jules815

We’re in Ocho Rios today. Sweltering heat, no breeze. We did our usual walk around the pier shops and were back on board in under an hour. spent the afternoon at the pool deck, mostly in the pool. Had some lunch at the one pool buffet. My husband had a massive breaded veal chop and he said it was great. Around 2:00 they came by again with ice cream. We’re already back in our room. Just too hot to be out there any longer. I don’t know how these crew members do it.

Yes it was. They also provided an extension cord, but my husband always has one in his bag.

Not yet that we’re aware of.

Lunch and some pool time. Moved to the bar to get out of the sun. Just as we sat down, they came by with ice cream. Sea day and plenty of loungers and tables for dining. We’re feeling some motion. Not horrible though.

I had filled out the special request form about distilled water. Email back from MSC said we’d have to provide our own, but there was a gallon in our room on boarding day.

Forgot to mention, we haven’t heard any chair dragging noises yet from deck 20.

I’m really failing as a live blogger! We had a very nice day yesterday at Ocean Cay. Beach is still rocky, water shoes are needed, but we saw several people going into the water without. I will say, it seemed to me, that the rocks just before entering the water seemed less sharp and jagged, so maybe they’re working on it ? I’m posting from my iPhone without my readers, so apologize for any typos! Sitting on our balcony watching the seabirds dive for fish. We’ve just come from breakfast and I’ve had bacon 2 days in a row now. Extra crispy, yum. This was in YC dining room. Haven’t had bfast on the pool deck yet, but we will. Maybe tomorrow. I don’t think we plan on getting off at Ocho Rios tomorrow. We have a cocktail reception in the Top Sail today at 11:00. Our butler just stopped by to say hello and remind us. I was able to get a lounger for our balcony. I don’t know why they aren’t standard out here. Plenty of room. We also have 2 chairs and an ottoman. We’re on deck 19 in a grand with a walk in closet. It seems like all staff in YC know we’re doing b2b. And now for a photo bomb. Enjoy!

Big fail on my posts. We’ve had a busy day. Currently having dinner in the YC restaurant. Everything fantastic. Wanted to point out that I’d say around 50%, maybe more, men wearing shorts to dinner. Very casual so far. Arthur is matre d. On board until October 28th.

Good morning and happy cruise day! It’s a beautiful morning and I can see Seascape docked in port. There’s also a Carnival ship, had to make out the name with the sun shining, but I think it might say Horizon, and also a Virgin ship. Last night we walked around Bayside Marketplace for a little bit, but couldn’t decide on what to get for dinner. We ended up back at our hotel in the lobby bar that’s connected to the restaurant Toro, Toro. We were able to get a drink and order off the full restaurant menu, so that’s what we did. We did a couple of small plates and they were just enough and delicious. Before I forget, on our walk back to the hotel we walk along the waterfront and it’s just lovely. Last night though we saw the freakiest cloud I think I’ve ever seen. I’m attaching a picture, it was not enhanced at all except for a little bit of a zoom. It started out looking like Mark Twain, then kind of morphed into what looked like the face of a baby. Our assigned check in is 1pm, but we plan on heading down to the hotel lobby around 10:30 and grab a cab here. There are MANY lined up in an adjacent lot waiting. TTFN!

Some more photos from this afternoon.

So far, so good. Our hotel has done a remodel, so the rooms are even nicer than in 2021, and the service here has been just outstanding. As we were leaving for our walk earlier, the bellman who helped us yesterday remembered our names, and brought us each a bottled water for our journey.

We walked from our hotel to Brickell. Love a walkable city. Got back to the hotel and just as we stepped inside, the skies opened up. It’s pouring now, but typical afternoon shower. I’m sure today’s cruisers will have a rain-free sail-away.

It’s actually Cafe’ Bastille and bakery, and just as good as it was 2 years ago. Sitting here in our room eating a Pain Au chocolate from the bakery at the restaurant. (Dessert!). Stopped in at the Starbucks in the hotel lobby for some to go coffees. Pondering what we’ll do for the day. Typically we’d head to the hotel pool, but we’ll have 2 weeks to do that on Seascape, so we’re thinking of heading over to the downtown Brickell shopping area to walk around for a bit. Another beautiful day and warm, but somehow the heat doesn’t bother us when there are palm trees.

A couple of things about last night’s dinner. That Margarita had a salt foam on top instead of on the rim. It was their “Margarita Queen.” Also, that Cuban sandwich was the best I’ve ever had. We didn’t go in expecting to order sandwiches, but had filled up on appetizers. We ended up bringing half back to the hotel, but still managed to make room for dessert. LOL. I had the Tres Leche cake and my husband had the Flan. So good!!

My view this morning, and a few from yesterday. IMG_6779.mov

Good morning from Miami! We arrived yesterday afternoon and had a busy day. We’re staying at the InterContinental with a bay view room, which has a great view of the port and Bayside Marketplace. This is the second time we’ve stayed here and has become our favorite cruise hotel. The area’s very walkable and lots of restaurants in the area. Yesterday afternoon we had a few hours to kill before our dinner reservation. The restaurant was in Bayside Marketplace so we could have sat in any number of open air bars with beautiful views. But instead, we hopped on one of those Millionaire Row sightseeing cruises, I think it was Island Queen Tours. Anyway, the tour was 90 minutes long, which was actually the perfect amount of time we needed to kill. My husband enjoyed it more than he thought he would. How could you not? It was a beautiful afternoon and we were on a boat. At one point though, they did pass out paperwork to enter a “contest,” which we didn’t do. It smelled of “time share” to me, and I was right. As we were exiting the boat on the lower level, there was a poor couple sitting thru a power point presentation. We had dinner last night at La Canita, a Cuban restaurant located on the second level in Bayside Marketplace. Wow!! I found this place on Trip Advisor and it was great. Highly recommend. Today we don’t really have any plans. Yay! We’re getting ready to walk over to a great breakfast place we found the last time we were here called The Bastille. Another little gem I found on either Trip Advisor or Yelp. Have a great day everyone!

Love these pictures of you and your mom. Looks like so much fun. I've always wanted to do a cruise like that that docks for a few days in Bermuda.

This is a test posting a photo from my phone, which I hope to be doing while on board. If she had a thought cloud above her head it would likely say, “hurry up already and take the pic so I can go for a car ride!”

Hi everyone, I can’t believe it’s finally here. We booked this cruise back in January after what was a pretty crappy 2022. Deaths in the family, loss of a close friend and double (partial) knee replacement surgery for me. We both really needed something to look forward to, and what better than booking a cruise and counting down the days, right? A little about us. We’re both newly retired from Chicago. We started cruising in the early 2000’s with our children, mostly with RC and a few with Carnival. After our youngest went away to college, we started cruising during the off season, our favorite time being that sweet spot right after Labor Day here in the US. Unfortunately it’s also peak hurricane season, but we’ve done the Caribbean enough times that an itinerary change is no biggie. Around that time we also decided to mix things up a bit and started sailing in suites with RC and then with Celebrity as well. (We LOVE Celebrity, but OMG their suite prices at the moment are insane.) Our first cruise with MSC was in 2019 on Seaside in the YC, and then a week on Meraviglia in October, 2021. Like many of us who jumped ship from other lines to MSC, we status matched to Black, now Diamond. (On both cruises with MSC, we’ve never once dined in a specialty restaurant, but plan on changing that this trip.) We love the MSC YC for all the same reasons others do, but are still open to trying new lines and actually have a transatlantic booked on a HAL ship for April 2024. Our first time sailing with them and we’re looking forward to it. New line and a new itinerary ending in Rotterdam. Yay! This trip on Seascape finds us spending the night before our flight from ORD to MIA at the Marriott Suites hotel near O’Hare. We have an early’ish flight and why not start the vacation a little early? Once in Miami, we’re spending 2 nights at the InterContinental before boarding Seascape on September 10. My husband just left to drop our baby off at her pet sitter’s house. Back to packing!

Enjoying your review and also the photos of Bermuda. We're going to Bermuda for the first time in April as a stop on a transatlantic voyage we're doing on a HAL ship.