cruisinsly

Thank you. Yup, in his early 50s and had a heart attack. Bless his heart - he walked out to our car at our apartment complex, turned around because he forgot his phone and walked all the way back and then back to the car again. He had been having pain for the whole week and (as a former Marine), just ignored it and thought it was gas. UGH!! That one little trip to the hospital turned out to be 2 weeks and bypass surgery. He is doing great now. He says that he feels like he has a new motor. lol The balcony upsell was awesome. I have yet to tell him that we got it. I am trying to wait until we are on the ship. He asked the other night if we got an inside room and I was like "yup".

So, in August, I wrote all of this so I could remember what was going on, etc. It sucks getting older and not being able to remember like I once did. lol I received an email from Carnival to upgrade our room from an inside to a balcony for $100 extra. Nope, not per person, but total. I jumped on it. Instead of playing on the internet, I should be packing. We have built a house and our closing is in a few days. Instead – I have cut my finger and had to get 4 stitches. Bad thing is it is my pointer finger on my predominant hand. UGH!! Only me. As I have taken this break from packing, I have decided to make my tags for my cruising ducks that I am going to hide. I have 8 total. I can hide 2 a day. This will be my first time hiding ducks. I have yet to find one.

please share the name of the group so we can all check.

UGH! I am not sure how I would have handled this. I definitely would have said something. There is no reason for the server to treat you that way.

Very excited for your review. We will be on the MG in January and are very excited.

The struggle is real as I get older. lol I totally forget and end up going the wrong way, down the wrong side. Just to keep it easier for me - same floor, same room location, same side every time.

Port - just because its the side I stick with. Same side every times means I dont get as lost early in the cruise. lol

I will be updating this as often as I can before, hopefully during, and after the cruise. Hi everyone. I have never written a review on here – but I have read a lot of reviews from all of you that was willing to share. This has been one heck of a few years. We have several cruises that were cancelled due to Carnival and the pandemic. We just let them keep our money and would switch our sailing for later out. Finally, we decided to choose a date so far out that we figured it would not be cancelled. We decided to book the Mardi Gras for 2023. Wait! What? I know – this has Carnival Valor as the sailing. We booked the Mardi Gras over 600 days out from sailing. Just to give you a little background of us. Sorry if all this bores everyone. But it leads to the cruise – I promise! I ended up losing my job and then my husband was offered a much better job than what he had. This meant we would need to uproot our family (son and two doggies) and move to another state. So, the day after Thanksgiving 2021, we moved from the Nashville area to Alabama. Definitely hated leaving my family (aunts, uncles, cousins, grandma) behind – but this was a fantastic move for us. Now for the “heck of a year”! We moved into an apartment after staying with our friends for 3 weeks. Yup – I wasn’t even able to put up a Christmas tree. BUMMER! We knew that we did not want to stay in this apartment forever, so we had started the process to get everything we needed for a VA loan so that we could purchase a house. Husband started his new job and absolutely loves it. I am back to being a stay-at-home mom for now. I will find a job – when the right one come along. Yes, I am looking, just haven’t found what I wanted. Anyway, back to the house. We decided that it would just be better to go ahead and build a house. We found the community, the lot and the floorplan that we wanted. We have been so excited to get this house built and move in. Closing is August 5. WooHoo. But the information we needed for the VA Loan has been just crazy. Husband was in the USMC Reserves forever back when he was younger. All of his information is at the National Archives (nothing is digital with them). They received the response in February 2022 that we needed the information. At the end of that month, husband had a heart attack. I got him to the hospital and left our 17 year old son at home with the doggies. My aunt came and stayed with him while I was in the hospital for almost 2 weeks with my husband. He ended up having double bypass. Was out of the hospital a few days after surgery and back to work 3 weeks later. I had him out walking EVERYWHERE! Walmart, Kohls, Target, walking trails, etc. LOL So, between the house and his health issues, I decided that I just wanted to get away. I mean – I needed this and so does he. I looked at beach properties and just other places that were a few hours from us and the prices for a hotel was crazy high. Just for the fun of it – I pulled up the Carnival website. I did not have any real dates that I wanted to look at. But the two nearest Ports to us are Mobile and New Orleans. I looked at both of those and the best rate and date came up as the Carnival Valor, out of New Orleans for November 14, 4 nights with an inside cabin. I usually will only go with a balcony, but since we have had a full year (paying deductibles, etc) and we have another cruise coming up in January – Inside was it! For the two of us with all taxes, prepaid gratuities and insurance it is a total of $517.72. Yup, only $258.86 per person. Our son has since turned 18 and will stay at home with the doggies. Our best friends (since high school) live only 5 minutes away and will be there if he needs them or anything. This is now the planning stage! Oh fun. I went ahead and put this on a courtesy hold for a few days to make sure that husband could get the time off from work. Once he got back to me, I paid the deposit and insurance and finalized it.

As someone who once worked for a very popular theme park or two in FL, we call that Vacation Brain!! It seems like some forget their brains at home. lol

Totally agree. I have always said that them printing pictures that are never purchased is a huge waste of money on their part. Paper straws are a waste as well. The sugar straws are horrible. Not good for diabetics either. I understand them banning plastic. I bring my reusable straws with me.

Awesome review and beautiful pictures. Thank you for taking the time to share!

How awesome! I love that you do this.

Awesome review and pictures. Excited for the rest of it.

Evidence?? It didnt happen unless you have a video to show us!!