We are back!! (to back) - Galveston December 3rd - 13th - Completed

[ukintheus]

Welcome along to our latest adventures on the high seas!

Like everyone else we had waited too long for DCL to return to sailing but were thrilled when the schedule for the Wonder continued to have her coming to Galveston for the end of this year. I admit I was skeptical for a long time. We had rolled cancelled bookings over (and over) and ended up with a back to back. The first four nights were to Cozumel and the second six nights to the Bahamas. Mum and Maureen originally were going to join us for the four night, but decided to go on the six night as well - why not?? . About 6 weeks before sailing, when the UK/US borders appeared to be serious about opening again, my nephew, Paul, from the UK rolled the dice and booked the 6 night as well. And so the gang was ready for our return to sailing! Unfortunately, due to the Key West cruise moratorium, DCL changed our 6 night sailing back in early October and we were now going to Cozumel and Costa Maya instead of Key West and Castaway Cay. It didn’t really matter to us, but there were a lot of people in my FB group that cancelled. DCL gave us a $400 stateroom credit for keeping our reservations though.

Here’s a photo of all of us taken on this cruise. Mum is now 93, and none of us had seen my nephew in almost two years, so this was a great reunion cruise and just a celebration of the fact that we are able to still cruise together!



My sister was due to fly in the afternoon before the cruise from Knoxville. Her direct flight was subject to United whims of travel, so she ended up having a super long travel day by connecting in Denver, but she finally made it at about 9 pm that night after an entire day of dealing with delays and flight changes. The forecast for Galveston was a bit sketchy – and we’ve had our fair share of fog delayed cruises – so I just hoped for the best for tomorrow. Everyone was here and we were ready - we just had our fingers crossed for good weather and clear Covid tests!!



Friday, Dec 3rd - Embarkation

Our embarkation day was also Scott’s birthday! Seeing as I was lying wide awake as my phone ticked over to Friday, December 3rd I grabbed this screen shot and sent him a text wishing him a Happy Birthday!



And the official DCL countdown a little later into my insomnia.



By 4 am (I still hadn’t slept) the Wonder was still showing as moving into Galveston. I did finally manage to drift off to sleep after taking this. LOL



I woke up at 6:30 am and immediately looked to see if the Wonder had made it. She had! She was backing into the pier and so I grabbed this screen shot of her.



Scott and I finished our last minute packing and got ourselves ready. Mum and Maureen were ready early and we all grabbed coffee or tea before we packed up the car and got ourselves on the road by 8:30 am. We had a port arrival time of 10:45 am to 11:00 am and so we were trying to gauge our drive through Houston as best we could. We stopped at the local donut shop for some kolaches to top up our bellies for pre-cruise readiness!



The weather was perfect and we made good time down to Galveston despite a quick restroom stop at Buccees. Here is the obligatory Galveston sign - it's a bit wonky but Scott was trying to catch it at the last minute.



And this is the sign for the turning to Harborside Drive, that we never take!

[

We got down to EZ Cruise parking at about 10:30 am and were on the shuttle to the port shortly afterwards. Scott managed to snap a quick photo of our ride before juggling all of our luggage.



There was only one other family with us on the shuttle and I forced everyone to take a quick photo - including them apparently. Oops!



We got to the port just gone 10:45 am and it was noticeably quieter than previous cruises. A porter came and took our luggage straight from the shuttle and we were directed to the lines to enter the building.



We used our Port Arrival form a lot during the boarding process. The first time we had to show it was to enter the line that was within the port arrival time. If you were early, they had you stand in a holding line. The wait wasn’t too long at all and we were in the Covid testing area by 11:00 am. This area used to be the area for standing in line for security but was now dedicated to Covid testing. They had EZ-up type tents (with no roof) set up and all four of us went into the same tent to be tested.





It’s a pretty easy process with someone there to help you figure out what you should be doing and how. They used the Port Arrival form again here to scan the bar code. Once testing was completed, we went through security, which was basically the same as it’s always been, and then into the area that used to be check-in, and that is now where you sit and wait.



We found it easier to just check the Safe Passage website for clearance but they did have monitors at each end of the waiting area. Those monitors had a split screen that was also showing some cartoons. This is what the screen looks like when it’s still pending. I should know, I checked it a LOT!



We didn’t have long to wait at all, maybe 10 minutes, before Mum and Maureen‘s testing came back that they were cleared to board. It took about another 12 minutes for ours to clear, which was a bit nerve wracking – you just want to see that clear result! Finally!!



We also got emails alerting us that we had cleared and so we were ready to go upstairs to the check-in area. They used the Port Arrival form here again to scan before you are allowed up. We probably sat and waited for about 10 minutes before our boarding group (4) was called. Here we are – happy and ready to be back on a ship!



There was a bit of a slow down getting on the ship as they are socially distancing you and the show only allows so many families at a time, so there is a backlog on the gangway for a little while.



We decided to put the time to good use and thankfully we had our personal photographer along on this trip.







They announced us and we were directed to our “spot” to watch the Welcome Aboard show.





It was a cute, short, show and after that a CM came and explained lunch options and also the details on the new muster drill. We went straight to check in at our muster station but there was an issue with the ship Wi-Fi and us being able to connect to our phone, so we weren’t able to check in through the app but they said that they would check us in manually. Perfect.

I’m putting this here because it’s a good place to put it seeing as I was talking about the app.



The options for lunch were Cabanas or Tiana’s and we decided to stick with our tradition for Cabanas. The variety of food was good enough, and they had a lot of our embarkation day favorites, our only complaint was that it was not very hot food. It wasn’t cold, but it wasn’t far off being cold by the time you sat down to eat it.

My plate.



And Scott’s - pretty much the same stuff. I went back for some fries after and they were nice and hot! When in doubt, always go with the french fries.



We sat and chatted until just gone 1:30 pm and, seeing as our state rooms were going to be ready, we went straight down to them. I had ordered the birthday package for Scott seeing as it was his actual birthday!



Birthday fun!

 

[ukintheus]

Our luggage had already been delivered and Scott began to unpack while I was messing around trying to borrow an extension cord from guest services for his C-PAP machine. I used the new chat feature on the app, which was handy.



Bruno (DCL Instagram star – LOL) was on the chat, which was awesome because I had bought him a small gift. He was one of a few CMs who posted during the shut down and it was a great way to get a DCL fix while they weren’t sailing. I popped down to guest services and picked up the extension cord and dropped off Bruno‘s gift. My timing was perfect because by the time I got back Scott was pretty much done with unpacking. HA HA. After Mum and Maureen got finished with their unpacking, we went up onto deck 9 for a peek at what was going on around the ship. And of course, get our first drinks! A Pina Colava for me and Maureen and a beer for Scott. We sat in the Cove area and while we were there they did the muster drill. I hope they never go back to the pre-Covid muster – it was so awesome to just watch it on the app on my iPhone while we sat and enjoyed our beverages. They do still shut down all the ship services while it is going on, so you have to make sure you have your beverage first.



We went up to deck 10 to watch us leave. We don’t usually attend the sail away party, so we actually didn’t really even notice that it was missing.



We left at about 4:30 and sailed out into the ship channel looking at all the other boats and various things as we went by. We did try to see if they would show us on the cruise cam, but we can't have been waving hard enough.








Our server from Cove came and found us – yummy Moet Ice for my second drink.





We stayed up there for a while, another guest offered to take this photo of Scott and I, as usual the breeze in Galveston (wind) isn’t great for picture taking if you have long hair. Luckily Scott doesn’t have to worry about it!



It got pretty chilly and so we decided to head down to our cabins. The pilot was getting ready to leave and so we entertained ourselves watching him.



Our next door neighbors! I have to add here that I had moved all of our staterooms around about two months prior to us sailing to get three cabins together, but I didn’t realize that the divider between us and their cabin wasn’t one that could be opened. Ugg. Oh well.






Wintery Galveston skies led to a watery sunset.





The pilot did his thing and we continued sailing out into the Gulf of Mexico.



There was a pub trivia in Crown and Fin at 7:30 pm and so we left a little early to go and get a table and settle in with some yummy drinks.







I don’t remember our score, but we did not do very well. We all commented that we needed Paul there! LOL One thing that was different now is that there is no club host, the activities are spread out among all the entertainment staff depending on their schedule. Our dinner seating on the app showed that we were in Tiana’s and it also showed our dining time as 8:25 which I thought was strange as it has always been 8:15 in the past. We wandered over at about 8:10 pm to see what was up, and they let us go right in. It’s all a part of trying to socially distance people arriving apparently. I hadn't heard of it before we boarded, but then there aren't a ton of trip reports out there to find out what's going on. I had requested Margaret from Trinidad as a server but the information hadn’t hit our reservation and so we got to meet some new servers – who were awesome! Yelena from Serbia and Kemar from Jamaica – we loved them! Scott had the boudin and the seabass, and I had the wedge salad, and the artichoke ravioli. My food was all really good but Scott said the sea bass was dry and didn't have much flavor.









The photographers came around, which I normally really hate because it's always at a bad time, but I actually enjoyed it this cruise as I realized it was a good way to get my captive audience.





Louis also came around but he moved quickly and didn’t stop for longer than a second or two.





Tonight was the Mardi Gras menu and the servers did the parade. It was really noticeable how many crew were missing. They usually stretch all around the sides of the room standing side by side, but tonight they were spread out and didn’t make it half way down the room.



Here’s a photo of Yelena.



And a photo of Pradip, who we met several years ago. There weren’t many servers that we recognized on this cruise – a lot were from the other ships so it’s become a real melting pot for the crew.



We had desserts, but evidently forgot to take photographs of them but it was the gateaux, the raspberry dome and the beignets. But, they also bought out a very cute cake for Scott for his birthday and I redeemed myself by getting a photo of that!



We were all tired tonight after the excitement of getting on board so we all elected to just go to bed after dinner. It had been on the TV and also in the app that we lost an hour tonight so that was even more motivation to hit the hay early. This little guy was waiting for us along with the Dove chocolates. Is it VERY entitled and first-worldish to miss the Ghirardelli? Asking for a friend.



It was about 10:30 pm when we finally got the lights out and drifted off into dream land. Ahhh...it's SOOO good to be back.

Coming up: At Sea Day

 

[GlassAct]

This is exciting to follow, wonderful job on the first day!

 

[Sherrilatte]

A marvelous trip report! Thank you!

 

[tennesseemo]

Love reading your trip reports!! Thanks Jen

 

[bcwife76]

You KNOW I've been waiting for your trip report!!!!!

Happy belated birthday to Scott

I can't even imagine how good it must have felt to board that very first day!!! As of Christmas day we will only have 7 short (looonnngggg) months before we are finally back on board ourselves (I stinking well hope so!!!)

Can't wait to read more!!!

 

[ThePies]

Thank you so much for sharing your trip report! I've read a few of your others, so it's nice to see a familiar 'cast' of characters!

 

[LisaRN97]

Following! Love it so far!

 

[ukintheus]

This is exciting to follow, wonderful job on the first day!

Thank you! I wanted to get one day done before the holiday, so now it's time to get going again.

A marvelous trip report! Thank you!

Thanks! Hopefully I can get some more done in the next couple of days.

Love reading your trip reports!! Thanks Jen

I know all the family like to read them to see what we got up to.

You KNOW I've been waiting for your trip report!!!!!

Happy belated birthday to Scott

I can't even imagine how good it must have felt to board that very first day!!! As of Christmas day we will only have 7 short (looonnngggg) months before we are finally back on board ourselves (I stinking well hope so!!!)

Can't wait to read more!!!

Hopefully some of the restrictions will be lifted by the time you sail, but it's still worth going IMO. It's good to finally have a trip report to write!

Thank you so much for sharing your trip report! I've read a few of your others, so it's nice to see a familiar 'cast' of characters!

Thanks for following along (again), my trip reports are very similar - we are creatures of habit for sure!

Following! Love it so far!

Thank you!

 

[ukintheus]

Saturday, Dec 4th - At Sea



I had had a great night's sleep and even with losing an hour we had a really solid night. The cabins were super quiet, and you felt very little movement and there was really no noise - it was awesome. It was just amazing to wake up and be able to lay in bed and look at this view.



It looked like it was going to be a beautiful day and we had plans for eating and drinking that were going to keep us busy!



We had Palo brunch at 10:30 am, so I ordered coffee from room service. Room service was really quick on this trip, most times it was about 10 minutes from the time we ordered. While I'm on that subject (kind of) you now have the ability to add tip through the app. We found it worked great for room service, but we struggled sometimes with bar tabs. It was random how they sometimes showed up under "pending" where you could add additional tip, or if they just showed up under "closed". I think it really was how the bartender was closing them out, but I'm not sure.



Ahhhhh……at sea days….how I love you!



We sat and enjoyed the peace and quiet, there are always ships of some kind in the Gulf to keep you busy.



Side note: I had had a note on Instagram from Bruno that he had got the card I left, but that his chocolates had been "destroyed". I assumed that he meant they had been thrown away, however, I later found out he meant that everyone else in Guest Services had eaten them! I managed to get my nephew who was joining us on the next cruise to order another box from Amazon as Bruno was really disappointed that all he'd got was the empty box.

We had requested Duan as our server in Palo as she was the only server that we knew of that had been on the Wonder previously. Obligatory plate photo from Scott which also shows their new colored water glasses and the QR code (this was the new way to get to the menu and was on all the tables in every restaurant.)



We did manage to remember to get a couple of photos of ourselves before the food photos began.





Cheers to eating...again!!



It was different not having the buffet, but the food was really good and they brought you so much of it that I found I didn’t miss the buffet at all. Duan brought us both of the antipasto plates. This one is the seafood.



This is the meat and cheese. She also brought more of anything individually that you wanted. Scott got a few more of the tuna, shrimp and crab and I helped him eat them.



They also brought a bread basket (below) and a pastry basket (photo fail!! ).



Maureen and Mum had eggs benedict (I think Mum did – I know Maureen did).



We also got a margarita flatbread for the table.



Scott got the sirloin steak and I got the chicken parmesan.





An artichoke ravioli to share also made it into the mix but it is soooo delicious!



Quick photo of something other than food!



We split a few desserts. I didn’t take a photo of the menu and my notes are letting me down, but they were along the lines of: Tiramisu, panna cotta, raspberry ganache, lemon tart and chocolate lava cake. They were all good but the tiramisu, panna cotta and lemon tart got the best reviews. The lemon tart on it's own was just "ok", but if you added some of the citrus fruit served with it, it was amazing!











Birthday boy got treated to a decorated plate. Aww.





Duan took a photo of us all, but we forgot to get one with her.



We all left absolutely stuffed – it was a great brunch. But, the food and drink planning had us at the chocolate and liquor tasting at 1 PM, so there was no time to waste! We quickly got changed into comfy clothes and headed down to the Cadillac lounge.



The sommelier from Palo that was doing the tastings was really good, he actually had a lot of good information and made it very interesting. It doesn’t hurt that the drinks are super yummy as well. The drinks were rose champagne, red wine, port and whiskey. We love this tasting, it’s worth doing at least once (or more .)



After leaving Cadillac Lounge, we went and took a look at the gingerbread house and the Christmas tree in the lobby on our way back to the cabins. This was Maureen’s first Merry Time cruise and so she hadn’t seen the decorations in close up yet.



The gingerbread house still smelled of ginger if you managed to get close enough.

 

[ukintheus]

We went back to our cabins for an afternoon nap, but Scott and I decided to head out to the princess wave and greet, or whatever they are calling it these days. There was just Rapunzel and Belle but there were hardly any people waiting to see them. I would say it was probably less than five minutes for them to see all the people that were standing there but they stayed for about 15 minutes based on what I could tell.







As we walked past Guest Services, I saw that Bruno was working so we stopped to talk to him.



We ambled up to Shutters to take a look at the photographs from yesterday and I marked a couple of them that I wanted. After that we headed off to the gift shop to browse. They had one 2021 Christmas ornament that I decided to get although it was one of the large, delicate ones with big ears (spoiler alert - it broke between packing it in carry on and getting home) and I also got a new Tervis tumbler. After all that activity it was definitely nap time and we went back to the cabin and chilled out for several hours. I took a two-hour nap and Scott watched some movies (maybe with his eyes closed from time to time.)





By the time we decided to get ourselves up and moving again it was already starting to show that there was a pretty sunset but we were too lazy to go over the other side of the ship and look at it, so we sat out on the veranda and watch the world go by and enjoy a glass of wine.



After a relaxing afternoon it was time to attempt to do something and there was a Disney villains trivia in Azure at 7:30 pm so we all decided to give it a go, even though we knew we would be hopeless at it. Sherva was the host for this one and she was fun.

[

The real reason we go to trivia.



This clue had something to do with guessing her age....that's all I remember now, but it's why she had her mask down.



We were pretty hopeless, but apparently not as bad as some. There were several tables that did worse than us, which was a bit of a shock. We got 7 ½ (she gave us a half point for something – LOL) out of 20.



It was now time for eating again and we headed to dinner in Tritons, one of my favorite menus. Yum!



I had the Baked Brie and the Château Briand.





Scott had the Duck Confit, French Onion soup (no cheese ) and Château Briand.





The Disney characters all came for a short parade between the main course and desserts which was cute. You had to be quick to get photos, but we had our official photographer, so we were OK.













The Photopass photographers came around again too. I was actually really liking this for this cruise.





For dessert, Scott and I both had soufflé and Mum and Maureen both had crème brûlée.

 

[ukintheus]

Dinner was over pretty quickly most nights as the dining rooms were at such reduced capacity. Tonight we were done by 9:30 and we went back to the cabins only to decide to go for a walk to try and walk off some of the food that we had consumed today. Mum had a walker for the ship, and she was able to get around easily with it.



We did a half lap on deck four. Someone was decidedly speedy!





We did a quick look around the gift shop before deciding to end our evening in Cove with some of their delicious drinks.





I was surprised to see quite a lot of people in there when we got there, but realize they had just finished a bourbon tasting. They had all appeared to have had a lot of bourbon!

Scotch for Scott, Espresso martini for me and a Tobelerone martini for Maureen.



We got back to the room a little before 11 pm and found this happy chap waiting for us.



Scott put on a movie for a little while and I tried to read my book but our exhausting day got the better of us and it wasn’t long before we settled in for another great night of sleep.

Coming up: Cozumel

 

[ukintheus]

Sunday, Dec 5th - Cozumel



I had woken up on and off during the night and by 7 am I was ready to get up and get the day rolling. Scott, however, was not so I went out onto the verandah to try and avoid making him a grumpy person. We were already coming into Cozumel, the weather was absolutely perfect, and it looked like it was going be a great day to have a lazy, relaxing day on the ship!



I took some photographs of us coming in to the dock and tried to get caught up with my trip report because I had yet to make any notes, and I know better - it is too easy to forget all this stuff!







By 7:45 am we were docking and Scott lost his little world of me being quiet.



We decided to go to cabanas for breakfast at about 9:15 am. The food choices were good we thought, but overall, a little on the cool side. My plate and then Scott’s.





We met our server, Kemar, and talked to him for quite a while and then talked to Pradip. The crew had drill, so at some point they all had to head to their drill stations. After a leisurely visit to Cabanas we went back to the cabins and gathered our stuff to go and sit up at Cove for a little while. I actually put on a bathing suit, which I haven’t had on for a cruise out of Galveston in quite a while as it's usually too cold. The weather in Cozumel was lovely and warm which had me pondering whether I would actually get IN the pool. Cove was pretty quiet and we managed to get four loungers together in the shade.



It wasn’t too terribly long before this made its way to me. It's cousins probably made it to Scott and Maureen at the same time.



Mum wasn’t feeling 100% today so she decided to go back to the cabin and put her feet up and do her knitting. She has days every now and then when she is a bit breathless and today was one of them. Plus, she had a knitting extravaganza going on for Christmas presents and she didn't want to knit outside. I am going to side track here a bit and boast on my Mum's knitting. Here are the American Girl outfits she was knitting for her great-granddaughters. She is still an amazing knitter even at 93.







So - that was the knitting project that was underway, but, back to the beautiful day on the Wonder. It was partly cloudy but nice and warm, just a great day to be by the pool and lazing around.



One of the pool guys came around with cold towels for everyone which was a nice way to cool off a little.



The clouds began to look a bit more on the grey side, and there was a hint of rain in the air for a short while, but not enough to get us moving.



It did not stop more drinks from happening though! Pina Colava for me.



So, shocker! We actually got in the pool for once! And here’s a photo to prove it, although technically we aren’t actually in the water here – but we did get in for a short while and the pool water was really warm. There was a brief shower that caused us to have to send Scott scrambling to cover up things we had left on the loungers, but it lasted hardly any time at all.



At about 1:15 pm we decided to head back to the cabins, get dried off and figure out what we were going to do for lunch. The consensus was to hit up Cabanas and see what they had for lunch. The selection was just OK, but we were too lazy to move and go to get anything else so we had a little bit of this and that, although Scott was the only one that took a photo – and it isn’t that great – but you get the gist.



It poured rain while we were sitting in there so we were happy that our timing was good. On the way back Maureen and I got an ice cream. I just love their soft serve so much – probably too much!



Scott and I decided to sit out on the veranda and watch the world go by. The water is so beautiful in Cozumel.



After about 20 minutes the sun was moving around and it got too hot with not much shade so we went back inside to enjoy the AC for a while. We all texted on what to do next, and decided to go down to the French Quarter lounge for Disney trivia at 3:15 pm. Maureen got a coffee and discovered that they serve these cute little Macarons with it. We were also told that they have happy hour at 8 am in the morning where you can get a free beignet. 8 am up and at ‘em time isn’t worth the free beignet for us!



Scott and I got cold beverages.



As usual our Disney trivia knowledge was abysmal and we scored a whopping 9 out of 26.



We tried to look at photos in Shutters on the way back without realizing that it’s closed when the ship is in Port. Another guest finally told me after I’d tried about every screen. We got back to our cabin at about 4 pm and settled in to watch us sail away. There was an announcement from the Captain that they were getting ready to leave Cozumel at about 4:45 pm, and sure enough they pulled away right on time.



Blue, blue water.





Right after we pulled away from the pier the pilot left us. Literally about 200 yards from the pier.

 

[ukintheus]

Scott and I decided to go and take a walk up on the top deck and see how the sunset was looking. It was super windy!





We hung out behind Palo and watched as the sun went down. I always feel really self-conscious when we are back there, because I know people in Palo can see us - so silly - but there ya go!



There were a lot of clouds that blocked it from being an awesome sunset, so we gave up as soon as the sun disappeared.





The ship definitely had a little sway going on tonight due to the wind which meant it was going to be a perfect night of sleep. We had all agreed that we would subject ourselves to more trivia and go to Mickey Mouse trivia at 7:15 pm. We left a little before 7 pm to take a slow walk down there and we were the first ones there, but it did fill up by the time it began. No points for guessing that we had drinks while we were waiting!



We didn’t do too bad in trivia and we actually knew some of the answers, although it was a multiple choice so that made it a lot easier. We ended up with 11 which wasn’t too shabby for us! Tonight we were back in Tritons for dinner and it was the new version of pirate night. Lots of people dressed up even though there was no pirate party. We didn’t.



They had the pirate menu tonight and Scott and I both had the samosa and we split a crab cake, which evidently didn’t make the honor roll of photos.



I had the beef short rib salad (which was really good) and Scott had the grouper.





Maureen had the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding (below, and looks delicious) and Mum had a crab cake and then a baked potato.



Between the entrees and dessert, they had a pirate themed show where pirates ran through the dining room and they had some good pirate tunes going on to sing along to. I thought it was cute, and at least there was some kind of “pirate show” even if it was just a short one. I didn’t get great pictures, but here’s a couple.





Somehow we managed to split a bunch of desserts! None of them stood out as fantastic, but that’s not to say we didn’t nearly finish them. Ha ha. I have no clue what the cake is, but the next one is panna cotta, followed by fruit crumble (or was it pie?) and then a sundae, I think rum and raisin, but I’m not sure now.









The photographers were in the atrium and there was nobody in line so Scott and I took some photos. Mum and Maureen wanted no part of it.



They managed to convince Scott and I to take some goofy ones (not hard to do) after the normal ones – the poor photographers were so bored at this point. There was literally nobody in the atrium at all, which is probably just as well.



There was a Merrytime fireworks show at 10:30 pm and we were all too lazy to go up and see it, which was awful of us, and we convinced ourselves we would just do it on the next cruise. Davey Jones was waiting for us when we got back to the cabin, and even better he had the familiar gold coin chocolates!



We stayed outside on the verandah for a while and listened to the music of the show. This guy made an appearance, but he didn’t stick around for long. When the fireworks started we could see them, and see some of the light reflected on the water, but that was about it.



The stars were really bright tonight – I took a few photos and this one is about the best of the bunch. Black…..with dots….taken on an iphone. Aren’t you thrilled!?



It was about 11 pm when we got into bed, but the good news was that we were gaining our lost hour back tonight!!! It took me approximately 30 seconds before I fell fast asleep.

Coming up: At sea day

 

[hippiechicken]

Those outfits are adorable!!

 

[bcwife76]

Oh wow, those outfits are adorable!! Gorgeous!
Probably just as well that you didn't get off in Cozumel given how the weather was that day. Looks like a great day for sure still

 

[dcassetta]

Enjoying your trip report. I like to watch the pilots, also.

 

[ukintheus]

Those outfits are adorable!!

She makes some amazing stuff. I've got some really nice knitted items that I treasure.

Oh wow, those outfits are adorable!! Gorgeous!
Probably just as well that you didn't get off in Cozumel given how the weather was that day. Looks like a great day for sure still

They were brief showers really, but the last one was enough to really get you soaked if you were caught out in it. Someone in our FB group was on a B2B (2B2B2B!!! - 5 cruises ) and they said it had poured rain with thunder and lightening on the cruise before ours. The temperature was perfect though!

Enjoying your trip report. I like to watch the pilots, also.

Mum really likes to watch them. To me it's interesting to see all the stuff that goes on as part of day-to-day life in the cruise ship world.

 

[ukintheus]

Monday, Dec 6th - At Sea



We made full use of our extra hour of sleep and it was almost 8 o’clock when I woke up. Such a good way to start the day! We were feeling lazy this morning and so we lounged around in bed for 15 to 20 minutes before we got ourselves moving. Today was a first in that Scott ordered coffee from room service – he said he’s never done it before! We got in touch with Mum and Maureen and decided to try Cabanas again for breakfast seeing as we were right on the tail end of service time in Triton’s. Breakfast ended there at 9:30 am, and I hate to walk in about 5 minutes before they are closing. Another quick point before moving on. We use imessage on the ship instead of the messaging in the app. I realize that you have to be Apple-dependent to do this, but it just works so much better. We also could get imessages from anyone, even with the phones in airplane mode so it was a great way for my pet sitter to keep in touch.

Our server from the Panama Canal, Charlie, was working in Cabanas and we stopped to chat to him for a few minutes and got a quick photo. His ears must have been burning because we had just been talking about him last night.



We all got our usual breakfast treats and sat talking for quite a while. I tried the sausages this morning, but they weren’t my favorite, so I’m pretty sure this was a one and done for me.



Mum’s health has been troubling her in the last few months, and she was undecided whether to come on the cruise at all, but we convinced her she could make it. Today she was considering whether she should stay on for the back-to-back or whether to get off in Galveston tomorrow. We decided to give it through the day today and see how she felt later on, but in the end we convinced her that she could make a 6 night with no problems. When we got back to the cabin, Bruno had been and delivered another little note. We had received one almost every day – here’s the collection so far. So sweet of him.



It was a nice day but you could feel the temperatures dropping as we made our way back across the Gulf.





Scott and I had a wine tasting scheduled at 11 am today. Mum and Maureen aren’t keen on wine so they skipped this one. We spent a little while chilling out in the cabin before heading down to Cadillac Lounge. It was the same sommelier that we had for the Chocolate and Liquor tasting and, again, he was very good. They had three reds poured already and we had three whites to be poured.



The “mystery” bottles are hidden.



We were patiently waiting for the rest of the group to show up here. May as well take a selfie.



We got some good wines to taste. I managed to guess 5 out of the 6 (type, not brand – I’m not THAT much of a wino – haha). Here they are – the three whites were a Reisling Kabinett, a Sauvignon Blanc from South Africa and a Chardonnay called Goldie from Kurt Russell’s vineyard which runs at $50 a bottle if you were to purchase it from them online.



The three reds were Meiomi Pinot Noir, a Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile and an Amarone from Italy that (again) runs about $50 a bottle. We got a really good selection for our money and I’m glad we decided to give it another go as there always seems to be a good selection of wines.



We went and collected Mum and Maureen and all went to get a bite from Daisy’s Delites on Deck 9. The sandwiches hit the spot after the wine tasting but I forgot to get photos. They had a Brainteaser’s trivia at 12:30 pm in Crown and Fin and so we went straight there to see what trouble we could get into. A Moet Ice went down very nicely.



We didn’t do too bad with 13 out of 20, but we did have a lot of fun.



Having sufficiently teased our brains we came back to the cabin just to hang out and enjoy the beautiful day. I sat outside on the veranda for a while. There always seems to be something that goes by in the Gulf while you are out there watching.



I decided I wanted to go to Shutters to take a look at the photographs we had taken before it got crazy busy down there tonight. Scott came with me and as we passed across the atrium on Deck 4 we could see Father Christmas finishing his reading of his list. He took off up the stairs right after I took this photo.



I bought the photographs that I wanted and then on our way back Mickey and Minnie were in the atrium.



You can see here how few people were there. If you wanted a socially distance selfie with the characters this was the cruise to do it!



We chilled out in the room for a while and enjoyed being able to do absolutely nothing. Scott watched Prince of Persia (for what felt like the millionth time) and I caught up with my trip report and may or may not have taken a nap. They had a 2000’s music trivia in Crown & Fin at 3:45 pm so of course we all went to give ourselves something to do.



We got snacks this time!!



So, 2000’s music is definitely not our thing. 3 out of 15!! I think we are a tad too 80's to be good at 2000's.



After that dismal showing for trivia we went back to our cabins. Scott finished watching the movie and I sat outside for a little while. I got hungry at about 5 pm and we ordered chicken wings, chicken strips and fries. We pretty much inhaled them and obviously didn’t think to take photos. The sunset was really pretty and it was cooling off quite a bit if you were outside. I had forgotten our jackets (they were hanging right by our suitcases when we left) and I began to wonder if we should buy some in the gift shop, but Scott talked me out of it and he was probably right as they are so expensive.







Seeing as we hadn’t made it to the theater yet, I talked everyone into going to watch the 6 pm performance of Disney Dreams. When we arrived at the theater, we were offered to go down to Deck 3 and enter via the Cadillac Lounge so that Mum didn’t have to do the stairs. We met a CM from Italy who had lived most of his life in the Midlands in the UK. He and Mum had a good chat (that’s where she grew up) while we were walking to the theater entrance. We got to sit in the very first row, but it was all the way to the left and Scott was at the furthest point. He said he got to see hardly any of it because everything just was blocked by the curtains. This photo is really fuzzy, but it's the only one I got.



This is how close we were.



It was a fun show and even though we’ve seen it several times before but it never hurts to see it again. Although....some of us couldn’t see it at all. We came back up to the cabins for about an hour to relax before dinner. Dean, our state room host, had already been and got the cabin tidied up. He was at Mum and Maureen‘s cabin so they came and sat with us for a little while. Our cute bear was already in our cabin, along with the comment card. I believe our luggage tags had already been delivered but of course we weren’t going to need them!! Dean was a great state room host, he really was like a ninja in an out.



Comment card homework from DCL ready and waiting for completion!



Tonight we were in Animator’s Pallet for dinner. The restaurant was shaking pretty good back there as we continued at a pretty fast speed into Galveston. I took this video of my wine glass. We had quite a good chuckle over the vibration back there. They were definitely cruising at a good lick to get us back to Galveston on time.

I was torn over what to get tonight as the 5 pm feeding frenzy from room service still had me pretty full. I settled on the pasta pursiettes and Scott had the chicken and walnut salad.





Scott then got the beef tenderloin and I had butternut squash soup.





We got 3 desserts for the table to share but apparently, I had a photo fail on getting pics of them. We did get another server to help us take photos with our servers Kemar and Yelena though. They were a great serving team but we were going to have Maggie as our sever on the next cruise so this was our last night with them. We really enjoyed having them as servers, they were absolutely perfect.



We stopped at Shutters and I showed everyone the photos I had ordered. It was nowhere near as packed as other cruises we have been on where the last night is just so chaotic. There were a few people there, but you didn't have to wait for help at all. I had hoped they would have the thumb drive ready, but they said it would be after 10 pm or in the morning. Seeing as we were going to be back at Animator’s for breakfast it would be easy for me to grab it then. Scott and I toyed with the idea of going to Pop and 80’s trivia tonight but Pop started at 10:15 pm and 80’s trivia at 10:30 pm so we decided against it. We were too tired haha. When we got to the cabin our back to back paperwork had been delivered.



I could see some lights behind the curtains and sure enough the rigs in the gulf were there signaling our way back to Galveston. Here’s a cruddy photo but it’s really something to see all those lights out in the Gulf.



Scott looked for something short to watch on TV but decided to read instead and we both fell asleep really quickly with that awesome rock of the ship.

Coming up: Galveston debarkation/embarkation & the arrival of my nephew!

 

[greensombrero]

Thanks for the great trip report! Looking forward to the rest.