Honolulu Blue

That's all that was available, even at Guest Services.

Reporting on the past few hours... I had another Guy's burger fir lunch. Is this #3 or #4 for the trip? I can't remember and I'm too lazy to look it up. Sorry. Surprisingly, it wasn't too crowded. Less surprising that the burger and its accouterments remained solid. It's managing to keep me from being too hungry so far. After lunch I found the room was ready. After a power nap, I started streaming the Texans-Ravens football game. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I was able to do so on my tablet and phone (not at the same time) with only a few hiccups. Alas, the Ravens smothered the Texans, which will disappoint the other half of the passengers who were rooting for them and not the Cowboys. ☹️ While the game was going on, Hery delivered my newsletter, which is back to normal: I don't have much planned for the day in Cartagena, and the newsletter didn't give me any new ideas. Oh well, I'll figure out something. It's still forecast to be hot and humid there. 🥵 After, I turned off the game, I figured out a solution to the FB thing. @sid_9169, if you're still here, it might be worth taking notes. First, I found, downloaded, and installed the app from the Play shop. I didn't have any issues with any of this. I logged in and found that FB worked perfectly fine for me. I didn't have the app loaded because it's a battery and resource hog that I rarely used on land when I had it. But it's handy here and now. The Packers-49ers game is on soon, and I don't think I'll be able to stream it. Thus ends the interesting portion of the evening, I think. Have a good evening one and all!

Thanks for the confirmation. I think it's likely that the house edge is lower on this version of BJ than for any of their other slots or VP. That's why I wanted to note it.

According to Jazz Cruises, the McDonald LaBelle Cruise is over 90% reserved. Only a few balconies remain. Most of the other remaining cabins are balconies.

Good morning! The front half of the day is done for me. I'm just off the atrium. Today is the day for Thriller dance lessons. I'm a hopeless dancer, ☹️ so I'll just enjoy the music. Breakfast was similar to past days - potatoes, scrambled eggs, ham, raspberry pastry, chocolate muffin, apple and passion fruit juices. Still good. No problem finding a seat this time around. I think the passengers are learning how to sleep in. Alas, I found trouble finding places to hang out after breakfast. I guess it's a hazard of having such a full ship. Guest Services had the same custom newsletter that was handed out to us passengers, so there was no need fir me to grab another. I then went to the Wake Morning Show. Attendance was down a bit to around 20 people. Fun Ship crew member Nikki was Tyler's guest this time around. They both did the random jelly bean thing and both pulled bad ones. 🤮 They also covered the events that were happening on this throwback day. This show was a little shorter than normal at around 20 minutes. Good enough fir me to talk to Tyler briefly to remind him about my medallion. He swemed glad to meet me and was surprised that I hadn't received it yet. He left the theater and came back to give it to me. He shook my hand twice and I thanked him. I wore it proudly throughout the next event in the theater... ...the horse racing. This was a high point of my previous Journeys cruises, and it remained so on this one. Here's how it worked... Tyler picked out names for the 6 horses. Tickets were sold for $2 each. It was standard pari mutuel betting, but the payouts were not given before the races, only after. Tyler did the dice thing and general announcing. Other Fun Crew collected the bets and did other administrative duties. One of them was also disguised as horse #6. There were two races. In the second race, jockeys were recruited from the audience. The winner was given a ship on a stick, and the others were given medallions. The same horse, #3 won both races. A good time was had by all, including yours truly. I look forward to the rest of the day.

This sounds like St. Kitts. You should probably clarify this, since the OP is talking about two different islands.

This is a fairly simple question that was inspired by another post elsewhere - do you prefer weekend days or weekdays when embarking on your cruises? Thank you for your input.

One thing about both islands is that they have casinos within a few hundred feet of the ship.

Dinner and a show on the Dream, day 7. Dinner was a relatively simple one at the trough - a little flat iron steak, a small piece of chicken, lemonade, and water. I thought it was all good. No issues with seating this time. The buffet has been a pleasant surprise with the quality of its food. But then again, I'm not a foodie. Tonight's show was 80s Pop to the Max. I've enjoyed the Playlist shows I've seen on other Carnival ships. I admit I've only seen about a quarter if them. My general thoughts on them are if you enjoy the theme, you'll enjoy the songs, and you'll enjoy the show. And so it was with this one. The theme, of course, was 80s pop songs. And there were a lot of them. I recognized them all, though sometimes it took a minute because they weren't the original backing tracks. I didn't see a band either, just the performers singing and dancing. This was the shortest Playlist show I've seen, clocking at only 35 minutes. It was also a bit loud, because I had the bad fortune to sit right under a speaker. TL,DR: 80s Pop to the Max is great for fans of the era, perhaps not so much people who aren't. Thank you, and good night.

My afternoon and early evening in Curacao and beyond: Inspired by my new best friend, I went to BlueIguana for lunch. It wasn't too busy on Lido since I suspect most of my fellow passengers were still in port. I had two chicken tacos and added some lettuce. I thought they were quite good. I didn't have any on the Magic, so this was another nice reintroduction to a Carnival staple. I went back to the cabin. It wasn't ready for me. I needed to clean my glasses badly The spray that I had caught from being outside had seriously affected my vision. I hung out on 3, near Guest Services, until the cabin was finally ready. The good news is my laundry was also ready and bagged. It looked and smelled good. Slightly over 24 hours for free cleaning- I'm not going to complain about that. I took a power nap, then heard some things. First, someone was looking for one guest. I hope they found them, because a few minutes later, the thrusters fired up and we took off. And a bit after that, Tyler made his announcement of what's going to happen the rest of the evening. BTW, we're doing 18 knots now and it's MUCH smoother going than it has been at any other time in this journey so far. I just checked in my box and what did I see? The retro Capers! This is my favorite day on any Journeys cruise because of the emphasis on the 80s and how cruising used to be. 🥰 I didn't get a regular newsletter for tomorrow, which I had on prior Journeys cruises. I'm not sure if I'll bother picking one up at Guest Services tomorrow. There are several events tomorrow that caught my eye, and I'll tell you about them then. Until then, there's the evening show and perhaps some dinner. I hope everyone is having fun out there. 🥳

We'll be in Cartagena the day after tomorrow. It's forecast to be similarly toasty. 😲

Hello! Thanks for stopping by. I'm surprised I haven't seen any more of the Rhapsody. We've certainly had a lot of ships around us on this cruise so far. Is there anything on the Dream you'd like to know about? I'm here all week, and next week too! 🤣🤣🤣

I'm back from my walk into town. Good stuff. I was blown away... almost, by the gusts near the ships (Oceania's Sirena is also here). It was in the low 80s and sunny when I went out, so the breeze wasn't totally a bad thing. I found some free Internet access by the docks that wasn't provided by Carnival, and wouldn't you know it - FB worked again. I did a little surfing on that site and its associated pages, then I moved on. I found it hard to tell who were Oceania passengers. I assume they're upscale and very seasoned. But we outnumber them about 5 to 1. There's a lot of shopping in Curacao by the docks, some of it built around an old fort. After some morebwalking and picture taking, I crossed the famous Queen Emma Bridge. It's a pedestrian bridge that's designed to be swung out quickly to make way for other boats. On the other side, what did I find but more shopping? No, I didn't go there. I didn't eben see it. I wasn't hungry or curious enough. I spent some time on this side exploring, then I went back. Sadly, the Willemstad Chamber of Commerce will consider my trip a bust since I didn't spend anything on this trip. But I might have made a new friend. Try to understand that Hudson wanted no part of him (or her). And with that, I finally made it back onboard. Thank you for reading and following along.

Well, that didn't age well. 💀 As mentioned elsewhere, Princess will soon be adjusting their WiFi prices to be closer to the competition.

It is, but what can we do about it? Sue?? Where is Celebrity headquartered? I don't think it's the U.S. I don't think Jim Walker or even Perry Mason would want any part of a suit like this.

Good morning! We've docked in Curacao for the day and Tyler gave us the clearance to get off whenever we're ready. I'm not ready yet, so I spent the time getting ready for the day to come, eating breakfast, and getting ready for the day to come. Speaking of breakfast, it was bacon day at the trough. Because of that and our arrival time. I knew it would be rough finding seating. And it was. I had to go upstairs again, whereupon I was busted by a lady asking me about my friend. I told her he's no friend, that's just Hudson. I had the bacon, ham, scrambled eggs, lemon danish, OJ, and water. It was all up to the usual standards - which is to say it was pretty good. Hudson proved to be popular as I was confronted by others elsewhere about him. Eventually I'll go out into town. Until then, I wish you all a great day. 😃

I'm not surprised they're doing this. The rate they charged for Internet access has always been well behind their peer group. Now, for those without status, it's closer to what the competition charges. Like others, I see this as a selling tool for the packages, and later on, for justification for the increase in price of those packages.

Here's today's towel animal from Hery and his team: I had a modest late lunch at the trough featuring turkey meatballs. They were better than they sounded. 👍 Actually they were quite good. I didn't want Guy's again so soon, and the MDR options didn't appeal to me either. My belly is still full, so I must have been happy with it. The Internet speed has been up and down all day, depending on where I am, time of day, and what device I'm using. This one is my most recent test done an hour ago on my phone. We're still docked in Aruba. Bad news and good news. The bad news is that my clothes have not yet been returned to me. It's all right; I have enough to last another day without them. The good news is that I dud receive tomorrow's newsletter in my box. Curacao tomorrow. Woo hoo! That looks like the end to tonight's scheduled activities. So good night everyone, and I'll see you tomorrow. 🥱

I don't think Carnival offers 3:2 blackjack at any tables (electronic or live). for less than a $10 minimum anymore. More frequently it's played for $25 and up.

Thanks for your story, experience, and comments. The machine I was on had a $3 minimum for blackjack. It's interesting that the minimum is lower on the Panorama.

I don't have any Princess specific answers for you, and I also look forward to the ones you get. However, I have been on and researched numerous ship excursions on several cruise lines - including Princess. My experience is that when they say "sold out", they really are sold out. Sometimes they open up spaces during the cruise or occasionally before on a different excursion, but I wouldn't count on it. As for afternoon tours, it really depends on when you're coming into port, where you're going and how long you're staying. If you're leaving at 4, any afternoon tour is going to have to be very short - probably under 3 hours. I've seen some tours with staggered starting times - for example 9, 10, and 11. That might be an option.

Hi everyone. Before I get into my day in Aruba, I would like to announce that I made a couple of posts in the sub forum of CC describing in more detail the mechanics of the sports betting kiosk and the video blackjack machine I had that run on. Oh, and more pretty pictures. You're welcome to look if the subject interests you, or you really want to read more of my rambles. 🤠 Back to the subject at hand. I went into Aruba, went to the Renaissance Mall area about a mile from the terminal, then turned back. It was a good time. It wasn't too warm or too windy or too crowded. We did have another ship with us in port - Rhapsody of the Seas. I successfully logged into FB and checked on some of my favorite pages while out on the town. It continues to not work onboard. Following are some random photos. I wasn't the only one to appreciate the fresh air. I may or may not have something to report later on today. I don't have any special plans. Have a good day everyone! I'm sure you'll be cruising sometime soon and have stories of your own to share.

I played this on the Carnival Magic on November and won a few bucks on it. I saw more of these on the Carnival Dream, which I'm on RIGHT NOW, and settled in for a more extended stay. First, here are some of the rules from the help screens: Anyway, I put my $100 in and started firing up $5 bets (single hand, can play up to three hands at a time). I stayed even for a bit, then I got hot. I continued to win and I kept raising my bets. I ended up with $25 bets and a $190 gain. Sweet. 🤑 I hadn't had a run like that for many years. And I even gained points for this - 64 of them. There could be an opportunity here, if I valued cruises from Carnival highly. Sadly, I don't these days. Carnival does a lot of things well, but they don't have the cruises I want these days - even for free. The good news is that this machine also has craps, baccarat, and roulette. The bad news is that the even money bets at B and C pay around 90 cents on the dollar. And IIRC, roulette features a 000 virtual wheel. And all games have their side bets, which I didn't try to evaluate and paid little attention to. Thank you for reading. You might see this game, or something like it, on a casino near you sometime. Be sure to read the rules for your local machine, because the devil is in thise details. 👹

On the Carnival Magic, which I was on in November, I noticed some kiosks where sports bets could be placed. I didn't make any bets on it at the time. On the Carnival Dream, which I am on RIGHT NOW, there are two more sports betting kiosks. This time I pulled the trigger and made a couple of bets. First of all, a few gotchas. You need to insert money or winning tickets in order to bet on the kiosk. You can't use your casino balance or a room charge to bet here. Once I put my cash in, betting was simple - just select the bet you want and the amount, confirm it, then print. I made two bets at this kiosk. First was an alternate bet for $20 on the Bucs +7 at -125 on their upcoming playoff game. That will turn into $36 if it wins The regular line was -6.5, -110 at the time, but I thought having the extra half point was wise. We'll see. The other bet was $22 at -110 over 49 points on the Bucs-Lions game. That one will win $42 if things go my way. Those were the two bets I found of most interest. I might make others in the next few days. It's a relatively long cruise.

Good morning! We're approaching Aruba. We should be docked and ready to head off in the next hour or two. Once again, I didn't do anything special last night. I let the Lido deck rock and Glow without me. I'm sure I wasn't missed. Last night's ride was... punishing. It was rocky and I was pitched every which way. I figured out the worst of it was when we would go fast, then slow down, then speed up again. That wasn't much fun. 😬 But I survived with my stomach intact. I suppose it's part of the price I pay for rooming in steerage and far forward. We changed our clocks a few days back. But Aruba will still be an hour ahead of us. This is a compromise Captain Francesco and Carnival have made for us. I'm sure I'll have more time say later today. Bye for now.