Yesiamthere6

I just booked a carnival offer.  I’ve only cruised with them a couple of times, so surprised to get a casino offer from them.  It was too good to past up.  It’s tied to some famous casino guy. I got a free balcony, free drinks in casino for two people, and a $1,000 free play in casino.  We own carnival stock, so $100 to spend onboard. It’s on the Carnival Celebration ship.  I’m not a fan of carnival or their food.  

First observations about Hideaway Beach 
1. The shoreline around the horseshoe shaped bay looks like it would be perfect to walk on. Don't be fooled! That is some tough sand to walk through and there are even rocks.
2. There are no physical tickets that you need for this location. They have scanners at the entrance for your Seapass card.
3. I can confirm that the PDCC song is not coming from the Hideaway Beach pool area. I can definitely hear a little bit of music but it's not annoying at all on the far side of the bay.
4. The swings in the water are really fun! 
5. 8:30 in the morning, the sun is perfect for sunbathing on that far side of the bay. As a day progresses, the sun will be more direct for the people that are closest to the entrance.
6. Regarding the walkover- I think I read something about 3 to 5 minutes to walk it. I'm a pretty average speed walking person, and it took me a solid 5 minutes. Another 5 minutes to the other side of the bay. Definitely take the tram if you have any issues walking, as the sand path has not been compacted enough yet to be easy to walk on.
 


 

Random thoughts for the day, Day 1
It appears that they open up the terminal at 10:00 a.m. This was terminal A. However, they didn't start boarding until after 10:30, but before the 11:00 first boarding time.
With the amount of young people celebrating spring break on board, the bars seem to be overrun. I have never seen the bars looking so busy. It actually makes me rethink whether I want to go get something to drink or not at times.
The Lyft driver I had noted that many drivers will cancel pickups at the cruise terminals because of how long it is taking them to get there versus how much they are going to make. Since I've not ever tried this, I thought it was interesting. He offered to come get me on Friday morning outside of normal Lyft, but not only did this sound highly suspicious and his driving terrified me, I wonder if his story about ride cancellations is true in the first place.
Sail away from Miami is beautiful and so cool. We got to go all the way down the cruise ship lane, turn around, and then head out. I love that we got to do the same thing that Icon of the Seas did when it came to Miami in January. I'm sure this is old hat for many people, but it's brand new and fun for me.
People in their 20s have a different idea of what dressed up is than I do.
While there appears to be a fair amount of children on board for spring break, I don't feel like the ship is overrun with them.
Finding weird hairs in your bathroom is unpleasant. Trying not to think too hard about what they are or where they're from.
I'm supposed to go to Hideaway Beach tomorrow but I don't have any tickets or anything that you typically would get with a shore excursion. I got my ticket in the state room for my bus transfer to the airport on Friday, but that was it. I'm wondering how they will know I am supposed to be there?
Johnny Rockets shakes feel smaller than they were on Allure. Maybe I'm just crazy.

MDR Welcome Aboard menu/night. I was a bit apprehensive about doing the MDR as a solo cruiser, but it went brilliantly. I was in and out in 45 minutes. I went with the tomato soup (scalding but delicious), southern fried chicken (omg good and thoroughly cooked!), and key lime pie (good). It seems very appropriate that "food porn" seems to actually be exhibited here with what appears to be a censored bar across the key lime pie (chocolate). 🤣 And, of course, my first Shirley Ginger on board. ❤️
All around me were tables of college students. There is a group of 8 college guys at the table in front of me, and I was a bit worried how that was going to go. However, I could hear them being extremely polite and really excited about the menu. They did prove they were college students though when they cheered for the waiter who showed up with alcohol and toasted to him. 🍻

Hello PDCC! This is how I like to visit…from a distance 😂

Dinner was at 150CP tonight. We are not huge fans of the this place, but D17 likes the Lobster Thermidor, so we did one night for her. Dinner itself was fine and so was the service, but I still don’t love this place. 
 

They opened up the rooms at 1:00 p.m. and I went straight there so that way I could start unpacking. I'm an organization freak, I love doing the unpacking part. Met my state room attendant, got things sorted with him, and now have two of my three suitcases. Once the other one shows up, I will continue to unpack. The view from this room is amazing, though I know it's just Miami's allure. Pleasantly surprised at the size of this room!
This room is also set forward of the forward elevators on this deck, which I think leads directly to the bridge through the crew door. It is incredibly quiet. When I look off my balcony, to the left I can see the bridge, to the right I can see the overhanging hot tub. 
Also saw a pirate ship cruising the harbor. Wtf? 😂

You have to leave your cabin to be "around." 😉

No reservations for Izumi sushi - first come first served. Ugh. I guess we'll see if I get there then.

Lots!

@Lovetocruise2002I’m on this cruise too with DH, DS17 and DD12.  It’s been a while since I’ve been on RCBlog but I’m glad you are having a better start than us.  Our flight was cancelled after a few delays this morning.  Being spring break there was no availability on any airline to Miami or FLL, so we rented a car and driving about 15 hours to Miami.  This cruise we’ll only be in a JS and I’ll miss the suite deck around the pool.  Hoping we can get into CK for dinner a few nights. 

Boarding doors now closed! Yay!
Hubby has gotten the boot and is on his own. 

Status report:
Left the house at 8:45am and now all checked and settled at DTW. @GregD and @asquared17, this is all of our luggage for 4 people 🙂

We are in the same cabin with the same itinerary in April, so I am really looking forward to this one!  To help with child going to college . . . We took our first cruise in 2002 when oldest was 12.  Our April cruise is with oldest, DIL, and two awesome grandkids (1 and 3).  Our middle son and his wife are in the adjoining CLS.  Youngest, sadly, is still in college and cannot come, but he and I will go together on a mom/son cruise between last day of class and first day of summer internship.   Our family grew as the kids aged, and sharing the cruise experience with kids and grandkids is amazing!
 
 

Not sure where the time went between getting off Icon inaugural and now.
The last few weeks have been filled with spending time with my parents, and prom dress shopping. I have no clue when high school prom turned into such a fancy event lol. D17 ended up with a beautiful lilac dress, which I cannot share here because the boyfriend is not supposed to see it until prom. Not that these teenagers want anything to do with reading my blog, but I don't want to be blamed for some 17 year old's catastrophe. Those of you who have been there know what I mean.
I am super behind in my packing this time. I only have my clothes packed and that is it. Today is major packing day.

I have a genetic hearing lost, so totally need sub titles too!  It’s a game changer for me. 

Sorry….been slackin’ off the past couple of days.
Nothing of interest to report.  Tonite is the last night on Radiance  We will be in Tampa tomorrow and we will be disembarking with our luggage first thing,  We will meet Gavin, the Concierge Lounge Concierge (something’s not right with that title…) at 7:00 in the Photo gallery (Deck 5).  Hopefully we’ll be walking off shortly after 7:00.
Speaking of the photo gallery, Radiance still has the old timey photo stands with thousands of hard copy photos to go through to find yours.  SUCH a waste of time and money !  I can’t believe that in this day and age they are still analog with the photos !  I hadn’t seen that in years.  Just WOW.
We finally got to the Cinema to see a movie !  I kept meaning to do it for the past 8 days but finally did it last night.  We saw “Haunted Mansion” a Disney movie based on the Disneyland/ World ride.  It was very cute and we enjoyed it.  The only annoying thing was they had subtitles for the hearing impaired and it was very distracting.  I kept trying to ignore them but caught myself reading instead of watching !  Ugh.
After my first night of success in the casino, the rest were awful so I quit going after the first few days,  They’re really wasted points at the point in the casino year so I will hold onto my money in preparation for 4-1-24 and the start of the new casino year.  We’re not getting any offers anyway so why bother  ?
We will be home one whole night before heading down to PoM to board Oasis (or Oasish, as I call it) for 7 nights going to Labadee, PDCC and Falmouth.  I can’t recall the last time I was in Falmouth.  It’s been a while.  At least we will be driving to Miami on a weekend rather than during the week.  It’s a BIT of a break to the horrid traffic.  This cruise (one of Dans casino comps) is the one and only time we have ever received a complimentary upgrade on a casino comp.  Not sure why….but the offer was for an interior and I asked them to price an upgrade to a Central Park balcony.  When the rep came back on the line she said they had authorized a complimentary upgrade.  Woohoo !  So this cruise cost us nothing but taxes, port fees and gratuities.  We are in a CP with double balcony (12229).  I didn’t even bother to do a RU.  We actually really like the double balcony CP so we’re happy.
So tomorrow is laundry and re-packing day.  Off on another great adventure !
 

Day Seven - Cruise Day Four - Aruba (continued)
As I mentioned in part one of today's adventures, we were due to eat at 150 Central Park tonight. I booked this during that sale they had with special prices for C&A. Without knowing at that time what menus they would be having in the MDR on which nights I used an educated guess to pick a night that I reckoned would be one we didn't like. Super Bowl skewed that and I ended up switching this booking from night three to night four. To change it, I had to go to the actual restaurant. The guys at the kiosk in the promenade tried in vain to do it for me and it was only when they called a manager over because the line behind us was getting bigger and bigger and bigger that they realised they couldn't change a cruise planner booking.
Anyway we got it changed to night four without any issues while still holding on to our special price. The MDR menu that we skipped for this was the Mexican menu.
Also, tonight was "white night" attire-wise.
This was hands down the best meal of the cruise (although Hooked, later on, would be a very close second). I would happily have eaten here every night if it weren't for the upcharge. I know, dream on. 😂

The bread was very good.

For starters, DH had the pumpkin soup. His face was a picture when the server brought the bowl with just the bits in. Where's my soup???? He was very bemused to see it being poured in from a jug. 😂 He thought it was nice but a bit on the sweet side.

I had the roasted organic beet salad. I absolutely loved this. So good! 
We both had the lobster thermidor for the main course. It was very tasty.

And we both had their signature dessert, the fried cheesecake. DH thought it was wonderful; I thought it was nice but no more than that, being that I am not a big cheesecake fan.

The portion sizes were nice. We were pleasantly full when we were finished but not stuffed to the point of feeling uncomfortable. However, bearing in mind the amount we ate, it really wasn't worth the upcharge, even at the reduced rate. People around us were eating far more than we were for the same price. This is the main reason why we only very rarely book specialty dining. I really wish they had à la carte pricing at all of the specialty dining places or a lower-priced option for folks who don't eat much. 
After dinner we went to see the aqua show, Hiro. Usually I would have booked this for the very first night it was offered (which was actually day one on this sailing) but taking the itinerary into consideration, I reckoned there would be a better chance of it not being cancelled on night four when we would be sailing very slowly between Aruba and Curaçao. And also I reckoned it would be warmer and so more enjoyable sitting in the open air.
There were a lot of people in the standby line tonight. We reckoned many of them would have been folks who had had bookings for the previous night's cancelled show. I don't know if they all got in, but the replacement show for them, on night five, did go ahead, so hopefully everyone did get a chance to see it.
Having seen these shows before on Oasis and Harmony, our expectations were high and we weren't disappointed. This was one of the highlights of the cruise. Again; i was too busy watching it to get much in the way of pics. Definitely a do not miss!


 
 

So yesterday was a pretty chill day. We were both pretty tired. Wife was in the spa from about 1-5. I did the flowrider, got a little work done, and watched the sail away around 4.  We had MTD which I hate at 6:45 and it was a total zoo. Line wrapped around the stairwell. After dinner we did a little shopping and walked around the track. We were supposed to see aqua show at 10:15 but we were rocking and it was pretty windy so that was cancelled. We were both pretty exhausted from being up at 6am so the wife went to bed. I decided to hit the casino for a little bit, but should have just gone to bed. It didn’t go well. Here’s some pictures from dinner, and yes both of the cheesecakes are for me. Don’t judge me, I’m on vacation 😂😂

BAM!!!  I am so excited!! 

@GatorCruiser this post is for you. Had an 8:30 tee time this morning at Copperhead. They are preparing for the PGA Valspar event here in about 3 weeks. The course was in great shape and they are building all the media towers and stands. It’s pretty cool to get to golf with it like that. Only downside was it was cart path only since they are wanting to get the course in great shape so lots of extra walking to my ball. Especially since I don’t exactly hit it straight. And with them letting the rough grow out for the pros, let’s just say I didn’t have them inviting me back to play with the pros. Here’s some photos for you @GatorCruiser

A little late night food porn for @OCSC Mike .  My dad had a peach bread pudding waiting for me at his place after he picked us up from the airport. A lovely midnight snack before bed. 

And it’s travel day!!  We will leave the house around 3:45pm for the 2 hour trek to Midway. The wife wakes up and asks what the plan is for today 🤦‍♂️ so I remind her that we are leaving at 3:45. I really should have told her 3 as she’s never on time. Anyways she starts freaking out saying she doesn’t know how she’s going to get everything done by then. We’ve only discussed 6 times that we were leaving this afternoon and she had to be off work early. 

I'm not a fan of the 3 night cruises especially since I live in Illinois and have to travel.  But on my last cruise I got an instant casino certificate for a free cruise and of course just couldn't turn it down.  There were probably some better options to choose from, but between my wife not having enough vacation time, other vacations already booked like an Icon cruise in August and a Hawaii trip in July, I had to take what I can get.  
This cruise is just the wife and I.  The casino comp was for a free interior cabin for 2, so no kids.  I considered upgrading to a balcony, but honestly for a 3 night cruise even though it wasn't much I figured I would rather spend that money elsewhere since we won't be in the room really other than to sleep.  
Travel Plans:
Tuesday Feb 27th Chicago to Tampa 7:30PM.  Makes for a late night, but saved a vacation day for my wife.  My Dad will pick us up from the airport and we will stay at his place for 3 nights.  
Wednesday and Thursday my wife will work remotely from my dad's house while him and I play a few rounds of golf 😄.  He lives at Innisbrook resort which has 4 different courses.  I will have to do some work as well, but my work is much more flexible on when I need to do things.  
Thursday night we will pick up a rental car to have to drive over to PC Friday morning.  I'm usually a pretty early riser and have no issues driving over that morning.  
The cruise is going to be some nice alone time for the wife and I.  We rarely get to travel alone.  Between kids and then other family who like to travel with us we always seem to have others along, so will be nice that it's just the 2 of us.  
Currently the only things we have planned/booked is access to hideaway beach at PDCC and I got the wife a thermal spa pass so she can enjoy that while I am at the casino.  Hideaway I was able to get for like $26/person so felt this would be a good time to check it out.  Otherwise will probably just be MDR or WJ for most meals and getting in lots of practice hopefully on the flowrider.  I am determined to become half way decent at it 😂.  

My win on night #1 was at Ultimate Texas Hold’Em.  I usually avoid slots but I did play some tonite.  They just bore me.  I played some Gold Rush game and I was lost the entire time.  Even when we were playing a bonus I had no idea what to do.  I got frustrated and just cashed out even though I was staying “even” to slightly ahead on it.  It was so crowded, noisy and Smoky, I just had to get out of there.  I left Dan at the bar.  He’s “home” now.