2016 Cruise to Mexico - At Sea

In the most recent part of the 2016 Cruise to Mexico trip report, we had sailed away from Galveston to start our cruise. So now we pick up the story with our first full day on the cruise.

Sunday, July 17, 2016 - Day at Sea

We chose to sleep in a bit for our first day at sea. Not too late, but we didn’t get up too early, knowing that the next two mornings we would be getting up earlier for shore excursions.

At least I don’t think we slept late. Or got up early. In an inside stateroom, you really can’t tell what time it is without looking at a clock. No matter what time of day it is outside, it always looks the same inside. And I had forgotten just how dark it can get in an inside stateroom. Actually, with all of the lights out in our room, we could see a little bit of light coming in through the peep hole in the door, and a little bit of light coming around the edge of the door and through the louver in the door, but that was it. It’s a good thing we aren’t afraid of the dark or anything. If you don’t like the dark and are planning to stay in an inside stateroom, you might want to bring a night light. Or a flashlight. Or both. We didn’t have either, but we were just fine.

We got up whenever it was that we got up and went upstairs to Emile’s, the buffet on the Lido Deck where we had eaten lunch the day before. They had all kinds of stuff on their buffet for breakfast. Fruit, pastries, pancakes, French toast, eggs, sausage, bacon, and who knows what else. There was an omelette station to make an omelette your way, and you could even get a breakfast burrito from the burrito place.

Once again, we had a little trouble finding a table, since the place was pretty busy. I figured that it probably wouldn’t be quite as busy if we were there earlier the next morning, unless other people would also be getting up early for their excursions as well. Or maybe we should just find a different place to eat, or at least a different place to sit after we get our food. Not that we mind having lots of people around, it is just easier to hear each other talk when there aren’t as many people around.

The cover was closed over the adult pool area early in the morning, making me wonder if it had been that way all night.

Good morning from the Carnival Liberty!

After breakfast, we strolled around outside on the upper decks for a while, checking out the pool area and some interesting rocking chairs they have there in addition to the usual deck chairs. We were skeptical at first, but they actually ended up seeming to be pretty good. We sat there for a while enjoying the sun before making our way back to the Venetian Palace Theater.

Checking out the view from the back of the ship. It was pretty easy to tell where we had been.

Rocking as we are rolling across the water.

As you may remember, when we had arrived at the Venetian Palace Theater the night before, we walked in on a game of Bingo. Well, guess what we found when we arrived this time? If you guessed Bingo, then bingo! You would be right.

But the Bingo game soon ended, and the Fun on Land, Fun at Sea presentation started, hosted by our cruise director Frankie. We knew ahead of time that the presentation was mainly about shore excursions, because Frankie had said so in the welcome show the night before. And we already had excursions scheduled for both port days, but we were hoping to get a little more information about where to go, when to go, what to bring, when to be back, and all of that stuff. Plus, they promised some prize giveaways, so we entered our names in the drawing.

The presentation was actually pretty good, and some of the excursions that Frankie promoted made me question the decisions I had made for our excursions, but I didn’t go try to change to something else, because the ones I had picked for us still looked good, too. Maybe we should go back sometime and do something completely different? There are lots of possibilities!

For the prize drawings, some of the prizes were for free excursions, and I wondered what that might mean if we had won? Would we cancel our previously scheduled excursion and get our money back? Not that it mattered, because we didn’t win. A couple of other drawings were for bottles of wine. We decided that if they drew our name for those, we would just quietly act like we weren’t there, since no one knew us anyway. But then there was a drawing for dinner for two at the Diamond Steakhouse, and they drew Laura’s name! Yay! Big time dinner for us, since we wouldn’t have paid the extra money for the steakhouse otherwise. The card said it was a $70 value! After the presentation ended, we went to check with the steakhouse restaurant girl who was there to make reservations for anyone who decided they wanted to go after hearing the talk about it during the presentation. She said that they did have a spot for us that night, and we chose 8:00 to be our dinner time. Happy anniversary to us!

Looking down on the Carnival Liberty Lobby. Colorful place.

Oh, did I not mention that this day was our 23rd wedding anniversary? With all of the other excitement going on for just being on a cruise, it was sometimes a little difficult to remember that this day was even more special than the others, but it was. And what better way to spend your anniversary than at sea with your beautiful bride? Most people may not do much to celebrate an “off-year” like 23, but why not? And what better way to spend the evening than to take Laura to the big-bucks steakhouse restaurant, especially if it wasn’t costing us anything? That’s my kind of anniversary date.

Relaxing in the shade underneath the lifeboats. I never could figure out why there weren’t more people here.

Laura took my camera.

The only downside would be that the night before, Danesh mentioned that they would sing to us this night for our anniversary, so we would miss that. I was hoping he wouldn’t think that we were just skipping out because we didn’t want to be there or anything.

After making our dinner reservation, we stopped by our room for a Communion service, since it was Sunday and all. And we heard an announcement over the speaker system from Captain Giuseppe about how fast we were going (17 knots), how deep the water was (11,000 feet - wow!), where we were (latitude and longitude, although I don’t remember what they were), the weather forecast, and other information that I enjoyed hearing. And we were still 300 nautical miles from our first port of Cozumel, too. Cool stuff.

The blueness of the water always amazes me. How do they make it so blue?

Then it was time for lunch. Which was good, because all of that talk about the steakhouse at the presentation was starting to make me hungry. For our lunch, we decided to stop by Guy’s Burger Joint, which was created with that spiky-haired Guy Fieri on TV. That’s really the main thing that I know about him - that he has spiky hair and does something with food on TV. But the burgers were smelling good every time we walked past there the day before, which unfortunately was after we had already had lunch, so I wanted to try one for myself. Laura agreed, because she also thought they smelled good. We each got a cheeseburger, and then we loaded them up with things from the toppings bar. They had all the standard things like ketchup, mustard, pickles, and onions, and then other things like mushrooms, bacon, grilled onions, and I don’t know what else.

And our verdict? Delicious! Not sure what they did to make those burgers so tasty, but they were! Not sure if we would have another one during the cruise because of all the other food options that we wanted to try, but I wouldn’t argue with eating another one of these burgers, either.

Spending our anniversary at sea. What more could you ask for?

Also, we found a nice, quiet place to sit and enjoy our lunch. Just out the back doors of the Emile’s seating area was the adult pool, and it was mostly quiet out there. Yes, it was outside away from the air conditioning, but the seating tables were in the shade, so it wasn’t all that hot. And there were far fewer people out there, too. Most of the people out there were in the pool and not at the tables. Just what we were looking for. We would definitely be back there for eating later on!

Laura enjoys the view of the water.

Except that it wasn’t entirely quiet. There was an older woman at the next table, and she stopped one of the crew members as he was cleaning the tables. She said, “Why isn’t ice tea available? You have coffee available all the time, but it is too hot for that! Ice tea would be much better out here in the heat! Can’t you do something about that?” All the poor guy could say was, “I’m sorry. Maybe you can suggest that in the survey you get after the cruise.” She kept on a little longer, though. I thought I was going to have to go save the guy somehow, but fortunately he managed to get away on his own. And interestingly, the juice dispensers also dispense tea, and there is an ice dispenser right next to the juice machine. So I’m really not sure what her complaint was all about, but she wasn’t happy about it.

Watch for more from the 2016 Cruise to Mexico trip report coming soon!