Drew's Blues Cruise

Today's guest blogger is Drew, wherein he had enjoyed a supposedly fun thing he will never do again! See previous reviews here and here.

Nestled by the decaying body of the Queen Mary (not the hot one) lays the decaying dome that used to house the Spruce Moose.  The dome has been transformed to lead you on to the decaying corpse of the fantastic Carnival Radiance!  This ship is magnificent, and it glows with memories for a lifetime!

"I said, GET IN!"

After manoeuvring the intricacies of embarkation and British spelling in this crazy, mixed-up post covid time, we made our way to Shaq’s Big Chicken Restaurant to partake in some Journey and over-fried strips.  Our cabin wasn’t available yet, so we toured the Radiance from snout to out to see its many wonders which included:        

·    Two unfilled pools!

·    10 restaurants!  2 of which served humanly edible food.  In a delightful twist, I imagined the other 8 served food made of humans‽

·    SportsSquare!  A fun area that included words smashed together, MiniGolf, VolleyBall, BasketBall, and a gigantic chess set.  The delightful breeze on the top deck where the square was located, made it especially fun to chase bishops blowing around in circles. “J’adoube! J’adoube!”

·   Seuss at Sea!  That’s right, Andy Seuss. Apparently, there are many NASCAR fans that love to cruise.

·  A photographic staff eager to cater to any of your whims!  Unless your whim is to simply be left alone.

·  Journey playing over the ship’s PA system every day!

·  Scenic views

If you squint, you can see the Spruce Moose 

geodesic dome in front of the lovely Long Beach docklands.

For entertainment, there were some fabulous choices.

·   Comedians – Professional comedians who were sure to get a laugh out of themselves!

·   Trivia!

·   Yahoo Serious Ted Talk!

·   Towels folded as monotremes!

·   Journey playing every day!

·   Loud horsing off in the hallway outside our cabin to inspire us to partake in all the fun!  The fun never stops, especially between 2 to 5 AM! 

Our ports of call were Catalina and Ensenada.  Catalina was quite enjoyable.  We hiked to the Avalon Casino and then jumped aboard a speed boat for parasailing. Since this was our first time parasailing in Catalina, we were only able to do the “training” package.  This meant we hooked up to the parashoot but were not allowed to liftoff.  And only $300!

I feel like an astronaut in training!

When you think of Mexico, Ensenada is probably on the top of your list along with Cancun, Cabo San Lucas and Colima.  Lucky us it was a short sail from Catalina.  Unfortunately, a mass killing occurred the day before we got there involving a different cruise ship.  Our Cruise “fun” director “Mike” came over the ship’s intercom to inform us that all the perpetrators had stowed away on the previous ship so there was no known ongoing threat.

Undeterred, early in the morning, we braved the crowd of seven others to disembark and make our way to the square in town that held stalls of vendors happy to vend hard.  I wish we could have bought everything there.  Especially the automatic weapons on display so we could make it back to the Radiance in peace and one piece.  We settled on a wooden carved turtle. 

I stood on the deck and watched as we left port.  As we set sail “Mike” informed us that the previous day’s dead had all been buried with honors and each marked by a white stone lest anyone ever forget.

Smartly, they saved the big field in the back for future cruises.

Our last day aboard was at Sea.  Precious time to enjoy with family and split several tens at BlackJack.