2026 B2B Day 10: Cabo San Lucas #2 (Cruise #2: 6N Mexican Riviera)

Cruise Compass

Another rough night of sleep for me, being awake from around 2A until sometime after 530A and then getting up around 815A. As a result, I'd end up taking a nap at 1130A before lunch. But first…

CABO! Yes, on the 4th possible day to visit we finally decided to go ashore and walk about. At Cabo they contract for local tender service, and a variety of vessels handle the roughly 11- minute ride into the marina. Our inbound boat was a smallish one, where the driver (I can't give him the honorific of Captain) crashed about as we left Quantum and as he backed into the dock at the marina. Our outbound boat was a much larger affair and we had a calm, smooth sailing.

As expected, you are assaulted by vendors selling glass bottom boat tours, boats to The Arches, private yachts, fishing, jewelry, hats, and what looked like fridge magnets. We stuck to the boardwalk (actually a red concrete walk) and while most vendors were concentrated in the 1st hundred yards or so, there was never a point in anywhere that we walked when we were less than about 200’ from someone trying to offer us something.

E was interested to see if she could find something like a dress or shawl or similar, but everything we saw seemed to cater to younger women. In a building signposted as a market we discovered dozens of individual stalls, mostly sharing the same merch. E did find two silver pendants that she intended to get for Ash and herself, but when they indicated that they wanted USD 200 each (or a “deal" at USD 300 for both) it was apparent we were in different worlds, so we had to take a hard pass.

Somehow my mental map for the boardwalk was way off from reality. I thought much more was within just a couple hundred yards of the cruise ship drop-off, but some of the really well-known places were a longer walk away than expected. We got as far around as Solomon's before turning around, and since we had no plans to do any kind of excursion, we were fine heading back to the ship after an hour onshore.

Post-nap we made an obligatory stop at Windjammer for lunch, although neither one of us was very hungry, and then we headed to the Music Hall for mid-afternoon as that was the location for trivia today. During that time we each tried new drinks found on the MH menu. I had a Hotel California (essentially a tequila-forward marg with Tabasco sauce which left me unimpressed, while E had something with vodka, raspberry liqueur, a berry sparkling water, and topped with club soda which also left her wanting.

We saw several seals hanging around barking at boats. We're guessing that they are used to getting fed, either by fishermen or, more likely, by tour boats.

 Evidence that we went ashore at Cabo.

Our home away from home for 12 nights.

As we waited for the first trivia to start, a guy named Dan sat down in our spare chair and announced that he'd be on our team and he'd lead us to victory. Turns out he's another one of these solo cruisers who lives/dies by his trivia playing. He then proceeded to play a mostly silent game when he'd write down “the team's" answer with smugness. He didn’t want us to be on his team – he wanted us to be witnesses to his greatness. Whatever, Dan.

The instructions as we (the room) understood things was we had to give the airport and location, as in YVR=Vancouver, Canada. However, when we started grading the host said he wanted the NAME of the airport (so “Vancouver Int'l"). No one, including Dan, had written that down but he named several – but certainly not all of them – on the fly. However, when it came time to announce our score it seemed like we (he) was still going to trounce the room so when we were asked our honest score I wasn't about to do what he wanted (claim a perfect 40) because I'd heard him guessing wrongly at a few names. When he looked to me to feed him “40” I arbitrarily said “32”. Well, turns out there was another solo player in the room who claimed 36 which led Dan to mutter “I should have said 38” and basically pout because he wasn't going to win a keychain. There was a team sitting behind us that also suffered from “not fair" syndrome. Thankfully, Dan left and didn't insist on “teaming up” with us on later rounds.

A recap of our trivia day:

• Airport Codes: 32/40 (2nd, 36 wins)
• Visual Trivia, Landmarks: 35/54 (54)
• TV Theme Music: 13/20 (17)
• Afternoon General Trivia: 11/20 (12 – by “Mr. Blue Shirt" aka Wally)

It is interesting that Wally, when the questions are (I think) reasonably unique and not part of their catalog of themed questions, does as well as we do. So this just makes his (and similarly, Dan's) obsessive need to “win" their 20th time through a random themed trivia even sadder. At best they are self-focused somewhere on the autistic spectrum. At worst they are selfish narcissists. This is why we have always made a habit of allowing ourselves no more than one public trivia win on a cruise. When we piled up multiple wins in the past we were simply silent about our scores in later games. Who needs more key chains, zipper pulls, pens, and similar crap? We won the “best" prize several years ago when we got our Royal-branded baseball caps – and even then, once we had won 4 of them in a single game we stopped claiming more caps.

Other than both sail-aways, today was the first real use of the balcony. I sat outside while E napped and I typed up these notes. Our first time through Cabo it had both been too hot and the balcony was too sun-exposed to be comfortable, but today it was just lovely. The screaming baby in the cabin next door didn't detract from my enjoyment. :-)

Just like our TA on Brilliance, our in-cabin time has been limited. Other than naps we've mostly been sitting out in public spaces (like the bars and The Library) and the value proposition of a balcony is becoming increasingly questionable. Not sure whether we’d feel like shut-ins if we took an interior cabin or maybe a virtual balcony, but I'm hopeful that we'd be OK doing this, as it plays into my dream of occasionally taking advantage of Royal's “Going Going Gone” offers to perhaps score a last-minute cheap cabin out of LA. My calculations suggest that we might be able to take two “cheap" cruises for the price of what we're currently paying for a balcony cabin.

Dinner at Jamie's Italian was pretty good. Certainly, in comparison to The Taste of Italy menu in the MDR, well…there's no comparison. Our only real disappointment at Jamie's were the gummy and mostly tasteless garlic rolls. Both of our pastas (Penne Arribiatta for me, Penne Carbonara for E) were excellent, as was my Banana Split for dessert. Post dinner we relaxed in the Music Hall while a game went on in the lower level and then continued our reading with the very good band Pulso playing in the background for a couple of sets.

Once back in our room we debated whether we needed to change our watches or not. The waiter at dinner said we should turn back 1 hour tonight due to crossing back into Pacific Standard, BUT…we believe we are also LEAPING FORWARD 1 hour due to the start of Pacific Daylight time, with the end result being that we shouldn’t change anything at all. Curiously, today's Cruise Compass made no mention of any time change, nor did we receive a printed reminder on our bed from our stateroom attendant, so we decided to simply leave our watches set as-is and we'll sort it out tomorrow morning.

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2026 B2B Day 9: Cabo San Lucas #1 (Cruise #2: 6N Mexican Riviera)

Cruise Compass

After a less than wonderful night of sleep for me (thanks, runny nose) we got up and had breakfast before embarking on a trivia-heavy morning in Schooner:

• Today's daily puzzle – the first time we've made it in time on either leg of this trip – was a musical instrument word search. We were happy to stick with the initial, simple puzzle that was offered and started in on our tablet games instead of grabbing the 2nd word search made available.
• Morning trivia was the usual eclectic mix of questions. We got 13/20, which was probably good for 3rd place with 16 winning the room.
• American Jukebox: We did AMAZING for us, getting 20/32 points. Each question was worth 2 points – 1 for the song title, 1 for the artists. Not surprisingly, several teams did better with 31 ultimately winning. But we were quite pleased with our score.
• Sports: Our 10/22 was OK, but the winners had 15.
• Cartoon Theme Music: held after lunch, we got a very respectable 16/20 but lost to 19.

As we did for the last Cabo stop, we didn't bother getting off the ship today. Instead, post-lunch (once again at Café 270) we headed forward to Deck 15 and took a tour around the running track so we could see the Sports Deck. We didn't see either the North Star or iFly in us, but briefly watched some FlowRider action. We did see North Star in operation later in the cruise but never saw iFly in action. It was pretty hot out there today, although we did note a  shaded area with loungers that might have been nice if we had wanted to spend more time outdoors. Instead, we took the forward stairs down to level 5, looking at the artwork as we went. The forward stairs had really paltry offerings compared to the midship stair route we sampled last week.

After a reading stop in two70 (where the crew appeared to be calibrating one of the lift lines used for Starwater) we returned to our cabin for a short nap (me) and a long nap (E). We then went down to the Music Hall around 4P to get a drink (Mai Tais, today's Drink of the Day) and to stake out our seats for the 5P Afternoon Trivia, in which we got a good 14/20, losing to 19. Mr. 19 is the same guy from the prior cruise (Mr. Blue Shirt) who clearly has memorized every question he's heard – and unlike us, who are happy to win at most one prize on a cruise, this guy wants every single crap trinket he can get his hands on.

Tonight's dinner was Taste of Italy and was another example of “what a difference a ship makes" when it comes to food. Although I'd been badly bitten by TERRIBLE Chicken Parm on Brilliance (so bad that Keyshelee had told us that many folks were getting replacement entrees) I crossed my fingers and got it here – and it was fine. The overall menu for this night is still pretty weak, however, and it is a good candidate to get skipped in future cruises.

Following dinner (and some post-dinner reading in Boleros) we again attended the Starwater show in two70, this time sitting in slightly better seats a bit more central and a lot more comfortable. The quality of the show remains high, with the somewhat slow start and the amazing finish. It turns out that they have (at least) two different pairs of featured dancers, as tonight we saw a different pair than last week.

Interestingly, in an early show sequence where two men descend from the rafters with cable apparatus and perform intensive movements, one of the guys bailed out really quickly. We didn't see what happened, only noticing at some point almost immediately after his entry that he was gone and his ceiling portal had closed, as if he'd been hauled out. We later noticed one of the Tango couples was missing and in the final number there was a female dancer without a partner. We theorized that he suffered an injury – likely a pulled muscle – and therefore wasn't able to perform the many lifts required in the Tango and finale number. Hopefully nothing more serious.

When we returned to our cabin at the end of the show we found an envelope containing our SeaPass cards from the first leg that they'd confiscated as we exited the ship after issuing our current cards. Clearly, they have a lot of B2B passengers who like to save their cards as souvenirs and have learned that they need to give them back. 

 

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2026 B2B Day 8: Sea Day #1 (Cruise #2: 6N Mexican Riviera)

Cruise Compass

Lost an hour of sleep again as we travelled into MST overnight. Up around 845A and did our standard WJ breakfast. The morning and afternoon were spent doing trivia and watching some things we'd never seen before.

On the trivia front, we did:

• Movie Catchphrases: 17/20 but the winners had 19
• Logos: This “race to the finish" took another team only 5 minutes to get all 25 answers, shocking not only the room but the Activities host! The team HAD to be long-time cruisers because there's frankly NO WAY anyone could know all 25. We had 13/25 and were quite pleased with ourselves. Unlike prior cruises, thie time we knew the Buckee's logo :-).
• True or False: Sadly, 18 of the 20 questions were the same as the prior leg, the 19th question was predictably about the national language of Brazil (as many of the Activities staffers hailed from that country), and we got one of the two new questions wrong! We weren't going to compete for the win, but the winners claimed 20/20 anyway, besting our 19/20.
• Afternoon (general) trivia: As usual, these tend to be more difficult, and we were pleased to find our 13/20 good for a 4-way tie for the win. None of the teams got either of the first two tie-breaker questions (Q: what was the English name given to Pocahantas when she was taken to England? A: Rebecca and Q: How long had Romeo and Juliet known each other before deciding to marry? A: 1 day.) One team got the 3rd question: Phantom of the Opera was the longest running musical on Broadway. What was 2nd longest? Our guess of Cats was wrong – it was Chicago.

Among the things we saw that were new (mostly because we arrived early to a venue in order to get nice seats to read and then enjoy trivia) were:

• Flash Mob class in the Music Hall after Movie Catchphrase Trivia: They will be doing this as a “surprise" on Day 5, outside the pub around 230P (when we scheduled our Royal Puzzle Society session, so we'll miss it). The piece is a mash up of several well-known pop tunes and is about 3:40 seconds long. Today they learned the 1st half, then they'll have two more rehearsals before performance time. Folks were having fun!
• Line Dancing class in two70 before lunch and the game show: Pretty well attended with the lower floor area of the stage pretty packed as well as small groups all around the upper seating area of the lower bowl. Couldn't see into upper deck area so not sure if there were folks up there as well. Pretty low impact exercise, and lots of age ranges.
• Game show “60 Seconds or Less": pretty mindless as one group of 8 were challenged to place pick-up-sticks on the backs of their outstretched hand and then pop them into the air and catch with the same hand, increasing the number of sticks by one each time. The folks who tied at 9 sticks did a playoff where 7 sticks won. A second group of 8 had to balance a small key chain fob on their heads and (somehow) drop it into a small cup about 12’ away w/o using hands. AFTER everyone failed the host showed the trick: while balancing, lay down on the ground so you were next to the cup and then twist your head so the object fell into the cup.

There are still a lot of young kids on this leg, but we're not seeing as many school-aged kids this time, suggesting that the last cruise may have coincided better with spring break. That's just a guess, however, and might not make sense since the prior cruise encompassed Friday plus 2 more school days and this one encompasses 3 days of the same week.

Dinner this week has moved for us. Last week we were in American Icon Grill, but this week we're next door at Silk, a consequence of Veronica and Kadek being assigned to this side this time. Again, we had been unaware that the waiters moved around each cruise. The table we had last night was situated in such a way that it was hard to get to it and also hard for them to service it “the right way". It wasn't a bad table – just the victim of the room's specific layout. Our lunch yesterday was on 3rd deck, in the Chic room. We didn't like this room at all. VERY open and sterile with white walls and furnishings. Nothing to break the room up into sections or anything. Of the 3 (out of 4) dining rooms we've seen we rank American Icon Grill as 1st and Chic as a distant 3rd.

Dinner was pretty good. An interesting event: at the table next to us (but blocked from my sight by a wall although E could see) someone's water glass shattered as we were having dessert (and the other table was waiting for dessert). Not sure what happened as there wasn’t anything obvious going on – no staff was serving them, no guests were walking by. There was just a loud “pop" and suddenly a water glass was in many pieces in front of the female guest. Two waiters (including Veronica, whose table it was) mobilized extremely quickly. The first waiter moved all the large pieces to his serving tray, then used his crumb scraper to scrape as many small shards as possible, following which Veronica placed down a double layer of napkins and together they reset the diner's place for dessert. Quick and extremely efficient. I assume the diner didn't get wet as she remained throughout and I couldn't see any “drying movements" coming from her.

We re-watched the production show Sequins & Feathers tonight. Unlike last week, where we never saw any seating reservations in the balcony for “status" guests, tonight the three central balcony sections, including where we had sat all last week, were manned by ushers with signs reserving them when we arrived 30 minutes pre-show. As the HR and HL balcony sections have terrible sightlines we moved down to the orchestra level and found seats in the center back which were just fine. We'll probably end up there again the rest of this week.

Having lost an hour of sleep and having skipped nap time this afternoon, we decided to turn in for the evening after the show was over.

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2026 B2B Day 7: Turn Around Day at San Pedro

End of Leg 1 and Start of Leg 2

Cruise Compass

Even though we're staying onboard for the next cruise we're still subject to the timelines followed by those who have to go home today, so we were up at 715A in order to shower and head down to Windjammer at 8A for breakfast. We, however, did not have to pack up our gear or clear out of our stateroom. Instead, we headed to the Music Hall, which served as a waiting lounge for B2B passengers, of which there were probably about 60 or so people. They checked us off a list, asked us if we were staying onboard or going ashore, assigned us to groups 41-43, and handed us an envelope with our new SeaPass cards plus a small card saying something like “In-Transit Passenger", which I think only mattered for those planning to go ashore.

We waited in the MH through all the various announcements about which luggage tags were being called to exit the ship. At 9A they had announced all luggage tags, but they didn't issue a final call until 930A. At about 940A we were all escorted by Royal folks and exited the ship (scanning out and having our old SeaPass cards confiscated), walked down through the luggage warehouse (where we saw one set of unclaimed luggage, so clearly we were held back until all other folks had left Customs), and processed through the Customs face-scanners within minutes. We then all turned around to be escorted back onboard, scanning in with our new SeaPass cards. By 10A we were back onboard and had the ship to ourselves!

We decided to continue lounging in the Music Hall, listening to announcements to the crew that everyone should be at their embarkation stations by 1015A because they were going to start boarding new passengers at 1030A. A few crew (likely dancers) came by and grabbed a couple of life jackets from a closest behind me before manning their station just outside the MH entry. We stayed (pretty much completely alone) until heading down to the MDR (Chic dining room) where B2B cruisers were being given lunch. The Key folks were all lined up at the neighboring Grande room for their lunch. We sat at a table on a port-side window and enjoyed lunch before heading up to The Library to play The Crew.

As we came up the stairs inside two70 leading to The Library we took some time to consider what constituted “backstage" for this venue. We decided that there were a couple of enclosed spaces L and R of the stage that clearly had to have hidden entries in the sections that were cordoned off from public access that contained stairways both up to the over-stage entries and down to the under stage areas where the lifts could be loaded and actors could crossover to the other side. Whether there was enough space on the level of the assumed doorways to do quick changes is unknown. They probably have to do quick changes on the stairs or under the stage. (We would turn out to be 100% wrong re: location of the stairways. Turned out that they were at either side of US and fully visible during the shows. Either they had been covered when I did my exploration or I was just so focused on looking for non-existent doors that I completely overlooked giant down staircases!)

Anyway, we played The Crew until 330P and then it was time to go grab some finger foods at Café Promenade (for E) and pizza at Sorrento’s (for me). Eileen carried those up to the room while I went over to Boleros to get my sail away Hand-Crafted Margarita and E's Mai Tai. The balcony was a few degrees cooler than it had been for the prior week's departure, so E hung out just inside the cabin while I lounged outside, but once underway we both moved inside while I got caught up on these notes.

We officially updated our MTD time to 630P last night. On Quantum they apparently now have 3 “official" seatings: 5P, 630P, and 8P – and since a 630P start puts less stress on trying to make events that start at 8P we were happy to move from 645P.

Given that this cruise is going to basically be the same as the last cruise as far as events go, we're anticipating that our evenings this time might be more music oriented since we didn't take in many of the acts onboard during the past leg. With that in mind, our post-dinner activities were 8P at Boleros to listen to The Latin Town, and 9P at the Music Hall to listen to their rock/dance band, Puslo. The Latin Town was a female lead singer on bongos, another woman on keyboard and backing vocals, a male drummer/vocalist, and a male bass player. They were fine – and we answered our question of whether or not the Boleros dance floor got used. It was heavily trafficked during their set. Over in the Music Hall we were sitting out of sight of Pulso, but I did confirm it was a typical 3-player band plus female vocalist. They were quite good – but the lead singer of the Brilliance band was better. I can see us potentially seeking Pulso out on future nights.

As we passed by the Pub on our way back to our stateroom I can see why our intentions to go listen to the guitarist keeps remaining unfulfilled. The Pub on all cruises is crowded, noisy, and generally has uncomfortable wooden chairs. So our desire to listen to different music is generally trumped by our desire to sit in comfort.                  

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2026 B2B Day 6: Sea Day #2 (Cruise #1: 5N Mexican Riviera)

Cruise Compass

We gained back our lost hour of time and slept in until about 8A, so took our time and got down to breakfast at 9A. There's no escaping the staff dancing, as the WJ crew were “happy" to snake their way through the dining room so we could “appreciate" their hard work. Fortunately, our small area was spared all but about 30 seconds of the revelry. We finished up eating and headed over to Schooner to work through our tablet games while waiting for the 10A general trivia.

For trivia, we were invited to form a team by the folks near us and, having no reason to say no, found ourselves a group of five. The questions ranged from hard to obscure (including questions like “how many diver sculptures are in the Solarium?” and “how many red lanterns are outside Splashaway Café?”). Although we only got 10/20, that was actually good enough for 2nd place, behind the winners who had 16/20.

We stayed in Schooner, playing both Dingbats (15/20) and Phobias (10/20) while filling in down time with reading, as well as watching others who were learning the art of napkin folding. Ironically, on Dingbats we recognized one that we’d been stumped by during our Brilliance cruise – and we remained stumped by it this time, too! Finally, at 1245P we headed to WJ for lunch. While hardly a new thing, the contrast between the abundant variety of food available during our 1st cruise in 2014 vs the very limited offerings of the last several years in huge.

Found outside our door (when we left for breakfast, actually) was the letter outlining how we were to handle ourselves as B2B cruisers. Essentially, at 845A tomorrow we're to meet at the Music Hall with our boarding passes and passports and we'll be issued new SeaPass cards, then escorted off-ship to go through Customs before being escorted back on the ship to do as we wish. If we wanted to do some kind of LA-based activity we could do so, as long as we reboarded after 11A and before All Aboard at 230P. We're also being hosted for lunch at the Chic section of the MDR (Deck 5). Curious to see how many people are doing B2B.

Post-lunch we decided that none of the trivia-based activities interested us (things like Game of Thrones, NTT Taylor Swift, and more Harry Potter), so we headed once again to the Library behind two70 to play more missions of our 2-player The Crew game. They appeared to be doing some tech rehearsing for tonight's Starwater, for which a new cast is apparently debuting. So we're apparently going to see the 1st on-ship performance done by this particular group of performers. Opening Night! Anyway, mid-afternoon it looks like they were rehearsing a few scenes that involved various apparatus. We saw one performer suspended about 10’ above the stage wearing a “dress" ala the nightmare scene in Fiddler. We're planning to let Veronica (our MDR waiter) know that we want to push through dinner so we can leave the MDR no later than 730P in order to stake out good seats for our 8P show.

As has been our custom, we came back to our stateroom around 315P for snacks, relaxation, and naps. E's cough is definitely getting better (in reality, it wasn't - it calmed for a few hours but got worse and hung around for several weeks), but it is still hanging around and fatiguing her. My scratchy throat tapered off and was essentially gone in 36 hours and I currently have a VERY mild cold – hardly noticeable and definitely not tiring for me, fortunately. Hoping that this good fortune continues throughout the 2nd leg.

We did go down to Schooner for Afternoon Trivia – I think. Either I didn’t record the score, or we didn’t actually go but I wrote it down ahead of time and forgot to delete if from the “Actual” plan column of the spreadsheet.

At the start of dinner we let Veronica know that we wanted to be out of the MDR by 730P and she and Kadek pushed us through dinner in about 25 minutes(!), so we were out by about 715P. (Having figured out that they opened up MTD starting at 630P we had already started appearing at the MDR at the earlier time rather than at 645P.) We made a quick stop at the podium on our way out to ask that they officially change our 2nd leg reservation to 630P at Veronica's table - regardless of which dining room she'd be assigned to - and then walked over to two70 where they scanned E's SeaPass card to ensure that we had reservations. Sadly, all the seats in the center (of both decks) were reserved for Star Class and higher, so we ended up on the first level, house left, in the semi-uncomfortable stadium seating – which actually turned out to be a great place to view from.

Starwater is an interesting show. It starts pretty slow, with several minutes of “artful wanderings" from the cast, broken up about every 60 seconds with about 45 seconds of Madonna's “Vogue", before finally finding its footing. What follows is a combo of singing, dance, gymnastics (two guys on flying apparatus who perform aerial stunts), and finally ending with an incredible tango followed almost immediately by a super high energy dance number that has the cast pouring buckets of sweat. Overall, a very enjoyable show and one that we decided we'd see again on the 2nd leg, probably from the same general location but hopefully slightly more comfy seats.

Our night (and 1st leg) ended in the Theater with comedian JR McCollum’s adult show (in which the row in front of us had two children under 8 years of age…). I'm almost certain we saw JR on another cruise at some point. He was described as a “Royal Caribbean favorite", so I assume he books a lot of time with them. He was fine – although at the end of a cruise everyone is a bit lower energy than at the start so the room seemed to enjoy him but no one seemed to be howling with laughter. Guessing that he'll have better energy tomorrow, as he kicks off the next leg of the cruise as the opening show in the Theater for a new, more awake crowd.

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2026 B2B Day 5: Cabo San Lucas #2 (Cruise #1: 5N Mexican Riviera)

Cruise Compass

Slept late. LONG crew drill this morning, running from about 930A-1030A. A typical WJ breakfast. One “entertaining” moment came in the bacon line. I watched a woman grab tongs and put her hands all over them (including far down the handle) and then proceed to leave them (touching all the bacon) badly balanced on top of the heap rather than placing them on the resting plate provided for that purpose. Of course, the tongs fell and clattered to the floor as she wandered off completely obliviously. The funny thing was the eyeroll by the staffer inside the serving island. He didn’t see any of this happen, but he heard the noise and was rolling his eyes and shaking his head as he immediately walked over to the cabinet where they stored extra serving tongs. Definitely a "been there, done that" vibe to his response.

Post-food, read for a bit in semi-comfy chairs between the Bionic Bar and Schooners, then True/False trivia in Schooner (13/20 – far back in the pack). I think the Bionic Bar was a good idea that probably didn’t pan out. It is in operation for very limited hours, requires a staffer to be present to baby sit things, seems to take a long time to make a drink (compared to a human), and – fatally – measures everything precisely, so you’re never going to have the accidental – or intentional - “heavy pour”. The fact that they stopped building them – and are potentially pulling them out of other ships – is not surprising.

We wanted to return to our stateroom to drop off our stuff before heading to the Music Hall for The Royal Mystery game at noon. I had a vague memory of moving all around the room when we'd done this game on Mariner and didn't want to risk leaving our bag unattended. So, we left Schooner and actually (finally) walked out onto the outside of Deck 4. This is the lifeboat deck, so there's actually little to be seen, but at least we confirmed that there IS outside decking around all these enclosed spaces!

Then to the Music Hall for Royal Mystery, which was really fun. As people entered the host directed us to form or join an existing group until each team had 7-8 people on it. We were with a dad + three 20s-something sons (on a dad and son cruise) plus a young married couple. All of us were definitely “gamers". In fact, the sons were carrying D&D books plus a couple of card games, and the other couple had done dinner murder mysteries before. Our team was one of 3 (out of 11-12 teams) to solve the puzzle. It took us a while to realize that we were playing the exact same game as we'd played several years earlier on Mariner.  At first, we thought we were playing a re-skinned version, but as time passed we recognized it was identical.  Didn't help us unduly - we'd forgotten most of it.  Unlike last time (where I was the leader and therefore had a better overview of the entire puzzle) we each worked on one of the sub-puzzles and neither one of us knew what was happening around us. We submitted our answer with about 5 minutes to spare. Not sure if we were first to solve or not. No prizes, but we all felt good about ourselves. The family was slated to undertake the Royal Puzzle Society challenge later in the day, which motivated us to book it for the next leg of the cruise. Turns out that we could have had our stuff with us – at least one of us was always at the couch where our team gathered. In retrospect, I think that on Mariner we had been younger than our teammates and therefore did a lot more of the “running". In today's game we were the oldest team members and we happily let the youngsters run back and forth.

After the Mystery, we went to the Pub and each ordered a Pub Burger and shared the Pulled Pork Nachos. The nachos were nothing special – soggy chips topped with pulled pork, BBQ sauce, cheese, and onions. Taste was fine – just a bit too soggy/messy to eat. The burgers were each made of two thick 4 ounce patties (8 ounces total) with lettuce, tomato, pickles, onion, some kind of mild green pepper, and garlic aioli and ketchup on the side, along with steak fries. Burgers were pretty good – for a ship, they were excellent. I paired with a specialty gin and tonic while E had Strongbow Cider. Nice! Downside: they give you little 4” square cocktail napkins to eat greasy food. They need bigger napkins!

We then returned to our stateroom to pick up our tablets. We took a path that allowed us to walk through the hallways of our deck and look at the art on the corridor walls. Compared to other ships the corridors were pretty sparse, and most of the stuff on our floor were aspirational affirmations rather than art or photos. Kind of a letdown. We were surprised at the number of cabins that had decorated their doors. Didn't count, but I'm guessing that at least 25-35% of doors sported something on the outside.

Tablets in hand, we decided to try and find the “best" chairs where we could relax and read. We looked at the deck plans and decided to try The Library, located on Deck 6, tucked up behind two70. Turned out to be the perfect choice. Comfy padded chairs inside a quiet room protected from direct sunlight but not so isolated as to make you feel lost. Spent close to two hours reading and relaxing there before deciding it was nap time and coming back to the cabin once again around 345P.

Wonderland was our specialty dinner reservation and definitely fell into the “been there, done that, and done WITH that" category. As usual, they asked about any potential food allergies and they certainly listened. E received several modified appetizers compared to what I got, highlighting a combination of how many food products MIGHT have been exposed to nuts during packaging and how terrified they are of possibly killing someone. For example, my “tomato water" test tube was garnished with ONE drop of Siracha, while E received none because, to our surprise, siracha might have nuts in it.  Of course, most of it was overkill and we should have just kept our mouths shut.

We each started with one of the specialty cocktails: a smoked Old Fashioned for me (novel but no better/worse than any other OF) while E tried Down the Rabbit Hole. Again, nothing to write home about.

Anyway, while the dishes might qualify as imaginative, almost none of them qualified as “good". One appetizer in particular had some kind of deep-fried potato cone which had been fried in VERY tired oil. I mentioned this – not as a complaint, but as an FYI, to our waiter. Surprisingly, there was effectively none of the above-and-beyond customer service I would have expected. I figured they'd bring us a 7th appetizer or something simple like that, but nope. Not that we'd likely have found enjoyment in another meh appetizer!

For appetizers, as first-timers our waiter brought us a curated “greatest hits" selection of 6 (out of 9) options. I personally enjoyed the shrimp with siracha aioli (E got Thai chile sauce instead, and she didn't get the potato(?) strings) and E most enjoyed their citrus salmon offering. The rest was just meh. For entrees, I got Snap Crackle Pork, which was mostly tasteless with a pork crackling that suffered the same “tired oil" problem as one of the appetizers. E got the chicken which was also mostly meh. We were offered two of the three desserts (#3 contained forbidden pistachio). The apple “thing" was mostly Royal's signature rubbery crème brule-like apple flavored with a center of raspberries – no bueno as per both of us. The other was their signature The World: peanut butter ice cream atop a caramel cream atop of chocolate fudge cake base, surrounded by a globe of dark chocolate that gets a hot caramel sauce poured on it, causing it to melt and reveal the ice cream/cake inside. Both technically and visually impressive – and quite tasty. Far and away the best food of the meal.

With dinner over we were early enough to try to catch Battle of the Sexes in the Music Hall. We arrived during the tail end of If You Know It, Sing It. It was pretty raucous and it was clear that seats that had a view of the stage floor weren't to be had, so we simply enjoyed the comfy chairs and read, while listening to the Battle as it happened.

We then made the short hop over to the Theater for their special Sonic Odyssey show, starring some dude who invented a strange instrument. As we sat down I spotted what seemed to be a line of small lighting instruments strung diagonally over the main seating area. Turns out they weren't lighting instruments but were actually the termination points of the strings of the instrument that was located DSR. Dude played the amplified strings by rubbing them while wearing gloves. He also did percussion stuff, including playing a musical jacket that made different drum noises depending on where he hit himself. Add in the usual vocalists and dancers and the show was certainly different. We enjoyed ourselves, but aren't certain we'd watch it again on the next leg (whereas we will certainly go see Sequins & Feathers again in a few days). Another case of someone mastering the weird instrument they invented.

The night ended with us turning our clocks back an hour to reflect our return to Pacific Time sometime while we slept. 

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2026 B2B Day 4: Cabo San Lucas #1 (Cruise #1: 5N Mexican Riviera)

Cruise Compass

Opinion of Quantum class: meh. The whole ship seems to be designed so you can't see you are on the ocean. The main public decks (4 and 5) only have outside access at the sides, with no way to walk from one side to the other.  Further, the deck is mostly hemmed in by the lifeboats.  The only decks with real outdoor access are the pool deck on 13 and the sun deck/track on 14.

The only spaces where we've seen windows to the outside are the MDR, two70, and small windows in Boleros. Otherwise, everything is just a bunch of enclosed spaces. It is still much better than the shopping mall feel of Freedom class, but there's just not anything that really stands out. The worst thing is that Schooner, in particular, feels more like a classroom than a comfy bar. Too many rows: a row of high tables with stools; another row of a single long high table with stools either side; 4 rows of 6-wide seating, etc. A big hunk of Bolero's has the same problem, although Bolero’s was a bit more comfy. The Music Hall comes closest to the right vibe, but it is too big a space overall to feel “warm".  When doing some post-trip research of photos from other Quantum class ships, including Ovation which we expect to sail on in early 2027, it is clear that furniture placement can vary greatly between ships and the Quantum layout of Schooner, in particular, is a terrible choice.

Another complaint which we've heard echoed: the elevators. There are 2 banks for 5 elevators midship and 1 bank for 5 elevators foreward. The midship set is literally 20’ feet (max) from our stateroom door – which is a HUGE win. But they take FOREVER to arrive, and once they arrive they close their doors really quickly. We'll see a couple of elevators apparently parked on 4th floor, unmoving for the 90-120 seconds we're waiting. We'll have elevators pass without stopping. We’ll have elevators that refuse to rise to our floor, making multiple trips up/down just above or below us. They just seem to have a strange algorithm in operation. And we know we're not being fragile flowers because this is a common topic from others. Weird.

We had a couple of morning trivia events, including Cartoon Characters 21/35 (30 wins) and Sports 18/20 (20). We also read during the Scavenger Hunt. Teams have only 15 minutes to try to gather up to 40 items on a list before returning to show off. The activity staffer running it was quite funny and we learned that being present for the final 15 minutes can be entertaining.

Lunch: DAS: burger/fries, EMS: Honey Garlic Chicken (mostly just “Chicken") Desserts: Oreo Cake (red/red – just a lot of white cream with soggy cookie crumbles); Raspberry Pound Cake (yellow/green – at least it had an opinion re: flavor). At dinner we both added a Desert Pear Marg to our meal. A lovely lavender shade, but otherwise not much. It was fine but not something we'll repeat.

Post-lunch we returned to our cabin to dress for outside and spent time on the pool deck just chilling and planning to let the bar waiter bring us stuff as we read and relaxed. Unfortunatley, we never actually saw bar waiters at all, so I went to the Pool Bar and got me a Mai Tai (drink of the day and very good) and brought E her request of “something frozen with strawberry in it" and got something with strawberry, mango, and peach with rum and ice. We sat on the non-sun side of the pool deck - which was actually quite nice – for a couple of hours reading before returning to the cabin to nap and relax (more) before dinner. In truth, our butts were getting sore from the pool chairs we had been sitting on.

Shows: The Generational Showdown (not the correct name) is intended to be two teams of 5, one of 7-12 year olds and the other 45+ year olds who compete to answer questions more suited for “the other" group. For example, the kids had name as many B&W movies as they could in 5 seconds while the older group had to name Disney movies. Sadly, the audience was too small so they had to expand the kid group with a 17 and 20 year old. The overall lack of energy in the room didn't help things along and we actually pulled out our tablets midway through and paid more attention to those than the show.

The Perfect Couple is intended for 18+ only and, like Love and Marriage, starts with auditions on-stage to find those willing to be bold. One couple got selected when they mimed a blow job to the prompt “show us how excited you are to greet your partner at the airport after they return from a 30-day trip”. That's the vibe. It's crass and low-brow, but we enjoyed it as we'd never seen it before. I suspect that, again like Love & Marriage, if you've seen it once you've seen them all – but it does move at a faster pace than L&M and I'd probably be OK with watching it live again, whereas we only watch L&M on the in-room TV replay if it happens to show up.

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