2026 B2B Day 13: Final Debarkation and Flying Home

We decided last night that we weren't going to try to eat breakfast onboard, expecting to get something at LGB when we arrived and had plenty of time. Therefore, we set the alarm for 730A, expecting that we'd be woken up long before that anyway.

Of course, we were awake by 645A, so I got up and showered, and then while E showered I made a quick swing through Windjammer to get her a few slices of her favorite bread and me a couple of cinnamon donuts. We relaxed in our rooms until 8A, when they announced it was time to vacate.

It took the ship longer than expected to get port clearance. As such, self-departure, slated to start around 730A, didn’t begin until a little after 8A. What that meant is that when we walked downstairs from Deck 7 to Deck 5, with the intention of going to Schooner where Jr. Suites and up had their waiting area, Deck 5 was mobbed with a huge line running all the way back to the mid elevators. Trying to get past all those folks and to Schooner seemed like it wasn’t going to happen, so we continued downstairs to Deck 4 figuring we could enter the theater, walk up to the balcony, and THEN make it to Schooner.

Still a madhouse. So we simply waited in the theater (with, you know, the common folks) until deciding that we could skip the madness of Deck 5 entirely and walk down to Deck 2, where they were encouraging folks who weren’t lugging around big bags to go. So we did that – and then had to allow two banks of elevators and ANOTHER set of stairs to merge into our line once we got down to Deck 2.

We’ve never experienced a debark that seemed this crowded before. Not sure if it was 100% due to the delay in clearing the first round of departures or (more likely) bad traffic flow because of Quantum’s layout. Whatever the reason, it actually took the better part of 30 minutes to get out of the ship and into the terminal to claim our luggage, then another 10 minutes or so to get through the Customs line, and finally about 15 minutes to FINALLY get into a Lyft to the airport, at which we arrived at just about 10A. This was still plenty of time for our 1155A departure.

The flight home on Southwest was one of the few non-full flights we’ve been on in a long time. We were chatting with one of the flight attendants about Southwest’s new assigned seating policy and I asked whether they had noticed any changes to loading times. She said it was still hard to tell because February and March are historically slower times so hard to gauge. What she did say was that they’d seen a dramatic drop in wheelchair requests now that seating is pre-assigned. Turns out that they had a LOT of passengers who used to pretend that they needed wheelchairs in order to get pre- boarding and seats up front who would miraculously recover and walk off flights under their own power at the destination. “Yeah, we’d see that all the time but, of course, we weren’t allowed to say anything about it.” People can be such scum.

Although our row started with three of us in it, as soon as the plane was in the air our aisle seat-mate was able to move forward one row and I moved from the middle into the aisle. The flight left a little early and we arrived at SJC about 15 minutes ahead of schedule, at 1P. The bags were out quickly and we were calling the shuttle from the right location by 115P and at the car by 130P.

From there, we swung by Togo’s (for a shared #9) and Safeway (for ingredients for our Welcome Home dinner of BBQ chicken, baked potatoes, and salad – likely accompanied by one of our bottles of L.A. Cetto cab). We put away vacation gear and started the first load of laundry before finally sitting down with a contented sigh at 3P. (Actually, we first had to “spring forward” the clocks at home since we hadn’t been around to do it a couple of days earlier.)

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2026 B2B Day 12: Ensenada (Cruise #2: 6N Mexican Riviera)

Cruise Compass

Around October 2025 I found an interesting looking winery excursion in Ensenada. For a very reasonable $50 each (later reduced) we’d visit two wineries, taste about 8 wines, and also get food tasting (plus access to paid tacos for lunch) during a 4-hour excursion. Given the slim pickings at Ensenada this was a nice surprise. Given that we weren’t planning anything organized elsewhere this entire B2B it seemed like a good option. Left to ourselves we definitely would NOT have gone ashore here.

We woke up in the morning and, checking weather reports, dressed for what was supposed to be high of about 64 degrees before heading down for a quick Windjammer breakfast. As we left to head back to our room, E had the good idea to step out on the pool deck to check the outside temperature. It was obvious that the day was going to be warmer than the forecast, so back in our room we both lightened up what we were wearing, including me putting on shorts. The advantage to my shorts is that they have a lot of pockets, so I can easily carry wallet, phone, both passports, and both SeaPass cards securely, so E doesn't have to lug around her purse.

We gathered on the pier and quickly found our tour. We were on a bus with about 30 people headed for the wineries, with our local guide Michelle. She was very entertaining and not only gave us just the right amount of local info but also made the logistics of what was going to happen very clear, including advising us re: the three things we could NOT bring back onboard from the winery shops (cheese, cream cheese, and flowers). Otherwise, everything was fair game.

L.A. Cetto was the first stop. They are Mexico's oldest and largest winery and (supposedly) are known for a wine based on Italian grapes that no one, other than them, has successfully grown outside Italy. Here we tasted four wines (essentially, a Sauvignon Blanc, a Chard, a Merlot-like, and their normally-only-grown-in-Italy wine). We both liked the Sauvignon Blanc but were less enamored with the others. Apparently, they are also known for their taste-to-value ration, with most wines being sold directly at the winery ranging from about USD 10 to USD 30 per bottle – and most were below $20. As we got back on the bus we also (each) were given a 375ml bottle of their Cabernet Sauvignon, plus a keychain with a fob made from recycled oak barrels. Several people opted to open up one of their bottles after we left the second winery. We opened up one of ours for our first meal at home upon return. Let’s just say that at “free” the wine might have been slightly overpriced. I’m guessing that Cetto is the Gallo of Mexico.

Our excursion guide, Michelle, setting up for the first pouring at L.A. Cetto.

More proof that we made it onto dry land in Ensenada.

E living her dream...

The second winery (La Casa de Dona Lupe) was just across the street and served us each a flight consisting of some kind of white wine, a honey wine (that was based on red grapes), and two different sangrias. One sangria was VERY raspberry-forwards and the other less so. I gave both of those to E. The honey wine was surprisingly not awful. We wouldn't buy it, but it was pleasant to sip. The white was forgettable. The REAL purpose of this winery is that it offers food for sale. Normally this is burgers, pizza, and some Mexican standards, but on the day we were there they had two off-menu options also available, both of which we split. The first were Baja fish tacos that were excellent, served with a nicely spicy hot sauce. The other was a plate of 5 beef flautas served with a (different) salsa that wasn't as flavorful as the one that accompanied the tacos. It was still tasty, however.

After lunch, we still had about 15 minutes left to look through the store, selling an assortment of salsas, jams, and flavored tequilas. We apparently could have asked for tastings of the latter (and WERE offered both salsa and jam tasting options) but we passed on all of them as we were full after lunch. We did buy some small items for the kids on our way out, however.

Back on the bus, several folks opted to open up at least one of their small bottles of Cab Sauv, and we enjoyed a relaxing trip back to Ensenada where we were redelivered to the ship and into our room by about 230P which meant…nap time! Well, nap time for E and time to type these notes updated for me. We had a final (6th) towel animal to add to our menagerie waiting for us. We didn't realize it, but the fact that we had collected six animals might have been a perk for Junior Suites and up. E said she overhead our dining neighbors at Chops last night saying something about not being able to get a new towel animal without turning in their existing one. Thinking about it, this is probably true. If EVERYONE got to collect 3 animals every cruise they'd have to stock something like 2500 additional towels just for that!

Our towel animal menagerie by the end of the cruise. When I moved animal #5 (the puppy) from bed to counter his head fell off, so I messed up his face. However, our stateroom attendant obviously noticed because he fixed it when we were out, as shown here.

We enjoyed another sail away on the balcony heading out of Ensenada. We actually went out when we heard lots of cheering and catcalls outside and realized that there must have been pier runners out there. Sure enough, we saw a couple of people just entering the ship and could hear the folks on the dock directly below us saying “there’s still five more”. Two of them arrived on a port-supplied golf cart almost immediately after that, but the last three could be seen running about a ½ mile away, already 5 minutes after All Aboard time. The golf cart guys took pity on them and went to retrieve them and they received a huge ovation from the crowd which they acknowledged with apparent good humor. From there, we watched everything from the cast off of lines, the sideways push away from the dock, until we were chased down by the pilot boat and the pilot jumped from our ship to their boat and peeleed away. In all, we had a pleasant 30 minutes out there.

The evening was pretty calm compared to our other nights, particularly because we had to do the hated “pack everything up to get the bags in the hall by 10P" dance. There was only one trivia left that we'd have time to do (5P Afternoon Trivia at the Pub – which, it turns out, we didn't do, opting instead to finish up our final three missions for The Crew sitting outside Café 270), followed by dinner and the 8P farewell show, after which we returned to the stateroom to do our packing. We decided to forego the option of going down to listen to the Piano/Vocalist (Justin) at Schooner after we had finished packing and spent the rest of the evening relaxing in our room

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2026 B2B Day 11: Sea Day #2 (Cruise #2: 6N Mexican Riviera)

Cruise Compass

This was a pretty relaxing Sea Day for us. We both crashed HARD last night and slept in until about 830A or so. We were correct about there being no actual change in time overnight. After a typical breakfast in Windjammer we were in the Schooner Bar in time for the 10A Morning Trivia. Our 13/20 was good for 2nd place, behind the winner with 15. We stayed in comfy seats catching up on tablet games and then reading through another edition of Napkin Folding and Dingbats, where 4 of the 20 puzzles had been switched out. If we'd played it “new" we would have score 16/20 (assuming we would have missed the same hold-over puzzles that we hadn't know the first time around).

As we wanted comfy seats on the main Music Hall floor for the later Harry Potter visual trivia we went over to the Music Hall, forgetting that they'd be starting The Royal Mystery the hour before our HP trivia. So, yes, we were “those people" who took up two comfy chairs that would have better served two people playing the mystery game – but dem's da berries. It was interesting to watch the two teams on either side of us work (or not) at the challenges. One team got close but submitted a wrong final answer, while the other team never finished all the basic puzzles.

HP trivia was the usual assortment of questions, where there's usually one specific question that's meant to stump 99.9% of the players. In this case, the question was “how many staircases are at Hogwarts?” to which the answer is 142 (or maybe it was 144 – I forget). As expected, ONE team knew the answer…but that wasn't enough to give them 20/20. They were one of 4 teams with 19/20 in a playoff where the tie-breaker question was “what was Ron's patronus?”, which we believe was a Jack Russell terrier, although we didn't stick around to confirm. Our 18/20 was shared by many teams around the room.

Since we'd had a late breakfast we had decided that we'd only snack in the afternoon, so post-trivia, around 145P, we went down to Sorento's/Café Prom for some small bytes, and then went and walked through the SeaPlex (since we hadn’t actually seen it on our earlier trip around the outside of Deck 15) and hung out watching the kid’s pool until our 230P escape room.

Mid-afternoon we’d booked a slot for “The Royal Puzzle Society”, which was a low-production-value escape room hosted up in Fuel, normally the teen’s disco area (and probably used for that in the evenings). We were one of three couples in our session, which had us finding 3 physical keys to unlock 3 of 6 locked boxes, while we had to solve some number puzzles to unlock the other three. I feel like we would have benefited from 2 more people because a few of the puzzles took a lot of time for our group and we failed to get out of the room. Sounds like it is about 50/50. I say “low-production” not as a bad thing. They have pretty cleverly figured out how to get an escape room experience in a way that is a lot more portable than the dedicated rooms we’ve seen on the other ships. The physical components were low-tech (tangram puzzles, a paper/pencil puzzle, some Lucite overlays to neoprene mats, etc.) but served their purposes well. I had no complaints, especially given that it was only $10/person.

After the puzzle room, it was time to head over to the tables outside Café 270 for more of The Crew. I went into two70 to the bar but there was no bartender to be found, so ended up at Vintages to get us a couple of Mai Tais. Inside two70 they were rehearsing bits of Starwater, clearly needing to do some spacing work as they were still down one male dancer. A tech guy saw me standing (I was looking onstage to count dancers) and came over to say that this was a (public) rehearsal and I was welcome to come in and sit. I asked him if the male dancer was seriously hurt, which took him a bit by surprise. He asked what I had noticed, so I explained. He was (rightfully) not going to give me much detail, other than to say “we haven't been given much detail". They did rehearse the acrobatics scene that he got hurt during, and I saw one of the other ensemble male dancers in the featured slot. I'm not sure whether the featured female who was also rehearsing was his normal partner or one of the featured women we'd already seen. I'm suspecting that there's AT LEAST three couples capable of stepping into the featured role. Who knows? May all six couples can do the part?

While Eileen went to the cabin to start her afternoon nap I went down to Guest Services and charged off additional tips for our stateroom attendant (John) and waiters (Veronica and asst. waiter Ikadek). When I got back to the cabin our luggage tags were waiting – such a sad sight! :-(

Dinner was at Chops and, as usual, we had a great time. We basically had the same stuff as on Brilliance. Interestingly the one item Brilliance seemed to do better was my Grilled Black Pepper Bacon, which here seemed more pork-chop-like than previously. On the waiter’s recommendation I tried the Red Velvet Cake for dessert and it was excellent. The difference between the mass-market version served in the WJ and this was huge. The Chops version was just about perfect.

Post-dinner, we had time for another visit to two70, this time to listen to the Quantum of the Seas Orchestra perform numbers by Earth, Wind, and Fire, Stevie Wonder, and more. From there we hoofed it over to the Royal Theater for…wait for it…MO5AIC! Yep, the boys were back and yep, they were doing the same show as always. Actually, there were a couple of differences. No more opera interlude, and there was at least one new arrangement for the encore. They also had a sub in for one of the guys. He had to have been someone who had been a prior member because he slid in seamlessly.

We ended the night reading in comfy seats at the Music Hall while listening to another set by Pulso. They are very good, but the main band we had on Brilliance was better – but that's a plaudit to the Brilliance band, not a knock on Pulso.

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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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