Déjà Dream: Just Another (Pictorial) Dream Review — Part Threefeatured

by Nicole on May 5, 2013

Posted in Cruise Reviews, Disney Trips, Pre-Cruise

I can’t help it. I’m itching to write. Hybrid post. More words. Same number of pictures.

We were up bright and early (like…6:00 am for Mom and 7:15 am for me and Stephanie) and it was…dark and gloomy outside. Not the ideal way to start a cruise but…I’ll take *any* weather on a cruise over the same weather on land. We headed to Sassagoula for a quick breakfast to redeem the rest of our meal plan credits.

Bounty Platter

Mickey Waffle with Strawberries

And then we went to Jackson Square to redeem the rest of our unused snack credits for pre-packaged snacks that we could bring on the ship with us

One last stroll around the POFQ grounds…

We packed up the car (which is significantly easier when you fly and can’t pack as many suitcases as you want) and started the hour-long drive to Cape Canaveral. The car rental agencies in the Cape Canaveral area are smaller lots and have heavily limited selections. We got an extra day refunded off our car rental by returning it by a certain time (we always overestimate our return time to be safe and we were refunded because we were back within a matter of minutes of the cutoff). And then we waited for the shuttle. There was a family ahead of us that took up an entire shuttle to themselves with all the luggage they had and we just…sat and waited. Cape Canaveral has a few hotels, but it doesn’t feel like the best of areas and beyond the obvious, there aren’t a ton of things to do.

We waited about 20 minutes for a shuttle (I forget which agency we used…it might have been Budget) and the shuttles were coded by which cruise terminals they go to. The Norwegian shuttle picked us up and made a special stop at the Carnival terminal for us after dropping off the Norwegian passengers on our shuttle. And after that…15 minutes to the port and then, being Platinum, we zipped through security and check-in, we were given Zone One cards as we checked in (another Platinum perk) and right as we finished checking in, our zone was called. We were on the ship by 11:30 am, less than 45 minutes from when we got onto the shuttle. We’ll miss this perk when we start anew on Royal Caribbean two weeks from today (but I think we have priority boarding from our travel agent…I hope!).

Once we got on board, there were Fun Crew members everywhere handing out Capers (Fun Times. Whatever. Sue me. They’re still Capers to me the same way Macy’s is Marshall Fields and the Willis Tower is forever the Sears Tower). The activities for the day looked pretty stacked, which gave me high hopes for the week. The number of activities offered usually correlates to the level of involvement the entertainment staff has with the passengers. More activities planned = better cruise staff. We looked over the Capers while we grabbed lunch on Lido. The Lido offerings were getting a bit…old. Same offerings on every cruise on the same days. We didn’t go hungry but Carnival needs to change it up more often. One of the reasons we went to Royal Caribbean for our next cruise is because we craved something new and different and every cruise we had on Carnival over the past couple years felt nearly identical.

We were allowed to our stateroom at 12:45 pm and felt the balcony room was a good fit for the three of us. When Grandma was with us and we shared a room, we always had a suite, and when she started using a wheelchair, we started traveling in two cabins. Now that she’s gone, it didn’t make sense to get two rooms and none of us wanted to sleep in an upper, so we tried out a balcony room to see if that would do, or if it would chase us back to suites.

Our luggage hadn’t arrived by the time we were getting ready for Muster Drill, which we weren’t used to. Our luggage had arrived pretty soon after we arrived in our cabins for as far back as I can really remember and it made it difficult for us to negotiate space. Stephanie and I have had a cabin to ourselves since…2007? I think? So that was nearly five years that spanned at least seven or eight cruises. We knew what went where, who took what shelf and who took what drawer. We had to learn to renegotiate that having to share a room with Mom again. And since our luggage wasn’t there and we couldn’t start that process, Stephanie napped and Mom and I went to the Lido deck for some coffee.

Muster Drill was uneventful. They made a quip about how we shouldn’t go on Facebook, so with that…I went on Facebook.

And then I took pictures of Stephanie while she took pictures of me.

This was our, what? 11th? 12th? Carnival cruise? We get the drill. Signal blows. Grab life jacket. Go to muster station. Listen to the people in the neon hats. Pray like hell. We get it. They said there’d be a movie playing to show us what we should do. I didn’t see one. We kept taking pictures in lieu of the safety movie that wasn’t playing.

After muster, we went out to the upper decks for sailaway. Mom and Stephanie grabbed a spot aft, but I ran to the Serenity deck and grabbed the last bed, called them, and put the ottomans at the foot of the bed out a little further to prevent people from standing in front of us because if you grab a bed on Serenity for sailaway and leave any space between your patio bed and the railing, people WILL stand in front of you and they WILL NOT care that they are obstructing your view of sailaway (because logic clearly dictates that your Hawaiian printed shorts are really the true sights we’ve been waiting months to see as we sail off into the Caribbean abyss…). Anyways. We stayed for a bit. Had a drink. Stephanie saw a dolphin and then we ultimately ended up back on our balcony.

Our suitcases arrived around 5:15 pm. Stephanie unpacked. I took pictures of myself in the mirror. The usual.

Mom and I unpacked a bit…we changed and then we headed down to (up to? I have no concept of direction) dinner.

Please pass the rolls

Beef and Barley Soup with Diced Root Vegetables

Fried Chicken Tenders, Marinated Cucumber and Lettuce

Heart of Iceberg Lettuce

Gazpacho Andalouse

Sweet and Sour Shrimp

Tender Braised Beef Brisket in Gravy

Chicken a la Grecque

More coffee

Warm Chocolate Melting Cake

Vanilla Creme Brulee

Assorted Cheese Plate

Dinner was well-paced. Our servers were efficient but not entirely personable (which was fine — if we wanted to get to know our servers and have more of a dialogue with them, we’d have done traditional dining instead of anytime dining. As it is, we want to eat and get out exploring the ship). There was a magician going around and the kids at the tables around us seemed to enjoy that, and there was a server bringing around shots every night, which the adults seemed to enjoy (not so much us…I’m not into shots after heavy meals and the servers were incredibly pushy).

After dinner, we walked around a bit and made our way to the casino to get our cards punched and get our lanyards and we went to the shops for cough drops because Stephanie was starting to feel a tickle in her throat. And then we caught the tail-end of sunset on one of the upper decks.

We headed back to the room and found our first towel animal and then…we all took unintentional naps.

We woke up in time for Bingo and found our fellow cruisers were of the…more sedate…variety. Until the Assistant CD quipped “And the crowd is going mild!” after a Bingo call, at which point, there was some embarrassingly loud laughter. From me. I love some good dry humor.

The Welcome Aboard show was…good. But we’re at the point that I could perform it (complete with choreography) in our living room at will. Change it up, Carnival.

After the Welcome Aboard show was Minute to Win It. Someone split their pants. That always makes for a good time for all. Well, maybe not for the pants. And after that, we skipped the late night grill to go back to the room to order room service and watch Saturday Night Live while I finished unpacking.

Roasted New York Strip Loin (no longer with brie…now with cheddar and 72% more disappointment)