pirate4me2

Itinerary change up!

Thanks. Best pony I could have asked for. She was 32, and until recently in great health, so I wasn’t quite prepared for this.

My pre cruise bad luck struck again. About 1:30 I had to say goodbye to my sweet old pony that I’ve had for 22 years. 😩 At least i won’t be worrying about her while I’m on vacation, but this is NOT how I wanted this adventure to begin. Tomorrow morning about 5 am we head out for Cape Canaveral. Tomorrow evening, at dinner at Fishlips, I will raise a toast to Savannah. Sorry for the depressing post. I promise to be happier onboard!

I’m sure you’re excited, like I am right now!

She does look like a big one! I’m a tad nervous, she will be our biggest ship to date. What if I get lost? 😂 Maybe I’ll stow myself away and be on your cruise too. 😉

Oh. My. Gosh. I can totally see my husband trying that. Or me, and blaming it on him. 😂 Ok…got it! 👍🏻 Oh my. Another breakfast option! I don’t know how I’ll try all the delicious food on this ship in a week! I may need to pack gym clothes. Nah…nevermind. I’ll just take the stairs as much as I can. That way im still packed in a carryon!

Thanks for the info Jeff! Gonna go check out your review again now. 🙂 Hopefully it won't be too difficult for us to find on Friday, I have a feeling that after driving thru Nicole we are going to want to settle in for the night without too much hassle!

We stay on the ship sometimes while in Belize, or Ocho Rios. Less lines for activities such as water slides/ropes course/etc, less bodies in the pools, easy to find a deck chair.....lots of pluses!

So I've heard! The pictures look delish. Now to decide: WHICH Big Chicken should I try first??

Hahaha thanks! I am hoping they still have the Funderstruck burger, I do want to try that. I already know my first meal on embarkation day will be Shaq's....love me some good fried chicken!

Hey VitaminSea, yes, I put the beads on my luggage so they are ready to go! Lucky you being so close to the port.....we have to drive thru Nicole to get there! My anxiety is more than a little escalated by that. We will be heading out early Friday morning and taking it slow and easy to get down there.

Thanks for following along! As far as Raddisson.....I was shocked to be honest by the condition of it. Maybe they have done some work (our stay was last June), but I just wasn't willing to chance it. Every time we stayed there before it was great, so maybe this was a one-off, but yeah....I won't stay again until I see reports of it being in better condition.

If you see me, say hi! I told DH I am going to try and be more social this cruise. I am terrible with small talk, but I am trying to work on it. He just laughed when I told him that is one of my goals this cruise. 🙄

Yeah, but it could be dangerous....I made sure to double check the other day (before my evening shennigans) and make sure I booked a hotel for the correct date and correct city/state!

Off to a great start! I love sailing from NOLA, it is so much fun to visit the city and to sail down the Mississippi! And going around Halloween and getting to see the decorations is great....we have done that and it's so cool to see!

Pre-Cruise Hotel Info: On one of our land vacations to the Keys last year, we stopped in Cape Canaveral as a quick overnight to visit our favorite port to sail away from. We were itching for some yummy food from Fishlips, and we wanted to see our beloved ships in port...including the shiny new Mardi Gras! As is our tradition when in PC, we booked to stay at Raddisson Resort at the Port….we love that awesome pool, and every time we have stayed there it has been nice. WOW……have things changed! The room we were put in was NOT up to standards. It looked like a cheap hotel you’d rent by the hour, if you know what I mean. I really didn’t want to lay down in that bed, for fear of bedbugs (which I checked for by the way!) and when I did it was squeaky, and the linens were scratchy. I refused to bring my suitcase in the room, for fear of creepy crawlies getting in it. The carpet was frayed and had stains in it, and the bathroom had stains in the toilet and tub. I heard a few others complaining about the condition of the hotel as well, and even DH, who can sleep in a hammock between a tree for all he cares, said it was run-down and nothing like it used to be. The pool was still beautifully kept up, but they really need to invest some money into the rooms. So, with that said, when I booked this cruise I did not even consider staying at Raddisson pre-cruise like in the past. I looked around online, and settled on trying out Home2 Suites by Hilton, which I THINK is kinda close to Raddisson. The address says it is at 9004 Astronaut Blvd, so it shouldn’t be hard to find. We shall see! I didn’t see a Park & Cruise package like Raddisson has (but then again, I was not sober when I booked….I discovered Absinthe and drank ½ a bottle of it as I was researching….word to the wise, absinthe is NOT your friend if you drink that much of it) so I very well may have overlooked it on their site. Oh well, I am not heartbroken about parking at the port….I actually like parking at Port Canaveral, it is easy peasy lemon squeezy, and when I hop off the ship I can just get in the truck and start zooming home!

All packed! Into CARRYONS! Heck yeah! if anyone sailing on Saturday sees me parading thru Terminal 3 like I won the 2 billion dollar jackpot…this is about equivalent to it! I NEVER pack light. And DH said it couldn’t be done…don’t say those words to me! Challenge accepted! side note: the sloth isn’t coming along, he was just dropped there by Divya the Ausshole as she walked by. She is trying to smuggle something into our luggage to remind us of her, so we feel guilty about leaving her behind at Rotten Rottie Resort.

Glad to have you onboard with me Jo!! We really need to coordinate another cruise together! A “What a Breeze” reunion!

ME TOO Jeff! 🙂

Thank you. It’s going to feel great to get back onboard a ship!

Thank you! I’m a little anxious about the trip down Friday (looks like we will have cruddy weather!) and leaving our camper and KatieKat, but hopefully it’ll all go smoothly.

Sounds like you made a good choice! Enjoy your trip when it arrives! 🙂

Our biggest ship we sailed to date is the Horizon, we embark this Saturday on Mardi Gras and I am a little anxious about it! We do have Celebration booked for March, and will keep that sailing due to some exciting things we have planned for it, but if we feel the Excel class is too big, we will scale back down to the Vista and Dream classes for future bookings.

I always do reviews AFTER my cruise to help with my PCD (post cruise depression), but in honor of this being my first cruise post-pandemic, let’s try something I have never done before…a LIVE review! Ok, Ok, really the reason I am doing a LIVE is because DH is in college and has to do some schoolwork while onboard (Looser! Just kidding….way to go Hubs), so we have to purchase an internet plan. We normally just purchase the Social plan to stay in touch with the petsitter, so if I am shelling out for a higher plan, you can bet I am going to take advantage of it and make y’all jealous that I am onboard! 😜 It has been 2 years, 8 months, and 26 days (or just a very long 1001 days, however you prefer to see it) since I stepped off Carnival Conquest and I will step on the Mardi Gras. In that timeframe, I have lost any traces of sanity that I originally had. I had a really bad horse accident that resulted in a TBI, had a mental breakdown (probably part of the TBI that I didn’t realize I had at the time), sold my house, moved into a camper (right at the start of winter….that shows how bad my mental state was! 😨), lost my dog Traveler to a stupid accident 💔 (some of you may remember him from my Dysfunctional Family Vacation review), and just recently lost my beloved old cat Gizzy due to old age 💔. I’m still here tho, just a slight alcoholic and much grumpier Pirate at this point. Needless to say, this cruise is a MUCH NEEDED getaway! DH and I have done many land vacations over the past 2.5 years (FL Keys, Texas, Gulf Shores, NOLA) but they just aren’t our thing. We are CRUISERS at heart! We decided to book this cruise the day after Carnival announced that unvaccinated cruisers could sail again, as long as they did a pre-cruise COVID test. 🎉 I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of shoving a Q tip up to my brain (I had somehow made it thru this whole debacle without submitting to a COVID test), but I was willing to suffer thru one if it meant I could cruise again! As the weeks leading up to the cruise passed, other cruise lines began loosening or doing away with their COVID testing protocols, and I started getting excited. First, Carnival said you no longer had to do a SUPERVISED test (hooray! I can just have DH shove my Q tip up his nose! Just kidding….I wouldn’t do that…I’d shove it up Fido’s nose first. 🐶KIDDING!!!), then Princess said no more testing althogether, and FINALLY I got an email at 8:45 pm on October 25 saying Carnival no longer required a pre-cruise test. YAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSS! We had been booked on Mardi Gras before the shutdown for one of her first sailings from Port Canaveral, and seeing the videos and reviews of the ship the past several months really had me itching to try her out. I saw an aft balcony available, and I jumped on it. We also decided to splurge and do something else we had never done before: purchase the CHEERS! package….remember, I am somewhat of an alcoholic now since the shutdown and my accident. 🍸🍹 My goal this cruise: try at least one drink from every single bar onboard, and work my way thru every single drink on the menu at at least one of the bars. Y’all think I can do this? 😉 So….with all that boring talk outta the way, who’s ready for FUN? Tune in for Pirate’s marvelous return to the seas!

Can't wait to read more! So sorry for the mishap with your ankle!