HollyQueen

Here’s some construction pictures I got from 10/30

No need for a car if you’re staying downtown. I really like the Hilton on St. Charles in the business district. Just off Canal but you don’t hear as much noise from the shenanigans that go on at night. They also have Luke’s, a great seafood place in house and several breakfast spots in that area if you want to stay IN the French Quarter the Bienville House Hotel is lovely. It’s right at the end of Decateur where all the action is, a skip away from Cafe Du Monde.

They’ve been making their presence known. The Solarium, Studio B, One of the bar/clubs and 150 CP were booked by them for special events during this week. We’ve had to adjust plans accordingly

Wonderland (day 4 part two) We were moderately happy with dinner tonight. I’m not sure if the norm is to have the appetizers chosen for you, or if it was because we had a later dining time (8pm), but we were only given the choice of entrees.

Day 4, St Thomas! (The day I was too tired to update after ) Stsrted the morning off easy with room service continental breakfast, made for a good excuse to sleep in since we didn’t arrive in port until 12:30pm, DH also got a chance to do the zip line. Still need to hit up the rock wall on our sea day. We booked Magen’s Bay, Drakes Seat, and Skyride excursion. We had a nice small bus well air conditioned that took us up to Drakes Seat for breathtaking views of St Thomas. I was not prepared for the narrow roads up the mountain. DH got a kick out of my nerves but we made it just fine. Then onto Magen’s Bay for a few hours, we really enjoyed this small stretch of beach, although we were spoiled with our CCC beach Bed, we didn’t opt for a chair here. They wants $20 a person so we just laid out of towels and joined the crowd in the sea for awhile. The Skyride up to Paradise Point was a great final spot to watch sunrise over the island. There were four ships in port today, but we got lucky and had the Skyride virtually empty as they left before Wonder. Had just enough time to grab a quick bite before returning. While the food was good, we probably could have gone without as we had Wonderland for dinner at 8pm. It was an emergency option in case we didn’t enjoy Wonderland, but we ended up getting more than our fill there. I’ll make that a separate post after dinner. Enjoy some photo spam.

Day 3 at sea, we packed in quite a bit! Started off with breakfast at ELF, wanted to try another breakfast option besides WJ. Surprised we were the only ones there for quite awhile, but we enjoyed it. Will be going back to WJ likely for the rest of the week because DH has an obsession with bread, and there are too many (or just enough) options for him. After we jumped into rearranging our schedule a bit. Because of the dinner and show swaps from last night, we had to move something’s today to make sure we didn’t end up double booked. It worked out in our favor and we were able to play Lazer Tag. This was by far the best workout I’ve ever had. Naturally the women and children were on one team and men on the other. DH had a great time brushing off his air soft skills and topped the board. After the physical workout, we headed to Royal Society of Puzzles/ “Escape Room” for a mental one. Didn’t think that one through, oops. Luckily we were paired with a good group and managed to finish in 31 minutes! Started off kind of rough, but once you connect a few dots it gets easier if you don’t overthink things.. After that we came to the Solarium to rest for a bit. While we haven’t spent too much time on the pool deck, the chair hogs were also present in the solarium. It felt like there were more chairs claimed than there were people in the pools and hot tubs. Got some light reading in and then ate in the Bistro for lunch. I had been thinking of the roast chicken there since the first day. One of my favorites so far. Had to come back to the cabin for a quick Power Nap after that…shocker - we were tired. By far the highlight of the day was the Love and Marriage game show. I’m not sure if it’s allowed to share photos of other people on here but we had a 3 day marriage, 28 year marriage and -drumroll- 111 year marriage. In the spirit of Halloween the last was a couple who came dressed and cosplayed as if they were from the Titanic, so of course had to be brought on the show. (They “renewed” their vows 65 years ago and still qualified as the longest married couple). Their answers to the questions were well coordinated and referenced the early 1900s and titanic… they had the cruise director and game show managers in fits of laughter. I sincerely hope it finds its way online or goes viral. We couldn’t breathe from laughing so much. Caught up on some reading for the rest of the afternoon and then had dinner. Taste of Italy was a hit with us tonight. The most surprising thing though was how fast service was. We were completely finished with dinner by 5:50pm, which was perfect timing to get us up top for a romantic sunset view from the after. The lasagna was delicious and dare I say the chocolate hazelnut cake was just as good if not better than the fried cheesecake from 150CP last night. I almost got a second one… Managed to reschedule voices to 7:30 instead of 9pm since we swapped dinner around, and I’m glad I did since were seeming to crawl back to our cabin at 9pm every night. Voices was a hit as well, a little cheesy in some parts, but holy cow are the performers incredible. I went in not knowing much about the show but was surprised to see several performers I follow online or have seen in previous college acapella groups. Personally I think the video performances in the background on the big screen are a little distracting though. The vocalists and dancers could command a crowd on their own. Finished off the night watching the costume parade and trying the Bionic Bar. The costumes are impression, but I’m even more impressed how everyone managed to even pack them. We’ve seen inflatable Dinosaurs, Gladiators, Giant skeletons… Crawled into bed with a nightcap. St. Thomas tomorrow

Our night ended here. inTENse canceled tonight due to bad weather. They’ve moved us all to Day 7 at 8pm, luckily that works out for us. 150 CP was great. 9.5/10, something was off about the broccolini - very bitter but otherwise we cleaned our plates easily. Scallops, short rib, and pork belly to start. Lobster Thermidor for us both, and fried cheesecake. I didn’t want the cheesecake to end.

Good news, we’re eating 150 CP tonight at 5pm. Bad news, it wasn’t technically a “swap”. We went to the restaurant to see if they could swap and no one was there, so we went down to guest services to see if they could do it for us. Looked through “reserve again” on the app just to see if times were available and it showed a 5pm opening. When we told GS that, they said they couldn’t make it for us but called the restaurant, however the restaurant said they were fully booked? Strange. She recommended cancelling night 3 and just rebooking for tonight, so that’s what we did through the app. She failed to mention we would only get half of the charge back as onboard credit. I’m now nervous if they’ll actually honor the reservation at all tonight since we just booked it. Slightly annoying but nothing we’ll sweat over.

They moved formal night to tonight because of Halloween tomorrow, so I guess it had to make the switch too then, we’ll walk down and see if we can get a dining spot, just need to be able to see the show still at 8:30

What a perfect Day (part 1) We woke up pretty early after turning it in last night. By 7am we were having breakfast in the windjammer and had already arrived at Coco Cay. It looked a bit cloudy at first, but the sun finally peaked out right as we hit the pier at 8am. Headed straight for our Beach Bed on South Beach, #54 was a perfect spot right in the front middle portion of daybeds. The two attendants there were so incredibly kind and decorated it for us! We didn’t catch their names but chatted with them throughout the day and were so grateful. The water was crisp and cool, absolutely perfect weather! We spent our entire day on South Beach snorkeling, snoozing, and reading. Apparently some string rays were there super early but we didn’t catch any. We both are admittedly not big “beach” people, but we had an amazing time and I thankfully didn’t get burnt (just lightly toasted) We found it interesting that many of the day beds were reserved, but no one ever came to claim them. Only about six or seven groups checked in but then left fairly early. We stayed until 2pm so we could shower off and do a little shopping on the boat. (I did not bring nearly enough moisturizer and forgot socks) Tonights menu in main dining seems to have flipped. It’s Taste of France tonight, and Italy tomorrow. Originally it was Italy tonight, so I had booked 150 CP for tomorrow since we weren’t impressed with the taste of France menu. Oh well, if we’re actually unimpressed well just head to WJ. After dinner we have inTENse and we’re really looking forward to that.

We got so many good ones, I’ll have to get some from DH’s phone, his Samsung does much better with lighting than my iPhone.

Phew, what a day! We arrived at the port around 9:45am, easily dropped off our luggage and got in line for the parking garage. We were only 5 or so cars back from the gate, however there was some commotions so the parking staff had us all reverse back out away from the gate and let someone exit the line. The lady in front of us reversed into us, pushing us into the guy behind us…panic. I apologized at least 5 times to him, while the lady in front of us just went on through. None of the PC staff seemed to have caught the accident, but we had no damage on the front end so DH and I just let it go. I did have a small dent on my back bumper, fortunately the guy behind us had no damage and was so calm and cool about the whole thing. “We’re on vacation! Y’all go have fun!” I offered several times to buy him a drink and he wouldn’t take me up on it. I hope the universe dishes out some good karma somewhere for him. Got in line around 10:10, not too far back from the door. All of a sudden we start seeing several people in full suits. The moment we saw the dress bags we connected the dots. There seemed to be a lot of people a part of this wedding ….it took several buss loads to get them all in. I’ve read that sometimes things can run ahead of schedule, but that wasn’t the case for us today. Once we finally breezed through the check in process we were finally seated in our check in group at 10:45am. That’s when we found out not only was it one wedding, but two! AND apparently one was for an actor - I had to google his name to find he was on the Love Boat (how fitting) and a soap opera? It seemed to take several people coordinating who was just there for the wedding and not sailing, I thought this was a weird concept, but to each their own. By 10:55, we finally hit the walkway into the ship. I have also heard rumors from some B2B people on board that there was a disturbance onboard early this morning. An adult apparently punched a child. I have not heard full details, but police were brought on board and someone was arrested. Quickly found our muster and headed straight to the Solarium for lunch. We figured we’d start off in a quiet spot first and then walk the length of the ship and get our bearings. DH hopped on the Flowrider after a bit of waiting. Definitely feel like they needed two of these instead of the golf area. There was a small issue with kids jumping in front of others in line (parents of course, idle) but DH is a good sport and let them go. There seemed to be an intense brother-sister competition going on. Our room was ready at 12:45. It was hard not to take a nap right then and there. We saved our champagne and strawberries for an after dinner treat, grabbed the waters, and headed back for some Solarium pool time to read and snooze, we stayed there quite a bit today, but it just felt like our vibe. We’re retirees stuck in 30 year old bodies apparently. Dinner was pretty good tonight, I’d say 7.5/10 if you desire a score. Our server Donna is very sweet and assistant Leo was so kind to the table next to us with small kids. One had found a duck, but he must have overheard the other being upset not to have one, so he made a duck out of a napkin and gave it to him. DH did well and explored some options out of his usual palette. The escargot wasn’t for us, but the flavor of the sauce went well with the bread. He was jealous of my crab cake, yeah I could take two more of those. Nothing too exceptional with the fish, but the potatoes we good. Cheesecake is always a winner for me. We came back to the room after dinner to enjoy the rest of sunset with champagne and strawberries. We almost dozed off but had the comedy show booked at 8:30…I applaud you all with children because we were exhausted. Glad we went though because it helped us unwind for the rest of the evening. Clocking out for now

Checked in and waiting to board, will post a day one recap later tonight, but for a sneak peek - there are TWO weddings on board and there was a fender bender that got us in the parking garage.

Checked in and waiting to board, will post a day one recap later tonight, but for a sneak peek - there are TWO weddings on board and there was a fender bender that got us in the parking garage.

I have DH to thank for any comparison other than a whale tail. Would give this hotel a solid 9 out of 10. Large room, friendly staff, good water pressure and shower amenities that smell really good.