Carnival Vista- 11/11 Saturday, Sea Day- Post One
Saturday, November 11th, Sea Day (sadly our last):
A tropical start to the day:
Who wants to write about their last day on their favorite vacation ever? I sure don't, which is part of the reason I've procrastinated. The other reason is that I was able to crank our a lot of writing over the holidays and winter break since I work in education, but now it's back to real life and I'm having a hard time catching up. Thank goodness for notes on my phone in this awesome app. I'll give it a quick plug solely because I think it's really cool. It's called "TripRider" and it organizes basically everything you can think of for travelling! You can enter info about each traveller, have note sheets, maps, and a packing list. The trip plan is the best, where you can include how many days you're going, what you're doing each day, enter hotel and airfare info, upload PDF attachments of tickets and reservations, and estimate how much money you need for each day. It doesn't need wifi so you can access TripRider in the middle of the ocean too. There's a "lite" version to test it out, and a pretty cheap paid version to get full access to all of the tools. I'm a big fan.
Since we were up very late/early into the morning dancing and eating buffet food, we slept in but only until 9 or 9:15, so not too crazy. Of course we went to Blue Iguana for breakfast, where I decided to get the huevos rancheros (big surprise) but then loaded it up at the salsa bar with extra goodness, such as cilantro, salsa, and limes. Wow, I'm kicking myself for not doing that on any of the other six days I ate there! Definitely know for next time though.
We then headed to the water park where my husband attached our action camera to a head mount or chest mount so he could go down the Kaleid-o-slide. He went twice, and said it was a blast and he wished we spent more time in the water park area. I really thought this would be the cruise that I would try out the water park, since the Vista's slides look awesome, but I'm not into swimming all that much and wasn't up for the adventure of the slides. It'll happen next time, promise. While I was taking pictures and enjoying the sun, I had a chance to look around and see that not all of the beach chairs on the lido deck were taken by 10am. I was genuinely surprised seeing as it was the last sea day and final chance to grab the rays.
He lost his raft!
Water Works area:
We headed up to the Serenity and were surprised to find a two person lounging bed that was empty! We quickly walked over and...oh...it's not empty, it has towels and books on it. But look! What do I spot? A Carnival sticker on their towels that notes that a deck staff visited the lounger at 9:40, and that if the owners didn't return within 40 minutes, their stuff would be moved to the Serenity bar. We showed up at 10:33 (53 minutes after the note was written) but of course I was still hesitant to move the items. My husband is a lot more bold than I am so he had no problem scooping up the belongings and bringing it to the bar. I felt badly, but I suppose rules are rules and there was a clear limit set that they exceeded. I plopped our stuff down and started enjoying what I could of the sun, which was now being pushed out quickly by ever-darkening clouds. When my husband returned, he said that there were about 6 other sets of towels at the bar that had also been moved. I guess that people really do think their stuff is safe for a very extended period of time and that it's no big deal.
We hung out in the lounger for 30+ minutes until the sky turned very dark and it got blustery. I'm talking chair pads getting blown up (especially if they weren't tied down all the way) and empty glasses knocking over and hats blowing off peoples' heads. Then it started to rain pretty heavily and my husband stood up to pack up our things, when our own mattress lifted up in the wind and partially flopped on top of me. Guess ours wasn't tied down correctly either.
The most unfortunate part of this story is that I had ordered a drink right before the wind picked up and the rain came. So when the rain did start falling, I didn't want to abandon the waiter that would (hopefully) be returning, but I also didn't want to get drenched. My husband was such a sweetheart and said that since he was still slightly wet from the water slides, he would stay in the rain for the drink and I could stand inside. Thankfully he wasn't out there for more than 45 seconds but it was such a kind gesture! We were still ready to relax, so we walked up to the spa and got in our final push of the thermal suites. We beat the rush and were able to get loungers and get seats in the different rooms. The rain only lasted about an hour, so we headed out to the sports deck and played a round of mini golf. We tied, which is such a rarity because my husband golfed in high school and still goes a handful of times per year with friends and colleagues. Just as an FYI, the last three holes of the mini golf course are up a set of stairs near the SkyRide, but we didn't feel like that was clearly labeled. Hopefully you can find it with little trouble now!
Clearly the rain went away and made it so sunny my eyes couldn't open!
Sports Square:
Thankfully it seemed like the rain was really gone, so we walked to the back of the ship and saw the Tides pool, which we never actually spent time at. That was pretty unfortunate since it looked like a nice space! We got in line for the BBQ, and were (somehow) surprised that the line was longer than we expected, but it did move fairly quickly. We had our food within 10ish minutes and ate outside on the Lanai. We thought the food was pretty good, but almost preferred the BBQ we had on the Liberty in April 2017 before that started getting branded by Guys label (and potentially changing recipes?).
We made our way to the Pub for card games and a drink, before heading to Pixels Gallery to ask about photo packages. I know that Carnival is out to make money but COME ON. We were told that for $200, we could get 10 pictures on our phone, those same 10 on a USB stick, 2 large printouts, and a canvas photo. That's outrageously priced. We were also told that we could buy a digital photo on our phone for $15, and printouts started at $20. We were hoping for a much better package than that, but decided that we would find a few photos in our large gallery that we really liked and buy 3 of them. Would I normally pay $45 for 3 digital downloads? Absolutely not. But it was our honeymoon and we wanted nice photos of us.
Veteran's Day event:
I hate packing up!
After (sadly) packing our items and watching some football in our room, we got dressed for our last MDR experience and went to the Alchemy Bar for more custom martinis. My husband's had pineapple and lime as the base ingredients, and mine was something with Limoncello, and I was greeted with an incredible concoction. I really am kicking myself for not trying out the Alchemy Bar in April 2017 when my husband tried out his first Carnival experience, the drinks are just so fun and wonderful. From what I could tell, I received a Limoncello/ginger/berry mix of deliciousness. So good! I really should've paid attention to what was happening during its creation.
My husband's drink:
My amazing drink:
Check-in for dinner was easy, as it had been, but when we reached the stairs descending to the dining room, we were greeted with a monster line. We were very surprised as we had never seen a line that long before, but then we realized the dining room hadn't opened yet, which is why people were corralled like cattle. The doors opened at 5:32 and we were seated within a minute or two. After ordering, my husband disappeared and returned with a Cosmo cocktail that I had been eyeing the night before. Dang, what a keeper! My husband had the braised rabbit on puff pastry that he said was "a mix of lamb and tuna flavors." Umm? Who knows. I had the Greek salad and that was wonderful. We both were super lucky to have the lobster for entrees, since Chef Danny told us that we missed it while at Chef's Table and we could request it on the last night. The waiter took our room number so he could check that we did indeed attend Chef's Table the first formal night, and then placed our order. Yay! It was so good! We split a Baked Alaska for dessert, which is totally not how I remember them looking from my last Baked Alaska back in 2007 (yes, things change in 10 years, but did they have to change the Baked Alaska!?). It was still good but I was a little disappointed after telling my husband all about my first dessert many moons ago.
Cheers to a unforgettable honeymoon!
The lobster dinner we were thrilled to have:
How long has the Baked Alaska looked like this?
This is how I remember it, but even thicker and with more meringue and fruit. (photo is not mine. Credit to Oh-So Yummy's 2009 blog)
We missed the 6:30 comedian show that we planned on attending, but were able to make the 7:30 pub trivia. Yet again, no dice and no win. We listened to the Caribbean steel drum for a while and enjoyed that music over a few drinks and games. I need to reiterate- the staff in the Pub/Brewery were amazing the entire week and we had so much fun with them! We headed to the Limelight Lounge for comedy at 9:10 to ensure seats for the 9:30 performance, and had many great laughs to end the evening. We returned to the room to finish packing, signaling the end of a wonderful, memorable, relaxing, and romantic honeymoon.
The last drink (Mango Magic) of the trip:
UP NEXT: Sunday, Debarkation and Wrap-Up
LINK: Sunday, Debarkation
A tropical start to the day:
Who wants to write about their last day on their favorite vacation ever? I sure don't, which is part of the reason I've procrastinated. The other reason is that I was able to crank our a lot of writing over the holidays and winter break since I work in education, but now it's back to real life and I'm having a hard time catching up. Thank goodness for notes on my phone in this awesome app. I'll give it a quick plug solely because I think it's really cool. It's called "TripRider" and it organizes basically everything you can think of for travelling! You can enter info about each traveller, have note sheets, maps, and a packing list. The trip plan is the best, where you can include how many days you're going, what you're doing each day, enter hotel and airfare info, upload PDF attachments of tickets and reservations, and estimate how much money you need for each day. It doesn't need wifi so you can access TripRider in the middle of the ocean too. There's a "lite" version to test it out, and a pretty cheap paid version to get full access to all of the tools. I'm a big fan.
Since we were up very late/early into the morning dancing and eating buffet food, we slept in but only until 9 or 9:15, so not too crazy. Of course we went to Blue Iguana for breakfast, where I decided to get the huevos rancheros (big surprise) but then loaded it up at the salsa bar with extra goodness, such as cilantro, salsa, and limes. Wow, I'm kicking myself for not doing that on any of the other six days I ate there! Definitely know for next time though.
We then headed to the water park where my husband attached our action camera to a head mount or chest mount so he could go down the Kaleid-o-slide. He went twice, and said it was a blast and he wished we spent more time in the water park area. I really thought this would be the cruise that I would try out the water park, since the Vista's slides look awesome, but I'm not into swimming all that much and wasn't up for the adventure of the slides. It'll happen next time, promise. While I was taking pictures and enjoying the sun, I had a chance to look around and see that not all of the beach chairs on the lido deck were taken by 10am. I was genuinely surprised seeing as it was the last sea day and final chance to grab the rays.
He lost his raft!
Water Works area:
Riding the Kaleid-O-Slide! (Lower right button to watch full screen!)
We headed up to the Serenity and were surprised to find a two person lounging bed that was empty! We quickly walked over and...oh...it's not empty, it has towels and books on it. But look! What do I spot? A Carnival sticker on their towels that notes that a deck staff visited the lounger at 9:40, and that if the owners didn't return within 40 minutes, their stuff would be moved to the Serenity bar. We showed up at 10:33 (53 minutes after the note was written) but of course I was still hesitant to move the items. My husband is a lot more bold than I am so he had no problem scooping up the belongings and bringing it to the bar. I felt badly, but I suppose rules are rules and there was a clear limit set that they exceeded. I plopped our stuff down and started enjoying what I could of the sun, which was now being pushed out quickly by ever-darkening clouds. When my husband returned, he said that there were about 6 other sets of towels at the bar that had also been moved. I guess that people really do think their stuff is safe for a very extended period of time and that it's no big deal.
We hung out in the lounger for 30+ minutes until the sky turned very dark and it got blustery. I'm talking chair pads getting blown up (especially if they weren't tied down all the way) and empty glasses knocking over and hats blowing off peoples' heads. Then it started to rain pretty heavily and my husband stood up to pack up our things, when our own mattress lifted up in the wind and partially flopped on top of me. Guess ours wasn't tied down correctly either.
The most unfortunate part of this story is that I had ordered a drink right before the wind picked up and the rain came. So when the rain did start falling, I didn't want to abandon the waiter that would (hopefully) be returning, but I also didn't want to get drenched. My husband was such a sweetheart and said that since he was still slightly wet from the water slides, he would stay in the rain for the drink and I could stand inside. Thankfully he wasn't out there for more than 45 seconds but it was such a kind gesture! We were still ready to relax, so we walked up to the spa and got in our final push of the thermal suites. We beat the rush and were able to get loungers and get seats in the different rooms. The rain only lasted about an hour, so we headed out to the sports deck and played a round of mini golf. We tied, which is such a rarity because my husband golfed in high school and still goes a handful of times per year with friends and colleagues. Just as an FYI, the last three holes of the mini golf course are up a set of stairs near the SkyRide, but we didn't feel like that was clearly labeled. Hopefully you can find it with little trouble now!
Clearly the rain went away and made it so sunny my eyes couldn't open!
Sports Square:
Thankfully it seemed like the rain was really gone, so we walked to the back of the ship and saw the Tides pool, which we never actually spent time at. That was pretty unfortunate since it looked like a nice space! We got in line for the BBQ, and were (somehow) surprised that the line was longer than we expected, but it did move fairly quickly. We had our food within 10ish minutes and ate outside on the Lanai. We thought the food was pretty good, but almost preferred the BBQ we had on the Liberty in April 2017 before that started getting branded by Guys label (and potentially changing recipes?).
We made our way to the Pub for card games and a drink, before heading to Pixels Gallery to ask about photo packages. I know that Carnival is out to make money but COME ON. We were told that for $200, we could get 10 pictures on our phone, those same 10 on a USB stick, 2 large printouts, and a canvas photo. That's outrageously priced. We were also told that we could buy a digital photo on our phone for $15, and printouts started at $20. We were hoping for a much better package than that, but decided that we would find a few photos in our large gallery that we really liked and buy 3 of them. Would I normally pay $45 for 3 digital downloads? Absolutely not. But it was our honeymoon and we wanted nice photos of us.
Veteran's Day event:
I hate packing up!
After (sadly) packing our items and watching some football in our room, we got dressed for our last MDR experience and went to the Alchemy Bar for more custom martinis. My husband's had pineapple and lime as the base ingredients, and mine was something with Limoncello, and I was greeted with an incredible concoction. I really am kicking myself for not trying out the Alchemy Bar in April 2017 when my husband tried out his first Carnival experience, the drinks are just so fun and wonderful. From what I could tell, I received a Limoncello/ginger/berry mix of deliciousness. So good! I really should've paid attention to what was happening during its creation.
My husband's drink:
My amazing drink:
Check-in for dinner was easy, as it had been, but when we reached the stairs descending to the dining room, we were greeted with a monster line. We were very surprised as we had never seen a line that long before, but then we realized the dining room hadn't opened yet, which is why people were corralled like cattle. The doors opened at 5:32 and we were seated within a minute or two. After ordering, my husband disappeared and returned with a Cosmo cocktail that I had been eyeing the night before. Dang, what a keeper! My husband had the braised rabbit on puff pastry that he said was "a mix of lamb and tuna flavors." Umm? Who knows. I had the Greek salad and that was wonderful. We both were super lucky to have the lobster for entrees, since Chef Danny told us that we missed it while at Chef's Table and we could request it on the last night. The waiter took our room number so he could check that we did indeed attend Chef's Table the first formal night, and then placed our order. Yay! It was so good! We split a Baked Alaska for dessert, which is totally not how I remember them looking from my last Baked Alaska back in 2007 (yes, things change in 10 years, but did they have to change the Baked Alaska!?). It was still good but I was a little disappointed after telling my husband all about my first dessert many moons ago.
Cheers to a unforgettable honeymoon!
The lobster dinner we were thrilled to have:
How long has the Baked Alaska looked like this?
This is how I remember it, but even thicker and with more meringue and fruit. (photo is not mine. Credit to Oh-So Yummy's 2009 blog)
We missed the 6:30 comedian show that we planned on attending, but were able to make the 7:30 pub trivia. Yet again, no dice and no win. We listened to the Caribbean steel drum for a while and enjoyed that music over a few drinks and games. I need to reiterate- the staff in the Pub/Brewery were amazing the entire week and we had so much fun with them! We headed to the Limelight Lounge for comedy at 9:10 to ensure seats for the 9:30 performance, and had many great laughs to end the evening. We returned to the room to finish packing, signaling the end of a wonderful, memorable, relaxing, and romantic honeymoon.
The last drink (Mango Magic) of the trip:
UP NEXT: Sunday, Debarkation and Wrap-Up
LINK: Sunday, Debarkation
Comments
Post a Comment