to leave the ship before temptation overtook willpower;-)

Day 4
First move this morning was to the Solarium hot tub at about where I again encountered my “tubmates” from Alaska, who were discussing the -20 temperatures they had left behind.  Made the hot tub temperature seem even higher, and my sore leg muscles from yesterday’s treks were delighted!  Then back to the cabin for a shower and get ready for the day.  VB screen is still blank (except for the simulated balcony railing) so called Maintenance who said thy would check it. Off to breakfast in the MDR, where I’m welcomed with smiles and a window side 2 top - so nice!
Sea day today, and it’s lived up to its name — lots of sea, and running high!  A fair amount of wind, too, and not very warm, so most people are staying inside.  Went to the Captain’s Corner with Captain James and CD Thiago.  Really well done, although kind of sparsely attended. Got a nice fact sheet on Navigator which was very informative. Captain James is a great communicator and is very engaging.
So, on to Sob reason #2: I decided to watch the GU-UConn elite 8 game in my cabin; listened to some of the radio broadcast during dinner (my AirPods were hidden by my hair, and I was careful not to outwardly react to what I was hearing.). Dinner was Mixed salad and arancini for appetizers, and New York Strip with baked potato and roast vegetables (broccoli and carrot slices).  I asked for Medium — and I got Medium!  The baked potato was perfect, and the broccoli, although I didn’t get any “roasted” impression, was nicely done without being soggy.  BTW, I don’t eat cooked carrots if I can avoid it, and this time was no exception.  So, I made a happy plate with just two carrot slices and a little strip of fat from the steak left on it.  No dessert, as I had plans.
On the way back up to the cabin, I grabbed a little slice of cake and two coconut cookies from Cafe Promenade, and two glasses of wine (to last the rest of the evening, I thought). OK, ready for the rest of the game!  Well, no, I wasn’t ready for THAT outcome.  At its conclusion, I turned off the TV and just kind of vegged for a while.  Figured I would go to the Production show, and JUST as I reach deck 5, there’s an announcement that due to technical difficulties on the stage, the show will be postponed until Day 5. So there are hundreds of sad people around me now. Time for a Kraken and Coke, and a retreat to my cabin to work on language skills with Duolingo and vocabulary skills with Wordscapes.  Oh, and did I mention that my VB screen is frozen once again?
Tomorrow, Ensenada, where I can kayak my cares away!  One piece of good news is that it should reach high tide right around the time we’ll be near La Bufadora (2 pm), so the water “geyser” should reach pretty good heights!

Day 2 (continued — and on to) Day 3:
Yeah, no (now there’s an oxymoron for you!).  I will try to right this sinking blog by reverse blogging -  to bring me back to where I was two days ago;-)
 
TODAY is Day 5 (sob reason #1). We are now heading through the Ensenada harbor towards our berth which will be catty-corner (as usual) to the Carnival ship which is already there. Personally I prefer our berth as the VB camera points out towards sea and the upper decks have a great view of Ensenada.
My long-awaited kayak excursion to La Bufadora doesn’t leave until noon (it’s now 8:09 a.m.) so I’m having a leisurely breakfast in the MDR. I woke up about 6 am to see that my VB screen stil had no live image.  I checked the Bridge cam on the TV, and sure enough, it was morning outside!  Since this is the second morning this has happened (I called “Maintenance” yesterday morning about it, and by the time I got back from breakfast, it was “fixed,” so I assumed they had been by), I checked in at Guest Services, who said they would contact IT.  Of course, by the time I got back from watching the sunrise, it was working again. That is just the way things work!  Then IT called me; I tried to describe the recurring “outages” and they insisted it was because it was too dark for the camera feed to work. To make a longer story shorter, I will note what time it goes “off” tonight, and what time it comes back on tomorrow morning, and note it on my survey.  I really like the Virtual Balcony cabins, and that live view is an integral part of the experience.
Breakfast pix!

Edit for Day 5 — ultra sob reason — got back up to the cabin after posting and started to get my kayaking excursion stuff together (go pro + harness, change of clothes, zip lock bags — oh the phone message light is blinking?  Maybe IT has new revelations about the VBscreen?). Sooo I press the message button  and learn that as of 8:30, my excursion is canceled (huge sobbing face emoji here)!  I guess the only bright side was that I didn’t walk into town right after breakfast as I had planned — because I wouldn’t have found out until I tried to join the non-existent line on the pier. (I encountered a couple of folks on the pier at about 11:40 who apparently hadn’t seen the message light on their phones).  Given the small ( like maybe 20?) size of this excursion, I think the Shore Excursion staff could have exercised more effort in reaching out to the affected passengers besides just leaving a message on the phone.  The couple I encountered didn’t even notice they had a phone in their cabin!
I walked over to the Riviera del Pacifico and wandered around for a bit, dodging the various tour groups, and then came back to the ship. Upon seeing the hot tubs and pool in the Solarium packed with bodies, I retreated to the 13th deck sun deck, found a vacant covered bed, and read and practiced Duolingo.  At least I got some exercise — I had to, because I treated myself to one of those “adult” spiked milkshakes!  The Beach Blast, with Captain Morgan, banana and strawberry mix, and ice cream - it was very good, but it tasted like some more, so I had to leave the ship before temptation overtook willpower;-)

Day 2:
I began the day looking at my virtual balcony and realizing it was morning!  A quick look at my phone confirmed that I had scant minutes to dress and run up to Deck 11 to catch the sunrise — so I crawled back under the covers and started planning my next moves!  I decided to seek out some quiet spots today.  There are a LOT of kids on this sailing and the decks seem to be overrun (literally) with tiny running feet. 
the first spot was beside the front of the Solarium — like my own private balcony, minus the lounger.