Almost all cruises have sea days and depending on your personality you may or may not prefer them. Certainly it’s nice to have a “rest” day to just enjoy the ship but if you are a high energy person you might find it a bit boring. Knowing Lee and his energy level I intentionally scheduled at least one special thing on every sea day but I think it’s fair to say he was still a little restless.
For me sea days were nice though because I took advantage of the down time to take a couple of long naps and since lunch was provided in the main dining room on sea days we took advantage of that as well. Unfortunately the weather was on the cool side for the entire trip so for me at least much of the ship’s water related activities were out. It’s a shame because the ship had some water slides and an adult pool I wanted to try out but it was just too cold for me. I wasn’t alone in this because the weather pushed many others into activities in the ships interior so I found most activities on the crowded side.
Still as I said some people love sea days and I wanted to start with showing how we got in and out of port. Cabo we anchored away from the pier berth so that was easy but in Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta we were at dock. In Puerto Vallerta we were actually right next to another ship and it was amazing watching the ship unmoor and then push itself out sideways and out of the port backwards. Seriously it was super impressive.
The first sea day was Day 2 and I scheduled a meal in one of the specialty restaurants called Chops. The steakhouse was really pretty and the service was great, but they overcooked my steak which was really disappointing. Lee gave me his, which was really delicious, and he took mine, but for $120 frankly I expected better. They did comp our drinks for the inconvenience which was nice and overall I guess I was glad we ate in one specialty restaurant to try it out. The best part was we could make reservations at 6:00pm so we could eat at a normal time and still make the 8pm show.
Speaking of the shows I know I had raved about them but they really were great. One sea day they had a show that was all about the history of showgirls and on the last night they had a farewell show. One of the things I liked about the farewell show was they put up pictures of the various groups and some of their staff and we all got to cheer then folks we liked the best. Housekeeping and bartenders got the biggest cheers by far 🙂
I couldn’t stay up much past 10pm every night but Lee stayed up much later every night, and attended some adult only entertainment. His favorite was this crazy game show where teams of people had to do certain tasks which included men in the group dressing up like women. He said folks were switching clothes right in front of everyone and he hasn’t laughed that hard in a really long time. The pictures were really funny and for this show they threw out anyone who wasn’t 18 years old. What happens on the cruise stays on the cruise 🙂
Part of the reason I struggled so much with the time was that we changed time zones TWICE while on this cruise. I have been on many ships who kept the ship time consistent but for whatever reason they were unable to do this on this cruise. We lost one hour day 3 another hour day 4 and then had to go through it again on the way back. Since shore excursions were pretty early in the morning it really was a pain.
Sea days were better though from a time change perspective because we didn’t have anywhere first thing in the morning we had to be. Well I take that back, I did have a spa appointment one morning and I have to say I was super disappointed in my experience and I wasn’t alone. First of all the prices were really out of control. A standard 50 minute massage for example was $399 which is high by any standards. I opted for foot reflexology for $149 and although the massage itself was nice it definitely wasn’t reflexology. I have had that done many times and this was jus a foot massage. I probably would have been fine though but what really bothered me was the technician brought me the receipt while I was still in the room and pressured me to sign it. I was half asleep and not thinking clearly and ended up giving her an extra $20. This was on top of the mandatory tip attached to all spa services of 18%. So essentially I ended up tipping $49.80 on an overpriced service.
I wasn’t the only person to be unsatisfied. Every person I talked to who had a spa service was either unhappy with the price or the service itself. One large gentleman I met (about the size of a college football player) said his technician told him he should have to pay extra because he was so big. I was frankly shocked by that comment and encouraged him to complain to the manager but he was a nice guy and just said he wouldn’t do it again. Getting spa treatments is one of the things people love to do on sea days but I would caution you to really think that through prior to signing up.
My favorite part of of our sea days though was the Chef’s table experience which I highly recommend. This was a six course dinner that was paired with some excellent wine and we had a wonderful time. The service was great and the food was pretty good but the pairings really put it over the top. We also had a wonderful group of people we were at the dinner with and we got to eat it on our own special floor of the main dining room. Highly recommend the experience it was worth every penny.
Best meal by far I had on the ship. The actual best thing we did happened on a sea day as well when we took the ships tour but I’ll save that until the next post.
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