Thursday – January 29, 2026 – at sea to Puerto Vallarta day 3
Today’s featured photo shows us with Lorena – the Future Cruises representative on board MSC Magnifica. Why, you may ask, are we standing with her and looking happy? Well, we did it again and booked cabins for the 2028 World Cruise! Not only did we book cabins, but we were able to book the SAME cabin Jan and I have for this cruise AND a cabin for Kelsey that is very close to us on deck 12! If our luck holds, this time we will be able to sail through the Suez Canal and visit Jordan and Eqypt as we had planned for the 2025 and 2026 World Cruises. There are many more new ports we will see and you can discover them by viewing a photo of the 2028 route in today’s photos.
Booking the 2028 World Cruise was not the only exciting news of the day. Our good fortune began with the World Cruise game today – a version of “The Price Is Right”. Hidden beneath a tablecloth were 10-15 items that could be purchased at the shops on Magnifica. One by one the items were revealed and each team had to write a price on a sheet of paper that one of our team leaders showed to the judge and then the entire group gathered for the game. The team that had the closest price (over or under) was the winner. We must have some shoppers in the Air team because we won by at least 2 more than the second-place team. Now we are tied with Fire and Earth for second – Water still has a 3 or 4 event lead over the other 3 teams. But a win is a win and we celebrated!
Today another purchase was made – this one by Kelsey. During the 2025 World Cruise she saw a ring that had a panther in diamonds and rubies. The ring was way out of our price ranges and too big to wear (unless you were Paul Bunyan). This voyage Kelsey saw a smaller version of the panther ring and was interested in buying it, but then she saw a pendant with a similar panther and she and Jan decided it would be more practical. (I’m not a jewelry person so I have to leave it to Jan and Kelsey to tell me what is and is not practical.) After 3 weeks of consideration, Kelsey said she would like to buy the pendant. After dinner we went to the EFFY store where Kelsey told the clerks she would like to purchase the pendant. We asked if they would consider a couple hundred Euros less than the stated price. They checked with their manager and agreed to a lower price. When you purchase an item in the store you get to ring a bell – they gave Kelsey the bell and she rang away (photo in today’s group).
The show for this evening was a presentation by the Magnifica’s dance and singer group and was titled “Evergreen”. Jan said she thinks it was supposed to be romantic melodies – which were sung – but they didn’t sing the song of the title (from the movie “A Star Is Born”).
Following the show, we moseyed to the Future Cruises desk and signed our lives away for 2028. To retain the cabin we now inhabit, we needed to choose the level of service named Yacht Club. Among other things, Yacht Club assigns a personal butler to each room. We’ve never had a butler so aren’t sure what that will mean for us. Essentially, we have the run of the ship (the passenger accessible areas) and the option to relax and dine in much less noisy areas (the dining room in the evening is like some of the restaurants we visit on Fridays with our group of friends at home – good food but loud). We plan to check out the “Yacht Club only” areas on the ship to see what they will have to offer.
You will find today’s photos here.