ceilidh1

Decided to call it a night (earliest one by far this sailing). We have Paradise Beach tomorrow so hoping the weather improves. It’s quite windy and rainy right now but we can’t feel any ship movement at all!

Yikes!

Highly recommend the Desert Pear Margarita

We are sailing into/through a lightning storm. The Aqua show has been canceled (happy I did walk in the other night as we had reservations for tonight), as has the teen flow rider session. There isn’t too much on this evening that we want to do, so currently chilling at Rising Tide. Sadly, it’s not rising as we appear to have sprung a leak!

I just tried the rum old fashioned. Better than the whiskey one, but still not my jam!

I had an old fashioned yesterday and did NOT enjoy it at all (but I’m not a big whiskey fan). Best drinks so far are the sangria and the pear margarita!

After a lovely, chill afternoon playing cards at the pub, DS and I relocated to On Air for the logo trivia (spoiler- we did not win). This was where we finally found a virgin mudslide (which made his day) and my delicious sangria. While there, the beverage manager came over and introduced himself, and said he wanted to check in about the poor service I received at The Solarium! I was very taken off guard as I haven’t complained about this in the shop at all - so obviously RC are either reading this live or the private cruise group chat. Either way (aside from the big brother vibe) I was impressed that someone sought me out to address it. I told him if the frustrations about not being served/acknowledged while at the bars but also stressed that the drink waiters and the bar staff in the pub are outstanding. I have zero complaints- I just don’t go up to the bar to order and all is good! Anyways, RC, if you are reading this - thank you for acting in this and checking in. Fantastic customer service! Speaking of customer service - yesterday I had gone to guest services and requested that once DS had blown through his arcade credit, his card be blocked so no more charges could happen. I wouldn’t have needed to do so if there was a way for him to know how much was remaining, but there wasn’t. This evening I noticed $10 arcade charge on my account, so off we went to guest service again. Luckily there was no line and within a few minutes the charge was reversed and another block put on the card!

We are in zero rush to get off as our shuttle to the airport isn’t until 11am. The later the better! They’ll have to throw me off…🤣🤣🤣

I also got a scarlet sangria,which is delightful!

OK. The universe is listening. Within minutes of posting about mudslides, we moved to On Air for a game show. DS asked for a sprite and the bartender asked if he would like a mocktail instead. He said he would love a mudslide but can’t find one. The bartender said “I got you”. And here we are…

I’m sure it’s something to do with both these points. No big deal - DS is finding more than enough to satisfy him. I just found it strange. I was like “make me a mudslide. Just don’t add alcohol.” The bartender literally looked at me like I was crazy 🤣🤣🤣

You may recall I was not exactly looking forward to this trip, as I thought it would be too “people-y” and lines and crowds. There have been one or two instances of that but, on the whole, we really haven’t noticed this too much over the past 5 days. The ship definitely disperses the crowds well. We have never had a problem getting walk in reservations, never problems finding seats in the buffet, always got seats in the bars and lounges… I’m very impressed at how well RC handles this many guests. For sure, the bigger Princess and NCL ships feel more crowded than this one does, even though this one has more passengers.

So here is something weird. DS loves virgin mudslides. Every bar I’ve asked at on this ship says they can’t make them. I found that odd. Today I asked at the pool bar and asked why. They said they didn’t have cream. But they could make a regular mudslide. Just not a virgin one. I’m no bartender, so maybe it’s legit. But why?

Crisis averted. Got the cup changed and now it works. Got another blue drink - Sea &T. This one is really good! oh, and the stout espresso martini!

So we haven’t used the cups in the freestyle machines until today. When we tried, we got a message “you’re going to need a different cup”…, what does that mean?

The Limoncello is the bomb. The blue drink…not so much!

Thank you!!! I’ve been using the app but just the calendar portion! I didn’t know about this other part. I found mini golf…

I always feel so sad for the dolphins at these places

We came back and rounded up DS for lunch, which we had at Windjammer. It was decent (I’m so not a buffet person). Then we went to play mini golf…but it was closed . We opted for ping pong but didn’t last long is this humidity!

Great ship views from port…

These guys aren’t messing around…

And this little guy…

Aviary delights…

I think it’s the Mayan Healing Ritual excursion but there is also just a spa upstairs if you didn’t want to do the whole thing.

There are definitely some spa places there at the port! Everything is pretty expensive in that area, though.