Carnival Dream, Western Caribbean Sea February 7, 2012

In our never-ending quest for the next chapter in our Amorous Adventures, Pinky and I left NJ last Wednesday for a few days in Orlando before embarking on a week’s western Caribbean cruise.  Always mindful of getting the best bang for our buck, we stayed three nights at Marriott’s Grande Vista before cashing in a cruise certificate good for a week for $1850 for the two of us. In FL, I shook off the frost of recent skiing for more moderate climate and resumed to try and improve my golf game at the Faldo Institute, located on the Grande Vista grounds.  I can’t say that anything exciting happened during our stay.  One unexpected feature was that we were given a Chrysler convertible with only 24 miles and Sirius radio.  We enjoyed tooling around getting to places as much as being at places.  Highlights of the visit included seafood at Fulton’s Crab house in Downtown Disney, gin and tonics while watching the Magic Kingdom fireworks from the California Grille atop the Contemporary Hotel, and blues at BB Kings, just up International Dr. from where were staying.  Our hot convertible sped us to Port Canaveral, where we boarded our home for a week, Carnival Dream. Now, there is a ship!  We are joining 4200 passengers and 1450 crew aboard a vessel that has about 15 stories (I haven’t counted them all so far), 4 pools, 8 hot tubs, and countless bars conveniently located wherever we happen to be.  Absolutely huge, particularly imposing given our last cruise included only 225 passengers.   Our stateroom is on the 9th deck!  It has a balcony and is really cozy.  Stress? None here that we can discern.  The food is good and, if nothing else, plentiful.  At 8:15 PM dinner we join a family of 6 and another couple for the week.  So far I haven’t alienated anyone at the table that I am aware of, and the 4 kids liked Pinky after our first night’s dinner, to no surprise.  The couple, Ray and Deb, reign from Minneapolis, and Ray likes to talk a lot.  We seem to run into them everywhere despite the low odds provided by the 4200 passengers on the ship.  The people on board come in all sizes and shapes, but mostly large.  The large ones are particularly conspicuous at the breakfast and lunch buffets, where they really pile it on.  The plates lend themselves to this, as they are shaped and about the same size as a rugby ball, and that ovalness has a lot of room for all sorts of food.  Pinky and I have been pretty moderate in our intake and actually find ourselves hungry by the time the next meal comes around.  Super Bowl Sunday was great.  There is a sports bar with a dozen flat screen TVs on deck 5.  I scoped it out early and succeeded in claiming 2 stools at the bar by 4:45 PM, and Pinky joined me for the entire game.  And what a game it was!  The couple to our left supported New England, and I felt bad for the guy because he took the Giants win particularly hard.  Interestingly, our signal feed had NO commercials, but we did see Madonna for the half time show.  (I was told she is 52, which is hard to believe.) Yesterday the ship moored at Cozumel, off the Mayan coast of Mexico.  We opted out of the many excursion offerings and spent the afternoon at Alberto’s beach.  Nobody has ever heard of it, and for good reason.  It is small with a bar and kitchen.  We read on the beach and enjoyed an occasional Pacifico cerveza.  I confess to be really getting into my Kindle and downloaded Zane Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage. Yes, we are really exciting, the two of us sitting for hours on the beach glued to our Kindles!  But, what could be better? Tonight is Cruise Elegant, so we all should look pretty sharp.  I expect we will meet the captain this evening – Massimo Marino.  Yes, Italian.   However, upon careful checking, I’ve confirmed that the ship goes nowhere near any rocks. Nevertheless, the two of us have been practicing daily putting on our life preservers, which we have down to about 4 seconds now. One thing the ship has that Pinky and I really like is a piano bar.   We spent an hour or so last evening after dinner and enjoyed a great mix of Billy Joel, Beatles and Ray Charles.  If we can stay up we will return after dinner this evening.