Carnival Vista- 11/5 Sunday, Sea Day- Post One

Sunday, November 5th, Sea Day:

My husband woke up early to head to the gym at 7:45am, but he quickly returned saying that the gym was packed and no machines or benches were open. So we got ready for the day and went to Blue Iguana for breakfast. My husband discovered his love of Blue Iguana on the Liberty cruise we took in April 2017, so he was very excited to have his first of many breakfast burritos on this trip. I decided to branch out and try my first-ever huevos rancheros. Oh wow had I been missing out! As previously noted, I can’t do spicy food, but this was well-balanced and not very spicy. It was so super delicious, and you’ll start to see a pattern of our breakfast choices throughout the review. You also apparently won't see any pictures of breakfast because I was always just so hungry, heh oops.

Morning Balcony Shot: Quick note, in room 2305 there are no lifeboats above the balcony, which I planned on purpose. It really helped open up our view, even though you can see one a few rooms over.

Another morning view:

We previously had signed up for the Cruise Critic Meet & Mingle and received our “tickets” to the event in our room on embarkation day. The event was scheduled for 9am on the first sea day, which I thought was a poorly picked time, as most people are either sleeping or just getting up for breakfast. Because I had been pushing the Meet & Mingle on the Roll Call, I figured I was obligated to attend and we went to the Limelight Lounge at 8:55am. There were only two other people in the room at that time (Shoutout to Sarah and Phil!). Eventually people started coming in (15 total) and even Hugo the Entertainment Director was there. We stayed until 9:45 and actually had a very nice time meeting other people and talking about our cruising experience. Hugo gave us a few insights about the life of an Entertainment Director, and told us that he would be getting a break at the end of 2017 before heading to Europe to kick off the Horizon in April 2018. Hugo also told us that the crew really likes the IMAX because they’re on the ship for 8 months and it gives them a chance to feel like they’re back on land and doing a normal activity.

Spot the Tigerhawk  =]

Morning Views:

We made our way to slogans trivia in the ocean plaza at 10am then walked around the lanai for a bit before settling into a lounger for about 15-20 minutes. The Red Frog Pub & Brewery was our next visit, where my husband use the self-serve beer tap to pour a beer. A quick piece of advice on using this machine: once you slide your S&S card, you have 10-15 seconds to pour then it shuts off, which meant that you can only pour about half a beer at once, since it comes out super foamy and you want to wait until the foam subsides so you can pour more. I love the concept of self-serve beer, and it was fun to try it as a novel activity, but we mostly resorted to order beer from the bar for the rest of the cruise because it was less frustration and honestly more beer and less foam. We also played one of our favorite games- Pass the Pigs: Pig Party. It's based on the classic game, but includes 4 sets of pigs and cards with pictures of poses the player needs to match to earn points (there are a lot of P's in these sentences; I blame the beer, hehe!). It's a very "Iowan" game, which is just comical to us.

PYOB Station:

Full Screen the video to see Pig Party and the PYOB station in action:

After finishing our beers, we went to the Serenity where I was super disappointed by the amount of chair hogs. I have never encountered chair-hogging to the intensity that I did on the Vista, which was an unfortunate amount. We did find two chairs, although they were those little yellow cabana chairs instead of a full lounger, so my tanning session wasn’t off to a strong start. We stayed for about an hour before making our way back to the Red Frog Pub & Brewery for the 2:30 pm Brewery Tour!

We were SO excited about the brewery onboard and couldn’t pass up a chance to see the inner-workings of the place. The brewmaster, Colin, is awesome and we were very delighted to meet him since he was the one that started up the brewery when the Vista first sailed in May 2016 and we’ve seen different videos interviewing him and highlighting the brewery. He gave us a lot of info about the brewery and the challenges of brewing onboard a ship.

Colin and my husband:

Setup:

The setup of the tour was about 10 people sitting between two tables, and each table had pitchers of beer on them. We also had an empty flight of glasses in front of us. As Colin explained that specific beer, we would pour some into our little glass and taste it. We tasted their four core beers and two specialties, and had plenty of samples at that. Along with my husband and myself, there were three other men at our table, and we had lots of fun throughout the tour. Lucky for me, the Java Stout wasn't a favorite at my table, so I got several extra pours of that and let the guys have my IPA servings. We saw the different tanks Colin uses during the brewing process and got a full tour of the two areas that beer visits before being tapped.

Glass Brewhouse:

Holding Tanks:

We also got a pint glass that’s exclusive to the tour, and a certificate of completion as well as a free pint of beer during the cruise. The total cost per person was $25 and we definitely thought we got a great value with everything that was included. I’ll reiterate that we got plenty of beer and left feeling pretty good after the 1.5 hour tour/tasting. Colin said he’ll be moving to the Carnival Horizon, travelling over to Europe in February 2018 and having things ready to go for the first cruise. We have our fingers crossed that we’ll be able to see him again on the Horizon when we make it on in the not-too-distant future!

Upon returning to our room to get dressed for our next adventure, we found a $50 spa gift card from our room steward congratulating us on the wedding. I know that most anything in the spa costs more that $50, so they’re still making money off of people who might not have spent money there in the first place, but I do still think it’s a nice gesture. We changed into classy attire and headed down to the atrium for an experience that I was so thrilled to gift to my husband: the Chef’s Table!

UP NEXT: Sunday continued
LINK: Sunday Sea Day Continued