Carnival Breeze Cruise - Western Caribbean

Better late than not, right? It's been hectic. I came back with a cold and it took a bit to recover. Then Stu headed down to Orlando for his annual firefighter reunion as well as another DiveQuest at Epcot. Me? I've been reading - a LOT. Oh, and nursing a wrenched/tweaked knee thanks to Cooper knocking my legs out from under me the first day Stu was gone.

That was Saturday and I've been plopped on the sofa, knee elevated and iced the first three days, along with taking Aleve. On Sunday I managed to get out to Rite-Aid and picked up a splint wrap. Today is the first day I can put weight on it without pain. Hoping that means the recovery is over!

Back to the cruise....we left on January 9th for seven days on the largest Carnival ship we've been on, the Breeze, out of Port Canaveral. We dropped the #2doods off at our new local boarding spot, Wild Rose Pet Care, the afternoon before. We got an early start and arrived in plenty of time for parking and shuttle service. Well, we thought we did. Turns out they not only had three ships boarding that day but a Norwegian Cruise Line ship came in early due to an extreme norovirus outbreak. Comments galore were flying on Facebook in the cruise groups and we quickly realized many of the passengers on that ship were using the same shuttle service. Not only did that mean a much longer wait for a shuttle bus but GERMS! We sanitized/washed our hands at every opportunity and also sanitized the handles on all our luggage as soon as it hit our room. Eeek!!



From there on, the cruise was a breeze...literally. The layout was very similar to the Magic and we fell in love with the decor. So NOT gaudy, so tropical. It was refreshing. In addition, although it holds a lot more passengers, we never felt crowded. I think the cabin was a bit smaller as well as the balcony, but the extra space gained was in the public areas.

Lido Buffet Area...




Atrium...


Library - quietest rooms on the ship (two rooms - one will pay to buy win service!)




That was the good. The food was okay and the public areas were FREEZING. We wore long-sleeves and often sweatshirts every night. The music was okay but LOUD. Maybe we're just getting old, not sure. Also, the talent wasn't what we had come to expect except for a trio of violinists and one guitar soloist. We didn't attend any of the shows, they were the same ones we saw last year in January. A disappointment, for sure.



The first night we ate in the steakhouse - it was EXCELLENT, the best we've had in the last several cruises. Stu got a smoked oyster type appetizer. What fun!







I ordered the shrimp cocktail (for him...LOL)


We went to the main dining room the second night. What a disaster! Slow, SLOW service, including a head waiter who took care of a table who arrived after us, then proceeded to go to another table in the middle of taking our order. We didn't ask for him again. Next night was the buffet, nothing we wanted on the menu. The third night we found the perfect wait staff and planned to come back. Well, until I got hit with a nasty cold. I ate buffet or room service and the last two days, I barely left the room. Sigh...



For the most part, we enjoyed it. Stu got to dive three out of the four ports - Belize was cancelled due to lack of signups. I only got off in Roatan where I bought a few long-sleeved items at Piraña Joe's. We've done this route a LOT and the first time around we did several excursions, now I just stay on board and write or read (it was reading this time).



We also hid a dozen or so ducks as well as pencils with little duck toppers. The bonus was Stu finding a little giraffe duck for me!







Here are some photos, you can see our entire album at SmugMug.

















Inclosing, our favorite drinks. Iced cappuccino from the coffee bar (using our coffee cozies from Etsy).



Ciao for now!

Busy, busy!

If you think we've been busy lately, we're about to get busier! While Stu is currently busy continuing to work on the French drain for the pasture behind the Backend of Nowhere Garage, I'm struggling to get my three former Kindle World books ready to republish.

At the same time, I/we are prepping for a week-long visit from Olivia & Jesse, our two Delaware grand-girls. Their parents are going to Maine to help out a friend and the girls asked if they could come see us. So, they are!

The biggest challenge is food - with our current way of eating (low carb), we need to go shopping for them. Milk, yogurt, cereal, bread, buns, strawberries, blueberries, apples, bananas and yes, snacks, are all on the list. All no-no's for us.

We plan to make a day trip to Dollywood while they are here as well as see a movie or two. Other than that, they will be kind of left to their own devices. Good thing Stu is great at entertaining them (LOL).

We are also working on future plans. Stu got a phone call from his older brother, Scott, who has been widowed for several years now. He's getting married! We're so happy for him. The wedding is the Saturday after Thanksgiving and we will spend an additional couple of days in the area before heading back home.

Before that trip, we need to get the RV ready to head south, hopefully heading to our winter campground for this year (southern Georgia) by the middle of November. It will add a day to our drive north for the wedding as well coming back, but it eliminates rushing to get the rig moved immediately after driving back from the wedding.

We have to be in Florida on December 8th to pick up our youngest grand-girl, Waverly, for her Disney trip. Because her parents are taking her to Disney for her first trip in October, we will be taking her on a four day Disney Cruise.

The #2Doods will be trying out a new boarding/doggy day care place in Georgia - we will squeeze in a meet and greet day before we commit.

Okay, time to get back to my C'Mon Inn mystery rewrites. Hoping to get them published by Monday. Woot!!

Ciao for now!

Cruise ship held up by drunken pirates!

Sorry for the late post...here is a quick wrap-up!

We've been off cruising...we did two weeks on the same ship with the same itinerary in late January, early February. Western Caribbean, our favorite due to the amount of scuba diving available for Stu. Normally all four ports have diving: Grand Cayman, Roatan, Belize, and Cozumel. This time around, there was no diving offered in Cozumel but after three days in a row of underwater fun, that was okay with him.

I do want to share this photo of the ladies room in one of the truck stops on our way south (we drove). Not your typical one at all!

Oh, wait, you don't understand the blog title? Let's go back to day one - embarkation day. We had driven to Tampa and spent the night in Wesley Chapel, giving us a short drive to the port. What we hadn't realized was it was also day for the Gasparilla Pirate Fest. We worried about road closures driving to the port but were met with none. Light traffic, actually.

We were scheduled to leave at 4pm but they were still loading luggage and provisions. So we missed our window. Due to the number of boats on the water due to the celebration, our next window was 6pm. Oops, we missed that one, too. We finally left at 10:15pm. It didn't really matter to us, we enjoyed seeing the port lit up at night. But it did matter to the Captain - he had to make adjustments to the amount of time in our first port of Cozumel. So, we were held up by drunken pirates!

  

We tried to get a photo of the Sunshine Bridge when we went under around midnight but just not enough light.

The rest of the cruise was pretty much the same as previous cruises - Stu dove almost every port and I wrote/edited to meet my publication deadline for Paradise Drift. I did leave my comfort zone, I promised myself I would try some new foods and I did. Stu was impressed {snicker}. I had fun using my new insulated tumbler, too!

We did have fun with another band new to us, ALTERR. What a wonderful group of guys, all from the Philippines. The group has been through several iterations before sticking with the current core group consisting of Sonny (lead guitar), Mario (drums), Geraldo (bass guitar), and Lito (keyboard). They all shared vocal duties and they did quite well with a wide variety of tunes ranging from oldies, to 70's-80's, pop, hard rock, country and more!

You can see all their photos and videos in our SmugMug Album.

We saw them almost every performance and on the second week of our cruise, we got to meet the folks behind ALTERR. Alva & Terry - the sweetest couple, we fell in love with them. Here are a few shots of them.

A few photos from formal night - now that is a shrimp cocktail!

Caught a nice sunset from our balcony....

We had a couple new towel animals - a whale, a bat, and Stu just had to decorate the frog!

We had the best wait team in the dining room...

...and the best room steward. She reminded us both of our sweet friend Angelita in Ecuador!

Oh, and when we were in port between the cruises - our balcony faced the valet parking and we spotted our car. We're the little black Jeep in the back row. LOL!

The last night at sea, the captain came on the intercom and announced that heavy fog was in the forecast for Tampa in the morning. In order to hopefully avoid a stalled arrival, he was going to push to arrive very early (by 4am) in order to beat it. And he did! Wow...

Here are some select shots taken during the cruise - all the photos and videos are HERE. As always, click any photo for a larger view.

And wonder of all wonders...who would ever have believed it. A husband wife duo who were entertainers - were in Cuenca, Ecuador when we lived there. The Musical Nomads! Small world for sure...

(I hope you are enjoying my Simplicity posts. I love seeing them every month on the 13th.)

Ciao for now!