First Sea Day...and Formal Night!

Sunday, March 1

Bob's morning started at the gym in the front of the ship, mine started at the adult only pool at the back of the ship. While he was working out, I grabbed some fruit and a muffin and enjoyed my breakfast poolside. When I got too warm, I would jump in the water for a bit to cool off. Sun…water…repeat. This is what vacation was meant to be! Bob eventually joined me and we stayed until around 11 a.m.

J & K showed up at about that time and since all of the loungers were occupied, we turned over our chairs to them. When we got back to the cabin, I was excited to see a little “gift” from the cruise director. I had sent a note on Facebook to John Heald, Carnival’s brand ambassador, and he must have relayed the message to the ship.

Bob and I took showers and put on real clothes so we could go to the cooking demonstration at the steakhouse at noon. J & K didn’t spend long at the pool and met us for the demonstration as well. Several different dishes from the steak house were prepared and then samples were handed out for everyone to try. It was really just a glorified advertisement to get folks to make a dinner booking…but it was delicious so I didn’t care! Here is a photo of the tiramisu they made.

  

We sampled the stuff they cooked and then went directly to lunch at the fish & chips restaurant. :-) Ceviche, fish, fried oysters...and then back to the cabin for a nap!

Once nap time was over, Bob and I went to the spa and sat in the huge indoor hot tub. Most people didn’t know it was there so while all of the Jacuzzis out on deck were packed, the one inside was usually empty…and much hotter. (Getting to the hot tub required going through the bathrooms in the spa so it wasn’t apparent how to enter.)

Our dining assignment mess took an unexpected turn again. After thinking everything was straightened out, J & K got a card in their cabin saying they had been reassigned to a table in the OTHER dining room…but not us. We were still supposed to stay at the table we had the night before…but just the two of us?? After standing in lines AGAIN we seemed to have it straightened out. Our waiters, I Wayan and I Komang seemed just as confused as we were.

That evening was the first of two formal nights for the week…and that meant LOBSTER! Here is a the menu...

A first for us…a magician stopped by our table and did some tricks that were totally unexplainable. We watched every move and still couldn’t catch how he pulled them off!

After dinner we went to one of the “family friendly” comedy shows in the Ebony Lounge. The comedian was Kelly Terranova…not the greatest in our opinion. I know the later “adult” shows were very popular (based on the lines to get in), but I just do not like to sit through a barrage of 4-letter words.

The early show was Motor City which we had seen the night before so instead we spent some time in the lobby listening to the music duo, Bilateral. They used “looping” to record snippets of music and then kept replaying and layering the music until it sounded much like a full band. J & K took advantage of the opportunity to do a little dancing as well!

After not sailing on Carnival for three years, we definitely noticed a cut in the evening entertainment. The musical productions no longer featured a live band or sets, but instead used taped music and a video background. (The shows were part of Carnival's switch to "Playlist" productions.) Out of the four shows, Epic Rock was the only one we could really say we enjoyed. Also, some evenings the entertainment consisted of game shows or karaoke. In the past those evenings would have featured a magician, juggler, singer, hypnotist, etc. 

Here is a rundown of the evening entertainment options for the first week. Note: this schedule shows we are in Costa Maya on Thursday...WRONG. It should be Grand Cayman. I was hoping the schedule had changed since we have never been to Costa Maya, but no such luck. 

Each evening before going to bed, I would do a re-cap of the day’s activities and post it on the “FUNville” forum on the Carnival website. Getting access to the site did not require purchasing any internet minutes and our kids at home could check in and see what we were up to. Likewise, they could also post so that I knew all was well at home.

Our daughter-in-law is a junior high geography teacher so she gave us a mission…keep track of the nationalities of the crew members that we meet. This actually created some of the best memories of the trip as we went out of our way to meet the staff and learn about their countries of origin. In each evening's post, I would include a list of the nationalities of crew that we had met that day and then she would have her students locate the countries on a world map at school. She said they were very surprised to see how many countries were represented on the staff! (For the record...there were staff from 52 countries onboard the Glory that week.)

In one of her reply posts, our daughter in law said she had asked our nearly three year old granddaughter what she thought we had packed in our luggage. Her reply? Snacks, clothes, socks, a cucumber and a picture! Ha! Funny how little minds work!