The Lovely Voyage

Saturday, April 22, Day at Sea: [Archived from April 2017] We were up by 8am and headed to the Blue Iguana Cantina for breakfast burritos. They were really good and I’d definitely recommend them. On my Vista trip this fall, we’re looking forward to more Cantina meals, including arepas and huevos rancheros. Can’t wait! After breakfast, we grabbed a drink and headed up to the Serenity for a while to enjoy the weather and ocean. I also noticed that the internet worked really well early in the morning, but as the day progressed it became harder to use (presumably because more people were using it as they woke up). We purchased the $5 Social Package for the day to make sure we were checked in for our flights, check in with our families, etc.   On our way to breakfast, I saw these friends hanging out by the pool! We made a stop in the Lobby Bar for a drink and perused the Pixels gallery, which still prints out all of the photos they take, which is truly a waste of money and paper...

Friday, Nassau, continued: [Archived from April 2017] After a few hours and multiple drinks, we walked back to the ship in a slightly altered state and did some shopping for our friends- luckily we didn’t spend too much money and nothing was regrettable. We headed back to the room to put our stuff down and to get ready for Sports Trivia and dinner. To our delight, the bathroom sink was fixed while we were at the beach, hooray! It took 24+ hours, 4 direct contacts with guest services, and our room steward had seen it once. Honestly I was slightly annoyed that it took that long to get fixed and at a point where it could be used to brush teeth, wash hands, etc., but I was mostly relieved that it finally was repaired. I didn’t expect a gift or an apology of any kind, I just wanted a working sink. We headed to the Flowers Lobby Bar on deck 3, where a kids game competition was taking place. We sat and enjoyed the scenery and a drink before making our way up two flights to the Skybox Sports...

FRIDAY, April 21st- Nassau, Bahamas: [Archived from April 2017] We woke up by 8am, and my fiancé headed to guest services to let them know about the clogged sink (going on hour 19 at this point) while I got ready for the day. When he got back, we headed to the Main Dining Room (MDR) for the breakfast. I’ve always wanted to eat in a fancier location than the lido deck, so I was excited to finally have time to try it out. It was fine, just like dinner last night, there’s food to eat and a good number of options, but I feel like I might have worked up the idea of MDR breakfast so I didn’t find it as fantastic as I expected it to be. By 9:30am we were on the Serenity deck watching the Liberty head into the Nassau port. Our arrival time was slated for 10am, and once everything was said and done and we received the message that it was okay to debark, it was probably closer to 10:10, but no big deal! We were doing our own thing in Nassau and didn’t plan to be the first ones off or have ...

[Archived from April 2017] Thursday, Embarkation Day, Continued:   We headed to the Blue Iguana Cantina for my fiance to get a burrito (even though we had BBQ no more than 2 hours prior, he was really excited to try the food). He said it was delicious even though the jalapeno tortilla wasn’t that spicy and is now hooked on their burritos. We headed to the Versailles bar and got a round of drinks, which took about 5 minutes to get served, but it wasn’t a big deal.  A comment about the drinks: this was our first of four cruises together that we didn’t buy or receive the unlimited drink package. I was pretty nervous about not having it, since I really enjoy saving money and didn’t want to drink more paying per drink than we would’ve using the drink package. We love the drink packages but are learning that there is an internal pressure to drink and get our money’s worth, even if we don’t really feel like having a drink at the time. Luckily, we made the smart choice to pay per d...

[Archived from April 2017] THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 2017- EMBARKATION: Thursday morning we woke up ready for our true cruise adventure! We packed up all of our stuff and headed down to breakfast at the hotel. We were told to bring our breakfast tickets because someone would be checking at the door- they weren’t. Which didn’t bother us at all but if they advertise to have a process to keep breakfast for patrons only, they clearly weren’t enforcing it that day. Breakfast was typical waffles, yogurts, cereal, fruit, bacon, sausage, eggs, etc. Nothing fancy but it was good and it was included in the price, so I was happy. We checked out of the hotel and waited in the lobby for the shuttle to pick us up. We had a scheduled check-in time at the port for 11am, so when we were told the shuttle would pick us up at 9:45, I was a little concerned we would get turned away at the port. So the shuttle comes and loads 20+ people and their luggage on, and off we go. The first corner the shuttle turned,...