irun5k

Next was San Juan. This isn't a port we've commonly hit and I was actually the only one of the four of us that had been. We took a walk up the hill through Old San Juan and the down the coast to the fort which we also toured. Overall, it was a nice day. We tried to eat lunch- at four different places. I hesitate to say this since it seems anecdotal, but after around three trips to the island it is becoming not anecdotal. Restaurant service is often lacking and it seems more than just being busy. Example, one wouldn't seat us ("sort of not taking customers right now", maybe locals only?), and another wouldn't admit that they were out of food and tried to make us order drinks (I'd heard them telling another customer they were out of almost everything.) Years ago we stayed at a nice Marriott on the beach and it was the only time in my life I've ever left a restaurant without paying. We did so because we tried- hard- for an hour to get someone to give us the check for our breakfast and they never did. Maybe I just have bad luck or we're playing the game wrong 😕 Anyway it worked out because we got back onboard and had some solid tacos- with a smile and no trickery and at no additional charge- from Blue Iguana. I do wish that Blue Iguana would toss a few tortilla chips in your basket with the tacos, but, now we're back to first world problems.

Great lead in! First up was Amber Cove. This was a new port for us. We did the Monkey Land & Taste of Dominican Republic excursion. I highly recommend this excursion. We boarded a modern coach to head to the location and of course they give you some info on the way there. Once we arrived we had a session that involved sampling Mamajuana and coffee and hot chocolate that was prepared in front of us using local techniques. Next we experienced the squirrel monkeys... lots of them. We weren't rushed at all and we all really liked it. The monkeys climbed all over us, basically because the guides sprinkled sunflower seeds all over us. They also take professional photos. You can buy them for $10 each after (digital), but they had 46 total photos of us so we just bought them all for $40. There was at least one good solo shot of us each plus a family shot so I figured that was already $50 worth. The only thing about this port call- the ship leaves early. I think all aboard time was maybe 3 or 3:30. Our excursion didn't leave until 10:30 so this basically took the whole day. We did have a short bit of time to look in a few shops. The tour also gave us all a coupon for a free gift in one of the gift shops which I normally would assume is a scam of some sort (I'm a cynic) but each coupon actually got us one bag with two floating candles, no questions asked. If we had time I was hoping to check out the pool area and do the zipline. However, maybe it worked out- we didn't have to rush that morning and had a nice leisurely breakfast and then headed to the excursion. Sometimes it isn't about how much you can possibly cram into a day.

I almost forgot- they have outdoor movies several times at night during the cruise. I'm a bit of an AV nerd and typically hard to please, yet I was pretty impressed with the audio and video quality. It is brand new, of course, so it should be good equipment. Had we had time, I would have loved to watch Top Gun: Maverick out there.

Haha, good catch. My 8 year old was certainly excited about the Squishmellow when she found it at the drug store and had to buy it so I'm glad to get external confirmation that it is actually an in-demand item as she said it was. The MDR was great the first night. We went to get our time reassigned to early and they changed it and seated us on the spot. We had a great table right inside the dining room behind a divider. I would say the dining room never seems to be nuts. The busiest dining establishment for us was the night we went to Chibang- it was packed and pretty loud.

The fitness center is pretty solid. Lots of state of the art treadmills with large screens and programming to where you can run or walk through an area of your choice. I took a jog past the end of the road on the Big Island where the lava flow covered the highway. I was hoping to see more of the sail away from St Thomas out the window from the treadmill but the viewing angle is a bit off. If that isn't a first world problem then I seriously do not know what is! There is something really odd on this ship, however! There is no locker room attached to the fitness center. I asked a spa salesperson that was trying to corner people in the elevator lobby and she said to go into the spa. The front desk told me where to go, which I believe was down a hall and down some internal stairs. At this point I'm navigating the inner bowels of the spa, passing treatment rooms, relaxation rooms, etc. Finally I find the men's locker room. I was actually looking for the free sauna which I'd heard was in this area. Couldn't find it and finally asked a fellow passenger in the locker room. So, you go out an unmarked back door of the locker room and the dry sauna is near the women's locker room. Due to the magic auto hand wave doors, the women's locker room door was open all the way and staying that way for an extended period which was uncomfortable because no matter how fast you look away you always feel like it wasn't fast enough. The sauna is co-ed, which I knew ahead of time so I went in with a towel and board shorts. Another couple came in and they were in their full on workout clothes including socks and shoes. It is 120 degrees inside here. That seemed odd but then I questioned whether I was the one doing something odd. Anyway, when all this was over I stumbled out an exit door that took me directly back into ship. I looked back at the door and it was completely unmarked but I do believe if you knew where it was you could just open it and go in that way and it would be much more direct that going into the spa. Anyway! The locker room and dry sauna are nice once you find them. However I could also see them just closing this off to only spa guests at some point but hopefully that won't happen.

There is no shortage of onboard activities. The ropes course is pretty cool- there are two ways to attack each segment so you could do it twice and not repeat a single challenge. The first segment includes a zipline option. We did this three times and actually never had a very long wait. I do not enjoy heights and noted that my fitness band recorded a HR over 160 even though it isn't a cardio challenge, lol. The basketball court was always packed- seemed like way too many people to be enjoyable to be honest. We signed up for the Bolt but it was down for technical reasons almost the entire day and we weren't able to rebook. Anecdotally I heard someone say they tried to ride it three times unsuccessfully on the Mardi Gras so perhaps they're still working out how to do a coaster at sea. I am not sure if the system allows this but if it does, I would create multiple reservations, maybe one at the beginning and one at the end of the cruise. If you don't actually want to do it twice you could cancel one... but at least you'd have two shots to ride it. I thought they could have handled the messaging a little better the day it was down- they sort of beat around the bush a bit almost like they just didn't have the guts to tell people they lost their chance to ride it this cruise. The water slides are all pretty good. Plenty of screams on the drop slide, which I didn't do but my son said the drop is the worst part and then it slows down. The yellow slide speeds up in the middle to the point where I was wondering what was going on! It looks fairly tame from the outside. The blue side is fun because you ride head first on a mat and it doesn't go super fast. This is by far the best option for someone that doesn't want something wild. The mini golf course (9 hole) is pretty good as well. My daughter like mini golf so we went after breakfast one day before it got busy, and it was nice. The running track... wait, there is no track. There is a wide line painted through a very busy deck with people all over, but no running track. There are foosball tables, a table shuffleboard thing (not sure what it is actually called), ping pong, and corn hole in different areas of the ship. I think this is great as it gives a lot of extra variety of things to do.

Pools. There are three for the general population that you can use without qualifying based on age, stateroom class, etc. The main pool is every bit as busy and crazy and you either long for, or dread. You also have Seafood Shack, Street Eats, Blue Iguana, and the tiki bar in this area along with plenty of poolside activities during the day. If this isn't your cup of tea, there are two aft pools. One is on deck 8 at Summer Landing behind Pig and Anchor. There are two hot tubs in this area as well as some corn hole, the Watering Hole Bar (off the beaten path.) The only obvious way I could find to get here was through the Pig & Anchor. This pool was busy during the day also but obviously a little less loud/crazy. Late in the day it quieted down- the ledge loungers are a great place to watch a sail away, if you can snag one. The other aft pool is on deck 6 behind the buffet and also has a couple hot tubs. Big Chicken and an ice cream machine are here. It seems pretty obvious that they were trying to spread the pool-seeking crowd out across the ship. All these areas stay busy but each one sort of has its own vibe and amenities so you can find what works for you. If you don't like crowds and you are flexible with your time, the pools seemed to be open fairly late with minimal crowds. Having kids and being in a normal stateroom, I can't speak to any of the other "special access" areas.

That is hilarious, my son is 15 and he was given his when he was born. It has been on every vacation since then so I guess it is more tradition at this point than anything else 🙂 Stay tuned for my "activities on board" post, some of it will probably be of interest to your family.

A little about the venues. Center stage: OMG, I honestly don't know how this made it off the drawing board. I see what they were trying to do but the execution is terrible. In my opinion this is the only swing and a miss onboard but it is a big one. (literally.) It spans decks 6, 7, and 8. 8 is almost worthless and good portions of 6 and 7 are very poor with obstructions that range from the low ceiling to pillars to the A/V booth, and more. It is also noisy from being in one of the busiest areas of the ship and people walk around constantly. In one of my pictures above you can see that the top of the Deal or No Deal board wasn't even visible from our seats on 6, even if you ducked down. It seems they realize this because there are TVs spread throughout this seating area to broadcast the shows. I believe it was early on the first night, the center band performed a straight up music set just as a band (no theater/dancing/etc.) on Center Stage (they sounded really good.) The venue actually works OK for that but that isn't how it is normally used. There is no way to fix the venue but perhaps over time they'll adjust how it is used. Spectrum is your traditional (proper) theater and it may be underutilized? If/when they roll off the Circus show in a few years perhaps they'll consider replacing it with a new headline show that can be held in Spectrum.

Entertainment.... lots happening on this ship at all times, but of course especially of an evening. Comedy: I have never seen this much comedy on a cruise ship. It was non stop. We did take in one matinee show (PG) in the Limelight theater. Most Magnificent Circus: started a little slow but an entertaining show regardless. We are One: we enjoyed this show a lot, and more than Circus, to be honest. We actually ended up watching the second showing as well! The early show was right after "The World Works Here" which highlighted the nationalities working onboard. The later show was simply the show (no second "The World Works Here" showing.) Family Feud: this was entertaining and we enjoyed it. For some reason, the crowd really wasn't into it though. Deal or no Deal: I don't actually care much for this gameshow in general, but if you like the TV show you may like the cruise version an/or want to buy a card to participate during the show. Music; The Back Yard Band: This is a 6 piece rock band that plays pretty much nightly at Pig and Anchor. I enjoyed listening to them. Music: Reggie, solo at Latitudes: Really enjoyed listening to this very talented young lady when enjoying a drink or two from Latitudes. I love listening to live music, especially when it is good. There was another solo performer, Travis I think, that was good also. Other live music: there was also a 3 piece string band and also music by the pool. I didn't hear much of these but the little I heard from the string band made me think they'd be worth checking out. There were more shows but this was all we had time for. There is alway something going on and time goes quickly.

No, I am not sure about the Havana Bar, but it is an enclosed bar area space so I would actually be a little surprised if it was open of a morning. However, Bar 820 is open and has good coffee. We were deck 11 mid balcony and really liked the deck because we could take the stairs to 16 or down to 6/7/8. I do realize not everyone can take the stairs- but if you're able, this location works well.

Yeah, FWIW St. John was beautiful last week- nothing but white sand and blue water. But of course things can probably change quick.

No problem! Stay tuned, I'll be adding a bit more about onboard activities, entertainment and ports. Which ports do you have on your itinerary?

Last thought on dining: while the ship succeeds in breaking the typical MDR and buffet complementary or low cost dining monopoly, you have to know what you are doing and plan ahead. Chibang and the Italian place require reservations through the app and if you don't have Any Time Dining you have to wait until 7:30 to submit a request. Pig and Anchor doesn't require a reservation- early in the cruise it seemed empty but after that it was totally packed and often had a wait time. Bonsai may have gotten busy at times but there were also times when it seemed like you could walk in and get a table. The buffet, as mentioned, perhaps should be a backup plan and not a primary dining choice. Also keep in mind most of the fast options that are popular for lunch are not available for dinner. It might be nice if at least Guy's Burgers would stay open a little later. Miami Slice was pretty good pizza and I particularly enjoyed the 4 cheese white pizza but again this is for snack purposes only for most folks. Lastly you could always stick with MDR for the whole cruise if you really wanted. We had early dining and it was as early as 5 PM at least one night. Normally we eat early at home so this is why we wanted early dining. We found that when we got back from our ports we'd normally be hungry and eat something around 3:30 when we got back on board and thus wouldn't be hungry at 5. This is where options like Emrils worked out great- we could have just the desired amount of food later at night at the time that was right for us.

For dinner we did the MDR the first and last night. Got to try frog legs the last night- they weren't bad! Both were good meals. We also did breakfast in the MDR a few times. Chibang was very good for dinner, albeit extremely slow. We only ordered off the Asian side of the menu. We also had lunch here one day, where bowls are offered on both sides of the menu. The only bad drink I had the entire cruise was from Chibang unfortunately- a margarita that tasted like lightly flavored water. Probably should have sent it back. Good lychee martinis, however. The only dining letdown of the cruise was Pig and Anchor. If you were to stick with the pulled pork and chicken and perhaps the right sides you might come away thinking it was "OK" or maybe even good. However the beef brisket was tough- pretty poor, and the baked beans were odd. The collard greens were different than what I'm used to in the south (Florida) but they weren't bad. OK, back to high points. We ate at Emrils a few times- it was all excellent and affordably priced. We liked that we could spend $30 for all 4 of us if we weren't starving. We also really liked Bonsai and felt it was a good value and another good choice for when you wanted an elevated experience w/o dropping three figures at a full-on specialty restaurant. The California roll actually had real crab. Your opinion of the buffet will be tied exclusively to your expectations. We had little need for it and just needed it to work for breakfast at times or a small snack and it was fine for those purposes. If you expect to eat dinner there every night you could be disappointed but I do not think they really expect folks to do that, to be honest. Oh, and it seemed like many days, if not every day, they had a couple of fresh made gelato choices at least during mid day hours (coffee, tiramisu, coconut, etc.). Nice! Of course the soft serve machines are here- a few of them. The one in Pig and Anchor turned out to be pretty convenient for us most of the time. (I think they could dramatically reduce their cleanup requirements if they offered napkins here.)

Food! That was one of the things we were looking forward to the most. On all previous Royal and Carnival cruises, we felt that the dining experience still revolved pretty strongly around the MDR and buffet. We thought the Celebration might change this. Largely, it did. There are a lot of venues and they are spread across the ship which I am sure is an effort to spread out the crowds as well. Several of the options are lunch/afternoon snack only, but they are still options! The quick lunch options we tried included: Big Chicken: very good sandwich and tenders, honestly as good as any I've had Guy's Burgers: a solid burger, upper end fast food level (e.g. Five Guys, Culvers) Street Eats: loved this option and the daily changes! Perfect for a snack and assembled/plated fresh which is a nice touch Blue Iguana: very good chicken and pork tacos

From here I'll talk about a few topics, the first being the bars onboard. Most of the major bars have their own unique menus based around their theme. I really like this approach- my favorite bars were Alchemy, Bar 820, and Latitudes. I didn't have a bad drink from one of these bars the entire cruise. I particularly liked the theming in the gateway area and Latitudes area is a great place to grab a drink, people watch, and listen to some music (more on that later.) Of a morning there was always a line at Java Blue for espresso drinks. However there was rarely a line at Bar 820 or Emrils and both serve espresso drinks as well. 820 also offers a cafe con leche. The modern touch screen coffee machines found all over the ship put out decent coffee as well. From what I could tell they load them up with ground coffee so it seems to be real drip coffee vs. coffee syrup. Did I mention this is a great looking ship?

My first impressions of the ship were very positive. Virtually everything is styled very tastefully in my opinion. Everything is very modern while still retaining character. For example the buffet has shiplap (fake, but still) and shutters, dark wood, etc..giving it a nice coastal vibe. It is truly a beautiful ship inside and out and aesthetically once of the nicest I've ever been on. You have a great view of Miami from the pool deck. For some reason I've never appreciated how much water is both around and throughout Miami but it is really a sight when you stop to take it in. We enjoyed the sail away from our balcony. We had been assigned late dining and our waitlist for any time was rejected so I wanted to see if we could at lease move to early dining. By the time we did our self-muster, the maitre d' had already left so we were instructed to return at 5:30, which we did. It was no problem to get changed over to early. It was a fairly early night for us since we were all pretty worn out. We had a room for four and it stayed in this configuration the entire time. I suppose one disadvantage of once-a-day service is that they don't put the room back into "day" mode which limits the space during the day. I did not actually try to put the bunk up myself but it looked like it might require a key? Still, this was workable with two kids but I would not personally try it with four adults or even with two older teenagers.

I'll be putting together a little review of our spring break cruise for our family of 4 on the Celebration, eastern itinerary. Our kids are 15 and 8. Our last several cruises have been on Royal Caribbean- we haven't sailed Carnival since around 2010. Would we enjoy Celebration as much as Oasis class? Would we see any fights? Stay tuned, all will be answered. This is going to start off a bit rough but as a bit of a spoiler, the rest of the trip was fantastic once the port was behind us. This was the first time we didn't travel to south FL from the Tampa area the night before. For Port Everglades we have done a sleep & park option, but we didn't want to leave our car outside the port in Miami, we we thought it might simplify things to drive down the day of. I almost freaked out the night before when I happened to see a headline that the Skyway bridge was going to be closed Sunday morning from 3 AM to 11 AM for the Skyway 10K run! Luckily, the fine print indicated it would be the northbound lanes only. We actually ended up seeing the race. I felt a sense of pride as while they were out exercising for an hour or so, I was on my way to exercise my liver for 7 days! Our assigned boarding time was 1:30 PM. The drive down was uneventful until we got to the port. We were in the port area around 1PM. The first of many issues was that I believe one lane on the bridge going over to the port was open. The actual port area was absolute chaos. Every lane was packed with barely moving vehicles. I feel that the signage was not great and in multiple places it was necessary to quickly cross several lanes of non-budging shuttles, taxis, etc. There was essentially nobody directing traffic or doing anything at all. Eventually we made it to the drop off area at terminal F. From here there was no guidance on where to park. The curbside baggage porter said he thought they were parking us at terminal "G". As gridlocked as the port was, I feared that any wrong turn could easily cost me another 1/2 hour. I never even saw "G" parking and resorted to rolling down my windows and and frantically asking people where they parked. Finally someone mentioned garage "K" was the only one with spots left and luckily it was in visual range so at that point so I pointed the car in that direction. From this garage, it was an urban adventure to get to the terminal. I wasn't going to board a shuttle even though there seemed to be a line forming... presumably for a shuttle going somewhere. I figured I was better off using my own two feet. On the upshot, I roughly knew where the ship was. On the downside, there are no sidewalks anywhere and I had to cross a couple busy roads with no crosswalks and other areas clearly not set up for pedestrian traffic. Various areas such as this one (I took the photo on our return, so imagine it with honking taxis, shuttles, etc.) Once our family was in the terminal, everything was really smooth. Gone are the big check in counters- you literally just walk up to an agent that has a mobile device at a small round table. There were no lines, delays, or anything of the sort. Essentially we walked right on. I heard it wasn't as bad earlier in the day so if we ever sail out of Miami again we'll basically have to get a hotel down there somewhere. That being said, the port wasn't exactly fantastic looking the morning we got back either but presumably the parking would be better. I much prefer Fort Lauderdale or Port Canaveral so it will have to be a phenomenal ship, value or itinerary (maybe all three) to get me back there.

We just went through this on Celebration last week. From what we learned on that ship, his hours were finished at 2 PM so we were told to return at 5:30 PM. Anecdotally it was no problem for us to get late changed to early. Changing to Any Time was a no-go, from the numbers he cited, well over half the ship was already on Any Time.

I definitely considered that but it seems F2F is sold out for our cruise. We'll check with the MDR when we get on board though. I believe when our TA put us on the waitlist we were only able to specify one choice when in a perfect world we would have been able to indicate a second choice of early dining. So, I have a good amount of hope that we don't be stuck with late dining.

Just a follow up, Carnival emailed me a letter saying they were unable to honor our waitlisted request to move from late dining to any time dining. I am wondering if we'll have luck changing when on board? Anyone ever get this sort of a letter in advance of sailing and still have luck changing once on board? I would imagine that any time dining is the most popular, so maybe we can at least shift from late to early once on board.

Looking at the beverages in the Cruise Planner, the 12 pack of bottled water and soda 6 packs actually seem to be somewhat reasonable deal at $10? We told our kids they could bring a 6 pack of soda and also figured we'd want some bottled water, but this would be easier than trying to bring that stuff with us while already dealing with luggage, carry ons, and of course our bottle of wine. Is it possible to buy more of any of these items once you're sailing, or is it only available for purchase prior to sailing?

I've never been one to stick around on debarkation day because me it feels like trying to stay at a restaurant when they're putting the chairs up on the tables. They clearly want you out, not because they're mean but because they have a job to do.... and they're going to give you an increasing number of stronger hints as time goes on.

Celebration. Just went through check in, earliest check in was 1-1:30 PM. Was hoping for something a littler earlier because I want to start driving down early enough to have time to deal with a flat tire or a child requiring an excessive number of bathroom stops, etc. which means we'll be there in advance of that time if all goes well. But, even if we have to wait in the terminal a bit, at least we'll know we're there!