12/10/22 - 12/19/22 Carnival Celebration

 

12/10

We had a slight delay in disembarkation, but we would have made it to the airport in time for the 10 am flight. After dropping off the parents, day date began.

 We headed to a nearby Panera for breakfast sandwiches and an hour and a half of work. We went to see Wakonda Forever at the local IMAX theater in Aventura - just north of where I used to live. The movie was good, but got a bit muddy in the middle. Glenn found Reunion Kitchn Bar for a late lunch. It was delicious. It was all small plates. We got the email our room was ready and we headed to Atwell Suites I. Downtown Miami. It's a 24 floor building. We are on the 21st floor. We got upgraded from a studio to a really nice one bedroom.

 I worked for a few hours. We headed up to the 24th floor to check out the lounge. They had a limited snack menu and some wine, beer, and cocktails. It was perfect for what we wanted. Early to bed.

12/11

I got up early to work. Glenn went up to the lounge for the included breakfast. He said it was nice. We forgot to mention yesterday that the valet guy at the hotel had no idea what kind of car we had. He had never heard of Saturn.

We headed to the port. Traffic was nuts getting in. Check in was busy but moved quickly. We had a lunch at Guy's Pig and Anchor Smokehouse. We walked around the ship a bit. Glenn had a meet up with a Facebook group. We got back to the cabin to a note that our Chef's Table was in 2 hours so we watched sail away from the cabin. Chef's Table was awesome. It took 3 hours. The food was inventive and delicious. The service was incredible. 

We headed back to the cabin for an early night.

 

12/12 Sea Day

 

I worked and Glenn brought me a great sausage egg sandwich from Java Blue. We lost Mind Games trivia. We had a good Sea Day brunch.

We did a cabin crawl with Glenn's Facebook group. We got to see an Excel Suite Aft. It was incredible. The nicest suite I've ever been in. We went to the 3:30 comedy show which was very funny. He did a great riff on how he's better than a 3:30 pm show. We went to the casino and had a lot of fun. I hit three progressive jackpots. Glenn hit one. Dinner was at Cucina. We were so close to the other table. Dinner was good. We got good seats for the Celestial Strings. Then we headed to the brewery to watch the game and listen to the band. A good day.

 

12/13 Grand Turk

We had delicious honey chicken biscuits for breakfast from Big Chicken and then went ashore. I filmed a video of Grand Turk while Glenn hung out by the Margaritaville pool. It rained a little.

 We were back onboard by 11:30 am while a lot of people were just getting off the ship. We had Guy's Burgers and shrimp tacos from Blue Iguana for lunch. We enjoyed hanging out by the pool.

 I finished the Grand Turk video and we headed to the Festivale restaurant (main dining room) for dinner. It was really good. I had the huge pork slider, escargot, and a stuffed portobello mushroom. We tried to get seats for the Circus Show, but 45 minutes before the show almost every seat was gone. We found a spot at a bar where we could at least see the aerialists. Then, we popped around to see the musicians: guitar player, piano player, and  sing-along piano bar. We watched the family Family Feud and even stayed up for the 11:30 pm Family Feud After Hours. It was fun.

 

12/14 Amber Cove

We docked in Amber Cove. I got up early so I'd be ready as soon as we docked to disembark and film a tour. I was off the ship by 7:15 am. Glenn stayed onboard. It took me about 3 hours to film and edit the video. We decided to book Loft 19 cabana for the day. Port days were half price: $250 plus 18% gratuity. It's Carnival's version of the Sanctuary. 

A couple slight differences: Excel suite guests get access to all the chaise loungers. Anyone can book a cabana and everyone including suite guests pay the same rate. Overall, we really enjoyed it. It has a large whirlpool and the menu was good. Great service. I think we'd do it again as a treat. We spent most of the day there. We had a good dinner at Chi-Bang: a mix of Chinese and Mexican. After dinner, we listened to some music and then played a great trivia. The violin trio played snippets of sounds from movies and we had to guess. Then the winners got to pick one of the songs for them to play the full song.

 

12/15 San Juan

We stayed on the ship. I filmed the ship tour and worked. We lost trivia. We tried the deli and pizza for lunch - both were good. We spent the afternoon at the aft pool on Deck 8. Great views. Very relaxing. Dinner was in the main dining room. We both had the turkey dinner and really enjoyed it. After dinner, I did some shopping while Glenn listened to the steel drum band at Latitudes. We also heard some fun music from the two guitar players.

 

12/16 St Thomas

We had delicious huevos ranchero for breakfast from Blue Iguana Cantina. We headed to Bolongo Bay Beach resort. I forgot the taxis were all shared taxis with multiple stops. It took us a while to get assigned to a taxi. The resort was lovely and the sales manager was so friendly. We had a nice lunch of fish tacos, chicken tacos, concho fritters, and chicken wings plus a couple Painkillers.

 The ride back was easy. I worked for the afternoon while Glenn napped. I did get some reading time on the balcony. For dinner, we headed to the Pig and Anchor Smokehouse. It was packed. I had the pulled pork tator tots with mac n'cheese, green beans, and bbq beans. Everything was good except for the beans. They need a deeper molasses flavor. Glenn had the sausage, dark meat chicken, and pulled pork with the same sides. We also enjoyed the smoked porter. We visited Latitudes bar and the casino. I finally hit 500 points so open up those casino offer floodgates. We settled into Golden Jubilee for three sets of great music - the more classical piano player paired with the strings trio and played a Beatles set, an Americana set, and a British set. It was terrific.

 

12/17 Sea Day

We had a fun Sea Day. I worked until noon then we had our BBQ cooking class. The class was a simple assembly class with everything laid out for us. 

We did get to use a meat injector so that was fun. We had pulled pork sandwiches and grilled pineapple. We got to see the smokers on Deck 8 so that was the highlight. We took a nap. Dinner was at Bonsai Sushi. It's an extra charge, but so worth it. We had a great dinner of short ribs appetizer, spicy tuna roll, Bonsai roll, hamachi sushi, salmon sushi, and a tuna poke bowl. We spent more of the evening at Latitudes with the guitar players. Then, we went to the Evolution party in Center Stage. It was so fun! The DJ played songs, but the dancers and singers came out, the guitar player,  then the horns from the band, and then the violin players. It was awesome.

 

12/18

I had a list of things we wanted to do on our last sea day. We started with breakfast at Emeril's. It's extra charge by the item. The shrimp and grits and the sweet potato waffle were delicious. We lost two trivias - general knowledge and TV themes. We headed to Street Eats for some dumplings and stir fry. Fresh Creations salad bar in the adults only Serenity section was open. It's super windy so all your lettuce flies around.

 We attended the production singers and dancers panel and the musicians panel. Both were very interesting. They all felt honored to be picked for the inaugural season since that meant opening the new shows. Afternoon tea was fun. Dinner was at Cucina. Service was still a bit of a mess. I had the chicken Parm and really liked it. Glenn's pork chop was too salty. We listened to Regie play the guitar and then headed to bed.

12/19 

Time to disembark and head back to Miami. We had Carnival carry off our luggage. The process worked very well.