Carnival Elation recap Day 3: Running at sea and a feast in Cozumel

My alarm clock rang bright and early around 6:30am. I had these amazing plans to go up to the top of the ship and put in about 3 miles around the jogging track while I took in the beautiful sights of the ship pulling into Cozumel.

And then there was this.....

And my running plans were destroyed. There was a 35mph cross wind on the upper decks so they were closed to the guests. So I did the next best thing, I hit the treadmill. Ever tried running on a treadmill at sea? It's laughable and I'm shocked I didn't twist my ankle. I had to hold on to the rail of the treadmill the whole time to maintain my balance and we weren't even in any sort of rough seas, they were calm as could be but the back and forth motion of the ship means my feet were all over that treadmill. Still, I finished my 3 miles and headed back to the room to shower and get ready to go ashore.

After waiting in a long line to get off of the ship, we were finally walking down the pier heading toward the taxis. I snapped this cool perspective of the ship along the way.

I'd planned for my mom and I to spend the entire day at Nachi Cocum Beach Club, an all inclusive beach club that is only open to 100 pre-registered guests per day - in other words, no crowds! It was just $55 per adult and well worth the money. We spent about 4 hours at this place and it was absolute paradise.

My view from my lounge chair - who wouldn't want to stare at this all day?

I took several dips in the warm, inviting water.

I laid in the hammock.

From the moment we got there, our waiter never let our drinks stay empty for long. Even when I was laying in the hammock, he would seek me out to bring me more drinks. He was amazing. I wanted to bring him home and let him serve me drinks forever.

We each had 4 food credits, which could be used for any combination of appetizer, soup, salad, entree or dessert. We soon ordered our first feast of the day, a plate of nachos and chips w/guacamole. The guacamole was some of the best I've ever had and I'm not a big fan of it to begin with, so it says a lot that I devoured it - even my mother who doesn't care for avocados devoured it.

After feast #1, I took more dips in the ocean, made more trips to the hammock and in between all of it, read my book and drank my drinks.

Eventually, we ordered feast #2, enchiladas and fried tacos, which came with more guacamole. I've never felt so fat in my life.

After feast #2, we couldn't even think about feasts #3 and #4 that were waiting for us so we just let our other food credits go unused.

Our waiter brought more drinks, including this bad boy that did me in for the entire day.

After this, the taxi ride back to the port and haggling over overpriced children's clothing was a blur. We did buy some fabulous coffee, strawberry, mango and coconut flavored tequilas to bring back to the States with us.

The party continued once I was back on board and I'm pretty sure I showed up to dinner that night fairly tipsy. Sorry to my tablemates (haha, little did they know the following night I'd show up beyond tipsy after a martini tasting). My mom, on the other hand, wasn't handling the combination of too much food, sun and alcohol too well and spent most of the night in our stateroom sick. I went to a game show and the love and marriage show (which I participated in back in 2005 on our honeymoon cruise!) then I checked on my mom who seemed to be feeling better, so we headed up to the Mexican dance party on the Lido Deck. We just watched, we're not really into participating in those kinds of things. It was fun and then before long we headed back to the stateroom to catch some zzzz's.

Stay tuned for one final installment, the last day at sea which I am thrilled to report I finally got to go for a run up top on the open deck!

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.

A Mother's Day getaway on the Carnival Elation

The idea of doing something special for my mother's 60th birthday had been in the back of my mind for a while. After discussing it with my husband, we decided the timing was exactly right and I decided to pull the trigger and ask her if she'd want to go for a mother-daughter getaway. My husband would only need to take off of work on Thursday afternoon and Monday morning to assist our daughter with getting on and off the bus since he gets every other Friday off and the birthday vacation would fall over his 3-day weekend week.

Thus, the birthday/mother's day/mother-daughter getaway was born. On May 9, we would embark on the Carnival Elation out of New Orleans for 4 nights on board the ship, including 2 full days at sea and a 7-hour stop in Cozumel, Mexico.

My mom's flight got in to New Orleans on May 4th. I'm so glad she came in a few days early. We had no way to know it when I booked her flight, but it would turn out that she would have just moved to a new house in the days/hours before leaving to come down here, so by coming early, it allowed her to get some much needed rest before we left for our trip. She spent her days here sleeping while I was working and it worked out beautifully for everyone.

Eventually, May 9th was upon us. We donned our cheesy matching t-shirts, I saw my daughter off on the bus, we packed up the car with our many pieces of luggage and headed off on the 90 minute journey to New Orleans. We arrived at the cruise terminal around 10am, paid, dropped off 2 bags and a hefty tip to bribe the porter not to "lose" our luggage, parked and headed down the elevator to the check-in area.

This was my 4th cruise out of New Orleans and checking in was, as usual, a breeze, made even breezier by the fact that I'd gone ahead and forked over the extra money to buy the priority benefits that allowed us to check in at a separate, dedicated line, get on the ship before everyone else and go to our room to drop off our luggage before the rooms were actually ready for everyone else. By avoiding the regular check-in line, we were able to check in immediately, then were escorted to a separate seating area where we were in the 2nd group of people allowed to get on the ship after a wedding party was shuffled on board.

This is the photo they take of you while you're waiting to board the ship.

We immediately headed to our room. Since we had the priority benefits, it was supposed to be ready for us even though the other rooms weren't ready. Well, it wasn't ready. We were allowed to leave our luggage but we couldn't stay in the room to unpack because apparently our priority status had been overlooked. I wasn't too happy, but I got over it because at least I didn't have to drag the bags around the ship. That in and of itself is 1000000% worth the price of buying the priority benefits. I can't stand lugging the bag around the ship waiting for the room to become ready. One thing that was nice was that both of our pieces of checked luggage made it to the room either before or while we were in it - I've never gotten my checked luggage so fast! Sometimes we're still waiting on it when we go to bed the first night only to find it finally magically appear overnight.

We headed up to Tiffany's, the Lido buffet restaurant to enjoy a lunch overlooking the Mississippi River. 

After lunch, my mom went to the Drama Bar (yes, that's the name of it lol) to get her first drink of the trip. She is normally a beer drinker, but she decided she wanted to branch out and try some fruity drinks this trip. She got a Pina Colada.

After the drink, we headed back to the room to see if it was ready and unpack. I quickly slid outside the room to decorate the door, complete with an embarrassing picture of my mom from her youth.

After unpacking, we explored the ship some. I didn't take a lot of pictures of the ship because this was my 3rd time on board this particular ship and I didn't feel like taking pictures of everything I've taken pictures of before - nor do I feel like digging those pictures out!

We finally waited for the lifeboat drill to start and it was 30 minutes late. We headed to our designated lounge and they went through the spiel and I thought that was that. Ohhhh no no no. They then made us actually go up the stairs to the lifeboats. Ever tried to shuttle 2200 people somewhere in a span of 5 minutes? Yeah it took 10 minutes for everyone to get where it needed to go - and then we were literally there for less than 30 seconds (NO joke!!) and my mom and I had to split up because the elevators were disabled from use during the drill and my mom can't walk up stairs due to knee and leg problems. I could not remain in the lounge with her though since I was able-bodied. Yeah - not happy. By the time I found my mom and we got outside for the sailaway party, we'd already missed the 180 degree turn the ship made to head down the river!

We grabbed a fruity drink and headed up to the top to watch as we sailed down the river. It's an 8-hour journey to the mouth, so there was plenty to see.

We headed to the room to get ready for dinner and headed to get a drink before heading to dinner. We had a 6pm dinner seating and were the first to arrive to our table of 10. After about 10-15 minutes, a group of 4 showed up. They turned out to be great dinner companions. It was 2 brothers and their wives traveling together and the conversation with them never stopped. We had a lot in common, especially with an Air Force affiliation. They were interesting, funny people. I already miss them. On this night for dinner, I had an excellent plate of beef brisket and vegetables.

After dinner, we headed back to our room to find our beds turned down with our nightly newsletter, chocolates and towel animal on my bed.  We soon headed out to get some more drinks and catch the Welcome Aboard Show.  Once it was over, we wandered and drank a little more and then headed to bed. It'd been a long day and my stomach was hurting from some sugar free ice cream I'd eaten the day before. In fact, my stomach hurt so badly that I wouldn't drink a single drop of alcohol at all the next day!

Stay tuned for day 2, our beautiful, sunny day at sea.