VISTA / FIRST LIVE / FIRST SOLO - Nov. 1-8, 2019

[JohnSpo]

On 11/3/2019 at 12:52 PM, SenatorsFan said:

Me too x 2!

I am really enjoying your review as well.  Have a great time and thanks for taking us all along for the ride.😎

 

 

[bnbeyer]

19 hours ago, marci4tony said:

I watched you sail out of Galveston on the WebCam

 

We are on 11/16 - Love your information, your photos.

You are the first one I have heard about the Sky Ride.  That' super cool you were able to do that.

 

We have heard about OP for coffee/breakfast - luckily only down one flight of stairs and not much further for us!

 

Are the stupid, I mean smart elevators driving you nuts?  LOL

 

Knock em dead!  you're doing great!

 

They don't have the smart elevators, and honestly, I  haven't had to wait long for an elevator so far. Maybe because I've been mostly been using the aft elevators and not the mid-ship ones.

 

[bnbeyer]

So yesterday was another great day talking with new friends, playing at the casino, seeing a comedy show, and having a great dinner in  the MDR.

 

I was knocked out of the tournament in the second round. That was a bummer, but not a big deal.

 

We ate lunch at the Italian restaurant, and it was really good!  Once again I forgot to take good pictures. I had the flat iron steak for dinner, and I really liked that. My appetizers were the specialty shrimp for the region and they were fantastic! Our waiter keeps bringing extra appetizers and desserts, so I also had some fried shrimp with a spicy dip and cheesecake.  I forgot to take pictures until dessert.

 

Last night I lost track of time and played in the casino. When I looked at my watch, it was 5am!!!  I  figured there was no point in going to bed at that point. Now I'm ready to head to the Doctors cave beach in  Montego Bay. 

 

 

 

[deedle7544]

Sounds like you are having a great time!

[Joe817]

• Gads! Did you eat alllll those deserts by yourself? Talk about sugar rush! 🤠
• Loving your review.

[Saint Greg]

32 minutes ago, bnbeyer said:

 

They don't have the smart elevators, and honestly, I  haven't had to wait long for an elevator so far. Maybe because I've been mostly been using the aft elevators and not the mid-ship ones.

 

The forward ones are the issue. They don’t have smart elevators. I think those are on Horizon. On Vista they have certain elevators that go to certain floors. So if you want to go to a floor that every set stops at, you have to hit three sets of buttons if you want  the quickest elevator. If you hit all three, the other two will stop to pick you up even after you get on the first elevator that stopped. If you only hit one button, other elevators will be passing you by while wait on just two of the 6-8 elevators. It’s a mess.

[marci4tony]

Smart Elevators....psh....  Who needs em!  Not us! 

[CRUISERMOMX3]

What activities are you doing now that your tourney is over? 

[bnbeyer]

20 hours ago, Joe817 said:

• Gads! Did you eat alllll those deserts by yourself? Talk about sugar rush! 🤠
• Loving your review.

No!  I just took pics of everyone's. 😊

[bnbeyer]

10 hours ago, CRUISERMOMX3 said:

What activities are you doing now that your tourney is over? 

Lots of talking with people, eating, drinking, and going to the beach. I have that list of things I wanted to try on page one, but I'm really glad I did the sky bike on day 1. It's hard to tear myself away from people I'm enjoying hanging out with.

 

[bnbeyer]

So yesterday I left off where I had decided to go to Doctors Cave Beach Club in Montego Bay. I went out the ship on level 0, and right outside the port there were busses to take people anywhere. I hopped on one for $7. The lady in the microphone described during the drive the tour they were offering to everyone on the bus for $20, but I really just wanted to go to the beach. I  was the only one who got off, so I guess the others took the tour.

 

I set up my chair under the palm trees in the shade and was comfy, and this young nice security guard comes over to tell me he didn't think they would let me use my own chair, but he'd check with his boss. When his boss came over to me 5 or so minutes later, he was really angry and mean. I was like, sure I'll put away the chair. It's your property, but do you gotta be such a duck about it?

 

So then I laid out my beach blanket and had a wonderful day with my waitress and the young security guard. They were a lot of fun.

 

Oh, and ladies, watch out for the hair braiding! I was enjoying chatting with the lady and she wanted to braid my hair. I  decided that a single French braid would be nice, but when I sat down, she did a Jamaican style with tiny braids up front and  a mullet! When I saw myself in the elevator mirror I could only laugh!  But then when I took it out in my bathroom, my hair was really damaged and a lot of it broke off from tangling. If you have fine hair that tangles easily, definitely don't do it! I'm probably going to need to get 2 inches trimmed now.

 

 

[grandmarnnurse]

5 minutes ago, bnbeyer said:

So yesterday I left off where I had decided to go to Doctors Cave Beach Club in Montego Bay. I went out the ship on level 0, and right outside the port there were busses to take people anywhere. I hopped on one for $7. The lady in the microphone described during the drive the tour they were offering to everyone on the bus for $20, but I really just wanted to go to the beach. I  was the only one who got off, so I guess the others took the tour.

 

I set up my chair under the palm trees in the shade and was comfy, and this young nice security guard comes over to tell me he didn't think they would let me use my own chair, but he'd check with his boss. When his boss came over to me 5 or so minutes later, he was really angry and mean. I was like, sure I'll put away the chair. It's your property, but do you gotta be such a duck about it?

 

So then I laid out my beach blanket and had a wonderful day with my waitress and the young security guard. They were a lot of fun.

 

Oh, and ladies, watch out for the hair braiding! I was enjoying chatting with the lady and she wanted to braid my hair. I  decided that a single French braid would be nice, but when I sat down, she did a Jamaican style with tiny braids up front and  a mullet! When I saw myself in the elevator mirror I could only laugh!  But then when I took it out in my bathroom, my hair was really damaged and a lot of it broke off from tangling. If you have fine hair that tangles easily, definitely don't do it! I'm probably going to need to get 2 inches trimmed now.

 

 

The germaphobe in me would never consent to have one of these locals braid my hair. I cringe at the thought. 

[bnbeyer]

I was exhausted after dinner, and I went to bed at 10:30. There was this really nice beach towel in my room with the slot tournament logo. Very happy about that gift.

 

I woke up at 5:30 and saw the sunrise from my balcony. I'm dressed  and ready for the beach in Grand Cayman. I'm going with my ship friends, and they don't want to meet until 9:30.  The tender is going to be nuts. Oh well. It'll be fun.

 

I also took a photo of the Havana balconies below me. I'm on deck 9 aft. 

 

The pics I take with my phone upright post sideways. Annoying...

 

[zencruisers]

It looks like a beautiful day. Enjoy!

[bnbeyer]

I just got back on the ship from Grand Cayman.  My ship friends, Javier and John joined me today. Allison never showed, and I suspect she was sleeping last night off.  We left at 10am, which made it a short day in port, needing to be back at the ship water taxis no later than 2:15, but it was enough. Javier wanted to see a place where his son worked 6 years ago. It's a bar now, close to the cruise port, so we relaxed and has a drink there first. Then we got a taxi to the Royal Palms Beach Club. I didn't want to wait and ride in a cramped got can with a bunch of people and horrible air conditioning. So I flagged down a taxi that was driving by empty.  She was a neat lady who looked 35 or so, but she is actually 69!!! The going rate for the forest taxi group we looked at was $5, so I gave her  $25 for the 3 of us - it was a mostly empty van, just us, and gas costs a small fortune down here!

 

We enjoyed Royal Palms a lot.we had a few beers and some rum punch. The guys watched my stuff while I went snorkeling for a while. I didn't see anything interesting in the water, but the water felt so good. We separated ways when Javier wanted to meet with a friend of his son's for a drink near the cruise port. I decided to buy my napkin and a shell for my son, and then back to the ship to check out the Serenity deck and the Serenity deck salad bar. The salad bar is closed on port days, however, so I got chicken, pork, and shrimp tscos. I loved the chicken and shrimp ones, but the pork one wasn't good. I didn't like the seasoning, and it had lots of hard bits of meat or grisle.
 

It's probably time for me to either take a nap heer on Serenity or head to my room for a shower. Guess which one I'm choosing!
 

[CruzerDeb]

Sounds like a perfect day!

[CRUISERMOMX3]

We did Royal Palms last week over Halloween. It was amazing. We rented a private cabana by the pool. 

[#55worktoplay]

On 11/1/2019 at 9:21 PM, blarko said:

Another tribe member checking in and following along! Enjoying everything so far. Looking forward to the rest....enjoy your cruise!

This^
 

Late joining but hope you are enjoying so far. Now I will catch up where I am you haven’t left yet!

[bnbeyer]

I can't believe all the typos in my earlier posts. It's challenging to post from the phone sometimes.

 

Last night I met my ship friends for dinner around 7:30 or so. The clam chowder soup was pretty good, but it had bIts of bacon in it that kind of clashed with the flavors, in my opinion. I had the stuffed mushrooms appetizer and didn't like that very much either. I should have had the crab cake like the others. 

 

I ordered the filet mignon for my main course, and it was excellent. I also asked for a small portion of the mushroom sauce pasta, which was also excellent. I ordered strawberry ice cream for dessert, but I was really too full to eat it. Our waiter also brought me that red rum punch-like drink that was really good.

 

We ate late, so we didn't get to any shows. I  spent some time in the casino and then went to bed very late.

 

The casino gave  everyone in the tournament a $200 gift to the spa, so I've scheduled a manicure and hair trim for the last sea day. I will be all prepared for my business trip next week.

 

 

[#55worktoplay]

Has the casino been packed?  I have similar offers and wondered if these event cruises are good or not. 
 

It sounds like you are having a great time

[bnbeyer]

Cozumel day!  I met my ship friends at 9:30 to go to the beach. I had been looking forward to this day the most because of the place I planned to visit. It was the Money Bar BeachClub. They didn’t charge us entry and the prices for food and drinks were reasonable. The others ate food but I didn’t because I was too busy snorkeling. I went in 5 separate times! 
 

This beach club is not as well known with the cruises, so even though there were 4 ships in port, it never got crowded. It’s more popular with the resorts.  They have some rocky beach areas, so don’t come here for the beach. They come for the scuba club and snorkeling!  
 

i asked, and the waitress gave me some bread and tortillas to throw to bring fish to me. I probably would have stopped at 3 times in the water, but I had so much trouble getting pictures with my phone. It was in a waterproof case and it wasn’t recognizing my finger press on the button under water. Somebody gave me the tip to use my up volume key, and that did the trick!  
 

This was my favorite shore day, absolutely!  More later. I can’t tell which of the snorkeling pictures are best on my phone so just added a few I think look good.
 

 

[bnbeyer]

10 hours ago, #55worktoplay said:

Has the casino been packed?  I have similar offers and wondered if these event cruises are good or not. 
 

It sounds like you are having a great time

Yes, very crowded!!!

[Theosprey247]

Sounds like you're have lots of fun.  

[grandmarnnurse]

1 hour ago, bnbeyer said:

Cozumel day!  I met my ship friends at 9:30 to go to the beach. I had been looking forward to this day the most because of the place I planned to visit. It was the Money Bar BeachClub. They didn’t charge us entry and the prices for food and drinks were reasonable. The others ate food but I didn’t because I was too busy snorkeling. I went in 5 separate times! 
 

This beach club is not as well known with the cruises, so even though there were 4 ships in port, it never got crowded. It’s more popular with the resorts.  They have some rocky beach areas, so don’t come here for the beach. They come for the scuba club and snorkeling!  
 

i asked, and the waitress gave me some bread and tortillas to throw to bring fish to me. I probably would have stopped at 3 times in the water, but I had so much trouble getting pictures with my phone. It was in a waterproof case and it wasn’t recognizing my finger press on the button under water. Somebody gave me the tip to use my up volume key, and that did the trick!  
 

This was my favorite shore day, absolutely!  More later. I can’t tell which of the snorkeling pictures are best on my phone so just added a few I think look good.
 

 

Where is this beach club located in Cozumel? Walking distance or is a taxi needed?

[bnbeyer]

10 hours ago, #55worktoplay said:

Has the casino been packed?  I have similar offers and wondered if these event cruises are good or not. 
 

It sounds like you are having a great time

Yes, very crowded!!!