About the cruise... Part 1: the ship

I think I'll try to smoosh my week into two posts... the ship and the places we went. 

We cruised on the Carnival Magic, which I believe is one of their newest ships.  It was HUGE.  We were always the biggest cruise ship in port, everywhere we went.



I shared a stateroom with my sister and her best friend.  There were only two beds, but the couch converted to a third bed.  I took the couch.  It was firmer than I like, but the beds seemed pretty much the same.



Our stateroom steward was named Pichit.  I don't remember where he was from, but he was too cute.  You meet people from all over the world on cruise ships.  Our waitress was from Lithuania.  But Pichit came in twice a day... in the morning to make our beds and at night to turn down the beds.  I've never experienced turn down service before.  I felt quite pampered =)  When he turned down the beds, he left the itinerary for the next day and a towel creation for us....







We missed one night of towel creatures.... we all kind of passed out early after Jamaica so we didn't have turn down service that night.  I'm not sure what we missed, because different rooms had different animals.  I know some of our group got a penguin one night and some got a platypus.  At breakfast one morning, I heard someone complaining about the towel animals and how they were a waste of towels.  A waste of towels.  Some people just are anti-fun, I tell you.

You had three options for meals... room service (which was excellent, but slow), the Lido deck (buffet-style and crowded), or the dining room.



Aside from breakfast and lunch being open-seating and having to sit with strangers with weird opinions, I don't know why you wouldn't want to eat like that every meal.  =)  We actually met a lot of really great people at breakfast, and the one time we went to lunch, we made friends with the sweetest old man who wanted us to mail him some wine. 



I had a slight fascination for the fancy butter.  It doesn't take much to impress me.



During dinner, the maitre'd would sing a song.  He was Irish and sounded like Dean Martin.  Everyone would twirl their napkins.  Then the wait staff would do a "friendship dance" with whoever wanted to get up and dance with them.  It was so fun.



I tried so many new foods.  Sushi (no fish.... these were tofu and imitation crab.  They were OK, but I think I'd love cucumber rolls), Mongolian, Indian, I had an awesome cucumber dill soup one night.  I tried escargot.  Won't do that again.  I wasn't quite brave enough to try the alligator, shark, or a few other things.  I'm not a very adventurous eater, but I did love most of the stuff I tried.



These are the ladies that I was on the cruise with, all dressed up for our first Elegant Dining evening.  We all play Pokeno.  What's Pokeno?



This is a Pokeno card.  It's like Bingo, only instead of letters and numbers, the caller is flipping through a deck of cards.  We did play on the ship... we had a conference room reserved on the "at sea" days for 3 hours.  It drove me a little batty, especially the first day.  I mean, it's my first time on a cruise ship and I'm confined to a little room instead of exploring.  ;)

There was always something going on... there were shows every night - like musical numbers or there was an illusionist one night.  There was a comedy club.  Karaoke at least once a day... my sister sang Adele on our first "at sea" day and the group kept trying to get her to sing for the rest of the week.  They tried to get me to sing too, but somehow I took too long choosing a song to sing and they ran out of time.  Darn.  ;)

You want water, there are pools (salt water, which was surprising when you're not expecting it), hot tubs, a water slide.  You got water.

There's a casino on board, but I don't gamble, so the most experience I had with that was just walking through on the way to karaoke.

And shopping.... I'm not much of a shopper, but for some reason (probably because there wasn't much else for me to do sometimes since I don't gamble and had more than enough sun and water) I really enjoyed the shops.  I have to say that I spent more money on myself than anyone else.  My favorite purchases....



My "Pandora-style" bracelet and extra beads.  According to the tags, it was $160 worth of jewelry.  I paid $45. 

I can't really think of much more.  I had fun on the boat, but I think our shore excursions were more fun.  Of course, it was much easier to get homesick on the boat. 

Next up, what we did in Cozumel, Grand Cayman, and Jamaica.  Well, what I remember of Jamaica anyway.  ;)