OrcaGirl

Day 7 - Ensenada, morning/afternoon It was a misty morning as we approached Ensenada. We had breakfast (the hash brown quality improved as the cruise went on), watched the crew basically parallel park the ship, and then headed off the ship to meet our shore excursion. We had chosen the Food and Tequila Walking Tour. (A couple of weeks ago, we received an email that ‘due to operational reasons’ the tour start time had changed from 10am to 11am, but the app and our excursion tickets still said 10am and that was when it did indeed start.) I’m gonna skip the detailed play by play of the tour, but instead give a summary of personal high points and low points. High points: The shrimp tacos were delicious, as was the horchata. The mango paleta at the end was a perfect icy treat on a hot day. We were able to sample eight different tequilas. The Fox bought an absolutely beautiful hand-painted bottle of tequila. There was a lot of beautiful public art along our route, and who doesn’t love multiple large city name signs. Low points: I didn’t love the number of times the guide mentioned that the food and drinks weren’t included but we were getting them as a bonus. No, we paid for a tour that included samples of food and drinks. Of note, the description said we were going to stop for ceviche tostadas and beer, and we never did. The guide was very nice but sort of lost control of our group, and a lot of time was wasted standing around. At one point, two people wanted to leave and keep exploring independently and it became a whole thing. At this point, I just wanted some quiet time and honestly I mentally checked out. Ensenada was a little too noisy and aggressive for me. Random observation, that I may have already mentioned: The Norwegian Jewel was running a KISS cruise with stops in Cabo and Ensenada. Neither the Fox nor I are fans, but the guests all seemed like a fun group of people.

After our Deal or No Deal shenanigans, we spent some more time chillin’ in our cabin, listening to the waves, and then got ourselves gussied up for the final elegant night. To the MDR. I had the French onion soup (which was delightfully gooey but ultimately too big for me to finish), followed by the lobster. Nom nom! We then headed to the final production show, Amade. This one was great, still a mash-up show of modern songs but with a historical twist. Or, as the Fox commented during the first song, “What in the Alexander Hamilton is this?!?” No plot? No problem! Give me pretty/bendy people dancing around in fun costumes to pop songs. Then we swung back to the ice bar just in time for the officers’ soirée and some martini shenanigans. And also martinis. Finally, we wrapped up our evening with a trip to the casino. We parlayed that $25 in free slot play we won during Deal or No Deal into another $100 or so between us! Not too shabby!

I was *just* saying that I need to have someone pay me to cruise and live-blog it… 🤣

Oh she’s *much* more photogenic than me… But it’s been so fun introducing her to cruising and I’m so very happy that she’s enjoying herself.

Day 6 - at sea, morning/afternoon Okay, wow, this has been a day and it’s not even over. There was another time change last night, so I woke up before the cafe was even open but popped down to get me and the Fox some caffeinated beverages. Beautiful sunrise, but windy enough that the outside lower decks were closed. We had a lazy morning, chilling in our room, doing a bit of remote work, and eventually heading to the captain’s talk on navigation. (My husband’s first real job was hand-drawing marine navigation charts, and then installing some of the first computerized navigation systems on ships, so yeah, he’s old. He also isn’t on CruiseCritic… 🤣) Then it was time for the Fox to try out the S.A.F.E. archery. She previously trained in combat archery, but the ‘safety whiffle’ wasn’t exactly something she was used to. She nailed her first shot and got a big round of applause. But alas missed her second and third shots. We’ll blame the rocking of the boat. Apparently she can claim a prize tomorrow; anyone know what the prizes typically are? We headed back to the casino, where, in an act worthy of last night’s illusionist, I turned $20 into one cent in the blink of an eye. Lunch was really good, but it seems the ship is celebrating Thanksgiving every day? But not complaining, that stuffing was AMAZING! (The butter chicken was good too, but I prefer the Indian food on Norwegian.) And then it was volleyball time. My 6’5” volleyball playing husband will be so jealous he missed out. We watched the last of the qualifying rounds, but really, I was here for officers in uniforms in the pool. I’m a simple girl with simple needs. The officer intros were hilarious and they all seemed like really cool people. But alas we had to ogle and skedaddle, as it was almost time for Deal or No Deal. As a ‘classic’ captain’s club member, I got five cards for the price of four, and we split them between the Fox and myself. And then… **** my name got picked. I have anxiety and hate public speaking, it’s like flames on the side of my face, breathing, breathless, heaving breaths, etc. So yeah, I’m shaking but I head up there, pick my briefcases, don’t embarrass myself too much I don’t think. I’ll spare you the boring details but it came down to two briefcases: $300 and $1,000. The banker offered me $585 to walk away, and apparently the Fox was gesturing at me to take it but I didn’t see her and turned it down. DANG! My briefcase contained the $300. But that’s like $500 Canadian right? 🤣 We headed to the ABBA trivia next, but honestly I was still shaking from Deal or No Deal so we listened but didn’t play. I expected more factual ABBA trivia (which my husband is the expert in, not me) but it was just ‘name that song’ style. When I claimed my prize money at the casino, we found out that we also won $25 in slot play, so we’ll head back tonight to see how much trouble we can get into…

Okay, the problem with having too much fun is I forget to take notes on what we did and saw, and that makes writing a recap of the day hard…. 🤪 It was a beautiful morning in Cabo. We grabbed some coffee/tea and sat out on the balcony for a bit. At 8am on the dot literally hundreds of boats started racing past the ship. We later found out that it was a sport fishing regatta. Looked fun. Of the three ships in Cabo, Solstice was anchored closest to El Arco and we got lovely views from the top deck on our way to breakfast. We could even hear the sea lions barking during breakfast. We had booked the ‘Chileno Bay Deluxe Snorkel’ excursion, which met in the theatre. They escorted us to our own tender and then walked us straight to the catamaran. Spoiler: we had a great time, the staff were great, no complaints EXCEPT for the use of the word deluxe in the title. The catamaran was seaworthy and not over-packed, but it was not deluxe. But still super fun and I would still recommend it, just know that you’re not going to be laying out on the front webbing as the waves tickle your feet. I wasn’t feeling 100% confident with the conditions (slightly choppy) so I stayed on board. The Fox thoroughly enjoyed her snorkel experience, and saw many many cool fish. Meanwhile, the drinks were flowing, and the provided snacks (tortillas, salsas and some ham-and-cheese buns that were waaaaaay too delicious) were lovely. And then the music starts. I’ll spare you the video (but it’s on my IG Stories) but when I’m a couple drinks in and some completely-out-of-place country songs from my formative years come on, I’m gonna get a little rowdy. I’m singing along to Alan Jackson songs that I haven’t heard since I left the farm more than 25 years ago. You can take the girl out of the county, etc. I also ended up bonding with a lovely Irish couple over our shared love of Garth Brooks, so that was fun. 🥰 After we returned to the dock, the Fox and I wandered the shops and did a little souvenir shopping. I was still quite tipsy, but she did an excellent job of enabling only the necessary purchases: a new sunhat and a pretty spiny and sparkly wind thingy for my mom. We grabbed a tender back to the ship, and plopped ourselves near the pool until sailaway. Quick dinner in the buffet, and then we finally stopped by the library. The Fox was impressed by the fantasy selection, we were both displeased by some shelve labelling errors. Then to the evening show, illusionist Andrew Lee. TBH I’m not a fan of performers who have a whole long intro video telling me how awesome they are. Just come out and be awesome. The show was okay, but not the best illusionist I’ve seen at sea. After that it was to bed. No more hijinks for us. Random observations: Our tender to shore was operated by the Cabo marina, and one of our fellow passengers got hugely offended that the staff asked for tips. Given what cruising costs vs what these folks make, I’ve got no issue with any tourism-based staff asking for tips. I wish Celebrity put the staff’s country of origin flag on their name tags, not just the country name. My eyesight has gone to 💩 the last few years, but I like knowing whether a ‘terima kasih’ or ‘selamat po’ is the appropriate thank you. I had to squint real hard this morning to offer an ‘asante sana’ to a waiter from Tanzania, but it ended with him giving me several recommendations of lesser-known areas in his country to visit next year.

Catching up… Day 4, evening After returning from the beach excursion, there were showers and naps and rehydration. We didn’t feel like peopling, so we had dinner in an empty section of the buffet. It was very very good. The Fox was fading so she went back to the cabin, and I checked out the Broken Strings production show. It… wasn’t my favourite. It felt like a mash-up of Once and Choir of Man, a jukebox musical with the loosest of plots. On entertainment quality, I prefer Norwegian’s Broadway shows. I stopped at the casino bar for a G&T to take back to the room, and heard the casino host announce that everyone was getting $5 free slot play. So I stuck around 10 minutes until 8pm and tried my luck on my favourite fish slot game. I went up a few bucks but then lost it all promptly. Upon returning to the cabin, I peer-pressured the Fox into coming down to the casino to use her free $5 since it didn’t roll over to the next day. I encouraged her to pick a game that spoke to her. That turned out to be the Wheel of Fortune game, and a couple of spins later she hit a bonus and walked away with $77! Not bad for her first time playing slots.

Other than the glitch on the first sea day, it’s been adequate… we’ve got the ‘premium’ package. I’m finding that the speed comes and goes. I haven’t been able to use video on Skype or FaceTime, and haven’t tried Teams yet, but audio calls via the above have gone through fine. I’m posting videos to IG but they take a bit longer to post. and the wifi doesn’t work at all on our balcony. im supposed to be doing some remote work and will report back on how that goes *if* I can actually convince myself to do it.

More pictures:

What she said! 👍

Photos from the morning/afternoon:

After last night’s martini shenanigans, I thought I’d sleep like a log but alas I tossed and turned and just had a rough night. I left the Fox behind to rest while I grabbed a chocolate babka and coffee at Cafe al Bacio (from the same bartender from the ice bar last night; she took one look at me and laughed and said it wasn’t her fault 🤣) and then a Mexican eggs Benedict in the buffet. Eventually it was time to find the gangplank and meet our shore excursion. We had selected the Puerto Vallarta Beach Escape with a 9:30am meeting time. It was a ~30 min bus ride to resort, and then another ~20 min sitting in an idling bus at the gate while we waited for… I don’t know what? The resort to agree to let us in? It was weird, and there was waaaaaaay too much coughing from a few other passengers for our anxiety levels. (I think we were the only ones wearing masks.) Finally we were allowed to pull in and disembark. A bit more semi-organized chaos as we all shuffled into the lobby, picked up our welcome cocktail, and waited (too long) for an intro speech by the resort staff that absolutely could have been covered by the bus host and by handing out a little paper map of the resort. There was an optional upcharge to be allow to sit in the club area and dine at its ‘exclusive’ restaurant; if I’d had that information from the beginning I might have gone for it. The beach was lovely, the waves were crashing, and the lounge chairs were a bit hard to find in the shade but we did eventually snag two chairs and a staff dude came by and readjusted our umbrella perfectly. The pina coladas from the pool bar were delightful and the perfect not-too-boozy hair of the dog (or “eating bitey dog hair” as the husband of the Fox messaged her), and open from the time we arrived. The Fox stuck with water because she is far more sensible than me. I had read another review over on the Mexican Riviera forum that said no alcohol was served before 11am, but that wasn’t our experience. We grabbed lunch at the beach bar at the far end of the resort — not the best Mexican resort food I’ve had, not the worst. The taquitos were especially good. But alas no guacamole. After a sort-of nap and half-assed attempt at showering and drying off, it was time to meet our group and head back to the Solstice. Random observations: Other than a few windtorn fabric signs, no sign of the hurricane in the little bit of the area we saw from the bus. It’s a bit weird that the main restaurant that’s included with the excursion serves breakfast until noon, closes for an hour and then reopens for lunch at 1pm… Vendors were present but not aggressive. The Fox bought a lovely beach cover-up and some vanilla. If you’re gonna watch a show on your tablet on the beach (or bus), have the basic courtesy of wearing earphones. I want to listen to the waves, not your show. You don’t get to say that your resort has a Starbucks if it’s a “we proudly serve Starbucks coffee” situation. Let me earn stars or GTFO. (photos aren’t loading for me right now, will try to add them later.)

I remember getting an email about a wellness check, but not a wellness check itself. Nor were we ever asked to show our proof of vaccination. We needed to show our Xpress passes (phone was fine) and ID, but check-in seemed way faster than on Norwegian. Our flight was late as was the transfer bus so we missed our selected check-in time by an hour but no one asked or cared. But I’m not sure of what happens if you arrive early.

Okay, a slightly more fulsome recap of last night, but with the caveat that my memories may not be trustworthy. Dinner was in the MDR again. Same table, same waitstaff, no reservation, no wait. The pomegranate mojito was delicious. The asparagus salad with goat cheese and white balsamic dressing was good, and the Fox’s butternut squash soup with caramelized apples had her planning to recreate it upon our return home. The rigatoni was perhaps just a smidge too al dente for my taste, but the sauce and prosciutto and mushrooms were yummy. But the tiramisu was [chef’s kiss emoji]. After dinner we hustled to the theatre, but honestly, it wasn’t worth the blisters. The comedian was old-school, and jokes about how all wives are sex-withholding nags and all husbands are whipped (with a side of “isn’t it so stupid to be ‘woke’”) just aren’t our thing, so we skedaddled out of the theatre and straight to the ice bar. I won’t say that was a mistake, because fun was had and many delicious beverages were consumed, but wow do I regret not pacing myself. We ordered the martini flight to share, and I’m going to assume we were being hilarious and charming because the bartender then made us two medium-sized martinis on the house. (TBH the bar was really quiet and I think she was bored. Or maybe we were being loud and annoying and giving us something new to drink would shut us up for a few minutes to give her some peace.) AND THEN we somehow thought it was a good idea to each order a final full-size martini to end the night. Honestly I’m impressed we made it back to our cabin in one piece. Or two one-pieces? You know what I mean. I’m 95% positive I left a good tip but will be going back with cash money tonight just in case. Moral of the story: martinis are awesome, but maybe we should have stuck with sharing the flight and saved the rest for another night.

I’m a bad judge of temperatures. It was chilly and a little rainy as we left LA, warming up as we headed south. Not sure what to expect as we pull into Puerto Vallarta…

It was $35USD. There was only the one out, but it sounded like it would be easy for them to make more if requested. The staff at the hot glass studio make things as part of the first-day demo and whenever they don’t have bookings to have things to sell.

We pre-booked (for the 5% discount) but there were lots of people signing up once on board.

What’s the TL;DR equivalent of too drunk, can’t type? Last night in a nutshell: Dinner - so good Comedy show - so bad Martini bar - so dangerous More to come once the cabin stops spinning.

Day 3 - at sea, afternoon Spa time! The Fox enjoyed her seaweed something or other wrap and massage, but did comment on the upsell techniques employed by spa staff. My mani-pedi was also delightful, but I guess there was a minor miscommunication because the lady at the desk yesterday said she’d schedule us so that my pedicure would start while the Fox was still in her massage and then we’d have our manicures side-by-side, and that didn’t happen. Not a huge deal, we’re not joined at the hip, but I could see that upsetting others who did want to be together during their appointments. But sparkles! Grabbed treats from Cafe al Bacio and hightailed it up to the Sky Observation Lounge for constellation-themed cocktails and Disney trivia. I consider myself a ‘Disney adult’ (and am in fact headed to Disneyland for a few days right after we disembark) but boy I SUCKED at trivia. 7/15 answers right. Embarrassing. I will be having many martinis tonight to drown my sorrows. With nothing else planned for the day, we headed back to our cabin for naps / downtime until dinner. I need to do some remote work today or tomorrow, in theory, but I don’t wanna… Random observations: Cruise ship spas should have cocktail service. We should be able to check a box when making a spa appointment about whether we want to be chatty or not. Auto-correct shouldn’t be suggesting ‘margarita’ as a replacement for ‘daiquiri’. ***** Apple?!?! I just realized that our cabin doesn’t have any ‘do not disturb’ indicator. Huh.

We haven’t but I’ll try to swing by and ask.

Unfortunately we’re rarely in our cabin when announcements are made. My comment was more speaking to how hard it is to hear the PA system in the public areas, especially when the music keeps playing, the blender or espresso machine is whirring, and people actually raise their voices to continue their conversations. I wish they’d send the captain’s updates as text alerts via the Celebrity App.

TBH my comment is probably more a reflection of how small the balconies feel on other cruise lines. 😂 My husband is 6’5” and all legs: often he can’t sit facing out without his knees hitting the glass. But this would have been great for him. Me and the Fox are both short so this feels huge.

Day 3 - at sea, morning Woke up at 7:30am phone time, which was 6:30am home time and 8:30am ship time. 🤯 Lazed about reading in bed until our stomachs insisted we head out in search of breakfast. Note to future self: a second sea day with a second time change would be a good day to preorder breakfast via room service. To the buffet! Grabbed an eggs Benedict to order (yummy!) as well as some chicken sausage (fine) and cheese blintz (meh, I’ve had better). I think my big issue with the Celebrity buffet is that it’s repetitive - there are lots of stations but it’s a lot of repeats. The NCL buffets win out for me. But I did appreciate the variety of eggs benedict and that Celebrity makes them for you, they’re not sitting out as grab-and-go. After breakfast we headed up to the hot glass studio to pick up the Fox’s jellyfish. We watched another session and probably talked a few more people into booking the class — we should get commission! I also purchased a previously-made glass Christmas ornament that I hadn’t seen yesterday and that was waaaaaay cuter than the ship ornament that was in the shops. To the casino! I picked a machine that spoke to me, but it was false whispers as that $20 went fast. The Fox joined in on the free first-time cruisers slot tournament (semi-organized chaos!!), which was fun but alas she didn’t win anything. The Fox headed to her spa appointment while I headed to the bar. One Miami Vice later, I decided to have a light lunch before my own spa time. Random observations: I miss Starbucks. As an assurance to everyone else who booked the Blue Chip Club offer, there has been ZERO pressure to spend time or money in the casino. In fact, the Fox has received more invitations and special offers via card and voicemail as a first-time cruiser. I was invited to the captain club gathering per my lowly Classic status but that’s it. Perhaps owing to the low capacity, but the bar staff around the pool have been walking around handing out free drinks. The lawn seems underutilized; the screen shows RedBull races (?) and we’ve only seen one Cabana rented.

Day 2 - at sea, evening Formal/elegant/chic night… got our ‘fancy’ clothes on, mostly because I wanted to try the MDR tonight. Dinner was delicious, and we cleaned our plates. I had the escargot and rack of lamb, with crème brûlée for dessert. The Fox enjoyed her honey and pear soup, steak Dianne, and apple crumble. And oh god the bread and butter was amazing, but I had to limit myself to one piece… The actual service by the waitstaff was fabulous, and (humblebrag) I still enjoy surprising/shocking them by speaking my little bit of Indonesian and Tagalog. Only glitch was a couple of instances of waiters escorting couples to a table only to find it already occupied. Communication breakdown with hostess maybe? Apres dinner, we hustled over to the theatre for the 7pm Rock City production show. Basically Rock of Ages without the plot. Great songs, fabulous costumes (Sequins! Kilts! Purple fur coats!), singing, dancing, aerialists, etc. We enjoyed ourselves immensely. Our original plan was to return to the martini bar for more martini shenanigans but we were both still so stuffed from dinner that we decided to drop $20 in the casino and call it a night. Did catch a teeny bit of martini shenanigans on our way back to our cabin. And now to bed! Dawn comes early on a boat. Random observations: The PA system continues to be impossible to hear; did the captain say anything important? No idea. I’ve never found a ship that did this well. Our cabin is absolutely fine for us, but a few bits of wear and tear are evident, eg the shower door is janky as heck and there’s a small rip in the fabric headboard. We’ve yet to meet our steward, but chocolates appear on our pillows and he or she accommodated our request for extra towels. I hope the ship laundry has good bleach; I dyed my hair right before flying down and despite my best efforts, the colour is transferring to my pillowcase, towels, bath mat, etc. We had changed clocks by one hour last night, and again tonight. Time is a construct, etc.

Day 2 - at sea, afternoon Apres lunch, we popped into the spa to make some appointments for tomorrow. The spa desk staff was lovely and accommodating, and we’ll report back tomorrow on the actual treatments. Then to Celebrity Central to just watch the Deal or No Deal game. It was pretty fun so we’re going to try to play it tomorrow (if we’re out of the spa on time) or our final sea day. The wifi suddenly improved so we’re hanging by the pool and catching up on the world. Our only plans for tonight are probably MDR for dinner and then the 7pm Rock City show. Possibly followed by another trip to the martini bar and maybe some casino time (if I can figure out how to add money to my card…) Random observation from the Fox: Pool loungers need drink cups.