Willdra’s Celestial Carnival Celebration May 28-June 4 Cruise Review

willdra · August 17, 2023

Amber Cove

We rose up at 9, handled our hygiene, then went food foraging. On this day we weren’t in a huge hurry to get off. We didn’t have an excursion planned and we knew that the pool area would be teeming with bodies. We were just gonna get off, see the sitch then govern ourselves accordingly.

W went and found omelets, I got a table, then went to Blue Iguana. It was a little crowded up there. Looks like more people are "in the know" about the breakfast at Blue Iguana. It's getting harder and harder to keep good food a secret. We must do better, cruise cousins. On the other hand, the buffet was not too bad. The way that they have the stations setup, it’s easy to jump in and jump out. The only lines that formed were waiting for stuff that has to be served like bacon, omelets (sorry to everyone behind W), or sometimes people are waiting for empty bins to be refilled.

The crew was conducting the emergency safety briefing during breakfast. This one would include checking every cabin, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen them do. If passengers wanted to stay in the cabin, they asked that the "Snoozing" sign be placed out. I’m pretty sure it would be very difficult to sleep thru the briefing, it’s noisy and there's lots of announcements. If you factor in the slamming of doors as they check every cabin, trying to sleep would just lead to grief, despair, and agony. Like using hand sanitizer, then discovering that you have 6 papercuts. Yowza.

For breakfast, I had my regular degular Omelet, Huevos Rancheros, an Arepa, and one slice of French Toast covered in Strawberry Syrup.

After I gathered all of those calories and carbs, I sat down and reached for my phone to start my notes. Uh oh, my phone wasn’t in my bag. We were right below our cabin, so I ran back up there to get it. I am so into this cabin’s location as far as proximity to stuff. I don’t mind walking, but sometimes I need to get there and back quickly and this cabin allowed for that. I found my phone fast, then I went back to sit, stare, and chew with W. Snore. We definitely daydreamed longer than we should’ve. It was nice to take our time and not rush.

willdra · August 17, 2023

It was a little after 10 when we got off of the ship. We met up with T and K along the way. As soon as we got to the pool area, we kinda knew this scene was not for us. We found exactly one area that was shaded under an umbrella. One. There was a guy sitting there who said he paid $22/chair, and he had reserved all of the seats. Listen Macaroni Tony, how do you reserve ALL of the seats? His story was bringing down the property value at an alarming rate. It’s been so long since W and I visited Amber Cove, I honestly didn’t know if he was telling the truth or not. It was fine tho. Those chairs were right by the kids area, and that’s where we did not want to be. Boy bye.

We walked around looking at different seating options, then quickly decided that we would just take a few pictures, pop into a couple of shots, then go back to the ship. I wasn’t going to pay to be miserable when I could have my choice of great seats (that I already paid for) onboard.

willdra · August 17, 2023

willdra · August 17, 2023

On the way back we got some decent shots before embarking. It was very fast to get back on.

willdra · August 17, 2023

willdra · August 17, 2023

It was very fast to get back on. We went straight up to Serenity to secure a spot for the day. Just as we suspected, it was pretty empty. The crew had the middle section with the pool and bar roped off to complete some maintenance. Peeps were not glad about that. I heard lots of dislikes about this situation throughout the day. I rested my respiratory system while W went to go see what Decks 16 and 8 had to offer. They offered a big fat nope. Both decks were heavily occupied. He came back up to Serenity, and climbed in the clamshell. T and K came up shortly after. They didn’t stay long tho cuz there was a lady on a lounger talking to someone very loudly using her speakerphone. Not only is that crass, but she was also complaining about everything. Errr. Nobody wanted to hear her conversation and nobody wanted to hear her issues. We wanted to chillax and enjoy our vacay. Capeesh?

Reading was impossible in this word storm. Since I was behind on my picture taking, I took that opportunity with a less full ship to get caught up. I’d missed a few significant areas on Mardi Gras, and I was determined not to repeat that mistake. This would also be good to help me get to know the ship better. We'd been introduced, but I was still in the friend zone. The ability to take time looking at the details is underrated. I noticed so much more looking through the lens of my camera.

Along the way, I stopped to use the kiosk at Guest Services to load up my gift cards. In addition to the ones that W purchased for me, I had one from Carnival which was a refund from our last cruise. We didn’t use all of the balance when we were on Horizon, so Carnival sent me an e-gift card a few days after the cruise concluded. I took a screenshot of the card number and pin so that I could easily add it. This was a quick process. The trick about the kiosk, is to just key in the numbers all at once. There’s a delay on the screen, but once you key them all in, a few seconds later the card number appears. If you press one number at a time and wait for it to show on the screen, it will take some time to do the whole thing. I had 4 gift cards to load. I was not trying to spend the night down there trying to add them to the account. Sometimes it's faster to just have them do it at Guest Services, but as long as I can just do it myself, I try not to tie up the reps. They have more pressing matters to deal with, like listening to someone complain about the crew completing repairs in Serenity when the ship was about 90% empty of passengers. This maintenance team was way out of pocket, thinking that they can just fix and improve stuff all willy nilly. Unacceptable.