And you can read about all of the wedding planning here!
All caught up? Great, we're ready to continue on with Day 6 of our awesome honeymoon cruise:
MAY 7, 2011 - MIAMI DAY
Tim and I were up at 6:30. We just couldn't sleep in, we tried!
The first thing I did was grab my cell phone and turn it on. Next I went out on the balcony to see where we were. We had already pulled into the port of Miami. There was one ship already in port, and the Liberty pulled in just after we woke up.
We took pictures of the sunrise in Miami, and we checked our email. It was too early to call anyone.
By 7:45 we were both showered and dressed, and we went up to the Lido deck to the breakfast buffet. We took our trays back to our cabin, and ate breakfast on our balcony.
We said goodbye to our neighbors when they came out on their balcony, and exchanged email addresses with them.
I went back inside the cabin and got our documents ready to take with us to the Paladium Theatre.
Tim called his mom. I texted 2 of my sons, but they were sleeping and didn't answer. I called my sister, she always wakes up early.
At 9:30 we took our documents (passports, boarding pass, customs forms, S & S cards, drivers licenses...) and went down to thePaladium Theatre. I was surprised to find that Norma and Brian were the only ones there. I thought more people would be doing a back-to-back.
There were a few other people in there, some extra crew members who needed customs clearance for the next cruise, and some of the crew's families.
Norma, Brian and Tim waiting in the Paladium for our turn-around instructions:
It went very fast and within 15-20 minutes, we were back on the ship. Only one thing, they handed us our new sail & sign cards, and Tim's card and my card were blue. I asked if we could have gold cards since this would be our 2nd cruise, and the officer said we should go to the guest services desk anytime after 12 noon. No problem!
Tim and I walked around the empty ship and took pictures. It was nice, just us and some crew who were all busy cleaning. Brian and Norma were also walking around the ship taking pictures.
Here is the empty lido deck:
The band played on the stage area just below the big screen.
The stairs on both sides of the stage go up to the jogging/walking track.
The miniature golf course is the smallest deck above the jogging/walking track.
One of the outdoor bars on the lido deck:
Tables in the shade on the Lido deck:
Setting up the Lido deck lunch buffet:
Adults only-serenity deck (my favorite area of the ship):
Looking down on the serenity deck:
Mini golf:
We took pictures of our room because it was really clean that day:
I loved the marble tile throughout the ship:
We had the ship to ourselves for almost 2 hours.
When we noticed a few people beginning to make their way to the Lido deck, we walked down to the Guest Services desk and changed our blue cards to gold ones, and we grabbed a FUN TIMES newsletter for the day. We hadn't gotten one for today on our bed last night.
The buffet was FULL of new passengers.
Tim and I went to the deli and ordered sandwiches. We also refilled our big cups with iced tea. The green cup in Tim's hand was one of the ships cups.
Turkey on a country roll:
All the people boarding were finding their way around, and the ship was getting crowded in the public areas. They wouldn’t allow anyone in their rooms until 1:30, but Tim and I really wanted to go back to our cabin to relax. We decided to try. We used the stairs because the elevators were set to only go from the lobby deck to the lido deck until 1:30. We found one of the hallway doors that led to our rooms was unlocked, and we quickly walked back to our cabin. There was no one in the hallways, all the stewards must have been cleaning cabins. Back in our cabin, we spent some time texting and talking to all of our family and friends.
At 1:30 we could hear noise in the hallway as people were finally allowed to go to their rooms. I was happy for them, I remembered how happy I was the day we boarded and got to go look for our cabin for the first time.
We wondered who our new neighbors were going to be. ( We only saw our new neighbors on the right one time in the hallway later that first day. We never saw them again the entire cruise. The neighbors on the left side, we never saw.)
Around 2:00 there was a knock at our cabin door, and it was a crewmember delivering a bottle of wine and a basket of fruit! The card said this was a gift from Carnival! When I checked with Norma later, she said they got the same thing delivered to their cabin. It must be a B-2-B gift. How nice!!
We did see Y that afternoon, and he regretfully told us we would need to go to the muster drill at 3:30 even though we had gone last week. No big deal, we remembered how painless that last one was.
At 3:30 we went down 2 flights of stairs and out to the outer deck for our muster drill. It was the same as the one 5 days ago, and it only lasted 15-20 minutes tops. Back to our cabin, Tim and I wanted to watch sailaway from our balcony this time. Last Miami sailaway we were on the back top deck with our new friends. This made us think of Sandra and Hameed, who had gotten off the ship that morning. We missed them already!
The Liberty left before we did, and as they pulled past us to turn around, we had a horn blowing contest with them. I loved it, and everyone on both ships were cheering and waving!
About 5:00-5:15, the Liberty had turned around and headed out to sea. We followed them out of the port, and when both ships got out to open sea, Tim and I got ready to eat in the MDR (Main Dining room)
At 6:00, we walked into the dining room, and we were greeted by the hostess who took us to Achmed at our same little perfect booth for two by the side wall! YAY! We got to keep our table! We got to keep Achmed!
We had asked Achmed if he could get us this table again for the second cruise, and he did! Perfect! He took such good care of us, with quick service. He always took the time to stop and chat with us several times during our meal, and he checked on us often while we ate.
Tonight, he already had Tim's coffee cup full, and we were munching on fresh hot rolls and butter before we knew it.
For dinner I ate pork chops, and Tim had Chicken and & Pasta. We skipped dessert. We were full and happy!
After dinner we went to the gift shop, and bought 3 cartons of cigarettes for me. Marlboro Reds - 3 cartons were $80.75 (WHAT A DEAL!) We would have bought more but we were told we could only take one carton per person off the ship.
Back in our cabin, we were surprised to meet Amung, (pronounced Ah-moon ) who came in to tell us that Y had been moved up to the 8th floor, and that he, Amung, would be our cabin steward for the week. What??!! We were devastated! What would we do without Y?? He had been taking such good care of us, fresh towels, bed turned down, our little cooler filled with ice twice daily. OH NO!!
We didn't let Amung know how sad we were to lose Y. We didn't want to hurt his feelings, but over the next 5 days Amung would prove to be just as good, if not better, than Y.
I can’t say enough about how well we were treated by all of the carnival crewmembers. We were greeted with a smile or a "hello" by EVERY SINGLE crewmember or staff member or officer we passed in the hallways, or anywhere on the ship (It must wear them out to greet every passenger they see all day long!) We were treated very well by every Carnival employee we came in contact with. We thought Carnival gave us superior treatment and service the whole time we were on the ship and in their care.
I was really impressed by Carnival, as was Tim. We would miss Y, but we were going to give Amung a fair chance.
Amung gave us our FUN TIMES newsletter for tomorrow, which would be a sea day.
It was this night when I finally read the little piece of paper that I had picked up in the internet cafe a few days earlier. I realized I could access Carnival's website and forum for free FROM MY CABIN on my own laptop, and I wouldn't need to make the nightly trip to the Internet cafe anymore. Nice! Too bad I hadn't discovered this sooner! It became very convenient to message Christina after that.
That night, Tim and I wanted to see the WELCOME ABOARD show in the Paladium Theatre. It didn't start until 10:30, so we had a little time to kill before the show. I was excited to go to this show, I had seen the previous weeks show played on the TV all last cruise, and I was sorry I missed it.
We went up to the Lido deck to look for some dessert, and then we went to the Paladuim a little early to find seats for the WELCOME ABOARD show.
I loved the show! It was appropriately cheesy, it was entertaining and it was also funny! There was singing and dancing, a silly game played with a few of the passengers, and 2 comedians. (Sit in the balcony if you don’t want to get picked on! Anyone down in the lower level was fair game to get made fun of or called up on stage)
Steve White, one of the comedians, was SO FUNNY, that Tim and I made a point to find out when his adult only show was that week.
We FINALLY got to see more of Noonan, our cruise director! We had seen him on TV a lot on the Carnival channels, and we had seen him once at the beginning of the last cruise at the FUN ABOARD & FUN ASHORE talk. Noonan did most of tonights show, and I enjoyed his humor. He was very funny.
My one complaint from tonights show, was the people who walked in to the show late, and took their sweet time trying to find seats. Several times, my view of the show was blocked for way too long because of latecomers, and I thought it was rude of them.
After the show, Tim and I went up to the Lido deck so I could get an ice cream cone, and we were back in our cabin by 11:30. My goodness, such a late night for us!!
I downloaded pictures from the day, we watched TV, and we were both asleep by 12:30. We could try to sleep in again tomorrow, it was a sea day!
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Read about Day 7 HERE!!
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