Tag: Lido deck

Carnival Vista 2021 – Sea Day #1

Sea days are always a great day to relax and enjoy what the ship has to offer! This morning, I decided it would be best to let Jim sleep in and rest and much as possible since his allergies were driving him crazy! I used this time to do a little shopping!

First I went to the fun shops and found some 2 for $20 t-shirts in the sizes I needed. I didn’t want to take a chance of not being able to purchase them if I waited until the cruise was almost over, so I grabbed what I needed. These shirts would work a a shirt to wear on embarkation day for a future cruise, whenever that may be.

Then I made my way to Java Blue Cafe to grab some mugs and also a couple of Mocha’s to take to the room.

With my hands somewhat full, I made my way to our stateroom. It was time to make sure Jim was awake and ready to go to Brunch. We enjoy Sea Day Brunch and we always go whenever we can!

We tend to be creatures of habit when we go to brunch, and today was no exception. We started with Mimosa’s and coffee then stuffed ourselves with Steak and Eggs (my choice) and Eggs Benedict (Jim’s choice). The service was great and the food was fantastic. I can’t wait to come back again!!!!

Aftewards, we walked around the Fun Shops and Pixels. It was requested by my friend, Leigh Ann, to see if there were any lanyards on board. Mission accomplished!!! She will have plenty to chose from when she goes on her cruise!

Once back to our stateroom we found our new towel animal! Of course I had to take a picture of it! For today, Jim decided to be lazy in our stateroom while I decided to be lazy on deck 12 where I could watch the fun on the Lido deck yet have wonderful view of the water. And to enjoy a Pina Colada. Truly my happy place and favorite thing to do on a cruise.

After spending an appropriate amount of time in the sun, it was time to get ready for the first Cruise Elegant Night of this cruise. I started off with a gold eye mask/patch to hydrate. I do not know how well they worked as they kept sliding down my face!

With my clothes and shoes laid out and my hair sufficiently fixed, it was time to get ready and make our way to Deck 5 in search of the perfect backdrop for cruise formal night photos.

photo

When we arrived to deck 5, we did not see anything that really caught our attention so we made our way to deck 4 and this is what we decided on. Nothing fancy but still appropriate for what I was looking for.

Tonight at dinner we sat at a different table and were we glad we did. The staff was great. So much so that when we left, we stopped to see if we would be able to request the same table for the remainder of our cruise. Luckily we were able to do that!!!!

Tonight’s dinner cocktails were Bellini for me and a Chipotle Spicy Pineapple Martini for Jim. The martini was suggested by our awesome Carnival Personal Vacation Planner, Josh. According to Jim, it was a great suggestion! We also had water and ice tea to go with our meal.

Tonights bread selection were Ciabatta and Petite Sourdough, condiments were whipped butter, oilve & balsamic, and garlic and herb cheese. The garlic and herb cheese spread was definitely my favorite!

Our selections for appetizers were blackened pork tart and Caesar Salad for me!

Main course consisted of Spaghetti Carbonara for Jim and Slow Cooked Prime Rib for me. My mouth is still watering!

For dessert I had the Carnival Melting Chocolate Cake and Jim and the Vanilla Creme Brulee.

We were so stuffed after dinner, we went to our stateroom to change clothes and ended up staying in there the remainder of the night.

Today was a good day. I’m sure tomorrow will be a good day as well.

Coming up next is our second sea day. These is something about two sea days in a row that can really relax a persons soul.

Carnival Vista 2021 – Embarkation Day!!!!

Please be aware, throughout this blog, I will be writing about our experience with the new protocols in place. The protocols were not a problem for us. Now, let’s start today’s blog.

It’s finally here!!!! Today is the day we board the Carnival Vista.

Jim likes to start his day with a relaxing hot/warm bath. It prepares me mentally for his day. Unfortunately, that was not to happen on this day as there was no hot water!!! Oh well, I guess a cold shower will have to make do. I have repacked and rearranged all the packing trying to eliminate the unnecessary. I tend to be an over-packer. So now it is time for breakfast.

We decided to go to the Gumbo Diner for breakfast as it is next to the hotel. They open at 8am so we did have to wait for a bit, but that’s okay. It comes with being early risers. The breakfast selections on the menu were good. We were able to find something we wanted and when it arrived, it was hot and tasted great! The only issue I had was that my sausage was somewhat rare. But other than that one small issue, we were satisfied with the selections and the waitstaff was very attentive. We will definitely come here again for breakfast.

After we finished our breakfast, we packed up the car and checked out of the hotel. Our cruise check-in time is 10:30 to 11:00 and we wanted to make sure we timed things right. On this day, the Carnival Vista was docked at the pier primarily used by Royal Caribbean. No big deal. We dropped off our luggage and made our way to the Port of Galveston parking garage which is directly across the street from the Carnival cruise pier.

The walk to the pier was longer than we expected but we managed and arrived about 5 minutes before our check-in time. We showed our boarding pass, vaccine card, and negative COVID test and were in the terminal in line to board!!! The one thing I noticed is that this pier is hot inside. Luckily I had our handy-dandy necklace fans with me so I was able to keep us from sweating too much!!!

The line moved quickly and we were soon on the Carnival Vista! Our first stop was to our muster station. The E-muster is quick and easy!!! Before long, we were sitting on the Lido deck having our first Guy’s burger and our first drink of the day!!!! We also indulged in a bit of dessert sampling.

We stayed here until we heard the announcements that the staterooms were open! Since we booked a stateroom on the Lido deck, it was a very easy walk for us!. The stateroom was the typical port side balcony. And this is where we watched us sail-away from Galveston and just relaxed until dinner time.

For dinner, we selected Your Time Dining when we booked the cruise. We used the HUB app to check in for dinner and within a few minutes, we were alerted our table was ready. We made our way to the Horizons Restaurant, deck 4 aft. We definitely had a wonderful view from our table. But as is typical on the first night in the MDR, service can be hectic and maybe not as attentive as the remainder of the cruise. The first thing we noticed was a change in the menu. Instead of the bread being served as soon as you got there, the menu now has the breads shown on the menu along with condiments for the bread. Today’s selection of bread was Baguette or Multigrain Cranberry and the condiments were Whipped butter, olive oil & balsamic, and bacon pan drippings. We were served one of each bread selection and Jim selected the olive oil and balsamic while I had the bacon pan drippings. Jim had the Strawberry Bisque, Roasted Beef Brisket, and Tiramisu while I had a Caesar Salad, Broiled Strip Loin Steak, and Carnival Melting Chocolate Cake. For some reason, the steak I had was not that great. I ate but it just seemed off for some reason, but not reason enough to complain. Everything else was fine. Unfortunately I only remembered to take pictures of our bread, appetizers, and my dessert.

After dinner, we returned to our stateroom to find our first towel animal of the cruise!!!

The remainder of the evening/night was spent unpacking and relaxing in our stateroom. We are very boring people!

Next installment will be the first our first sea day. Please come back to read all about it.