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February 08, 2016 - 11:34 p.m.
"carnival magic: day 2 - fun day at sea"

February 08, 2016 11:34 p.m. CST
February 09, 2016 12:34 a.m. EST

Hey Journal!

This morning we planned to wake up at 9:00 and I set my alarm last night. Unfortunately, I forgot to turn off my regular work alarm. It's so dark in our room that you'd have no idea what time of day it was, anyway -- but the fact that we're in a different time zone doesn't help either.

About 5 minutes after getting up I realized that it was 8 and not 9. We decided to go back to sleep and we were woken at 9:00 when our continental breakfast was delivered to the room AND my other alarm went off at exactly the same time. We had requested our breakfast for 9 and they were EXACTLY on time!

We had our breakfast and then got ourselves ready to head up to the lido deck to take a walk around. At 10:30 we went to the theater for a shore excursion raffle. Sadly, we didn't win anything.

There was a trivia game in the Ocean Lounge at 11:15 and the excursion raffle was still going on so I hurried over there and Dan stayed behind at the raffle to claim any prize that we were hoping to win!

When I got to trivia, it was just starting and the woman running it was explaining that there were no answer sheets and that we'd be working as big teams over three days to see who could get the most points. That wasn't really my kinda thing... I wanted to play a regular trivia game and HOPEFULLY win a ship on a stick! Anyway, since it wasn't a normal trivia, I went back to the theater and waited with Dan until the raffle was over.

We came back to the room and changed into our bathing suits so we could finally GO IN THE HOT TUB! Yeses! It was really hot outside today especially in the sun. We found one of the hot tubs on the side of the ship that wasn't packed. It was nice.

After we got out, we got some food from the Oceanside Barbecue station. They had a bunch of different BBQ items but I got a plate of Italian sausages and creamed corn! It was very good!

We went back in the hot tub another time and then, on the way back in from that, we stopped to play some slots! We played a game called "Take the Cake." It looked like a good one so we put 10 dollars in and gave it a whirl. At one point we were down to only $4 but we hit a "progressive jackpot" and won about $11. We played a few more times and once we got back down to 10, we cashed out. So we broke even on that turn.

Next we went to the gym. I wanted to walk on the treadmill and so did Dan. Unfortunately, I forgot my earphones so I couldn't listen to any music and it was also REALLY hot on the treadmills. The rest of the gym was a comfortable, cool temperature but right at the treadmills it was much hotter.

I only did about 3/4 of a mile and then I headed back to the room.

When Dan was finished, we went to get lunch at the Cucina del Capitan. It's a special restaurant that charges more for dinner but they offer a free pasta bar for lunch. Dan read a tip online that most people don't know it's open for lunch! We went there and, sure enough, we were the only ones there for quite a while. One other group sat down while we were eating, but for the most part it was empty!

The food wasn't exceptional but it was nice to give the restaurant a try. It's located directly under the basketball court, which is a real flaw in the planning. THe whole time you could hear people running around and dribbling the basketballs! It was nuts!

Dan went back out to sit up on the deck and I went back to the room to relax. At 3:45 we went to another Trivia. This one was just a bunch of random general knowledge questions. We got 12/20 and sadly, that was not enough to get a ship on a stick!

On the way back we passed through the casino again and we found the famous Jackpot Party! We were so excited. It really is THE BEST slot machine and the bonus rounds are excellent. We put in the original $10 from this morning and played for a while. We weren't having any luck with queuing the bonus round but had faith that we were due!

Finally, we hit the bonus! We did a GREAT job. We took turns choosing presents and we avoided the pooper for a while! We opened up two other parties and found some big numbers under the presents! Luckily, we were able to hang in there for a while and we wound up winning almost $50 in the bonus round!!

We were up to about $55 and played a few more rounds until we were down to $49.99! That was enough for us so we called it quits and cashed out!

So now, we've put a total of $20 into the machines and we have $50. We're $30 up. Not a tremendous amount but at least it's not the other way around!

We walked around the ship some more and wound up near the Shore Excursion desk. We checked out the options but, to be honest, none of them really struck either of us as something we want to do. I think we're going to take it easy this trip and just enjoy relaxing on the boat and getting off to walk around a little at the ports.

Before heading back to the room, we got some pizza on the Lido deck and then Dan took a shower.

We hung around in the room for a while and then we got ready for dinner. I made myself a pre-dinner drink and then we went upstairs around 7:10. We wanted to get to the Ocean Lounge for the meet and greet with the Captain at 7:15.

We sat down and listened the the band play for a while. THey were good....it's like a rag-tag group of Polynesian people and they played Bee Gees and other songs.

The Captain came over to us and greeted us. We were very excited to meet him and got a photo with him. Dan wanted to asked him why all ship captains are Italian but he didn't. He really should have because we've never been on a cruise ship with a non-Italian captain! Something is up!

We hung around and listened the to band and then at around 8:00 we went to go get some pictures taken. Tonight was the first elegant night of the cruise and I wore a new purple shirt with my suit pants. We didn't bring jackets or anything. It was easier to travel light.

At 8:15 we headed to dinner. Last night we had a table to ourselves. It was a four-person table but we were alone. Tonight, we had guests. We were a little scared at first and it started out a bit awkward but they turned out to be really nice and we talked a lot throughout the meal.

They were two ladies from Oklahoma, cousins, who were named Patricia and ___________. We talked about all sorts of things like what they're doing at the ports, what other cruises they've been on, where they work... a pharmacy and at a hospital, etc. When Dan told them where he worked, one of the ladies said that she had a friend who she had gone to High School with who worked for Canon! Believe it or now - DAN KNEW HIM. Dan has MET him! How crazy is that!?

For tonight's dinner I got the chicken breast and Italian Wedding Soup as an appetizer. I got the melting cake for dessert and it was much more cooked today. It was very different than yesterday. I think, ideally, it should be somewhere in the middle of the two to be perfect!

We left dinner around 10:10 so that we could get to the theater for tonight's 10:15 show. It was a 1970s music show with the dancers. We watched about half of it and it was pretty good but we were getting tired so we departed.

We made a lap around deck 5 and then deck 10. I got a small ice cream cone and then we made our way back to the room!

Tomorrow we arrive in Cozumel at 9:00. Our first cruise on the Magica stopped at Cozumel and, at the time, we had to use a tender because the dock had JUST gotten hit by a hurricane a couple of weeks prior and was destroyed! I'm interested to see it now.

Anyway, we're back in our room and the plan for the morning is to get up around 8:45 and got to brunch in the dining room! We usually don't get to take advantage of these brunches so, since we have no excursions to rush off to, it should be nice!

Until tomorrow...

Goodnight. :)