bjd2

While we were cruising, we met some folks from New Orleans. We had a blast with them and hope to keep in touch and get together again some day.

On our day back in New Orleans before flying home, they came and got us from our hotel and took us to their home in Metairie and cooked barbecued shrimp (whole!) for us and also did a crab boil with blue crabs, potatoes, corn on the cob, sausage, garlic and a bunch of other veggie things. It was quite a treat, I'm sure, as they tried to teach me how to open the crabs!

We enjoyed the afternoon with them and had a true taste of southern hospitality!

It was cruise elegant again tonight and we dressed up a bit again

This picture was the last sea day, 7:17am, we couldn't find 2 chairs together on the pool level of Serenity. There were lots of open chairs in all other areas

In Cozumel we just shopped for a while and got back on the ship. It was scorching hot here today! We did buy a painted surfboard that we watched the artist do with only his fingers. It is beautiful

Maybe my favorite picture - we visited the future cruise desk this night and booked an 8 night on the Freedom for next April

This was our 6th cruise and Grand Cayman was on our first cruise and not repeated until now. We did a tour to Hell the first time. This time we booked a Deluxe Stingray City tour through the ship. We were informed that the water was extra choppy and had to sign our tickets if we wanted to go ahead with the tour. I heard that tours after ours canceled.

We've never done this tour before but expected to stand on a sandbar in waist or so deep water. The water was nearly up to our shoulders without any waves. All normal waves raised us off of our feet a bit and 5 or 6 surprised us by going over our heads!

I was very scared of the rays all around us since they said not to jump up and down and the waves kept doing that for us. I did touch one and hubby says we'll have to keep trying it and work up to feeding and eventually holding/kissing one. We're really glad we did the tour and we had a blast!

This is the boat. We rode on the top level. This boat has stairs that go down to the sand. The water was deep though so this was still tricky getting down and back up. Marineland Tours and Bert were great.

Finally some pics of the Sunshine's 6J cabins! I've had one booked for months and very excited. I'm not a balcony person, but my sister had one booked just down the hallway. None of us have ever stayed in Lido cabins, so we're excited. Did you find the temp in the room comfortable? Did it feel roomy?

 

Geesh, if I have to be up @ 6am to get a seat at Serenity, guess I'll never be there. lol.

We really liked the room and it was very comfortable. We would open the blind when we crawled into bed and look up at the stars and then the sunrise in the morning. Our thermostat worked fine and we only adjusted it once when hubby was a little cool.

There was another couple next to us on Serenity that had the same chairs every day and she was there at 5:15am.

We are spending our 25th anniversary at a Secrets resort so this day pass helped us be very excited. Every staff member was smiling, some even singing.

This was our first time to a stop in Jamaica. We did the Secrets resort excursion through the ship and it was wonderful. We did talk to some other people though who did it cheaper and had a couple more hours than we did due to taking a cab rather than the Carnival buses.

We watched the sun rise today right from our bed. This was possibly the best thing about this room

Hubby enjoyed sitting behind the waterfall. He could get quite the foot massage from it!

Sushi from Bonsai was so good!!!!

I love Karaoke so we had to stop for a bit of that

And of course some visits to the casino

This is the pork belly and duck dishes from JiJi's for dinner

We love sea days

I didn't take many pictures today and we had slept in for a while and found it very hard to find 2 chairs together in the sun. Tomorrow I got us perfect loungers right in front of the Serenity pool by being up there at 6:20am.

Here are the few photos we purchased from the ship:

This one we actually bought a 16x20 canvas as we really liked it a lot

Putu at the gallery gave us a free photo of his house

Our friend, Ginny, surprised us with room decorations and later these strawberries came from her too. We met 2 years ago on the Liberty and became fast friends. We will sail together again but haven't been able to coordinate that yet.

Havana bar area - This was always nice and quiet. We took our lunches back here a couple of times just for the beautiful view aft and the area itself is very pretty

The only photo I took of our food, dessert. All I can say is holy wow!!!!!

Also from Cucina we had a perfect view of the sun setting behind us on the Mississippi

As I mentioned earlier, it was so great to be taking pictures in our room by 11:30, dropping off our carry ons and then off to explore the ship. We just relaxed and explored today, and had dinner at Cucina. Ryan had the chicken parmesan dish and I had grilled shrimp. The spaghetti side is incredible and I now want to find the recipe for "Captain's sauce".

Our first sight after dropping off our bags

We really loved Serenity

Ok, now that pictures are working I'll try to add more details about our trip.

We stayed 2 nights pre cruise and I had "won" Chateau Dupre on Priceline. It was pretty awful. No elevator and we were on the 4th floor. Dirty, stinky and very loud noise from outside all night. Oh well, it was an adventure. I just won't ever trust a 3* bid with them again since this hotel doesn't deserve 1*

We stayed 1 night post cruise at Bienville House, also on Decatur, and it was wonderful. Beautiful property and great service. Here are some pictures from Bienville House. The only one I have from Chateau Dupre is of the elevator out of order sign :mad:

This was just a shot that I thought was cool with the fog the morning we returned

Scenic Oceanview 9109 - We loved our view and this room but are going back to a Lido balcony for the next cruise :D

Uploading from my computer isn't working, trying from Photobucket now...

Hmmmmmmm, I get a missing security token error each time I try to upload photos. I've tried multiple browsers. Any ideas on that?

We just returned from the Sunshine and did Cheers again as it was great last year on the Breeze just to have the bar bill paid with no surprises.

We drink mostly drinks 8.75 - 9.95 so find this to be a great value for us.

15 per day per person is the limit and if the 15th is rung in under Cheers you are cut off. All of our bartenders, however, would alert us at 12 or so and then if we planned on being out longer (usually in the casino) we could purchase drinks and then use up Cheers when we were closer to ready to go to bed. We hit both of our limits on 3 days and were never falling down drunk as we were always up early and would casually have whatever we wanted throughout the day and night.

Thanks for this! I will be on it next April and am very curious. I was on the Breeze last year and am hoping the Sunshine is as much fun. Looking forward to hearing more!!!

 

Did you try the shake shop?

 

 

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You're welcome! It's kind of like a mini-Breeze. If you liked that decor you'll like this. Serenity is much bigger though. We didn't try the shake spot, so no opinion on that.

We've been back home for 5 days now and I always enjoy reading reviews of others, so I'll try to remember some details and add some pictures over the next days.

For those who like a quick summary:

Loved:

*A sweet friend of ours surprised us with room decorations! I was in tears when I saw it. She also sent strawberries one night and John Heald also sent strawberries on another night!

*FTTF, it was so great to drop off our bags by 11:30 and be all unpacked long before muster drill. It almost felt like a whole extra day to us. We'd do it again and it was recognized by every staff member from dropping our luggage to getting our sail and sign cards and we were quickly directed to special lines and seating area.

*Serenity, but get there early if you want seating by the pool

*Cuchina dinner, we've had it for lunch before but dinner was possibly our best meal on the ship. Can't wait to have it again.

*Sunset MDR 6pm, we had table 205, a fantastic booth for 2! Our dining team was so great, food was all great, hot if hot and cold if cold and they had us out of there in just under an hour every night, even on elegant night. Granted we only had dessert there one night so that would take a bit longer.

*Alchemy, Ioana (Uwanna) was wonderful and her creativity with infused flavors was something we enjoyed every day, along with cucumber sunrises

*Our room, scenic oceanview 9109. Beautiful sunrises right from our bed and the captain's view. We felt like we were driving the ship :D

*Our room stewards, Ivan and Agus. They were so friendly and kept our room looking great.

*Shrimp burritos at Blue Iguana

*Sushi at Bonsai, wow. Shrimp tempura, California roll and spicy tuna rolls were so good.

Liked:

*Jiji's dinner, everything was pretty spicy and the pork belly was the star of our meal.

*Jiji's lunch, there were 2 lines and it seemed to be a lot quicker than we've experienced in the past.

*That there were so many options for included foods during the day. We only visited the buffet one time for breakfast because there were so many other things to try.

Disappointed but not cruise ruiners:

*Missed having the interactive tv for room service and account monitoring. There was never a line though at the kiosk and we could check it there.

*Guys Burgers, we've had them on the Liberty and the Breeze and they were excellent. We tried a few times on the Sunshine, and even right at opening we never got a warm and juicy burger. Every one of them were way over cooked and cold. Good thing the shrimp burritos were just a few steps away!

*Getting around to things on deck 4, up down up down turn around get lost give up. That was pretty much our time on this deck, except we found Bonsai and wish that it was located better like on the Breeze as you have to specifically be looking for it to find it.

I'll add more and some favorite pics as I love seeing these in other reviews but must get ready for work now.

We just got back from the Sunshine and did Cheers! for the second time. I haven't gone through our 6 page statement :eek: yet, but I know for a fact that we saved a ton of money. I love Alchemy and with upgraded liquor each of our drinks there were 9.95. Most others were 8.75 and the least expensive when hubby switched to Kettleone and vodka were 7.50. We hit 15 on 3 of our days and had 8-10 on the other days. We were never "drunk" and remember going to our room each night. I was up early each morning and drank lots of water to hydrate for the next day.

I'll do the calculations by number of drinks at a reasonable average per day and figure out an approximate savings. It was wonderful to be able to have anything we wanted and already have the bar bill paid.

Another vote for Jack's Shack! Bummer we missed Grand Turk for weather last year but made it the year before. Going to try again next April and hope we can go visit them again.

Woo hoo! Congratulations! I've been dancing for days now and now just plain old giddy with excitement.

Have a great cruise!!:D

And I am in a SINGLE DIGIT. As in "1".

 

Yes!

That's the best single digit of all! Have a great cruise!

I got our last one in September for our cruise on the Sunshine on 3/30. 2 days ago 15 more opened up. I was watching for our roll call. Keep checking daily or even a couple of times a day.

Awesome, thank you!

Hello,

If we want to leave our hotel around 10 to go to the ship (FTTF), would we just go down then and request a cab or should we call an hour or so ahead?

Thanks,

Bobbie