Cactus527

Good morning from nearly Nassau. I can see Atlantis but we haven't docked yet. The water is like glass. There are 3 ships coming in - us, a Carnival ship, and something else I can't quite identify on sight. Exercise for the day = done. Love the walking track on Deck 4/5. 1 lap = 700m, or 0.44 mi. Going toward the bow of the ship. It's dark! Bow, pre-sunrise. Interesting how dark they keep it. Hello, people working on the bridge! I had the area to myself for 30 minutes. It was bliss. Through the window I also discovered that the shuffle board equipment is stored on the wall. Now I know.

That's really good to know!

@OCSC Mike see, turtle! (This is Hawaii, not PDCC) Now back to the regularly scheduled blog...

...and I just saw this photo and I'm going to include it. I was today years old when I realized that the elevator actually tells you which way is forward and which way is aft on the ship.

One other thing I remembered that I wanted to put here before I go to bed. The shuttles around PDCC actually have different functions. This is something I didn't realize the last time I was here. They have several. There is one that strictly goes between the entrance plaza and Hideaway Beach and back. That one is just a little one car shuttle. There's another one car shuttle that goes directly from the entrance plaza to the ship and back. There is a two car shuttle, and that is the one that goes all around the island. Then, after 2:00 p.m., they have little one car shuttles running around the island to particular stops that will take you directly back to the ship. I actually got on at the Chill Island stop and it dropped me off at the ship. No stops in between. No stops in between. and it dropped me off at the ship.

Noooooooooo. First the water, now medical? I hope you still get the sea day tomorrow as planned.

Best balcony conversation overheard: Guy down the way: Hey bro! Guy somewhere below me: Who, me? Guy DTW: Yeah bro! Guy SBM: Do we know each other, bro? Guy DTW: I don't think so. Guy SBM: Ok.... Wanna get a drink? Guy DTW: *really excited* YEAH BRO, I KNEW YOU WERE AWESOME!

I really like the four nights. I have been doing three nights previously because that's all I could really do, aside from the seven nighter that I did last summer with the kids. It's hard to get away when you have work and life responsibilities. However, this one happened to work out really well and I like that even though I feel like it's a three-nighter with port stops, I get an extra day to kind of recuperate after that. Trying to make the best of this cruise my way!

I have a casita up by the pool deck tomorrow, so I will let you know how much nudity I see. The funny thing is I worked at a clothing optional resort when I first moved to Tucson, and I only lasted a week. I swear I have an open mind, and I thought I would be totally okay, but I just couldn't do it. I wasn't sure about a lot of it, but the server recommended them and I thought I would take a chance. I'm glad I did, it opens up some doors and I didn't think I would want to go through. The yellow tomatoes reminded me very much of ones that I ate growing up. Totally didn't phase me, and I really loved all the variety of tomato that was in that salad!

Forgot to include my dinner drink - a strawberry peach spritzer.

I've never seen this before on the live TV channel. I wonder why it's not pointed forward?

Dinner tonight: Giovanni's Italian Kitchen I've done Jamie's before on Navigator, so I wasn't sure what to expect. It was GREAT. Not crowded, excellent service, and calm atmosphere. Typically I'll do a specialty restaurant for formal night, so tonight was it. I started with truffle caprese salad and garlic knots. Knots = meh (but the olives it came with were divine), salad = interesting. After thinking about it a lot, I think I was in love with the greens and tomatoes for the salad. Main course. My server recommend the osso buco (veal), so I got a small portion of that with spaghetti pomodoro. Oh. My. Gosh. I had no idea what to expect with the veal, so when it came out the look of it was just strange to me. However! I took a bite and fell in love. It was literally falling off the bone, and there was saffron on it as well. Absolutely fantastic, highly recommended. The spaghetti pomodoro was exactly what I expected it to be and it tasted exactly that way. Definitely recommended. For dessert, they automatically give you limoncello drink. I found it a very strange taste, even though I am a huge fan of lemon. Then, out came my chocolate ravioli. I kid you not, I told Spouse later that I would totally marry it if I wasn't already married. We would have little chocolate ravioli children, our house would always smell like chocolate, and I would be able to eat it all the time because my chocolate ravioli spouse would constantly be making chocolate ravioli. If you don't order this, you're missing out. Then, to make it even more special, my server offered to get a pizza to go! I didn't even realize you could do this. So, of course I said yes. Of course I had part of it on my balcony while watching sunset. It's delicious (Giovanni's pizza).

Happening right now: sunset over PDCC. Or maybe the Vegas dome is happening here too?

I LOVE THE GIANT TURTLES. When we were in Oahu in 2021, we saw them from our balcony swimming in the water. My girls and I swam with them at Carlsmith Beach in Hilo in 2022. A-maz-ing creatures.

I wonder how they even fix a water issue like that?

Sweet! If I was a snorkeler, I would definitely try it there. Calm water. I'M TRYING HEALTHY NOW, BUDDY, THANKS FOR THE GRANOLA ahahahahaha!!!!

That's terrific! My spouse actually had to send in photos of paraphernalia that was received on another cruise line in the 1990s in order to get credit for it. It's weird sometimes what will work for cruise credit.

If you are referring to The Key as opposed to suite/ concierge service, here's what I have for my current sailing regarding PDCC: As you can see, there are activities that are exclusive to people that have The Key but nothing regarding PDCC itself.

Oh my goodness, with how drunk she was at 1:00 p.m., I sincerely hope she made it back to the ship without falling over and exposing herself again! Actually, my favorite thing to try to find is sea life playing in the water. I keep hoping someday I'll see a shark (through binoculars, while I am safely ensconced somewhere else). Quite honestly, I didn't see any birds except for sparrow-like ones this time. I didn't even think about seagulls until I was on the way back to the ship and overheard someone say a seagull had tried to take their sandwich. Oh, and those scary gull like birds that they have hanging decoratively around the pool at Hideaway Beach. *shudder* It uploaded as an MP4. I know it was having issues on my end too, but I blamed that on being at the beach and trying to upload a video. It's amazing what technology will let you do now! I remember going on cruises in the mid 2000s and realizing that there was going to be zero internet on board unless you went to the internet cafe. Heck, I remember traveling around Europe and having to find Easy Everything internet cafes in order to be able to correspond with home! I'm dating myself now...

I'll give you a hint what I'm doing right now. This is awesome, because I have a beautiful view of Chill Beach. Here's something I've noticing too: If you would like to sunbathe and have no desire to have access to a beach, this is the place to be. I took this photo at about 2:30 p.m., which is about the busiest that PDCC gets. Those chairs I circled are empty. Super easy to get to - exit the ship, turn left when the path splits at the end of the pier, go over the bridge, and then turn left again. I'm going to continue to be a spy from my balcony. I can even see the NCL passengers from here on *their* island!

Last thoughts about Hideaway Beach: 1. The music they have pumping throughout the area is all from the DJ. It's even pumping at the little bars that they have set up. I made the mistake of sitting at a picnic table for second lunch beside one of these bars, and I was almost deaf by the time I left. If you're away from those, the sound is much more manageable. If you're looking for quiet, though, I would say that the quietest it was was for the first 2 hours of the day, and then it got progressively louder. 2. It seems like a lot of people are setting up in the very center of the beach area so that way they can go back and forth from their stuff easily. The areas closest to On The Rocks (entrance) and the far side of the bay were the least populated. 3. The lifeguards will not allow you to be beyond the area of the furthest chairs on the other side of the bay. They will blow their whistle at you and tell you to come back. You also cannot get up on the rocks at all where they are standing. 4. Even though the Hideaway cabanas are set away from the pool area and on their own with their own infinity pool, I was surprised how noisy it was over there. The sound comes from the fact that each cabana has its own sound system that you can play music through. It felt like some of the cabanas next to each other were competing to see who could get their music louder, and then there was the pool DJ's tunes being pumped in to the area (or maybe somebody had selected that channel in their cabana, I'm not sure). If you decide to hang out on the far side of the bay, that's a consideration for when the cabanas begin to be filled. 5. I highly recommend the island guava BBQ chicken pizza. While the pizza itself is Sorrento's quality, the flavor is awesome. 6. The restrooms are cute! I don't think people give restrooms the credit they deserve when they are clean and nice looking. 7. It definitely started to fill up after about 10:30 a.m. Both Oasis and Freedom were in port today, but I imagine it would look similar for any ships being there together because of the cap on the amount of people that can be there. 8. The ocean water temperature was a touch cool but definitely comfortable. I wouldn't have wanted to go in first thing in the morning, but by afternoon it was fine. 9. You can enter and exit as much as you want, just take your Seapass card with you. 10. The age range I saw skewed young; however, I'm also on a cruise that has a large contingency of college students. They were all mostly over at oasis lagoon. I did not see a large amount of retiree-aged people, but I definitely saw more than 10 50+ couples/people. My favorite was the married couple who had the exact same pattern on swim trunks (male) and bikini (female).

Oh gosh, now I'm thinking of the story of the lady crossing over the seats in a short dress at the ice show. I'm so glad I didn't actually see the offending nipple. I'm only going to pay attention to mine this trip.

It actually is bigger than I expected. The restaurants/bars and restroom areas were on par with what I thought the size would be; however, the beach area was much much larger than I thought it was going to be. Rows upon rows of chairs, plenty of aisle space, and I was pleasantly surprised by the feeling of having space. Since I went to South Beach after, Hideaway felt so much bigger because everything is so jam-packed over there.

I think I'm going to have to do that on board! It made me laugh a lot because it reminded me so much of college. All the weird things that happened, all the great stories you can tell later on, these girls were definitely getting that.

YES!