To Hell and Back: Escape from Snowmageddon (Or, The World's Longest Valor Review, part 12)

We woke up around 9:00am, grabbed our sun gear and...there were NO chairs at the main pool, the adults-only pool or the main area of deck 10. Perfect way to start our last day at sea, right? We ended up finding seats near the steakhouse but it was incredibly windy and we took turns grabbing breakfast. 

Stephanie only stayed out for about an hour, but I stayed out for an additional hour. It was nice out, there was snow at home and I wasn't going to let that warm shine go to waste. I guess when Stephanie headed back to the room, our room hadn't been done yet, so she hung with Mom and grandma for awhile. They found me in the room then we all went for chocolate lunch. There was a longer line for Mongolian than there was for the chocolate buffet! No ice cream swans this go round, much to Mom's disappointment. 

Nothing like a plate full of unadulterated sugar to give you a craving for...veggies. So I headed to the Mongolian line for some real lunch food. Mongolian trick I learned: adding soy sauce makes it so much more tasty. I'm wearing thin on these three bland sauce options. I'd kill for a sweet teriyaki or like a mongolian kind of sauce. Or more options...like mu shu. I'd give my pinky toe to get some mu shu pork on board. I won't hold my breath but if the Carnival Lido Food Gods are listening...expand that stir fry bar!

After lunch, we did the majority of our packing. I don't know how I manage to pack so much and wear so little. I really don't. And packing to go home is so much less fun than packing with the anticipation of an upcoming trip. What a drag. All packed, I took my shower, did my hair...and fell asleep. Those interior rooms are highly conducive to napping. 

Mom came to wake me up and she, Stephanie, grandma and I went around the ship, just kind of taking it all in. Carnival ships are fun in their decor. There's a lot to take in and it's completely different from the understated glamor of the decor on the likes of Princess, but it's fun to look at just because there's always something new to find and discover.

After our leisurely perusal of the ship's public areas, we headed to tea, which was incredibly nice... but I couldn’t remember if we had live music, which meant if there was, it was unremarkable. Still, an unremarkable tea on Carnival is heads and shoulders above what I've read about tea on other non-luxury lines. The experience is lovely and relaxing in and of itself (or maybe that's the chamomile).

After tea, we packed more and then grandma took her nap while we went to the farewell party, which was surprisingly empty (for a farewell party, anyways), and then headed out for some fresh air on the promenade.

With that, it was time for dinner, which was slow and unremarkable. We didn’t stay for dessert because it was just too slow and we had so much to do. We were so sad to say goodbye to Dewey (again), though! I'm sure our paths will cross again someday, and it really was so, so lovely to see her again.

Chilled Supreme of Fresh Fruit (Finished with Peach Schnapps)

Grilled Portabello Mushroom and Handpicked Mesclun Lettuce (Marinated with Balsamic, fresh basil and virgin olive oil)

New England Crab Cake (Served with apple relish, roasted bell pepper and rosemary remoulade)

Mango Cream (Iced mango cream soup, spiced with fresh ginger)

Caesar Salad (Hearts of romaine lettuce tossed with our Caesar dressing, freshly grated Parmesan cheese, anchovies and herb croutons)

Southern Fried Chicken (Served with mashed potatoes and gravy, vegetables of the day)

Barbecued St. Louis Style Pork Spare Ribs (Served with creamy coleslaw, grilled spring onion and fries)

Tender Roasted Prime Rib of American Beef au Jus (Baked potato with traditional toppings)

 

Since we skipped dessert, we went with Mom and grandma up to the Lido deck and grabbed some cookies (Carnival has the best chocolate chip cookies), and we enjoyed those with some coffee while grandma had her dinner. Afterwards, we all headed down for trivia. I had a tiramisu martini, and it was ahhhhhhmazing. Mom got us some chocolate covered strawberries and it was the sweetest end to a cruise we could have. 

Gender wars was kind of lame and I didn’t really like how they were forcing people into activities. Spectating is okay sometimes, too...not everyone is a participator. I got myself chosen to play Game Show Mania - Beat the Host and  I FINALLY WON!!!!!!!! Add that Stick on a Ship to the collection.

Stephanie was manning the camera on this jaunt...

Tonight was the Legends show, and it was better in some regards, not so good in others. All in all, the quality of this show is constantly deteriorating and it's time to shake it up. I don't think this show has changed at all since my first Carnival cruise, back in 2004.

Exhausted, we went back to the room, ordered room service and watched SNL...the typical (and in that, perfect) end to our cruise.

Roasted New York Strip Loin with Brie

Vegetables with Blue Cheese Dressing

Cheesecake

Today's Lido lunch menu:

Today's Lido dinner menu:

To Hell and Back: Escape from Snowmageddon (Or, The World's Longest Valor Review, part 11)

I just wanted to thank everyone for the messages and comments of condolence. We still miss grandma every day and there's a large hole in our lives and hearts without her, but she lived an incredible life (90 and a half years! We should all be so lucky!) and I absolutely cherish all the memories we got to share with her. The best way I know to honor those memories is to get this blog caught up to where it needs to be and get those memories recorded and the best way I know to honor her is to take a trip in her honor. April 14th on the Dream? We'll be there, umbrella drinks toasting up towards the sky.

But I've got to finish up that Valor review first, don't I? And that first Dream review. I'm still living/breathing/sleeping my job (which I love just as much as ever as I get towards my one year anniversary in 10 days), but, you know, there's always weekends.

With that...

We woke up at 9:00 am  and we were already docked in Roatan. My legs were killing me. Like...whoa!pain. Couldn't stand up. Couldn't sit down. Couldn't go down stairs but could go up (go figure). In hindsight, I probably should have, you know, stretched before climbing a 13-story ruin. Anyways. We got our stuff together and went up to the lido deck for breakfast and to have a look and then Stephanie and I disembarked because Stephanie wanted off that ship ASAP. She'd been looking forward to this port the most of all of them. 

Roatan is gorgeous and the port area is quite lovely. And CLEAN! Nothing like I thought it would be, that's for sure. More like a Grand Turk. For $11 (pre-purchased, $12 at pier), you can take the chair lift to the beach, but the walk took less than 10 minutes and was quite picturesque. But heads up- slather on the sunscreen because this is a (mostly) wide-open walk and that direct sunlight will get you.

The beach was nice, it was clean, but it was crowded when we got there. We dragged two chairs from the back down to the front and after us, they started asking people to stop doing that, probably because it gained us a primo spot. I liked this beach far more than the beach at Half Moon Cay (which, unpopular opinion: I think is overrated). Fat Tuesdays has servers on the beach that will deliver to you. The water was clear, the sand was clean, the chairs were clean. It was akin to a resort beach moreso than a "natural" one.

So it's well-established that I don't do seafood. If it comes from the sea, it's not for me. It's also well-established that I am hugely squicked out by fish. Like, so squicked out that when I was little, I had pet fish and they lived in Stephanie's room because I couldn't look at them. Stephanie, however, is a water baby. An in the water baby. Any ocean, anywhere, Stephanie wants to swim in it, snorkel in it, wade in it, whatever. I'll dip my toes in water where there are no visible fish or sea life (this has been contained to Turner beach in Antigua and the part of the Atlantic ocean we were at in Fort Lauderdale). Stephanie went into the water and noticed there were no fish at our stretch of the beach. Naturally, I didn't believe her, but I also didn't see anyone snorkeling. It was hot and I was boiling, so we made a compromise: Stephanie got a float and pulled me into the water. That way, my feet didn't touch the bottom (or any fish that floated towards us) and Stephanie didn't have to go in the water alone. Lo and behold- no fish! And floating in the ocean? Oddly calming and relaxing! (Well, less in hindsight because when I ended up in the hospital the day after we got home, they had to do a blood culture to make sure I didn't pick up some weird virus in the ocean. Blood cultures? Turns out those are blood draws by the *bottle*. Not so fun. Still, came back clean so I wouldn't hesitate to swim in the waters of Roatan again. If you're looking for some excellent snorkeling, though, you might want to look at other ports). 

Rental prices, for those curious

After awhile, I was all float-ed out, so we got out and I went over to the Hurricane Hole to get a...dun dun dun...Hurricane. The Hurricane Hole was the closest bar/restaurant to where we were on the beach, but there are beachside places all up and down that stretch, which was super convenient. 

We stayed out until around 1:15, and then we dried off and did some shopping before going back to the ship. That's the thing with Roatan- it has the shopping of Grand Turk with the beach of Half Moon Cay. Best of all worlds, right? I wish we had more time to peruse the shops because they’re kind of fun...different than the normal shops (and some of the same, too). There’s also a craft market, a gelato stand and a coffee shop. Go figure. I grabbed a post card in Dufrey (which was PACKED 30 minutes before all-aboard) and then got back on the ship. Someone was being helped back on the ship in a wheelchair by a staff member because it would appear they had excessive and major burns. Like I said...use that sunscreen, friends.

We grabbed lunch when we got back (they were doing made-to-order sangria on deck, which I haven't seen or heard of them doing on any other ship. I thought it was a cool idea!) and then went back to the room to shower all that salt off of us. 

We met up with Mom and grandma and all went out for sailaway. Our last sailaway this cruise. Roatan was just...beautiful. Beautiful to walk around on. Beautiful to sail away from. Just beautiful.

After all of that? We were exhausted and ready for a nap, so nap we did. We got in a nice hour or so before we had to ready for dinner. It was filet mignon night, and that filet mignon is incredibly shrinking. Really, Carnival. I don't want the short ribs. Just give me more filet. This pithy piece of meat can barely be called a medallion. A MEDALLION!

Old Fashioned Chicken Noodle Soup

Vine Ripe Beefsteak Tomatoes and Fresh Buffalo Mozzarella (marinated with basil leaves and virgin olive oil)

Penne, Tossed in a Tomato Cream with Vodka- Starter Portion (Freshly grated parmesan cheese)

Asparagus Vichyssoise (chilled asparagus and potato soup, garnished with asparagus tips)

Black Tiger Shrimp Cocktail

Oven Roasted Tom Turkey (sage and onion stuffing, pumpkin scallion hash)

Duet of Petite Filet Mignon and Short Rib Confit (oven roasted potatoes, red burgundy wine sauce)

Lime Sherbet

Chocolate, Raspberry and Vanilla Cream Cake (with almond sponge, raspberry coulis and raspberry sorbet)

Old Fashioned Apple Pie (on request with vanilla ice cream)

The pacing during dinner was awful. The time in between courses was ridiculous and by the end of it, we were just...over it. We took grandma up to the Lido deck for dinner before we hit up the shops and Bingo.









There was a show after Bingo (one of those comedy/ventriloquist/juggling kind of shows, if I remember correctly), but Stephanie bored of the show quickly, so we all made a swift exit. We headed up early for the deck party and grabbed some drinks.

Where's my umbrella?


I sat back with grandma and watched everyone dance and danced in my chair because my legs were still protesting against the abuse I put them through at Xunantunich the day before and I was still incredibly stiff (I'll reiterated: if you're going to climb anything anywhere, your muscles are your friends -- stretch 'em out!).

 

The Mexican buffet was good but people lacking manners on all ends took away from that (but that's old news on these cruises. Put up a buffet and they will come. In droves. Sans common sense). There's enough generic tasting Mexican fare for all. You don't need to cut the lines. The tongs are your friends, Norovirus is not, please don't stick your hands in the food. Etc etc etc.







Spent on salsa and conga lines, we all went back to the rooms. Stephanie and I watched some Jimmy Kimmel Live and passed out. Top day.

Today's Lido lunch menu


Today's Lido dinner menu


Mexican Buffet Offerings