Carnival Splendor Journeys Review: Day 4 – Throwback Sea Dayfeatured

Second verse, same as the first.

That’s how the saying goes, right?

Old clichés aside, our second sea day began in a near exact repeat of our first day: we woke up earlier than we should have given that we were on vacation and we headed upstairs to the Lido deck for some coffee. When we headed aft to look for open loungers, though, all of them either had bodies or books on them. It didn’t necessarily surprise me – anyone who didn’t know what prime real estate was back there the day before likely realized it and saved a seat out there earlier than we cared to – but I was bummed that we couldn’t grab the same primo poolside seats that we snagged the day before without waking up early to save them (mostly because, you know, we don’t save seats – we grab them when we need them and we vacate when we’re done). Just as I was stricken with memories of the Sunshine from last year and people laying towels out on the ground because literally every chair, even the ones in not so great locations, was claimed, we decided to head up to decks 10 and 11, which had plenty of open loungers on both sides of the ship (and those great chairs overlooking the aft pool, too).

We didn’t last as long in the sun – Stephanie was still nursing a slight burn from the day before and I still had nearly a week of tanning time ahead of me that I needed to pace myself for (especially with two outdoor excursions coming up over the next two days). And there wasn’t as much sun to soak in, either. Our second sea day brought more clouds than we had on the first.

After our sun time, we headed back to the room to change, intending to do another sea day brunch so we could redeem our drink vouchers, and when we headed down to deck three to check in for brunch, we were hit with a line that extended up the staircase. This was weird, right? Unless they were selling discount watches in the dining room, it’s odd to see people lining up mid-day for brunch. Except I didn’t read my Capers carefully (yes, the Carnival Capers made their return for this day!) because there was no brunch today – today was our #tbsd (that’s Throwback Sea Day for those who don’t speak hashtag), and the dining room wasn’t serving brunch – they were serving lunch.

I can’t remember the last cruise we went on that had lunch instead of brunch. It’s been a hot minute. And these lunch menus weren’t crazy old – these were definitely recent/old (at least in the last seven years). It was fun pouring through the menu, identifying dishes we loved and ones we never got to try. Missing from the menu was my dearly departed but never forgotten Vacation Sundae, but my old standby of Vegetable Fajitas were as good as they were the last time I had them.

Chilled Avocado Soup

Medley of Garden and Field Greens

Spaghetti Zia Teresa

Mongolian Steak Salad

Vegetable Fajitas

Ice Coupe Black Forest

Chocolate Gateau

After lunch, we stopped at the shops again so Stephanie could look for a beach bag and we slowly wound our way downstairs, ending at the shore excursion deck so we could book a tour for our next port day in Antigua.

Since we were already down on deck three and it was a sea day, it only felt fitting to go out to the promenade and do some water watching. We loved our aft balcony on deck 6, but we felt so high up. The promenade on deck 3 puts you so close to the water. Any lower and you’d be, well, in the water.

MarQ had a bunch of #tbsd activities planned, but many of them were before our cruising time. We started cruising back in 2004, and I don’t remember horse racing, aqua frog games or the knobby knee competition. But it seemed many people did, and they were really enjoying the chance to relive them. We, however, did as we do on sea days: we went up to Serenity, purchased a pitcher of Skinny Fizz cocktails (a tasty combo of Tito’s, peach Schnapps, orange juice and Perrier) and enjoyed them on our balcony.

I was in an alcohol fueled tug of war between wanting to do everything and wanting to crawl in bed to sleep, so we did the next best thing: we crawled to tea time. The dining room was packed, and even though we requested a private table, they had no where to put us but at a shared table. They ran out of tea pots, so they just gave us hot water in cups with our tea bags. They couldn’t wheel the pastry cart between the two sides of the room, so a server came by with small squares of pound cake to compliment the smoked salmon and cucumber sandwiches. Other servers made the rounds with cookies and other baked treats, but somehow, those never made it to our table, just the tables around us. And in the middle of it all, we entered a storm that would persist on and off into the night. The ship was dancing along the waves, and even the caffeine kick from my green tea wasn’t going to help.

With the movement of the water getting pretty intense, we headed back to the room to relax it off. The movement makes me so incredibly sleepy that I was ready to crawl under the covers of my very comfortable bed and not come out until we were docked in Antigua. We skipped dinner in the dining room in favor of a more low-key meal on the Lido deck.

The evening hours were stacked with activities, from a cruise director Holiday Show (with snow!) to a #tbsd movie, a Playlist show and a deck party. We started with the throwback movie at the Dive In – an early showing of Dirty Dancing. One of the best features of the Splendor is the retractable roof over the main pool deck. So even though a tropical rainstorm was roaring outside, the deck was dry and the air temp was perfectly comfortable.

Stephanie ducked out to go see the Holiday Show in the atrium, where the MarQ and the Fun Squad led the crowd in a singalong, passed out Santa hats and created a mini snowstorm in the middle of the Caribbean sea.

We ducked out after an hour of Dirty Dancing to catch the early show of 80s Pop to the Max, a Playlist show we hadn’t seen yet. I’ve been pretty critical of the Playlist shows in the past – compared to the previous production shows Carnival used to put on, the new(er) shows were a clear step down with smaller casts, instrumental tracks instead of a live band and animatronic backgrounds instead of sets. 80s Pop to the Max is definitely one of the better Playlist shows, high energy with a fantastic set list of songs you can’t help but sing along to.

After the show, we wandered through the Promenade on our way back to the room. It was still storming out, so we kept it low key, watching some CNN and packing our beach bags for our excursion in Antigua. The motion was too much for Mom and she called it an early night. Stephanie and I headed upstairs for the deck party around 11:30 PM and it was hopping. Just about everyone on board (…minus Mom) seemed to be up there dancing on deck.

Where they weren’t, though, was in the Lido Marketplace for the late night Mexican buffet. A throwback to the theme buffets they used to have with the deck parties, they went all out: a cold food line, a hot food line, a taco station, a dessert line and an ice sculpture. And no one was there. We walked right through the line for snacks. We walked right through a second time to take pictures. It’s no wonder they did away with these buffets – so much food and so much time preparing it, and everyone was outside dancing.

The party went all the way into the early hours of the morning. Or, at least, that’s what it sounded like. From our cabin. On deck six. Thank God for earplugs, right?