mitsugirly

Back to the room and we decided to challenge each other to some Uno. I won, I won, and won again. We probably played 20 rounds and poor Karl did not win one time. Of course he said "Well I'll challenge you to another game of chess then!" LOL The kids decided to nap and we watched some tv for awhile and it was time to head to the comedy show. Tonight we would be seeing Comedian Spencer. He was funny and we enjoyed the show. Then it was back to the room to dress up and head to dinner. We had decided on the MDR tonight. We have learned to check in early so that we have time to get ready. Tonight they seated us in the back of the dining room and the service was EXCELLENT!! They were fast and attentive. We spoke to Carlos, which was the lead server. He told us about his job and how much he loved it. He said it usually takes around 18 months of being a server before you become a lead like him. He said a lot of people refuse the position but he absolutely loved it. We told him what a good job him and his team were doing tonight. After dinner, we were off to see a show: Celestial Strings. Man those people could play! I thought the show was good. However, there were a lot of people leaving during the show in our area. 🤷‍♀️ After that, I'm looking at my Carnival app and GUESS WHAT!!! TONIGHT WAS THE WHITE HOT PARTY!! We didn't miss it after all. Woo Hoo! We were so excited. They were having it in the atrium and off we went. Dion was doing his thing and dancing on the bar below...as always, getting carried away. He really can sing good though. He gets the crowd going. However, he does the same routine at every show...he'll be singing and the music stops and he keeps going and it escalates and then he stops like "oh, sorry about that I got carried away" while looking at the DJ. Same thing every time. While it's funny and entertaining at first, after awhile, it kinda got old (at least IMO). He really got the crowd going and this lady was really into the song and he noticed. He definitely has a lot of energy! Crowd participation at its finest...on all levels. We had such a good time. The party went on until 11:30pm and then back to the room and off to bed we went...me, hoping for no pillows to the face tonight.

APRIL 5: Friday and a Sea Day Ahh, those dreaded sea days of trying to entertain ourselves. I "slept in" until 7am and the family was getting up about the same time. I scoured the room in search for a guilty party. I'm glaring at Karl. I'm glaring at Sakari. They look at each other and finally I get a "What?!?" My reply was "Who did it?" They both looked confused. I explained to them I got a pillow in the face last night. They both started laughing. Oh....was it a mutual decision? Was I snoring? Why did I get a pillow thrown at me? Karl said that it's "usually him" because Sakari would drop her pillow off the bed while sleeping. I guess it was my lucky night. We all laughed and I told her "I'm keeping one eye open tonight and watching you young lady". We headed off to breakfast for some yummy omelets. We went out and sat in the sun for awhile because unlike yesterdays 86° weather, we were heading back to California and it was already getting colder again. The kids decided they wanted to go do some shopping and off they went. I guess the stores weren't open yet so they text me saying they were heading to the library to play some games. I told the hubby, let's go to the casino, only put $20 in 1 machine, your choice, and play it until we win more or ....don't. I walked away with an extra $35 the hubby walked away broke. Although my winnings offset his loss, we had some fun and was only down $5 for the day. We decided to go find the kids and there they were in the library playing chess. Oh the concentration going on! The shops were now open and we all decided to have a look around. I was in hope that I would find a ship ornament and the lady that said they didn't have them was wrong. Well, she wasn't. Still no ornaments. 😞 The kids said they were going to go walk around and the hubby and I decided we would walk floor by floor and take pictures of the ship for this review. Then we would meet back up at the room. So this is where things got interesting...and expensive. When we met back up at the room, Karl says "I owe you some money". Wait, what happened? He proceeded to tell me that they went to the arcade and he was playing the claw game and trying to win an ipad out of it. He kept having to swipe his card....63 times!!! He didn't know that it charged you each time. "So I guess I owe you $63 now" Wait, did you at least win anything? "Nope! But I was so close". I watched a show on this once and these machines are rigged. Even if you are spot on, if it's not due to win it will make it off. Lesson learned newbie...nothing is free. He also said he had bought a Carnival sweatshirt. He said he paid for it using his bank card. Wait what? How does this work? No way. I've never been on a ship that you can use your bank or credit card. It always goes on your Carnival account. But, he showed me his receipt with his bank card on it and I checked our account and he was right. When did they start doing this??? Our room steward came in to clean so we needed to go find something to do. It's been many years ago but we used to take Sakari to the Dr Suess Storytime and I said in a baby voice "Kari, you want to go see Dr Suess" while jumping up and down in excitement like a kid. She's such a trooper and played along...jumping up and down and saying "yes, yes, yes" and off we went. Hey, it gave us something to do right? It had been a few hours since we ate, so we headed up to the pool deck in search of lunch. We ended up stopping at the Blue Iguana and I had a bowl of goodness! There was a towel animal on the loose! It was time for fun and games on the pool deck. Would it be the Mr Hairy contest? Nope, it was water aerobics instead. They formed 2 teams of 3 people on each team. One was adults and the other was some teens. Now mind you...it's COLD outside at this point. The water is freezing but that don't stop people from sunning with their bathing suits or a few that are undoubtedly part polar bear from getting in the pool. Each team had to make up a routine and they would play music while doing it. They only had a certain amount of time to complete it and the best routine won. The adults went first. Then the kids went...and absolutely blew them away with the things they decided to do. I'm pretty sure it was obvious to everyone who was the clear winner. BUT...the staff decided to give them another chance. At this point they are all out of the water, wrapped in multiple towels and shivering. Yep, they were going to have to do it again. This time they told them to do a new routine and the kids went first. While the kids tried to come up with something new (and did) when it was time for the adults, their routine was new BUT only new to them because they were doing some of the things the kids had made up. LOL This time they took off their life jackets (which was required on the first round) and they topped off their routine with....

Thank you. YES, buttered grilled cheese! I'm not alone. 😄 Ahh, mystery solved. I wonder who ended up missing the top to the Ariana Grande's perfume bottle on the ship. 😄 Thank you! Yes! That's how my parents did it...in the pan to melt and then put the sandwich on it. I used to do that but at some point just switched to buttering the bread instead. I agree, it's dry without it.

I hope you are continuing to enjoy the review. More to come....tomorrow if I can. My leg is pounding and swelling from having it down so I must go put it in the ice machine. Goodnight.

I know what you mean. I used to be like that. I was only 95 pounds when I graduated high school and couldn't gain a pound to save my life. I even tried all the weight gain shakes you could buy at the health food stores and it did nothing. I didn't start putting on weight until I was 42 and pregnant with Sakari. That'll do it for sure. LOL Some day all of Karl's eating will catch up with him. But he's so darn tall that it will take a long while. His sister is tall like him too (I'm guessing maybe 6'). She towers over Sakari as well. But he is very active too. He's talking about not doing cross country or track next year so that he can get more hours at work and "take more vacations". LOL I think he's going to be addicted like us.

How close the beach is to the little Flea Market outside the port: Here's a view from the other side where the path is located: Look at this weird shaped tree...Karl was too tall for it and had to duck under. We were back into the port and we caught a ride back over to the ship. When we returned back to our room, we had another towel animal. Not only did we have a towel animal but we had this... I have no idea what it was. No idea where it came from. But it was laying on the table. It was not ours. (It looked like a fancy top to maybe someone's perfume bottle??). This was not the first or last weird thing we found in our room/bathroom during this cruise either. Very strange. Karl was hungry A-G-A-I-N and we went back upstairs to the buffet. The kids didn't feel like going to the MDR to eat. They had some shrimp tonight that was good enough for me since I wasn't really hungry. Of course I will not pass up ice cream at any given time no matter how full I am. Sakari was excited for tonight because it was the White Party and we LOVE parties. Once we got back to the room, we watched some tv and then I went out to the balcony to watch us pull out of port. When I came back in, the kids were asleep. They must really be tired. They both go to bed fairly early back home and this late night partying was wearing them out. I did wake them up briefly to ask if they wanted to go to the party or sleep. Sakari jumped up and put on her white outfit, Karl stayed asleep, the hubby had fallen asleep and truth be known I was dead tired after all that swimming and walking afterwards. I looked at Sakari and said "Do you really want to go? Everyone looks tired" She said it really didn't matter to her because she was tired too and immediately went to take her dress off and climbed back in bed. Zzzzzz

Just for reference...here's a map of where the ship docks and the route over to the building where you go in and out and do some shopping (route in red). (The map must not be updated yet because the building is not even on google earth yet). Then you can see from the building across the street and over to the shopping area (Flea Market). (Route in green) It's a very short distance and easy to find. So what do we do now??? There's still so much time left. I looked around and noticed a sign that said "beach". Hmm, let's go check that out. There was a fence up along this path with barbed wire. Hmmm, what was the need for that on a path to the beach? It went along a road and then down the side of a building. Once we made it to the beach, I found that it was called The Oro Beach. There was something on fire in the distance. I guess if you wanted a free beach day, this would be the closest to the ship. Those waves though... There were area's along the beach that had a lot of rocks. They seem to be in patches here and there. Other places were sandy though: The kids said they were thirsty and wanted to find a place to get a drink. We all headed up to a bar on the beach. We would wait and wait and wait and no one would even acknowledge us. They were busy helping everyone else that walked up. We finally gave up and walked away. We would notice as we walked away that everyone in that area had on wrist bands and probably staying at that hotel. The hubby did say he noticed everyone that got a drink didn't hand over any cash. So, maybe that's why. We decided to go ahead and head back to the ship. The path on the way back. No way to get out of this fence and cross the street unless you go all the way down to the end. Finally we seen an open area. The sun was starting to set and as much as I would have liked to get sunset pictures on the beach, I knew I didn't want to be out here after dark and walking back.

After returning to the ship, we (and by we I mean mostly Karl) was hungry of course. So we headed upstairs to see what they had to offer. Our timing was off, of course, and the buffet was closed. We just decided to get in line for the deli. I decided on a grilled cheese and a hot dog and I won't admit to having any of the fries you see in the picture...just saying. Now I have to ask you all...when you make grilled cheese, do you put butter on the outside of the bread when you cook it? I always have and that's how my parents did it. Only on the cruise ship will I experience that they do not put butter on the outside. Is it just me? We had so much time left in this port (remember we are here until 9pm) so we decided to get back off the ship and go outside the port. Sakari and Karl also wanted to do a little bit of shopping and we had noticed they had some shops set up right as you get off. We looked around but really didn't find anything we wanted so decided to go ahead and head out of the port. We hitched a ride with these two ladies in a golf cart. I don't know if they were there to transport people or what, but they said "sure we can take you". Princess had left by now and gave me the perfect opportunity to get a picture of the Panorama in port. Once out of the building there is some type of area in the middle, like a courtyard....with some very short Mexican's. There are plenty of vendors in this area. Think of every port you go to that you'll find the exact same thing in almost every shop and everyone willing to give you a deal. Now Karl has never been to a foreign country. He has never experienced anything like port shopping. HOWEVER...you would think he has done this all his life. He haggled with each and every vendor he came across. He was talking them down and down and walking away if he didn't like the price and they'd bring him back and agree to his price. This boy was on fire!! I honestly was shocked. But hey, I guess he knew what he was doing. There was only one time that both Sakari and I got onto him about his "deal". He was so excited about his mad skills for negotiating the price that it got the best of him. There was something he found that he wanted and he said "I'll give you $____ for it". They immediately said "YES!" Both Sakari and I looked at each other and held our breath. As we walked away we told him, why would you make an offer before hearing how much they wanted for it? It could have been cheaper than what you thought. He took that deal way too quickly. Karl "Oh, I was just so excited on all the deals I've been able to talk them down to that I got carried away. But I'm ok with the price I paid"...and I guess that's all that mattered.

As we continued to walk, there was an outside area I noticed the kids headed toward as I was inside taking pictures. Oh...look there, let's take a picture! The hubby says "You know it's backwards right?" "Wait, what do you mean? It's M, P" Wait...what's MP? Why is this P backwards? Who designed this? We looked inside and on the other side of this was a "love swing". I guess you pay these people to sit in their love swing and the PM is behind it. But why isn't it PV? 🤷‍♀️ Wouldn't that make more sense? Oh well. We made it out of the building and they had some people movers waiting on us to take us back to the ship. I had to have the front seat. I told them I was driving this thing. They looked scared! I bet this was the boat heading over to the Rhythms of the Night excursion. I really wanted to do this but wasn't sure if we would make it back in time. Maybe next time. I also considered going there for their day excursion because the place looks absolutely amazing and I know that Sakari would have loved to hang out there as well. Maybe next time. It sounds like there will be plenty of next times don't it?

As we got closer to port, a very large and loud helicopter was coming in and over us. It said Marina on it and parked really close to the ship (picture taken from our balcony once we returned). Once we got up to the port, we kept looking for a way in. Everywhere we turned, it was not an entrance. We came to a little area on the sidewalk and seen people going into this very small building. We got in line and it had an xray machine and they were showing them (what I thought) a ship card, which turned out to be maybe an ID? When we got up there, they said it was only for the workers. Oops. I thought it was really strange and it was even more strange that once these people showed their ID and scanned their items, they walked back out the other side and back onto the sidewalk where we continued to walk. Um, ok. By this time we had passed the ship and still no way into the port. This definitely wasn't the way we went out. They make it so difficult. I can't even imagine someone running late getting back to the ship...you would definitely be a pier runner and blasted all over the internet for sure. We continued walking...not only past our ship but past another ship (Princess) in port as well. Finally we came to an area we could go in. But, there's no instructions on where to go and we had to walk all the way down to the end of the parking lot...of course. This was the building you enter...because everyone knows you can't just walk into a port and get on the ship. You have to walk around all the shops and spend all your money before returning...or at least they hope you do. It took us 29 minutes from the time we left the dive shop until we arrived at this building. Not a bad walk at all. We stopped at the restrooms and then knew we needed something to drink after this walk. The first store we came to wanted $7.50 for 2 bottles of pop. Um, nope. I'm not that thirsty. We stopped at another store, they wanted $7.00 for 2 bottles. Hmm, I'm starting to see a pattern here. Let's keep going. They have an umbrella alley inside!!! Finally we came across a place that charge $3.00 for 2 bottles of pop and I considered that a deal. I guess the closer you get to going out of this building, the better the deals get. They are making one last pitch to get you to buy something before leaving the building. Of course Karl was hungry so him and Sakari stopped for some ice cream and a drink. They are 5 minutes away from the ship, but needed something to tie him over with because by this time he was melting away with only eating a sub less than 1 hour ago.

I almost forgot, on the way back into the marina, they fed us subs and ....peanuts. LOL Sakari said "This is the best thing I've had all week"....her number one fast food restaurant is Subway and she had really been missing it...so this would have to do for now. We returned back to the dive shop after docking and they offered to get us a taxi back if we wanted. We were really unsure what we wanted to do at this point (or what was around the area). I went in to have our dive book filled out that we keep for reference. We walked to the end of the street to look around. I told the hubby I was going to bring up Uber and see what they charged to get back to port. I found that it was only going to be $5.63 (compared to the outrageous $25 the cab charged us to get here) for a ride back to the port but for SOME REASON the hubby pointed toward the ship and said "It's right there! We should just walk". Well, alrighty then. We had plenty of time still and we might find something along the way that we wanted to see and off we went. There are sidewalks all the way back to the port, so no worries about having to walk along the road with traffic. We kept going and going. It was a little more of a walk than "it's right there" but we were ok with it. We went over a bridge and found a few iguanas. Down by the water:

I have a video from our dive that I'd like to share. You will be amazed at the amount of fish...like seriously amazed. (My pictures don't begin to show the amount of fish) I've never experienced this many fish before on a dive. At one point, the instructor took the GoPro and filmed the hubby alongside of all the fish. The instructor was so excited at the amount of fish that was seen today (watch his hand signals). He said he doesn't think he's ever seen this many there on any one dive before. It blew his mind. Make sure to have the video set to 4k for best quality. Notice what the hubby seen and filmed that I did not get a picture of? The spotted eagle ray!! I totally missed it. I think I was just so fascinated with all the various types of puffers in the area. Also, you see how green the water is when we started? That's exactly what the water looked like. Then it cleared up once we got over by the rocks. Just an all around amazing dive!!!

Well, I'm finally back. My dogs got out the other day when the hubby opened up the back gates to mow and we went on a wild chase which resulted in my twisting my leg and a loud pop in my knee with swelling. I've been laying in bed with it in my artic ice machine that I used for my foot after surgeries, plenty of Aleve, leg elevated and on crutches because I have been unable to bear weight. Yep, you guess it, it is my bad leg too. Go figure...Karl, Sakari and the hubby have waited on me hand and foot and they are the best. It's been such a rough week (not only this incident) and Sakari and Karl made me a card, bought me flowers and some sugar free Keto candy and ice cream. They are such amazing kids. See, he even signs his name Karl LOL and Sakari, well we've called her Kari since she was little off and on, so she decided to sign her name that way.

I'm glad (well not really glad of course) that we are not the only one's that have experienced this and heard that you were able to get it back. These people must deal with this all the time. Sakari actually used to watch a program that had divers in it and they were fortune hunting in the ocean, lakes and creeks for things that people have lost. It's amazing all the things they've come up with. They always say to take a picture/video of something with your name and address on it so if it's lost and someone finds it, they will see who it belongs to (and hopefully return it somehow). I know right! I'm never worried about the strap but this end piece to the pole is a different story. It always wants to unscrew itself. I have a different pole, but it doesn't extend as long as this one. I may have to switch them out eventually. I can't afford to lose this again. After that rude comment, I'm not going to entertain this conversation anymore and move on. He definitely expresses his insecurities to me and is very open about anything. We are very close. I just don't think he knew what to expect even after explaining it to him. You just don't know until you experience it. He seemed to think it was a one and done type of deal and the next time around he would "be used to it". He will know next time. I just think that we've been snorkeling for so long and seen these fish so many times that I've just come to know what they are. However, a lot of these fish were new to us and the captain of the ship gave me his "fish identifier" book to see what the names were. Those fish that I can't identify, I will look up online. I also have a fish book collection at home that tells all kinds of neat information about each fish (which is why I sometimes include this information in my reviews). I can usually tell by the shape of the fish what category they belong to (such as Angelfish, Butterfly fish, and so on) that this gives me a reference where to start. 🙂 Thank you! Yea, I've raised 2 male humans myself and know what you mean. Yes, you can do a Discover Scuba Dive (what we did) without having any experience. That is what it is. You get an abbreviated course and the basics and then they take you out to experience it. You are only allowed to go down to 40'. We are not certified (never had the urge to go get certified and we're perfectly happy at the 40' dive) and always do the Discover Scuba on each vacation. We are up to dive number 23 now doing it this way. The class can be done either in a classroom setting, out on the beach, or on the boat. We've done it all. This time it was on the boat. Then once in the water, you go down and do the skills. However, they did not have us do the skills. He did not last very long and wanted to go up. I think the instructor seen how well we dive (and how many dives we have done) that he felt comfortable not having us do the skills (which has happened to us before as well). However, we did have another guy that was new with us that had never done a dive before either, but he was doing great (although we still all should have practiced the skills as per PADI rules). I think he will do much better in warm clear water from the beach. I will definitely make sure that this will be his next experience if he is serious about trying again. Yea, that is Sakari for sure. Even at her recent birthday glow party, she invited a bunch of people at her school (even if they no longer hang out) because she didn't want anyone to feel left out. She even invited some of her old friends that had moved away from her school back in middle school. Then even at the party, she made her rounds, spending time with each one of them, she said because "I don't want anyone to feel left out". She's just so caring and thoughtful. Oh no, your first experience sounds horrible! I don't even think they are aloud to have 8 people (that are new) with only 1 instructor. I was shocked we had 5, but maybe it was because 3 of us had done it so many times they felt comfortable with it. It reminds me of one of my dives when we were in Cozumel and the instructor deflated my bcd and yanked me down...several times, when I wasn't ready. Panic sat in and it was such a horrible dive that I didn't even do the second dive with the hubby and Sakari. It's experiences like that that make you never want to do it again. Where are the places you went to in the Pacific that you were underwhelmed? (I want to make sure we don't go there...although when in the ocean, it can change daily I realize). Where is Huatulco? Yep, the Canon D10. That's what I started out with and loved it. But they kept dying all the time so I discovered my Olympus Tough camera's and never looked back (less bulky too). I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THEM! Every time they come out with a new one, I get another. LOL Sakari loves them too and took over my newest camera because it has even better settings for macro/micro. My camera that stopped working is working again. Maybe it was just the temp of the water. It will alert you to things about temperature and also depth if you get down too far. If you go beyond the boundaries, it will eventually shut off.

It was his idea to go scuba. He really wanted to try it and picked that over going to the Mariettas. He talked about it all the time prior to the cruise. He's real excited to try again. His mother told him to buy something to prevent seasickness and he declined. I even ask again when we were at the hotel in Long Beach and told him we would pick something up before the cruise if he wanted. Once again he declined. You can't force someone to take something if they don't want to...no more than we forced him to do this dive. I would hardly say he went through a lot to please my daughter. Actually, totally the opposite...she decided not to do the second dive to please him and missed out. He only did what HE wanted to do/try and said he will try it again. 😉 I just don't think it was the best circumstance for his first try (I had no idea what it was going to be like since we've never been there before).