mamiamjo

Beautiful picture 😎

Exactly! 😉 But to be honest yours looked pretty good too👍I’m going to save those photos to compare ours too when we sail next week 😎

Don't take this the wrong way, but you should've had Patti order you the Chocolate Mocha Getaways (just sayin') 😆

Personally I love sea days. Unless there’s a cruise stopping in certain port that I really want to visit, I’d prefer more sea days, plus more cruise days in general. From what you described you have the same number of port days on either cruise, so I’d take the 5 day . 😎

Port Activities: I really struggled with trying to figure out what to do in port for this cruise. Our ports are Bonaire, Aruba & Curacao, in that order (so I guess this is really a BAC cruise 😉). We considered renting a golf cart in Bonaire, but by the time we decided that that’s what we wanted to do, they were all booked. I really wanted to go to Eagle Beach or Palm Beach on Aruba but weren’t sure if we’d be able to get chairs and a palapa, what kind of services there’d be etc. and in Curacao, we had no idea at all 😞 After reading the Ports of Call section on CC, checking out several different travel and excursion websites, we ended up going with a beach club theme... Bonaire- We plan to visit the Chogogo Dive & Beach Resort and get a day pass there. Afterwards we plan to check out the port area on the way back to the ship. Aruba- we made reservations for a day pass at Reflexions Beach Bar. After that we plan to check out either Eagle or Palm Beach. Curacao- We made a reservation for a day pass at the Avila Beach Hotel. Since we'll be the only ship in port on all three days, we're hoping nothing will be too crowded. 😎

For work, our son is serving in the Navy. He was stationed in Kings Bay Ga previously, but when re-upped he was reassigned there. It's a bit secluded for his taste, but they're still getting used to it. There are some benefits though, take a look at the view from McDonald’s Drive Thru 😎

Pre-Cruise, we will be flying to FLL the day before on Friday morning, not necessarily because we’re worried about missing the ship but to take advantage of the opportunity to spend the day visiting with our son, daughter in-law and granddaughter who will be driving up from Key West to see us. We’re excited to get the chance to see them again so soon after we helped them relocate to Key West at start of the year.

A little bit more about our cruise: We will be sailing the Celebration in a Spa Balcony on deck 17 (more about that later). When we originally booked this cruise in Feb 2023, we booked an ocean suite, cabin #9284 with a casino offer that came with DOUE, $1,000 Fun Play and a $200 OBC. However, about a year later, we received an even better offer that provided even more Fun Play and a higher OBC, so we considered changing to go with the better offer. We looked but unfortunately there weren’t any ocean suites still available with the new offer, so we ended up “settling” for the Spa Balcony on 17. We have sailed in a Spa Balcony before, but not on a ship that had the Thermal Suite, so we’re excited to be able to check that out on this cruise (another first for us). 😊

Happy 10 Years Anniversary, and many more! 🙂Nice pics BTW

Thanks ninjacat123! I just wanted to let you know that I've enjoyed reading your reviews as well 🙂

We cruised over the 4th in 2017. No fireworks but they did have some holiday decorations, themed activities and a holiday deck party.

Haven't been on Disney since 2012 but at the time at least they did fireworks at sea for their cruises even when it wasn't the 4th of July (I'm not sure if they still do them or not though).

Thanks, 😁

Awesome, I’ll try to leave the ship in good shape for you 😎

Thanks Jamman. Let me ask a newbie question, what font size do you use on your reviews? I was trying 18 but it looks a little small. This one is Arial Font Size 20. I'm going to try this but may experiment with others along the way.

Hello Cruise Critic Family. I’ve recently been spending a lot of time on CC as I’ve been preparing for our upcoming cruise on the Celebration and I’ve been inspired by reading a lot of the great reviews posted by the likes of Saint Greg, Jamman54, MeganGC1983, Sid_9169, TxTeach79, just to name a few (and others). Thank You all so much for taking the time to share your own adventures with me and everyone on CC, I find it very helpful and enjoyable to read about all your exploits. Well, I’m not sure how this will go as I haven’t done it before and I’m not real big on taking notes and remembering all the little details while on vacation (so I may end up with a lot of fond memories running through my head and nothing posted), but I hope to share with you at least a partial view of our cruise. Since I’m going to be working with only an iPhone what I post will probably be more pictures with a few comments, than a full out review or step by step recounting of the cruise. As you can see from my profile and signature, my wife, M and I have been cruising for the past 25 years. Although cruising has never been our primary vacation type, we’ve been on almost 30 cruises, with 21 of them on Carnival (including the infamous Triumph “Poop Cruise” of 2013) and continue to enjoy our cruising adventures. As I mentioned this will be our 22nd Carnival cruise and we have the Jubilee booked next year so I’m tossing around the idea of doing a B2B sometime next year also which would get us to our 25th Carnival Cruise Milestone. 😊 Our cruise next week will also mark a few firsts for us that we’re excited to experience. This will the be the first time sailing out of Miami, the first time on an Excel Class ship and the first time visiting the ABC Islands. Over the next week I hope to share more about preparation and plans for this cruise as we countdown to go! I hope you enjoy the ride 🙂

Wow, same day service! I know that's probably not typical. How soon do they normally get your laundry back? We don't typically use the laundry service (even though we're Platinum) but since we'll be embarking on a 8 day cruise next week, we will probably have some laundry done to help reduce the amount of clothes we pack and I'm curious as to the turnaround time.

Nice views from the Zipline and Sky Bar. Glad to see Patti got herself a drink while she was up there. Also nice view of the pool area from the cabana. Looks like you had a relaxing time in Amber Cove 😎

The Pepperoni Pizza Burger sounds wonderful. If I'm ever on one of the Italian themed ships, i will definitely try one!

I believe it is standard. We had them on the Breeze, but as you mentioned I didn’t think they were anything to write home about.YMMV

That will do it 😉

Thanks Jeff, I appreciate your insight 😎

After seeing all these B2B cruises her on CC, I've started thinking that maybe we should try that for ourselves. Question: Can I just book both cruises online myself or do you need to go through a PVP or anything special?

Thanks The way I see it is if they charge us each $15, then we should each get to ride solo. Hopefully that’ll be the case on Celebration next week. 🤞

Love the AC pics! 😎