Tuesday, January 16, 2024
We got up at 7:00 and soon the Cruise Director (CD) was making the announcement that guests were allowed to leave the ship for Amber Cove. Since we had no plans to disembark the ship here or at any of the ports, I went to get us coffee at Bar 820 and watched the people streaming off the ship.
We liked Amber Cove when we were here before, and I heard several people say they enjoyed just staying at the port area swimming and partying.
We decided to have breakfast at Shaq’s Big Chicken located on the aft of Deck 16. I had heard great things about the venue. I ordered the egg and bacon biscuit and Chuck ordered the chicken biscuit. I have to say they were not good. The biscuits were hard as a rock. My egg didn’t seem to be a real egg but more like some sort of weird egg white mixture. I could not eat any of it. Chuck liked the chicken on the biscuit and gave me some of it.
We decided to go up to Deck 18 and play some mini golf. It was a surprisingly challenging 9-hole course. During the morning, the ship conducted a crew drill. The sirens are always ear-splitting.
After we finished the round of golf (I won – as usual), we went to the Summer Landing area to get some sun. It was easy to get a lounge chair near the pool. Chuck actually got into the pool and said it was cold. I only stuck my feet in it. He was right.
Once we had enough of the pool, we had lunch at the Blue Iguana Cantina. I love their shrimp burritos. Afterwards, we played some corn hole and some indoor shuffleboard. My winning streak ended with the mini-golf. I got some soft-serve ice cream as a consolation.
Once we got back to the room, we found that the laundry had been delivered. Everything was clean and folded but it all needed pressing. The Celebration has some designated ironing rooms, but I just used some wrinkle-reducer on them.
Once we were cleaned up for the evening, we spent some time at our favorite bar - the Alchemy. It is always busy, and we always felt lucky whenever we could get a seat at the bar.
We made dinner reservations for the Italian restaurant – Cucina del Capitano. It is very popular, and the wait was over an hour. It is free the first time that you go for dinner and any time after that the meal is $8.00 per person. I had the veal marsala and Chuck had the chicken parmesan. The meals were very good, but the tables again were very close together, so we ended up talking with both people on each side of us.
I was too stuffed to enjoy the rest of the evening, but Chuck was ready to play cards. I never heard him come in.
