The Long Road to Cabo, a Carnival Panorama Review: Day 10 – Sea Dayfeatured

I’m pretty sure if there’s one best way to wake up, it’s to a plate of arepas and some chocolate milk. There are many great ways, things, people to wake up to, but a plate of fresh arepas from the Blue Iguana takes the top slot.

Mom used to wake me up with a plate of fresh arepas to get me to get up on some of our old Europe cruises. I like sleep. I’ll negotiate extra sleep while I’m already sleeping if someone tries to wake me up, that’s how much I like sleep. But you know what I like more than sleep? Yeah, arepas.

I knew that aroma as soon as she opened the door and I was up like a bolt. Unfortunately, though, a quick peek out the window showed dark clouds and churning waves, which meant our last day wouldn’t bring much fun in the sun. Lots of fun, to be sure — we’re good at sea days like that — but the sun? We left that in Cabo.

I needed caffeine to function, so I quickly got up and joined Mom and Stephanie down on Ocean Plaza. I’m pretty sure I failed at properly using my Cheers! package because I used it 80% of the time on Vitacoco, water bottles or iced cold brews at the Java Blue cafe, but we got it on a massive discount and I really like Vitacoco and cold brew and Stephanie likes to tell me that if it makes me happy, it doesn’t matter if I’m maxing the value of the plan.

We watched a few rounds of giant Jenga before deciding we were hungry for something more substantial than an arepa, so we popped onto the app to request a table for brunch and were quickly confirmed. We made our way down to deck 3 and found a very busy dining room! I guess everyone else decided that a rainy day was made for brunch, too.

After lunch, we headed back to Ocean Plaza. It was still raining but the skies showed some promise of sun, and we settled in for a rousing round of Name That Love Song trivia. I tied for first with four other people and then FINALLY won in an intense round of sudden death with one of my least favorite songs (All of Me by John Legend, for the record). Winner, winner, 24k gold plated plastic ship on a stick.

We took our team family victory lap to Guy’s Pig & Anchor for a round of INCREDIBLE Bloody Mary’s. They infuse their vodka with fresh veggies in house and it was SO good and refreshing in the way a well-made Bloody Mary should be. The sun was finally peeking out, so we took our bloody’s al fresco out into the sunlight outside.

Mom and Stephanie decided they couldn’t go home without having one last lunch at Guy’s BBQ. I decided between the arepas and brunch that I couldn’t eat any more (for at least another hour, anyways!), but it wasn’t just Mom and Stephanie — the BBQ stand was one of the most popular sea day lunch options and for good reason. It isn’t fancy food, but it is really, really good food.

The weather kept going from sunny to cloudy, hot to cold. When it turned cloudy and cold again, we took it as a sign to head back in and start packing. Well, not me — I wasn’t going to pack until I literally had to pack — but for everyone else to pack and me to cheer them on from my bed while I was ~siesta’ing.

All of that moral support can make a girl hungry, so we headed upstairs to the Lido Marketplace for some dessert. The last day chocolate extravaganza has largely fallen by the wayside, but the cake stand featured all chocolate cakes (the bourbon pecan chocolate cake was my favorite!) and the gelato stand had a chocolate fountain so there were plenty of chocolatey treats to go around.

I had one last taco salad from the Blue Iguana Cantina and we all ate al fresco. The last day on any cruise is a little morbid and I think over time, we’ve gotten better at not being sentimentally suckered into counting our lasts, but we did try to be outside as much as possible. Even if it was a little cooler, that sea air just hits differently and heals so much. We had a snowstorm waiting for us at home, and I wanted to bottle up the feeling of that fresh air all around me.

Mom and Stephanie left to go chat with the Purser about a loud noise in Mom’s room that still hadn’t been resolved and I went upstairs to walk a few laps on the jogging path because, well, I’ll do anything to put off packing, including (apparently) taking long leisurely walks on a jogging track.

Eventually, it couldn’t be put off anymore and I went back to the room and started putting things into packing cubes and packing cubes in suitcases. Stephanie and I also decided to take some rapid Covid tests we had brought with just because and, thankfully, continued to test negative.

Before I knew it, our sea day turned into night. Time moves fast when you’re doing everything and nothing at the same time. I left the rest of my packing for later and got dressed for our final dinner, an Asian feast at Ji Ji. We feasted on soup and the most delicious pork belly ever and that incredible kung pao and gosh, it was all so good! The service at Ji Ji is always top notch and we savored everything a little more to hold us over to our next cruise.

The evening’s entertainment was another concert tribute of a Playlist show, this one Celestial Strings. We were back to strict concert tributes, not the enhanced one we had gotten a taste of the other night. This meant no live musicians, no dancing, no costumes and one fewer performer. It was slightly perplexing, too, because we’d seen the live violinists performing in the atrium all week. We could easily speculate why they weren’t performing, but it wouldn’t change anything. The singers did the best they could and performed to an instrumental track of a mix of everything from pop to operatics.

After the show, we meandered through the shops. I’d done very little shopping on this trip and I found myself less drawn towards the random impulsive shopping I usually like to partake in, but I did grab a bag of candy at Cherry on Top to enjoy on the flight home.

We headed back to the room, too tired to grab a nightcap at any of the deck 5 bars and instead finished our packing. We sat out on the outdoor seating up on Lido for a bit when we needed a break, just taking in as much of that sea air as I could get and thinking to myself how much I love the anticipation of getting on a ship, but hate that feeling that comes when the week is up and inevitably, it all comes to a close. The way everything becomes the last — the last night up under the stars or the last bite of caramelized crepes. The last show, the last walk through the lobby, the last swirl cone — it’s all a bit morbid and it’s never really the last, you know? I mean one day it will be. That’s how life works. But until then, it’s never really the last — it’s just a pause. Maybe it means a little more having been through the uncertainty of the past couple of years, knowing that at any given moment, we could be pushed off and pushed out indefinitely — that everything we’re planning for is as uncertain as ever. Whatever it means, I walked a little slower, breathed in a little deeper and reveled in being where I was at that moment. That in this moment of time, I was on a cruise ship and I was so, so happy.

The night was a whirlwind and in the rush of packing, getting everything ready and being so distracted by the last everything, I forgot to lock my luggage and it was whisked away from our door the moment we put it out. Spoiler alert, it was fine and nothing was missing, but it served as a necessary reminder that I probably to slow down and focus more.

With our gear packed and gone, there was nothing left to do but surrender to the end of our trip. We watched a marathon of Guy’s Grocery Games and Beat Bobby Flay (and, side note, I love that Carnival has such robust options for in room entertainment. Between the TV options and the on-demand movie menu, it was nice to have entertainment options while we relaxed in our room). And we went to bed with fingers crossed for a smooth travel day home.