HolySpearit

Team football! There was football playing in the Heroes lounge when we got on. The inside smokehouse was not open to eat; just the outside bbq. I’m not 100% sure if the tvs in the smokehouse bar were showing football on day 1 or not, sorry about that! Def on in the lounge across the hall though!

Thanks for being here and Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

With that many cat pics on page 1, I have no choice but to follow!

FINAL THOUGHTS/RAMBLINGS: Overall, Celebration was fine. It was not my favorite cruise but certainly not bad. After cruising her and the Mardi Gras, I think I can officially say I prefer the smaller ships. Some final thoughts/opinions that nobody asked for, presented in no particular order: - The ship is beautiful, and I love the variety of dining options. Not everything was great, but I would be hard pressed to believe someone couldn’t find SOMETHING at least decent to eat on the ship. Avoid that buffet though, I have no idea what was going on there but WAY too small and AWFUL. - Never felt overly crowded despite us allegedly sailing full. Pool got busy but even on sea days I saw open chairs on Lido. Crowded at time yes but never out of control to me. - Not a ton of shenanigans on this cruise- zero fights or overly rowdy people I saw. Not sure if this was due to time of year (like I mentioned, not a ton of kids on this sailing), the fact we were rarely out and about past midnight, or the fact that there was a large group of travel agents on this sailing leaving less room for people more inclined to shenanigans. Overall though I did not see or hear of any Worldstar level fights and didn’t come across anyone overtly rude to me directly. - That said…..People. Are. So. Rude. Seriously, I work with the general public, and I knew everyone has lost their collective minds in the past few years... but some of the treatment of the staff I saw was borderline abhorrent. Some people are just so entitled, ridiculous, and downright nasty these days it’s insane. I don’t know when people decided this was the Four Seasons and not a Carnival Cruise and raised their expectations accordingly, then decided screaming was the way to deal with these unrealistic expectations not being met. Staff was nice, but notably less upbeat than prior cruises in my opinion. I don’t blame them. Seriously please be nice to these people. - Forward balcony was interesting. Not my first choice of a room but I’d do it again should the peddler call and offer it. - Shows were lacking. There was only 3 shows in the main theater all week, they repeated a few times (Celestial Strings was the other one, we skipped it as we saw it on MG). Weird to me that they were so empty too. Comedy lineup was great if that is your thing-tons of shows. - Lots of reports of sickness (rona, flu, RSV, strep) on the “other” site post cruise. We were entirely fine. We got rona after our last cruise on the Vista. We largely avoided the buffet this time and I was a psychopath about sanitizer and hand washing. Apparently, it worked. Overall I’d give this cruise a 7.5/10. Not the best cruise but we still had a good time. I strongly believe cruises are what you make of them and we did our best to make it what we wanted, I would encourage you to do the same. We have a couple land trips early next year and are booked for Halloweenie on the Vista 2024. THIS close to pulling the trigger on a Royal cruise early 2025, or Alaska on Princess summer 2025 (or both if I can convince D and he can get the time off). Curious to see how it compares. We'll be back to Carnival for sure though. I just like to keep our options open. THANK YOU to everyone who followed this rambling and often boring review 😊 Happy to answer any questions anyone has and if you’re cruising in the near future, have a great time!!!!

DISEMBARKATION/POST CRUISE/TIME TO GO HOME 😩 Up around 7 and we are already in Miami and the fuel ship is coming in to get my girl ready for her next round of passengers. Gather up the last of our stuff, head out of the room around 8:15 (eviction time is 8:30) say goodbye via cash money to Bayou (he deserved it, 10/10 room dude and called me Madam the whole time which made me feel very fancy. Also possibly, old....we’ve apparently graduated from Miss or Mrs….). Intention was to go to Blue Iguana but elevators are a cluster and I am not in the mood to walk up 5 flights of stairs so we just go chill in the central atrium area. There is a small sanfu and Lee announces disembarkation was temporarily halted. Not sure what happened, I “heard” (you know what I mean) potentially someone fell and was injured? Hope they’re ok if that really was the case. “Halt” only lasted about 30 minutes and we’re dinged off the ship at approximately 9:15. Easy process, longest we stood in line was about 5 minutes to get down the escalator in the terminal. Facial recognition went off easily, never even had to pull out a passport. Grab a cab to MIA ($54 this time with tip, idk why it was $10 more than it was to get there, maybe because it was busy or maybe dude bamboozled me). Pick up a rental quickly and easily, stop at McDonald’s for some food. THEY HAVE BACON EGG AND CHEESE BAGELS DOWN HERE STILL!!! WHAT KIND OF MAGICAL WONDERLAND IS HIALEAH FLORIDA?!?! They also have to try and track down someone that speaks English for us to order, after a wait and some confusion we end up ordering in very broken high school level Espanol and hope for the best. Acceptable tradeoff for the bagel sandwich and it ended up working out fine. Hotel room isn’t ready so back to the Hard Rock because apparently, we haven’t gambled enough this week. We do not win big, but enough to keep us going for about 4 hours which is a win to me. We stay at the Residence Inn Mirimar, get a text that the room is ready around 2. Nice hotel, website says $5/night for parking but I was never charged. Would stay here again for sure. Hit up Talkin Tacos for dinner (good, they have horchata, and they leave food out for the feral cats outside which is ADORABLE). Next morning, we just go to Chik Fil A and head to FLL and fly home, flight is on time and uneventful. Back in MN and somehow, it’s 50 degrees which I am happy about, but our vacation is officially over. I think that's the fuel ship. If not, pretend it is. Tacos, tasted better than they look but I wish I had some hot sauce. Taki Queso was BANGIN.

LAST SEA DAY: It’s our last sea day and the last day of the cruise 😭 We pick up luggage tags at Pixels (group 10), Go to the cruisino one last time to lose what we had left which was pretty quick. This was by far the worst luck I’ve had on any cruise. I blame it being an elite cruise. Thems the breaks though, house always wins and this time they definitely did. It’s lunch time and we skipped breakfast so I hit the deli for a ham and cheese sandwich (pretty good!), D heads up to Lido and gets some wings from Street Eats ($5 I think….maybe $6. #KillingIt). I meet him up there with my jamon and we eat in the buffet but in a back corner away from spitting toddlers. I go in search of some dessert. I find some cookies (I love these little things) and some donuts, which were absolutely HORRIFIC. Whoever decided that was the appropriate moisture level for a donut needs to be taken into the Davie Dunkin conference room and unceremoniously fired. GROSS. We go play a round of mini golf on deck 18, which D wins but I call shenanigans and think he somehow cheated. Realize we haven’t been to Alchemy at all so we stop by there late afternoon. Have a couple pain reliefs, and then I ask for “something lemon” which is made and also tasty. No clue what it was, might have just been a lemon drop but whatever, it was good. Back to the room to pack up our stuff (Boo!) put on slightly more appropriate attire. Take in sunset from the balcony and man am I gonna miss this. Head down to the main dining room for one last round. I get a Caesar salad (standard, fine), the enchiladas (fine, and I am vindicated because last time I ordered this one the Mardi Gras there was zero sauce and it was HELLA dry… I did not think that was right but they insisted it was. SAUCE PRESENT THIS TIME SO TAKE THAT MARDI GRAS!), and one last melting cake. D gets the fried tomatoes (good), brisket (fine), and also melting cake. Service is again pretty quick and everything is hot. They sing the leaving on a fun ship song and everyone is sad and waiving their phones. Overall pretty solid MDR experience on the Celebration I’d give it an 8/10 which is better than my past 2 cruises. Never took too long and everything was hot and at least edible. We head back to the room to put our suitcases out then just wander around the ship for about an hour taking in our last night. Head to bed around 11 for the final sleep of the cruise. Skip those "donuts", trust me on this. Bayou leaves us a heart but clearly don't love me as he's kicking us out in under 24 hours. Cruise sunsets will never get old. That's the Magic floating out there in the distance. Saucy enchiladas I TRIED TO TELL YOU MARDI GRAS WAITRESS! One last chocolate martini 😞

SEA DAY #2 CONTINUED Hungry by now so we go to the Pig and Anchor Smokehouse. The Backyard Band is playing and it’s Classic Rock hits per the Hub App. Ya’ll it is LOUD in here. Like louuuuuuuud. I can’t hear the waiter and neither can D. He says something to D during ordering, we make 3 attempts to hear him and D finally just goes with “that’s cool man no worries at all”. Still zero idea what he said. I get pulled pork (good), mac and cheese (same as the outside), fries (It’s a fry, it’s fine), and the banana cream pie (meh, it’s ok). D orders chicken (ok), brisket (ok), fries (see above), mac and cheese which he never gets (maybe that’s what the waiter was saying? I got it and he didn’t though so unless I got the bottom of the barrel mac they weren’t out), and the Mississippi Mud Pie (I liked it, he didn’t, we ended up swapping desserts). Notably, the BBQ sauce here was WATERY. Every single one was the consistency of a Carolina Vinegar sauce. It was not like that when we went previously to the outside one. Bad table? Running low and they watered it down? Not sure, but unpleasant. We eat and then I die inside when I realize “classic rock” apparently now means Metallica and Bon Jovi, not the Eagles and Skynard. Send in the clowns from the circus show, I am officially old. Given I am elderly, we head up to the room and somehow get sucked into watching an Alan Arkin marathon on TMC. They’re showing “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” and wow that’s an interesting movie. I would put spoiler alert but seeing it came out in 1968 if you don’t know by now….I’ll leave it as Alan plays a mute man, there is an odd subplot about a man who gets his leg amputated and then enlists Alan to go find it for him (???) then it abruptly ends with people dying. DOWNERRR. I’m weirdly woozy/nauseous after that, not sure if it’s watery BBQ sauce, this downer of a movie, or sea sick (I am not normally prone to it, and it doesn’t seem like it’s that wavy so not sure what is going on there) but a couple Dramamine’s cure me in about 30 minutes, but also put me right to sleep.

SEA DAY #2 Sea Day so we sleep in a bit and head down to Sea Day Brunch around 11. Not too terrible of wait, I think it’s about 20 minutes. Order some spicy bloodys (good), an omelet each (mushroom and cheese for me, bacon/spinach/mushroom/cheese for D) and a skillet cake for us to share. Also get some coffee and it taste better than I remember it (typically I hate the free coffee on Carnival) but that might just be the bloody and/or my overly salted on the week tastebuds talking. I forget now that there’s no wandering breadbasket man and you have to ask for a muffin or any other bread you specifically want. I did not want to go back and ask for a muffin after we just ordered 3 entrees, I do have some couth. So I remain mufinless. Brunch was good, same situation with just sitting waiting for something to sign, 10-minute deadline passes so adios. I didn’t get arrested last time I didn’t sign so I'm willing to risk it again. I need some better coffee so we stop by Java Blue for a latte. Line is long but moves relatively quick. There is a Karen full on standing BEHIND the counter telling the worker to “add more cream, no more coffee, ok now more cream” to her drink until she deems it acceptable. The worker looks like she’s about to cry and/or throttle her. Legit felt bad for the workers on this cruise, people are terrible. Karen works hard but the Java Blue girlies work harder, and I tip them accordingly. Play some cards in the Grand Central area near Golden Jubilee, go pick up some Shaq's Big Chicken midafternoon (tenders for me, sandwich for D, both tasty!!). Not tasty is a woman with a toddler who she keeps yelling at to come get his chicken. The toddler decides that he’d rather walk around the line spitting out his lemonade all over the floor instead. Continue to douse myself in sanitizer and remember why pools and Lido are largely added to the "none of my business" list. Back to the room and chill until it’s time to head down to the center stage for “The World Works Here” and “We are One” show. Grab a better seat than last time, I am handed a random flag. I don’t know what to do with it. I also do not know what country it is, but Prof. Google later tells me it’s St. Vincent/Grenadines. Sweet. Anyways Lee comes out and talks about all the workers and they come up one by one waving their flags and then some people sing Imagine and then there’s random children (I think it must be like this week's valedictorians from the kids club or something) and do it in sign language which is nice. I wave my flag and give myself a 10/10 for rep’ing St. Vincent. Then the show starts and I think the premise is this aerialist goes on a journey around the world. The performers dress up in Saari’s and sing Jai Ho. They put on flamenco dresses and sing Bailamos. A man from England (I know this as he was in the elevator with me one day) does what I think is supposed to be an African Tribal Dance. It’s……really something. Bar waiter is walking around which helps. Here's our balcony if you're curious. "Wall" is solid vs glass so not much of a view while sitting. There's a windjammer glass thing between your door and the seating area so you don't get blown away. Lounger was nice, and nice views! Ready to rep....someone. My apologies to the Grenadines for being unknowledgeable. Rise up spinny woman! This reminds me of 1988's premier television event "Big Bird in Japan". CLASSIC.

We’re back and thanks to all of you reading along. I APPRECAITE YOU. St. Thomas continued: Get back on the ship, shower off all the sweat from walking around and take the always excellent post cruise excursion nap. We have reservations at the Fahrenheit 555 Steakhouse tonight at 6 so once we’re showered, napped, and looking somewhat presentable we head down that way. Not super busy tonight. Waiter is Mikhail who is very nice and mentions he is heading home after this cruise is over. Hope you had a good trip home buddy! We order some drinks (good), and out comes the “compliments of the chef” amuse bouche. I am utterly shocked when it is NOT THE TINY CHEESEBURGER!!!!! We come here every cruise and I have been seeing that tiny cheeseburger for like the past 5 years. This time it’s a piece of fried cheese. I am ok with this given I do not eat beef (so why am I at the steakhouse? I refer you back to my “pick your battles” marriage advice) and it’s pretty tasty for the .75 seconds it takes me to eat it. Hard to mess up fried cheese. We both get the stuffed mushrooms (good!) I get the chicken (good, but they give you too much I can not eat a half a chicken). D eats half of what they give me and concurs it’s good. D gets the cowboy steak (good), we both get cheesecake (also good!). Overall this was a really nice steakhouse experience. Historically this is sloowww for us (seriously took over 2 hours on our Mardi Gras cruise, Vista wasn’t much better) but we were in and out in just over an hour. Staff was polite, only small sanfu was when I asked for a coffee with Bailey’s with my cheesecake. About to go home Mikhail asks if I mean an espresso martini. No sir I want coffee with Bailey’s. He says he cannot put the Bailey’s in it but can bring me a cup of coffee with a shot of Bailey’s on the side and I can play mixologist. I don’t get it but ok that works! Overall 9/10 steakhouse experience. Hit the cruisino for a while and continue to lose, while my liver is still winning, D’s luck has turned too. Maybe these slots are not for me, but these drinks surely are. We then head to the theater for the showing of Amor Cubano. This show is WILD. Admittedly I’m a few drinks in but it appears to be a vaguely West Side Story inspired storyline while they sing Latin themed music including the Latin Classic “Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” by U2. Apparently, I missed the memo that Bono is now a Latino man. They also have the drummer backwards for the first 1/3 of the show? Is he in timeout? They did spin him around at some point, but I could not stop laughing at this man drumming at a wall. Theater is still about the emptiest I’ve seen it at a show. Then these giant heads come out and I am just confused. They shoot streamers at you at the end which scares the crap out of me but the kid next to me was very excited about it. Good times, man. We hit up Miami Slice for some pizza, this time the plates are “roped off” and there is a worker handing you pre-plated cheese and/or pepperoni and taking orders for the other ones. I don’t know why that switch was made but ok! Hit they hay after that, overall, probably my favorite day on the cruise, it was a good time! Tiny burger's replacement. UPGRADE! Drummer in timeout I I don't know what is going on here.

Yay can’t wait to read it! We were getting those Ultra offers pre-cruise but now they’ve disappeared. Guess my losing offended them lol. Curious if they’ll come back, I’ve always wanted to try being a cruise-ino VIP lolll. Can’t wait for the live!

We take our Prince very seriously here in Minnesota. Not sure why every cruise has decided they need to attempt purple rain at least once a cruise since he died, but I want a word with whoever made that call. I just wanna talk.

I rebuke the “fairy” name. A magical fairy would not charge me $300.

Jealous! We were discussing that we need to do a B2B soon, a week is just too short now! 🤩

St. Thomas Up and at ‘em early in St. Thomas. We had purchased the Magan’s Bay and Skyride excursion via Carnival and had to meet on the pier at 7:30. We head up to Lido at 7. I stop by Shaq’s for a bacon egg and cheese biscuit (biscuit sucks but the eggs/cheese/bacon were fine), D just grabs some fruit from the still terrible buffet. Wolf that down and we are off the ship by about 7:20. Hop in a somewhat long line and are rather quickly lead to Alvin and his Love Chariot who will be our chauffer for the day. We drive up to Drake’s Seat and take a quick break for selfies or a smoke I guess based on what most people did. Beautiful up there. Over to Meagan’s Bay. We arrive by about 8:15, beach is VERY uncrowded. Warm out but not sunny which is ok, I am very casper-esque and am not trying to get any more wrinkly than I already am now that my age starts with a 4. We spend 2 hours at the beach, in and out of the water, we stop by the beach bar for some waters. Alvin has us all rounded up by about 10:30am (he only had to go track one person down, time and Alvin wait for nobody apparently). He takes us on a small tour of the island and we see some sights and seriously I love it here so much. It’s my favorite Caribbean island. We got married here, I’d love to buy property here once we retire but I assume it’s not cheap. We’ll see. We get to the sky rider and leave Alvin and his love chariot behind with a tip. Nice guy. Good thing about this excursion is when you get to the sky ride, you enter at the top which 1) saves you from a large part of the line 2) prevents you from having to walk up a bunch of stairs. SCORE. Up we go in the skyglider. I do not love heights and it was terrifying. They’re so swing-y and it always looks like you’re about to crash into the one in front of you. Have a much-needed banana daquiri at the top, D has a bushwhacker. Roughly $15/each, they do take credit cards. Walk around a bit for some views and back down we go. Honestly going up was scarier than down. It is getting rather warm out (86 and humid again) so we just do some quick walking around the port, pick up a couple souvenirs, and head back to the ship. It’s about 1pm by then, we’re only in port til 3 today. Overall this excursion was overpriced for sure (I think we paid $60/person) and you could DIY it MUCHHH cheaper. But I am very lazy and will pay for convenience. I am also an anxious mess and like the reassurance I won’t get left behind. So to me it was worth it. Getting to skip the stair climb at the Sky Glider also was the move. Would recommend this excursion but realize you’re gonna overpay for what it is. Drake's Seat Views Alvin and his Love Chariot Glad we did this once but I will never do this again. I paid $15 each for these (pre tax/tip), Paradise Point swears she Vegas Legend is in port with us I swear this is the prettiest place. I love it so much. Even the clouds look better like they're extra 3D or something. St. Thomas is my happy place straight up and if the world was ever ending this is where I would immediately head to spend my last hours. TAKING A BREAK HERE WE'LL BE BACK TO FINISH TOMORROW SHOUTOUT TO MY ONE READER IMMA KEEP GOING THOUGH!!!!!! 🙂

SAN JUAN: We didn’t get into port until 11 today so we woke up around 9. Made our first and only trip to the buffet for some breakfast. Ya’ll buffet SUCCCKSSS on this ship. Seriously only ½ of it was open, there was ZERO of the cake situation there is on other ships (seriously, “dessert” every day was cookies, jello, and 2 bar/cake bar type things. Dats it. Every day), and overall selection was extremely limited. We are not really buffet people but this one was exceptionally bad. Got off the ship around noon, plan was to just walk around and that’s what we did. Wandered the streets of Old San Juan for about 2.5 hours, it’s very cute and I never felt unsafe, Royal ship was in with us so lots of people around. It was HOT, close to 90 and humid. Just popped into stores to look around for a blast of a/c when we needed to. Side note: there is some signs up about bird flu and not to pet the birds. People ignored this and were petting the pigeons and letting them land on them. G-R-O-S-S. Some people in our group on the other site that shall not be named felt it was not announced enough. Idk I saw the signs and in my opinion you gotta take some responsibility for yourself and be aware of things but…….either way, gross. Birds are also on the “none of my business” list. We did not get sick. Back on the ship around 2:30-3, hung out for the rest of the afternoon, it started to rain late afternoon. Went to Cucina for dinner, very short wait. I had arancini (good), Penne Pomodoro (basic, but good), a side of broccoli (I legit hate broccoli idk what I was thinking other than one too many drinks that afternoon had me thinking I needed a vegetable) and the apple crostata (decent). D had the meatball (decent), chicken parm (good), crispy potatoes (good), and no dessert (lame). Service here was quick but also seemed frazzled. I asked for coffee with dessert, I did not get it. They did actually bring me my receipt to sign for our drinks in a timely matter, and my food was hot though so vast improvement over ChiBang. Overall 7/10. Came out and some lady is having an absolute HISSY FIT at the hostess about how she is not waiting any longer for a table. Or what, you’re gonna demand a refund of your $0 you paid for this dinner? You’re gonna sit there on the floor til somebody brings you a meatball? Chill out lady. People were rude on this cruise and I felt bad for the staff. Stopped by the arcade to play some games for a bit (it was very dead, not many kids on this cruise), walked around a bit, then went back to the room to relax and go to sleep since we had an early morning excursion tomorrow. Makin friends in San Juan Breathtaking FedEx views Apple Crostata I would not suggest following those directions. Lido is pretty at night

AMBER COVE: Been here a million times (and by that I mean like 4), we're coming back here next year, and D is not a big pool/beach person... so we gonna chill on the ship today. Go to Emeril’s for breakfast. We share some beignets (good!!), D gets shrimp and grits (GOOD!), I get a cappuccino (good, included with cheers) and the breakfast po-boy without the sausage as I am rather phobic of encased meats (get your mind elsewhere!!!). I think our total came to about $25 with tax (since we’re in port already) and tip. Overall REALLY good and worth it for sure. 10/10 would recommend Emerils for some tasty breakfast. Standard nap/read/play cards afternoon until we have reservations at Bonsai Teppenyaki that evening. This is D’s favorite thing to do ever. I could take it or leave it but he’s rather adorable when he gets as excited as a 5 year old over the egg that looks like a snake. So Teppenyaki’ing we go. The famous Dave from Philly aka the Philippines is our chef and he does a standard job. Sake-tini’s are delicious and make it far more exciting. I have chicken (good), D has steak (good), I freaking love that drink they give you in the dessert bento box and wish I could have a gallon of it. Overall 8/10, experience took about an hour and a half and we’ll do it again. Head down to Center Stage for the Circus show. This was also not the best show. It involved the story of some man run off to join the circus I guess. I hate the sightlines in here. See pic below, I spent a large amount of the show looking at this man’s dangling legs despite being somewhat close to the stage. Thrilling. Not many roaming drink waiters eitehr but admittedly we were not there super early. Also there were giant clown paintings in the show. PASS. Hit the cruisino. This is an elite cruise, we are not elite. Slot machines on the smoking side are in very short supply. Non smoking side is slightly better. Continued to get BODIED by these slots and called it a night around 11 or so Amber Cove, she cute too. Sideways dessert box PASS Unmatched sightlines in here and stunning vistas of this man's dangling legs.

Thanks for reading, you the best! 🙂 You're gonna have a great time on her!

SEA DAY 1: Up and at ‘em around 9am, seas are not too bad and the sun is out! We had signed up for a Pasta Master class at Carnival Kitchen and had to report down there on deck 6 by 10:55 am. Skipped breakfast and made it down there on time where Chef Michael lead us though making noodles and a pasta dish. Overall this was fun, easy even for someone who does not cook AT ALL (aka me), and noodle dish was tasty! Total class was about an hour and I think we paid $30/person for it pre-cruise. Worth it to us and we’d do it again. We spent the rest of the day just hanging around reading, napping, and playing some cards. Went to ChiBang for dinner around 7, it was an hour wait when we checked in via the app and it took the full hour. This was NOT GOOD. D got nachos (meh), steak ranchero (not good), and the chocolate c-bang (it was fine). I got the spring rolls (good), mapo tofu (didn’t taste bad but it was cold. Like cold cold, not lukewarm), and c-bang (fine). Service was incredibly slow and servers seemed to be losing their frigging minds despite the restaurant being ½ empty. I sit around for 10 minutes after our plates were cleared thinking I need to sign for my drink. Nobody ever came back so we left, I figured they know where I am if they want to come arrest me. We also encounter a woman full on picking out a wedgie in the entrance. Like full on, not even trying to hide it, hand up her dress PICKIN. Immediately douse myself in hand sanitizer and decide ChiBang is none of my business for the rest of the cruise. 3/10 would not recommend. Nice day at sea! Bout to get our noodle on, pray I dont burn down this ship because based on my cooking experience that's a real possibility. Success and the ship is still floatin!

EMBARKATION CONTINUED: Head into our room, we had room 11208 for this cruise which is a balcony in the VERY front of the ship which was different. Some overall thoughts on the room: balcony is INCREDIBLY windy while at sea most of the time. If you are sitting down it’s fine but don’t plan on standing on your balcony for long or your cheeks (facial...mostly) will be flappin in the breeze. It’s partially shaded which I enjoyed. It is above a crew smoking area and occasionally you’d get a waft of smoke. Didn’t bother me but if you’re very sensitive to smoke I would avoid it. Overall 7.5/10 room. Hung out in the room for a bit, met room attendant Bayou who was an absolute sweetheart. He did not ask when we wanted service and just said he’d take care of it while we were out of the room. We are not picky with this so fine by me. Our only request was an extra blanket and he said he’d see what he could do. Up to sail away run by Lee which was widely attended and a good time. Back to the room to change for dinner, suitcases have arrived! MDR for dinner around 6. I had tomato soup (good), Indian Vegetarian (decent, a lot smaller than it used to be though) and some melting cake with a side of peanut butter. Dinner service was quick, we were in and out in about an hour. D want to stop by the shops so he looks around and ends up buying a backpack, and I check out the “preview” thing that’s going on at the Center Stage. As far as I can tell, they sit on stools and sing some songs from upcoming shows. Ok then. Hit the casino for a bit, D wins, I do not, my liver is winning via the casino bar. Head over to the theater for Color My World. This is a SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOZE. The singers are decent, some of the effects are cool but I was falling asleep. Idk what it was, but shows were not hittin on this cruise. Theater was also the most empty I have EVER seen it and that includes that time on the Vista when we had the world’s worst singers front and center. Back to the cruis-ino for a bit, then we head back into the theater for the 11:30 comedy show. This is way past my bedtime. Comedian #1 I do not remember his name (#killingit) and was ok, he spent most of the show trying to hook 2 people up? Second comedian was Doug Williams, who I know as the man who got absolutely WRECKED during the roast of Jamie Foxx back in the day. Glad to see he’s still doing his thing I guess. He was somewhat funny. Total runtime for the show between the 2 was about 45 minutes. I have worked up quite the appetite sitting there so we head to Miami slice for some pizza. I have cheese, D has pepperoni, both are readily available and you just grab a plate, you just have to wait if you want a specialty one. Call it a night and finally hit the hay around 1:30am and I AM SLEEPY. Bayou has officially delivered on the extra blanket request. COME THRU BAYOU!!!! Lee and the fun squad are getting it poppin Adios America! That section down below is the crew smoking area, for ref. PB + WCMC the GOAT Previewing the shows for the week, that black box is part of the glass barrier that man is not in witness protection The world pre-color. Coldplay and a mockery of Prince perks us right up apparently.... Drun-chies pizza at 1am is always a good idea on a cruise.

EMBARKATION/DAY 1 (by far the most we did any day of this trip!) We had a check-in time of 11:30-12 for the cruise. Woke up around 9, hit Dunkin in Davie for breakfast, let me tell you this is the fanciest Dunkin of all time. There is a Dunkin themed bike you can buy for $700. There is also a conference room you can rent out? Like full on conference room with a board room table etc. Imagine your boss tells you to come meet him at the Dunkin, you think you’re gonna get some delicious munchkins, then you get pulled into the Dunkin conference room and get fired. That would be really terrible. Anyway, make our way to the MIA airport to drop off the rental. Grab a cab outside, get to the port for $44 including tip. Uber/Lyft would have been roughly $23 pre-tip, but D gets weird about Ubers thinking somehow these jalopys the cab drivers have are safer. I love that man but sometime the logic is questionable. I just roll with it at this point. Picking your battles is the secret to marriage. There’s your free advice for the day. Arrive around 11:45, give bags to the porter. We are on the ship QUICK. Literally did not stand in a single line for more than 3 minutes the entire time. We did have to get sniffed by the drug dogs, I was not a huge fan of that as it made me feel like a felon and also I really wanted to pet that dog and couldn’t so that was like a bummer to start the trip. Deemed appropriately drug free we are let on the ship. Go to muster outside the dining room it takes 3 seconds. Head to Golden Jubliee for a couple drinks (we did have Cheers, paid for not free from the cruis-ino). D has a smoked Manhatten and I have a Vesper. Both good and bartenders are adorable. Go off in search of some food, end up at Guy’s Pig and Anchor on deck 8 (the outside BBQ is open, the smokehouse inside is not). It is DEAD. Literally nobody is there. Workers are super sweet. D gets some chicken (good), sausage (ok), greens (ok) and mac and cheese (good in a “this reminds me of my 5th grade cafeteria” type of way). I get pulled pork (good), coleslaw (grossssss tastes like legit nothing), bread (also gross which like I am whatever the polar opposite of keto is so if I dislike bread it’s gotta be really bad), and mac and cheese. Cruise director Lee announces rooms are ready so we go check it out. D needs a new lanyard so we also swing by Pixels on our way up and pick up our oh so snazzy elite gold level pins. I lost mine within 48 hours. Once again killing it over here. BBQ Action Very exclusive gifts Miami sure is pretty!!!!

Pre-Cruise Flew to Fort Lauderdale on 11/3, we went this route as it was significantly cheaper to fly/stay in FLL vs Miami. Flight uneventful, landed around 11am at the very tiny terminal 2 which I love, and picked up a rental at the airport (easy process). Stayed at the Courtyard in Plantation, they let us check in at noon, score. Hotel was fine-good location. Largely populated by a group of kids that I am assuming based on age/gender were members of some kind of dance/cheerleading team. Surprisingly didn’t her a ton of noise. I was leery as some recent reviews mentioned an ant problem…I did not see any ants. Must have went marchin. I'll see myself out for that. Great location-tons of stuff close by. Napped for the afternoon, went to Tiajuana Flats for dinner, it was fine. I like the hot sauce bar but I think it got smaller which is lame. Saturday we went to Starbucks and then spent the day at the Hollywood Hard Rock. Casino/property is beautiful but we did not win much. Oh well. Just went to Publix and picked up some sandwiches for dinner and called it a night pretty early (told you this review is gonna be snoozy). Tijana Flats eats. Quesadilla was fine. Queso was good. D's steak bowl was OKKKKK. Courtyard Plantation pool. Never saw a single person in it and it was warm. Do kids not do hotel pools anymore? I loved those as a kid. Big Casino winnings baby!!!! Next up: CRUISE DAY

Hello CC world and welcome to another review that LICH-ERALLY nobody asked for. We recently got off a 7-day cruise on the Carnival Celebration and I figured I would share a brief-ish (I can tend to get wordy so that's being real optimistic here) review, and some pics. My last review I did got to like 5 pages so clearly, I can’t let my enormous fan club down. In reality I just like re-living vacation and going back and reading these. Maybe something will help someone too. As the If you have questions, ask away. As the title indicates, this was definitely a snoozy cruise…we did a LOT of relaxing so this may also be a record for the most boring review of all time. We're off to an excellent start already, really killing it over here. About us/this cruise: Cruise was taken by me and my husband, henceforth referred to as D. I will continue to be referred to as “me” and “I” (creativity is my passion). We are in our early 40’s (wow first time I wrote that in a review, gross!!! JK better over the hill than buried under it), childfree, and live in Minneapolis. This was cruise #8, #6 on Carnival. We are not loyal but tend to enjoy Carnival. We are degenerate gamblers so we got this cruise on the cheap via casino offer. Originally booked in an interior on deck 10. Upgrade peddler called about a week before we sailed offering to upgrade us to a balcony for $300. SOLD. Cruise left out of Miami and our ports were Amber Cove, San Juan, and St. Thomas. Not our first time in any of them. LETS GOOOOOOO

Thanks for this! Looks very interesting!

Must be doing something right if we have been blessed with another wildra review! Following along, we’ll be in this cruise in about 2.5 months! 🤩

Beautiful thank you!!!!! They'll get my coins so I guess their scheme is working 😁