Carnival Paradise - Sea Day #1

Monday, June 14th – Day at Sea

  

I love sea days! Our last Paradise cruise was the “old western route” with only three ports…that meant a mid-week sea day to break up the hectic pace. This cruise had us visiting four ports and our only sea days were at the beginning and end of the week

  

Sun	Miami		4:00 PM
Mon	At Sea
Tues	Belize City	9:00 AM	6:00 PM
Wed	Roatan	7:00 AM	3:00 PM
Thurs	Grand Cayman	9:30 AM	5:00 PM
Fri	Cozumel	1:00 PM	11:00 PM
Sat	At Sea
Sun	Miami	8:00 AM

I was up before Bob and knew I would end up waking him if I started puttering around the cabin. I threw on some clothes and left a sticky note on the mirror saying I was going to breakfast. There weren’t many people up and about yet and it was fun walking through the quiet ship. I made my way to the Paris Restaurant on the Lido deck and grabbed a cup of coffee and had the omelet man make me a couple of eggs over-easy. I didn’t realize they would make “regular eggs” on the last cruise until the last day when I saw someone else ordering them so I made it a point to order them a couple of times on this cruise. The scrambled eggs on the buffet are kinda nasty so it was nice to have the option of a hot omelet or over-easy eggs. During the week, Bob got in the habit of going through the same buffet line each day and would tell the girl making omelets to “surprise him”. The first day she wasn’t quite sure what to think, but after that she seemed to look forward to creating different omelets for him each day! In fact, the one day he didn’t order an omelet she seemed really disappointed.

  

Another thing that Bob and Kent both did was take time to talk to each worker that came by in the Paris Restaurant. They made it a point to ask where they were from and find out a little bit about life in their native country. The crew members always seemed to really enjoy the chance to share about their background.

Anyway…I enjoyed my breakfast and then started wandering around the ship. I had brought my son’s digital camera…a Canon Elph which is no bigger than a pack of cards. I have been researching digital cameras and after using his I am sold on the small size. There are other cameras for about the same price that probably take better pictures or have fancier features, but this camera fit into my pocket so I carried it everywhere! If the camera had been larger, I’m sure it would have been left behind in the cabin for most of the cruise.

I used the quiet morning to take pictures of some of the public areas on the Paradise…the casino, the lounges, the atrium, etc. 

“Understated” is NOT a word that describes Carnival’s decor!

Bob was gone to breakfast by the time I got back to the cabin, but it wasn’t long before he returned along with Kent and Laurel. When we booked the guarantee cabins, I knew we were taking a chance that our cabins wouldn’t be together so we were really glad that we ended up with adjacent cabins. It just made things so much simpler being “next door” while planning our activities. It wasn’t until half way through the week that I learned how to use the phone to call cabin to cabin. You must dial a four digit number…the first digit is the deck number and the last three digits are the cabin number. Since we were on the Riviera deck (deck 4) and Kent and Laurel were in cabin number 6, I would dial 4006 to get their cabin.

  

Laurel was anxious to get some sun and wanted to lay out by the pool. I am a fair-skinned redhead so am cautious about how much time I spend in the sun. On our last cruise Bob and I spent a lot of time on lounge chairs on the outer portion of the Lido deck. It was great being able to watch the sea but yet we were in the shade of the lifeboats. What a shock to head out there and see no lounge chairs whatsoever!! There were empty chairs around the pool so I asked one of the Carnival employees if it would be OK to haul a couple of chairs to the outer deck and he said “yes”.

No chairs?

It wasn’t the easiest thing to do, especially when I was carrying my beach bag with my towel, book, sunglasses, etc. but we managed. Later on in the day I noticed several more chairs had shown up here so other people were following our lead. That night we met Jeff Bronson, the cruise director, as we were going into the Captains party and I asked him about the lack of lounge chairs. He said the Coast Guard (or someone important) had made them quit putting the chairs in that area because it would be a hazard if they ever had to use the lifeboats. I didn’t tell him that I had gotten permission to put the chairs there that morning! As far as I could tell, that was really the only shaded outer deck on the ship and we pulled chairs out again later in the week too!

Knowing how much we would be eating, we all agreed that during the week we would only use the stairs…not the elevator. Being on the lowest cabin deck, this would surely help stave off those unwanted pounds. We were pretty faithful for the first few days…even walking “up” to the Lido deck or higher (6 or 7 decks!) By the end of the week we were pretty much just doing the “down” stairs!

Paradise elevators.

Stairway art.

Besides the stairs, Laurel made up her mind that she was going to keep up her walking habit and do two miles on the jogging track on the Sports deck. She convinced Bob and Kent to go with her that morning, but I was content to lie on my lounge chair and read my book and doze occasionally. I did walk into the atrium once and could see them going round and round up above through the glass dome. I think Bob said it took 11 laps to make a mile.

Looking through the glass ceiling of the atrium, I could see Bob, Kent & Laurel doing their laps.

I was content right here.

I had a list of several things I really wanted to do during the week that I hadn’t done on the last cruise. One was to go in the swimming pool. When the walkers returned they were so hot it didn’t take much convincing to get them to go with me! The pool was much deeper than what I had imagined so Laurel and I just kind of hung onto the sides. Despite being deep (around 4 to 5 feet) it was still a very small pool so there wasn’t much to do and we didn’t stay long.

Prior to the cruise I had been corresponding with several other cruisers whom I had met online through the Cruise Critic website. We had arranged to meet at 11 a.m. on Monday near the pool at the back of the ship. Bob wasn’t too keen on meeting “strangers” but finally consented to go with me. Right away I recognized Debbie since I had seen her picture. A few minutes later Joel and his family showed up and we spent some time yacking and getting to know each other a bit. Eventually Glenn and his two girls came but that was it…there were a few others who had been taking part in the “roll call” posts, but they never made it to the get-together. It was funny because after that we would see Debbie and Glenn almost every day, but I never did see Joel anymore! I’m sure part of the reason was due to the opposite dining times that we had.

We had made plans to meet Kent and Laurel for lunch in the dining room so we hustled to get cleaned up and changed. Between the humidity, salt water, wind, etc., I felt like I spent half of the week just trying to tame my wild hair!! Much of this was wasted effort because one step out onto an open deck and it looked like I didn’t even own a comb! Laurel complained about her hair going limp, but I swear my hair would swell to twice its normal thickness and turn to pure fuzz!

  

Lunch was at our regular table in the Elation dining room, minus our table mates. I really wanted to have a chance to eat lunch in the dining room at least once during the week and knew with the heavy port schedule that it probably would have to be that first day. Bob ordered an oriental steak salad and I had veggie fajitas which were delicious.

  

After lunch, Laurel decided she had had enough sun and joined me on the promenade deck where we had dragged the lounge chairs that morning. Kent and Bob headed back up to the sports deck to try their hand at shuffleboard. As we lay there looking out to ocean, it was obvious…the swells were definitely getting much larger!

Monday night was the first formal night as well as the Captain's "Welcome Aboard Party." Captain Antonio Marchetti and cruise director, Jeff Bronson, were at the door greeting cruisers and posing for pictures as we entered. 

Waiters were circulating and offering drinks and hors d'oeuvres. I rarely have anything to drink, but had one of the complimentary lime daiquiris. After all...I didn't want to offend the captain by  not accepting his hospitality! :) Bob, Kent and Laurel each had a glass of non-alcoholic punch. I assumed it was probably the same stuff that was in the buffet dispensers, but Bob claimed it was much better.

During the party all of the Paradise officers were introduced and then the orchestra played for any who wanted to come on stage to dance. The four of us made our way down the stairs (we were on the upper level of the Normandie) and onto the stage. The orchestra was playing a slow tune, but it might as well have been rock and roll because that’s what the ship was doing!! I can just imagine what a hard time the performers have when the sea is rough because it was a challenge just to do one slow dance. I clung to Bob…if I went down I was bringing him with me!!

Formal night meant “lobster night” on the Paradise. Laurel isn’t a seafood lover so she had the prime rib, but Kent, Bob and I all ordered the lobster tail which was served with “porcini mushroom risotto and broccoli florets”…in fact, Bob and Kent each ordered TWO lobster dinners! Besides the yummy lobster, that night’s menu had several different appetizers that sounded great. Bob and I each ordered the Mississippi Delta Prawns plus I got the wild mushroom rougout and Bob had the roasted pumpkin soup…all were delicious. The salad selection every night consisted of two choices…a mixed garden salad plus one other choice. Tonight we chose the Caesar salad and it was very good. With all of the excellent menu choices, Carnival should make more of an effort to serve interesting salads.

The evening entertainment was a Las Vegas style show entitled “Dream Voyage.” Not wanting to look through a pole, we hustled to get to the Normandie Lounge as quickly as possible. The late dinner folks were still in the lounge enjoying their Captain’s party so we waited by the doors. Once they left, the doors were closed again so all of the debris from the party could be cleaned up. The Paradise gift shop was right next to the door where we were waiting and we shopped a bit to help pass the time. We were told it would take them 30 minutes to do the cleaning, but it couldn’t have been any longer than 10 minutes before the doors opened and people started grabbing the good seats.

The show featured the Paradise dancers and was a montage of songs throughout the years. Neither of the production type shows had changed since our cruise two years ago…only the lead male and female singers were different. I wondered if their costumes had been passed down to them from the former leads…I remember the gal before was very slim and this girl was just a little more “round”…the dresses she wore definitely fit snuggly!! This time the two shows were presented in reverse order. It actually made more sense this way since the music in the two shows were arranged chronologically beginning with the ones in Dream Voyage.

Although it was fun getting dressed up for dinner, all four of us were ready to change once the show was over. The seas were very rough by now and it was fun to try and walk a straight line down the center of the cabin hallway…none of us succeeded! When we got to our cabins, Kent opened his door and exclaimed…”we have animals!!” Sure enough…the first of our nightly towel animals had appeared. From then on there would be one waiting each night along with chocolates on our pillow and a copy of the next day’s Carnival Capers laying on the turned down bed.

We changed into our swimsuits and headed up to the hot tub on the Lido deck. Several teenagers were in the tub too and it was funny to see all of the hormones at work! They were about 15 years old and being a teacher I am well acquainted with this age! They weren’t rude or rowdy so I won’t complain…but I will say there was a lot of flirting going on!

Tomorrow would be our first stop so we headed back to the cabin to get a good night’s sleep. Being in the front of the ship, we felt a lot of movement that night. You could hear the big splash when the ship hit a wave and then a split second later a big “thud” as the ship came back down. This “splash…..thud” went on all night and although I was aware of it, it was also soothing…almost like being rocked to sleep.