twangster

As I was eating my breakfast bacon in the Marketplace buffet it rained. Oh well... rinsing the salt off the ship. Meanwhile heading forward I spotted a life jacket stand. Some cracks of thunder too. Look Ma... no chair hogs. Towel station by the pool. Since I was undercover... here are some "Street Eats" photos. My friends from Maryland will be very happy. If you know, you know. Note to self, come back by this way later. I like the concept of Street Eats. Meanwhile on the other side of the pool deck... Blue Iguana. Note to self... tomorrow's breakfast awaits. BOTD - Beer Of The Day.

Day Two - Sea Day I never made it to Shaq's Chicken for lunch so I figured I might as well try it for breakfast. Veridt = Yum. There is a camera crew on board shooting promotional marketing material and Shaq's was also on their list. Since I was here I wanted to see what the bacon situation was since there is a shortage right now. Into the Lido Marketplace I go. First the Omelet station. Pastries. Fresh fruit. Cereals. BACON! I see BACON!!! Plus they had other stuff. But there's bacon! So... Is it too early for my second breakfast? Carrying on... The milk choices. I didn't ask if there were other options based on special requests. But I did have Eggs Benedict and BACON!!!

After dinner I explored a bit at the aft above the Lido on deck 17. There is a lot of seating up here on both side. Starboard is a smoking area. Great place to hang out with friends and enjoy a beverage. I thought I'd head down to Summer Landing as the sun was getting lower. On the way I spotted a car. A layer of clouds on the horizon would steal our sunset tonight so this was about as good as it would get. Since I was back here I went for walk. Going forward on the port side it sort of dead ends here and I had to backtrack but I did find a nice quiet sitting area. Back inside it was time to sample another flavor or two. The Backyard Band is seriously good and were belting out the tunes. Now fully dark the pool at Summer Landing was still open. As I made my way forward I saw... Pizza! After several beers at Summer Landing I knew I had to try it. It's a little bland but not bad. In Grand Central our CD The Flying Scotsman was hosting a meet your CD. Which led to singers performing a sample from four genres of music. By this point it was time for another drink and the Grandview Bar was right there so... Our progress up to this point:

Time for an Amber. This is really a beautiful ship. So much for me to think about as I plan how to get some pictures of her. A few random photos as I explore the ship a little. Elevators aren't huge but there are many of them. Showing off the guest hallway decor. Our friends in the helicopter are still at it. Now that we are at sea and well away from cell towers our internet has switched to the old geostationary satellites and the speed is terrible. At the time I was second guessing having purchased the premium plan. More to come. Lots of these little signs at every venue. I meant to grab a chicken sandwich by this point. Alas when i finally made it back there it was closed. Here's the menu. Tides bar outside aft of the Lido Marketplace. Eye spy something in the corner. Yes! Ice cream! Another infinity style aft pool. The Lido Marketplace has handwashing stations in addition to hand sanitizer. I was going to just take some pictures of the buffet dinner but... I ended up loading up a plate and made this my dinner. PYOB. Salad station. Desserts. They only had one of these stations open on the starboard side but it never appeared too busy while I was here. Lido beverages. If you have a drink package it works here for soda. Coffee station.

Did I mention the helicopter buzzing the ship? THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE THUMP THUMP SOUNDS FROM THAT $%$#!$& HELICOPTER! Not so zen like. Hope you all enjoy that great marketing material they were capturing.

Some sail away photos... Elevators are a mask area. Sail away party on the pool deck. I left one camera on my balcony capturing the sail away and ventured around the ship to enjoy from other areas. Our escort for the next 4 hours. It was cool at first but after several hours of thump thump thump helicopter sounds buzzing the ship it got old fast. However if you see a guy taking pictures in future marketing material that could be me. Mardi Gras has a lot really nice areas like this in public spaces available to everyone. Very zen...

Sail away time lapse from my forward balcony...

Mardi Gras runs primarily on LNG and there is a special tanker that does her refueling. Earlier on my balcony while she was still fueling us the Captain came over the PA system to announce not only is there is no smoking outdoors during refueling but personal electronic devices are also prohibited outdoors. Oops. Me and 3,000 other guests have been running around with our smartphones and cameras taking pictures outdoors. Now that refueling is over and the tanker is sailing past us I guess we're in the clear. She runs up to Savannah, Georgia to reload then returns to Port Canaveral to "bunker" Mardi Gras. Needless to say thanks to the Coast Guard for keeping us safe. This black helicopter would be with us for the next several hours. Word on board is they are capturing marketing material. Over the next several hours it would be making several passes in various directions. Cool at first but it kind of made it difficult to enjoy a balcony.

Cabin Tour! Deck 12 forward extended balcony. With the curtains open. There is a glass partition to reduce wind pressure on the balcony door. Looking up. Curtains closed at night. Pool towels provided in the cabin. Desk and beverage cooler area. (4) USB, (4) North American style outlets Complimentary Mardi Gras inaugural book. Very nice bathroom. Door hinges outward engineered to clear everything in the bathroom. Wardrobe with full mirror. Safe and more space with fold down shelves.

I'm not going to lie... I had trouble finding the A6 muster station. There are no signs for it. More on that later. Spoiler alert - A6 is inside the theater. Once inside the theater a crew member scanned my paper boarding pass and directed me to sit down. They let a small group of twenty or so gather before going through the muster speil. With that done it was time to head up to an outer deck so I can rip off this mask. What a beautiful pool deck! The ship was taking on fuel so no smoking outside anywhere on the ship. I had been struggling with the decision what to do first when I boarded. Since I found myself near Guy's Burgers that's what I went with. All seating near Guys was occupied so I headed forward a bit. I still had my carry on with me since I am merely gold and cabins would not be ready until 1:30pm so I limited my exploration. Since I had some time to kill and it was 90° outside I went back inside and down to the Havana bar to wait until cabins were ready. They needed my folio number which can also be found in the app. Taxes are charged while in port even if you have Cheers. In the app you can verify they have down as completing muster. That's also where you can see you muster station since not all of them have signs on board. With my folio number I was able to log into the wifi plan I had purchased before the cruise. In port the ship uses cellular assist leveraging local cell towers to speed up the internet onboard.

I put a camera on my hat and walked through terminal 3 and onto Mardi Gras.

After dropping off luggage It was over to the queue for the terminal check in. First step was up the escalator. It doesn't look so bad. From here we walked left and down the ramp. Wait, what? We went up to walk down? Yep. Have you ever seen one of those photos where the stairs are endless but seemingly end where they start? After walking down the ramp on the right, turning the corner and walking down the ramp on the left then doing a u-turn and walking back up the same ramp, turning the corner and walking back up the ramp I just walked down I was well on my way back to the level ground where the escalator brought us 30 minutes earlier but still 15 minutes from that point. Wait. Where did all these people come from? It was seemingly empty when we went up the escalator. From the comments I've heard we are about 50-60% capacity on this sailing. I am not sure how this will work at 100% capacity. The good news is once you reach the entrance to the terminal there are signs based on if you are vaccinated and within your appointment window or "other". The weird news is that at this point staff were directing people into any queue. Signs didn't matter. If one queue was getting full go in another queue. The great news is the terminal has air conditioning! PHEW. After a while inching along inside the terminal I was able to look outside and see even more people in the maze outside. Looking around me at this point people had check in appointments an hour before me and an hour after me. I was within my 30 minute window. Whatever. Get in line. How you doin'? Eventually you will divide into one of three zig-zag queues. Some are longer than others but some have more check in people than others. Some lines appear to move faster and everyone was now second guessing their choice of queue. Honestly I don't think it really mattered. It's like a grocery store and picking the wrong check out lane. Finally I made it to a check in agent who looked at my paperwork and passed me onto another check in agent who took my photo. Success! Next up security. You know the drill. After security the ship was already boarding so onward and away I went. It seemed a little confusing and chaotic but only took 45 minutes from stepping out of the car to reaching the point where I was going up the ramp and almost on the ship where I took this picture. It felt a lot longer but the timestamps on my photos don't allow me to lie.

Arriving to Mardi Gras and terminal 3 to drop off luggage

IT'S CRUISE DAY!!! Anxiously waiting for the hands on my digital watch to move. I have a friend driving me to the port today. He is also vaccinated and cruises as well so he gets it and is low risk, probably lower than using a rideshare. It seems like a bit of a punishment having a frequent cruiser drive you to a cruise when they aren't sailing. You know you have a good friend when... Tick-tock, tick, tock, tick, tock. Are we there yet?

Living in the area has provided me an opportunity to go visit Mardi Gras on numerous occasions before she started sailing with guests. Here is one of those visits. To be clear, arriving guests won't follow the same route that I took. All guests will turn into the terminal 3 parking garage for drop off and parking if you are parking at the terminal. I drove past the terminal 3 drop off entrance and into the boat parking lot for the local boat ramp. There is no cruiser parking in the boat parking lot next door to terminal 3.

T-2 days. Negative test result in hand.

Here is some video from her inaugural sailing. Listen for that horn!

Finally on July 31, 2021 came the big day for the Mardi Gras inaugural sailing with revenue guests! I was back at Jetty Park to get some pictures of the starboard side of the ship. The Port Canaveral channel lines up East-West and there was a strong sun behind her as she was getting ready to sail. That doesn't make for the best photography but it is what it is. Finally the time came and she left the pier for the first time with guests on board! More crowds came out to see her off. It was so great to see her with guests lining the railings and watching sail away from their balconies. Finally into the Atlantic with guests on board. Bon Voyage!

Here is a video of that early dawn sail by:

The morning of July 29, 2021 I had an opportunity to sail past the Mardi Gras as we returned to Port Canaveral aboard Allure of the Seas as we finished up a CDC simulation cruise. As I have been following the videos posted by John Heald I learned that Mardi Gras was in Miami and my hopes of capturing some photos of her as we sailed out of Port Canaveral were dashed. Fortunately Mardi Gras sailed back to Port Canaveral in time for our return and I was up before the crack of dawn to capture a different side of Mardi Gras compared to what I've seen driving past her many times on land. We reached the pilot station at 6am and soon after I started taking pictures. A hint of daybreak started as we snuck up on her. There is a natural desire is to try to find your cabin on any ship you are thinking about booking so I'm putting a bunch of pictures in this post. This is for all those like me looking anywhere and everyone for pictures of this beautiful ship! I also wanted to capture what I could of the activity area and of course the roller coaster Bolt! Some crew were out waving as we passed by. Here is a Port Canaveral sunrise with a silhouette of Mardi Gras.

Here are the pictures from the helicopter.

Since the newest cruise ships in the world were hanging out in Port Canaveral for a few days I booked a helicopter to check them out.

Let's go back to June 4. This was a big day for Port Canaveral because not only did Mardi Gras make her first appearance in the U.S. but Royal Caribbean's Odyssey of the Seas did as well. A large crowd had formed arriving in the dark hours before dawn to meet the newest ships for both lines. Upon first sight you could tell this was a large ship by Carnival standards. The port supplied a water cannon salute. Crew lined her railings to greet us. After sailing past she turned in the mid port turning basin and came back towards us to settle into terminal 3. I can see my cabin!

Time for my next big thing... the Mardi Gras. This is may be my most anticipated venture away from my primary cruise line - Royal Caribbean. I've sailed Carnival before and I'm just three cruises away from Platinum in their loyalty program but it's been several years since I've sailed with them. This will be the fourth revenue cruise for Mardi Gras. I'm hoping any initial wrinkles have been ironed out and everything on board is starting to settle into a routine. Itinerary: I don't have any plans for any port of call. Since I've been to them all I'll make a game day determination what to do at each port depending on the weather. I may stay on board at some port and explore everything this new class of ship has to offer. Cabin for this cruise will be a forward extended balcony overlooking the bow. I'm generally careful about booking forward balcony cabins due to the potential for wind while at sea but I'm also a big fan of forwards views and this type of cabin is nearly nonexistent on Royal Caribbean so I decided to give it try. I had plans to try a forward balcony on a Royal ship but those cruises were lost due to the pandemic and now that ship has left for the West coast. I like trying new and different experiences so what could go wrong? My appointment time for terminal check-in is 11:30am. Terminal 3 at Port Canaveral is a brand new terminal so I'm looking forward to experiencing that as well. Since booking this cruise Carnival has introduced a COVID-19 test requirement that must be taken within 72 hours of the cruise so I have that test booked for tomorrow with a backup rapid test booked for Thursday just in case my testing vendor has an issue tomorrow. Up to this point I've been following along on social media with other cruisers for this sailing. Carnival has an exemption application process for unvaccinated cruisers including children and sadly some folks have just found out in the last day or two they will not receive an exemption for this cruise. I can only imagine how disappointing it was to receive this news so close to the cruise but Carnival must maintain at least 95% vaccinated guests on board based on CDC requirements. I've been eagerly watching Mardi Gras since she arrived in the United States and I was there to capture that moment so before I get into this cruise I'll post some of the pictures I've captured up to this point.

Ocean Cay has its own website. https://www.mscoceancay.com/en-us