Encore: Puerta Plata

By Saint Greg

May 19, 2025

Good Morning from the city of Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. I slept good again last night. I have an early excursion today so I’m up at 7. We have to meet at 8:15.

I grabbed another double espresso downstairs. I’m about ready to head out now.

Here is today’s Freestyle Daily.

I’m going down to fill up my Brita before I leave.

This is the spread in the studio lounge.

There is a towel hut on the pier.

They get your room number and number of towels so I’m guessing they charge you if you don’t bring them back like Carnival does. Princess just hands them out freely as you leave the ship.

Tours are organized by zone then by tour. I found my tour in zone 5.

For full coverage of this excursion, please visit Damajagua Waterfalls in the Dominican Republic. I’m going to skip ahead to after the excursion.

I’m back from my excursion. We’re going to be late for back on board as it is but I took some pictures of the port area on my way to the ship. I had no idea Norwegian had such a nice port area over here. I thought they were just docking on a pier downtown.

I would definitely like to check out this lazy river on a future cruise.

This is the big pool.

That’s the beach area.

This is another beach area on the other side.

Celebrity Ascent is in port with us.

I’m going to be among the last back on board.

That lady asked my room number when I returned my towel.

I haven’t eaten today so it’s going to be a late lunch, late dinner deal.

I got nachos.

And pulled pork sliders.

Then I headed back to Spice and got a mudslide.

Latin line dancing class on lido deck.

Pineapple coconut mojito

Raspberry guava mojito

Mojiito. I have one mojito left before I’ve had all of them on this cruise.

A 7pm look at the lido deck.

They’re showing the 6:30 Beatles Invasion show on the big screen. I was going to go to that but I had a headache so I took a 30 minute nap. I feel better now.

But this is why I came up here.

After the Beatles show they put the sport channel on the big screen but music on the audio. They had it that way earlier. Earlier they even did a split screen with half sport and half advertising. This is the widest big screen I’ve seen on a ship. You can see they aren’t using all of it now.

I stopped by the District Brewhouse to grab a couple beers to go before heading to the show.

J.Alexander

He did some mind reading stuff at the end like this. He had five people draw a picture while he drew a picture of his own. He eliminated four of the five and the one left had drawn a similar picture to his.

Tonight there was PG comedy at 7:30, adult comedy at 9:30, and main shows at 7:30 and 9:30. I went with the early show and I’m trying to get dinner in before adult comedy.

I’m in Savor again. I’ve had good luck there and it’s close to the comedy club. People were already in line for the 9:30 comedy show on my way here at 8:30.

Asian spare ribs and vegetable spring roll

Bang bang chicken and shrimp

Bananas foster

I was able to get to the comedy show about five minutes early, but of course it was full. I was able to get a standing spot along the wall in the back.

Ryan Wingfield

There was some drama. I see this standing room only for comedy situation all the time on Carnival. But man they almost came to blows here.

First off where the guy in the black shirt on the left is standing. There was a group behind him who would yell at anyone who came in and tried to stand there because they’re behind him.

Well to my left were two bar stools against the wall with an older couple who was mad this couple was standing in front of them. Eventually the barstool couple left. I actually can see fine. I was looking over the ladies right shoulder.

The girl in the yellow shirt I believe is the daughter of a woman that’s in front of the couple and a guy that’s outside of the frame to the right. This couple in front of me talked quite a bit and that family took issue with it. I couldn’t hear the talking as much as the arguing about the talking. That’s what bothered me.

Near the end of the show they almost started throwing hands. Finally the couple left and slammed the door. Comedian Quincy Carr was at the door laughing. They probably gave him some material.

I’m not used to seeing these out like this. I think they’re by every elevator. Last year on Carnival Spirit when we had the rough seas where we missed a port and shows were canceled they put these out on the really bad day. But I’m not used to seeing them readily available all cruise like this.

After the comedy show I stopped by the theater to see if I could catch the very end of the second magic show. At the end he pulls out this poster with predictions from the beginning that worked out in the end. I wanted to see if the poster was the same as the first show. It was totally different.

Atrium entertainment