Carnival Elation recap: Day 2, Beautiful Day at Sea

The second day of our trip started off wonderfully.

The evening before, we'd been given coupons for a free drink (coffee, soda, or a handful of "classic cocktails") but the catch was that we could only redeem them in the main dining room during breakfast or lunch. *groan* I try to avoid the main dining room for those meals because I like to get my meal from the Lido buffet or one of the specialty restaurants and take it to overlook the sea while I eat. Plus, service in the MDR can be kind of slow. But, tell me I get a free drink and oh how my perspective changes!

My mom and I got up around 8, threw our swimsuits and cover ups on, gathered our belongings and headed to the MDR for breakfast.

 This day was my mom's birthday! She was turning 60 and I made sure everyone knew it. I gave her the purple beads that say "60 CLEARLY A CLASSIC" and the pin that says 60 AND SENSATIONAL and told her she had to wear them all day long, no exceptions except for during our formal attire pictures we'd be taking later that night. She happily obliged and sported her beads and pin all day.

We went to the MDR where we both ordered an omelet, bacon and hash browns for breakfast. Felt a bit strange ordering drinks at 8:15 in the morning but she ordered a mai tai and I got a mojito, no alcohol. I'd been having some problems digesting some sugar free ice cream I'd eaten the night before we left for New Orleans and alcohol was only making the situation worse even though the ice cream had long been digested by that point. So I was abstaining from alcohol the entire day in an effort to preserve my stomach for the day of drinking we'd be doing in Cozumel the following day.

As we left the MDR, we ran into Jorge, our waiter from dinner and he was totally judging us for drinking at 8:15 in the morning. Haha! We loved Jorge.

After breakfast, we headed up to the deck above the Lido deck and got situated in a couple of loungers where I would plan to stay until the early afternoon. We'd wanted to see the Master Mixologist competition and where we were sitting, we had a great view for it. I happily picked up my book Born To Run and started settling into it.

Unfortunately, I just couldn't get into it. I am extremely disappointed by the book. I won't write a review of it here at this time, but to quickly hit on the reasons for my disappointment, it seemed to jump all over the place with no rhyme or reason, the storyline was too far fetched but this was supposed to be a work of non-fiction and I knew I'd have problems with the way the book was written and edited the moment I came across an instance where the author used the term "could care less." I am not a perfect writer, but you can bet if I were being paid to write a book, I'd be a bit more careful in the editing.

Eventually, my mom got up to leave because she was hot. This was unfortunate because as I quickly found out, people seem to think it's OK to ask other people who are sitting alone if they'll get up and move to accommodate a group of people who want to sit together. The first person who asked me to do this also thought it was OK to grab my foot to ask if I'd move. Um- yeah. Don't touch me. He asked me to move 2 seats down. I wasn't thrilled to do this because I'd been there for 2 hours at this point and was so comfortable, but I also didn't want it to be awkward should I be around these people in an elevator later on in the cruise, so I gathered my things and prepared to move. In my quest to move just 2 seats down, I burned -literally burned- the bottoms of my feet on the hot deck. I was pissed! Here I go trying to be nice to some people and I get my feet burned!

So I just left. I didn't say a word to them either, I just gave them my infamous icy glare. I didn't want to be around them after that and made my way to another part of the ship to find another place to sit. I settled on this.

Well that's a better view than the one I had. Again, 1 empty chair on both sides and twice I heard people in groups of 3 walk by and talk about "asking that lady to move" to which I can only assume was me since I was the only single in the whole area. I waited for them to just try it, but thankfully they kept walking. I wasn't moving again.

Eventually I was hungry for lunch so I gathered my things and headed for the wok. Oh how I love the wok! So many delicious vegetables stir fried and steamed to perfection. I ran into my mom while trying to find a place to sit down to watch the Master Mixologist competition and we finally nabbed some seats.

After lunch I had to head to the gym. I was committed to working out every day of my trip. Most people think that's crazy, but I think it's just part of my day that I enjoy doing so I don't mind doing it on vacation either. Plus, with views like this, I totally did not mind giving up a part of my day to work out while enjoying beautiful scenery.

I rode the exercise bike for a while and then did some core/legs. I thought it was odd there were mirrors on the ceiling.

After my workout, I headed back to the room to shower and get ready for the formal dress up night. Mom and I strolled up and down the Promenade Deck getting our picture taken against cheesy backdrops. We then met our favorite photographer of the trip, Thewin from Thailand. He was so funny. He thought we were sisters (WTH?) and encouraged us to "make sexy face" for every picture. We got to laughing so hard at him that our pictures turned out hilariously, capturing us in mid-laugh most of the time. We had probably 5 or 6 pictures that he took. He would arrange single strands of my hair around my shoulders and face and then tell me "ahh yes. Perfect, perfect. I like that. OK. Now I want you to throw back your shoulder and make sexy face at the camera." Instead of making sexy face, I'd made a gut busting laugh face. He was hilarious. My mom ended up buying one of his pictures. I wish I had a copy of it, but I don't.

Pretty soon, we headed down to the bar to get our pre-dinner drink. I had this fabulous Miami Vice smoothie -strawberry smoothie mixed with pina colada smoothie- while my mom had a Hurricane Wave daiquiri - hurricane daiquiri layered with banana daiquiri.

Each night as we grabbed a drink before dinner, I was in awe of how beautiful and grand the atrium was where this particular bar was located.

The picture doesn't do it justice.

We headed to dinner where we dined on fabulous prime rib and baked potatoes. Since it was my mom's birthday, they brought her a piece of banana cake with a candle in it and several waiters came to sing Happy Birthday to her.

In the background of the last picture are 2 of our tablemates that we loved so much, Joyce and Bob from Arkansas.

After dinner, we went to the big Las Vegas type production show, a song-and-dance type of deal. It was excellent - and also my third time seeing it with it being the third time I've been on the Elation in the last 2 years. They don't change out their shows very often but I didn't mind because this is one of the better shows I've seen, featuring music from the 50s to the 80s and well choreographed dance numbers that meshed seamlessly with the music.

We went to one of the comedy shows afterward, but I didn't care much for the guy. There was one other comedian on board and I felt he was much better at his job than the guy we saw on this night. My mom stuck around for the other comedian, but I was so tired and had to get up early to work out that I headed back to the room to go to bed around 10:45. I know, party pooper!

We had a dog towel animal waiting for us on this night.

I headed to bed and slept so soundly that I didn't even hear my mom come back in the room. Stay tuned for my favorite day ever, our day at Nachi Cocum Beach Club in Cozumel.