It's time for Days 6 and 7 on our 8 day Carnival Cruise. We're headed to the Dominican Republic but first, we've got a day at sea on our way there.
We enjoyed our typical late morning wakeup. Rolling out of bed just in time for the Day at Sea brunch that is offered. And for the first time, we got seated by a window! Not that there's much to see. It's ocean all the way to the horizon.
The entire day was spent doing a whole lot of NOTHING! Theresa and I found a place in the shade to kick up our feet and read books.
Looking out the back of the ship.
The kids are having fun running around the ship with all their friends. We saw them randomly as they went by and off to some other adventure together.
Eating all the pizza and ice cream they wanted.
Back in our room, Min has left a stingray towel animal.
As soon as the app allowed us to request a table, I was right on top of it to make sure we could eat and then get back to doing more Nothing. The doors usually open at 5:30pm, so by 5:25pm a bit of a line was forming while people waited.
Letting us in early! Let's go!
Tonight is a formal dining at sea feast! They're bringing out all the favorites!
I have hardly ever had Beef Carpaccio and it was so tender and melt in your mouth delicious.
I ordered the Corn Chowder, against our server's recommendation, and he said he'd bring out the Chilled Strawberry and Chia Seed soup too. And he was absolutely right. The Corn Chowder tasted nothing like corn and wasn't actually very good. The Strawberry soup though was lovely! Like melted ice cream!
Here we go! Prime Rib! And a second entree of Chicken Cordon Bleu. The prime rib was fantastic with a nice jus. The Chicken however was dry and had barely any filling in it. We'll pass on that next time.
And Theresa is also having a broiled lobster tail! Not my thing, but she appreciates it since she never makes fish at home.
And our adventurous eater Alli is giving it a try. She's been really good at trying all the new foods on the cruise. Ian however has lived on chicken nuggets, pizza, hot dogs, and even a hamburger one time for his meals.
Gotta get a picture together while we're dressed up!
The kids wanted me to see the pictures they took together as a group while they were wandering around with their friends. Somewhere they found a Back to the Future setup with a Carnival photographer snapping pics.
Posing with the Delorean.
Cute, but not $20 per photo cute.
Theresa and I headed to the theater a short time later. There's a seat on the 2nd level that is just barely wide enough for 2 adults. It was always open when we arrived, so we sat there every time!
The kids are having a great time running around with their friends.
We ended the night at the back of the ship, eating pizza and ice cream, and reading books.
The next day, once we made our way out of our room and onto the top of the ship, we found ourselves in the Dominican Republic!
There's a shipwide emergency evacuation drill with loud alarms going on (glad they told us ahead of time), so we were prepared with headphones.
We've arrived in time for the first pizzas of the day!
And I don't think I've said enough good things about the pizza on the Carnival Magic yet. It's been so good! On previous cruises the pizza we've had was just... meh. Nothing special. Here though, they're using the 00 Caputo Blue flour from Italy, just like I use at home on my pizzas. We watch them prep and weigh out the dough for the proofing boxes, flour and stretch the dough balls, and give it toppings before taking it to the oven.
And they have 5 different flavors constantly coming out of the kitchen. The Quattro Formaggi was so good with the Gorgonzola and Roasted Garlic. My favorite though was the Prosciutto with an entire slice of prosciutto on each slice of pizza!
We had a late breakfast/early lunch before heading off the ship.
We made our way down the stairways of the ship and out to the dock! Welcome to Amber Cove!
What's Amber Cove? It's a private section of the Dominican Republic just for Carnival guests!
It's about a 1/4 of a mile walk to get off the dock and onto the mainland. There are bicycle porters that will ride you to the end, though we're happy to get off the ship and stretch our legs.
Ha! When you get to the end of the dock, you actually exit through the gift shop! Lots of locally sourced goods here.
We've got to get a picture with a sign that says the name of the country we're in.
And there's a great photo spot looking back towards the ship.
There's a little bit of shopping inside the Carnival only port, but the big draw is the water park. It's only for Carnival Guests, and it seems like the whole ship has shown up here! Theresa and Alli found a place in the shade to hang out.
While Ian and I wandered around the fenceline seeing what we could see. Those tall guard shacks you see in the background are all around the waterline and fence line, making sure people don't sneak in to this area.
Despite this being a Carnival only area, food, drinks, and activities are not included. Waterslides and Ziplines cost money to go down. Food prices for burgers and such were typical resort hotel prices. But there was one section of Amber Cove that we found that was called the Crew Center. Located just to the left of the end of the zipline, it was a small convenience store with snacks, drinks, liquor, and other necessities.
Before we arrived, Ian mentioned to me.
Ian - Dominican Republic? Like where the Club Cool Epcot drink is from?
Joe - Yeah! I think Country Club is from the Dominican Republic.
I didn't hold out much hope for finding it though since we wouldn't be leaving Amber Cove. But wait! Going to the Crew Center, what do I see? It's Country Club! And they have different flavors! I didn't even know they had that! I thought Country Club was a flavor by itself!
I asked at the counter if they had any more and they found 1 more! And how much were these sodas? Resort prices I was assuming... $4-$5 each. Nope! Just $1 each! Sweet!
And so, we got the 4 flavors they had and had our own little taste test of Country Club sodas right there in the Dominican Republic! I did learn though that besides the four flavors here: Merengue, Uva, Frambuesa, and Naranja, there's a fifth flavor too. Pina. Doh, I hate doing incomplete taste tests...
Ian decided to play in the little kid area of the water park and found some of his friends from Camp Ocean there also.
I went exploring around the area a little more.
Name Amber Cove because the Dominican Republic is famous for that golden fossilized tree sap, Amber.
At the very beginning of the hit movie Jurassic Park, it's an Amber Mine in the Dominican Republic that they find the mosquitos from the dinosaur era where they recovered all that dinosaur DNA.
That's all fictional though since the amber from the Dominican Republic is 25-40 million years old, while the T-Rex was around only 66-90 million years ago. Also, they haven't found any dinosaur fossils in the Dominican Republic either inside amber or in the ground.
Around 1:45pm our bellies started to get a little hungry. We could eat in Amber Cove, but that's a little expensive. Why do that when there's free food offerings we haven't even tried back on the ship!
Guy's Burger Joint is constantly grilling burgers on the main deck and we haven't given it a shot yet!
Alli loves her burgers with lots of lettuce and tomato. I tried a Pig Patty with a regular burger, then lots of bacon on top. The burgers themselves were just okay I thought. Sure they had grilled them right there, but mine came from a sheet pan of burgers they had grilled earlier, along with a puck of bacon that was made earlier. The fries were soggy too, so I wasn't particularly impressed.
Time to cast off! Everyone on board? Let's go!
The kids took us around the ship, showing us where they found ducks.
This super cute crocheted duck is definitely coming home with us!
Over the course of the week, they found quite a few, many times re-hiding them for others to find.
Ducks come in all sizes. Even super tiny ducks.
Back in our room, a towel rabbit was waiting for us.
Dinner time! We loved our servers I Kadek, Arnawa, and Kareem.
Alli has had enough variety and is happy to get the grilled chicken and vegetables that is always offered on the menu. I Kadek would often ask if she'd like it cut up, and would then proceed to prepare it for her. Love it!
This is our first picture here, but Theresa and I spent many nights here in the gym at the front of the ship, working off a small fraction of the calories we've been eating. Lifting weights on the machines was no issue, but holding a free weight in your hand or above your head when the ship is rocking is a little different than back home! Working on those little stabilizer muscles.
The kids had a great time without us in Camp Ocean, painting a volcano.
Searching for Rubber Ducks.
And getting ice cream whenever they felt like it.
It's sad that we're coming to the end of this cruise. In some ways it feels like it just started, and in others it feels like we're ready to get back home. Just one more day at sea left and we'll be back in Florida!
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