The port that day was supposed to be new to us. We were supposed to visit Mazatlán on two previous cruises to this area on Disney Cruise Line, but both times the port stop was cancelled. When we booked the cruise and I realised that we were stopping at Mazatlán, I was delighted. I did however understand why Disney Cruise Line was nervous about stopping there as Mazatlán is in the state of Sinaloa, which is home to the infamous drug cartel. Mazatlán itself however is considered to be safe. This aspect did not bother us. However, when we did our research, there was nothing that really caught our attention. With it being really hot as well and the fact that neither of us had a particularly restful time while we were in Los Angeles, we decided to make this an unofficial sea day.
We had a bit of a lie in and then we quickly headed off the ship to get our port photos. This time round, one of the photographers had dressed up in a Mexican costume. Once we had our photos, we headed back on the ship. We stopped by the crown lounge for a coffee and a snack. We were planning on having an early lunch and therefore we did not want a proper breakfast. Graham had some fruit, and I had a chocolate donut. Then we went down to the Schooner Bar for morning trivia.
We managed to get some seats by the windows again. Shortly after we arrived, the daily puzzle sheets were given out. This morning, it was a crossword puzzle. We had twenty minutes to do this. I felt I was doing OK, but I still had a lot of gaps when the 20 minutes were up. I could have done with the same time again. Still, apparently, I had the largest number of correct answers, and I got another Royal Caribbean can Koozie for my collection. We did not quite as well on morning trivia. To mix it up, rather than awarding 1 point per correct answer, 5 points were awarded per correct answer. This most certainly looked more impressive. We scored 70 out of 100 and the winning score was 75. Shortly after morning trivia was Tribond trivia. Graham is normally very good at this. For some reason I do not have a score sheet for this. From memory, we did OK with this, but it was not a winning score.
After trivia, we decided to stretch our legs. Due to the position of the helipad, it is not straightforward to take a lap round the promenade deck. It is possible, but it means going up two decks onto the helipad and then two decks down again. That seemed just a little bit too energetic. Instead, we headed aft and then went back inside when we got to the door leading to the forward elevator lobby on the opposite side. Once we were back inside, we quickly went to the cabin to dop off our price. Then we went upstairs to Playmakers. Playmakers is Royal Caribbean’s sports bar concept that can be found on mainly their newer ships and those ships that had an extensive refurbishment prior to the pandemic. Sports bars are not really my scene, but they do have the most amazing nachos. They come with cheese, sliced jalapenos, guacamole, salsa, and sour cream. You can also add pulled pork or chili for a small additional charge. We went with the chili. This is meant to be a starter. We shared this as a main course and still did not quite manage to finish it. It was as amazing as we remembered. Graham had some Newcastle Brown Ale, and I had a The Pitch cocktail, which consists of vodka, rum, gin, Midori, sour mix, and sprite.
After lunch, we headed back to the Schooner Bar for some more trivia. First up was a picture trivia about flags. We got 19 out 30, which to our immense surprise was the winning score. I got a stress ball, which made me very happy. I had been eyeing them for a while. The member of the cruise director’s staff that afternoon was from China. We were chatting about China with her in between the trivia sessions. Next up was Where In The World Am I trivia. This is one of my favourite trivias. We did not do too well and only scored 15 out of 30. The winning score was 23.
Next up was true or false trivia. We do no enjoy this at the best of times, and we enjoyed the strange format on this ship even less. We decided to sit this out. Instead, we figured we check out the slides. We went up to the sports deck. Navigator of the Seas has two slides. I knew one of the slides, which is described as headfirst mat racer definitely was not for me. I figured the second slide may be fun though. This is a water coaster with rafts for two people. We figured we check this out and if we thought this would be OK, we would get changed. We also thought if we were going to do this, this would be the best day for it as we had an excursion booked for the following day and it would probably be quite busy on the sea days. We found a spot where we would have a good view of the slide. We had a bit of a wait until somebody came round. We came to the conclusion that this was just a little bit too thrilling for our liking. Instead, we took a turn around the open deck before heading back inside after stopping for an ice cream.
We still had some time until evening trivia. Navigator is one of the ships that has a Starbucks concession. As we still had some on board credit left, we decided to get a coffee and then head to the Schooner Bar to stake out some seats. Graham had an Americano, and I was delighted that they that the chestnut praline latte on the menu. Unfortunately, something was lost in translation, and I ended up with a caramel macchiato instead. I was pondering if I should get them to remake it as this was not what I ordered. My go to coffee at home is the caramel macchiato. However, I had on purpose chosen something that I could not get at home. On the flipside, it had taken forever for the coffees to be made and I also detest waste. In the end I just ran with it.
Once we had our coffees, we headed over to the Schooner Bar. We were not the only people who had decided to go early. There were quite a few people already there. We still managed to snag one of the larger tables. That day, the trivia dream team was complete. We scored 17 out of 22 and the winning score was 19. The rest of the team had to rush off after evening trivia as they all had early dinner. We were in no rush. There was no visual trivia that evening. We stayed behind for a drink. Graham had pineapple guava sangria and I indulged in my new favourite, the dessert pear Margarita.
Once we had finished our drinks, we decided to go outside on the promenade deck to watch the sail out. We were treated to a beautiful sunset. Once the sun had set, we headed back to the cabin to get changed. That evening, they were showing the ice show iSkate Reach for the Stars again. I was trying to tempt Graham, but he did not bite. We arranged to meet near the dining room after the show. I managed to get a front row seat again and I thoroughly enjoyed the show again. They may need to revise the choreography though. The same skater took a tumble at exactly the same point of the show while doing a jump. Yet, he landed much more complex jumps later in the show. The first-time round, I had blamed the movement of the ship, but this time there was no movement. The show was spectacular again and I was glad that I had the chance to see this a second time.
When I came out of the show, I initially did not spot Graham. However, he came towards me shortly afterwards. We went to the dining room and were taken to the same table. Rohan offered us a cheese plate again, but we declined. The menu that evening was A Taste of the USA. This was a little controversial before the cruise. Not long before we were due to depart for our cruise, they changed the menu for this night from A Taste of the Caribbean to A Taste of the USA. For me, this made perfect sense as we were far from the Caribbean. I also quite liked this menu and one of the starters I had from this menu is probably my all-time favourite starter. Graham had the chilled shrimp cocktail for his starter. I could not make up my mind between two options and went with both. I had the baked potato soup with cheddar, crispy crumbled bacon, sour cream, and chives. I also had the Buffalo chicken dip, which consisted of pulled chicken, baked with cheddar and cream cheese with a blue cheese topping. This was served with tortilla chips for dipping. This was so good. I really hope that we will get this menu in Alaska. For his main course, Graham had the bourbon-glazed salmon with buttermilk mashed potatoes, crispy roasted Brussel sprouts and a drizzle of Dijon honey. I had the lobster mac and cheese. Rohan warned me that this was quite a small dish, but I knew his already and as one of the starters was quite filling, I had picked this on purpose. I did not dislike it, but the lobster was a little bit too fishy for my liking and not at all like the lobster I had on Odyssey of the Seas in 2022. We both had the apple cobbler with vanilla ice cream, which was very nice. We washed our dinner down with our usual Chateau Ste Michelle Riesling.
After dinner, we got our photos. They only had one backdrop out, but I like the photos we got. Then we headed back to the cabin. We got organized for our excursion the next day. Then we headed to bed. Even though we had not done much that day, we were both tired and soon we were fast asleep.
Dolphingirl’s Travels 
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