Club Reports: Flip Flop Bar, 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar, Hot Hot Hot Nightclub (MAS Islander)

By in Club Reports

By now you know that if we’re traveling we like to share entertainment choices in the various cities or ships we’re on. So here we are at Port Tampa Bay for a sailing of the Margaritaville at Sea Islander headed to Progresso and Cozumel. Formerly the Costa Atlantica, the ship joined MAS last year and was heavily renovated with Jimmy Buffet (USA) theming. We previously sailed on their other ship Margaritaville at Sea Paradise from the Port of Palm Beach with our article here.
The ship was built in 2000 so it’s dated but very clean and modernized with the re-theming. When arriving, you step onboard here in the ship’s 14-storey atrium on Deck 2. The Reception desk is here as well as the Shorex desk.
It’s also home to the Flip Flop Bar.
The bar is named for this 30ft flip-flop that’s located adjacent. Everyone boarding wants to take a selfie with this!
During our visit Elton (TT) was playing tunes on a steel pan drum.
Very Caribbean vibe, of course.
As this is the ship’s entry point, the bar here stays jammed. Take a selfie, get a drink. After all, as Jimmy Buffet was known to sing, “It’s 5 o’Clock somewhere”!
He also sang vocals to a few Top 40 tunes. He’s pretty talented.
Speaking of 5 o’Clock Somewhere, there’s a bar by that name located by the main pool on Deck 9 midship.
And this was home to the sail-away party. Except the party was scheduled for 4PM yet the ship didn’t depart until 5:30PM so we’re not really sure how crowded the party was at its scheduled time.
After the ship’s DJ had already departed the party, we arrived to find Blaze Band (RP/ZA) performing.

The vocalist is from the Philippines while the rest of the band is from South Africa. With the sun setting and the ship now in movement, it was just too chilly outside to stay longer than the two songs they performed during our pass-by. They were “Play That Funky Music” and “Kung Foo Fighting”.

Chilly or not, the bar stayed jammed.
Just not a lot of patrons hanging around as the first shift of dinner was in now in progress and passengers had their priorities, lol.
We had to check out the ship’s club. On Margaritaville at Sea Islander, it’s called the Hot, Hot, Hot Nightclub and it’s located on Deck 2 and Deck 1.
It’s actually a 2-floor nightclub with entry on Deck 2 where you’ll find the bar.
While the dance floor and DJ booth are located below on Deck 1.
“The Wobble” was in progress when we first arrived.
The ship’s program indicated DJ Kash would be spinning but instead we found DJ Elton (TT), the same guy we saw earlier playing the steel pan drum. Awesome!
The music was mostly American Hip Hop.
As we mentioned, this is a 2-storey club with a lot of vantage points upstairs looking down to the floor.
MAS Islander is a Spirit-class ship and thus shares the same nightclub design as Carnival Legend (pictured above in Medusa’s Lair nightclub during our 2022 sailing), Carnival Spirit, Carnival Pride and Costa Mediterranea. We’ve always felt this is the greatest nightclub design at sea.
Besides the upstairs overlook seating, there is also seating downstairs adjacent the dance floor.
It never got that crowded during our visit but for those there, a good time was had by all. We’ll return again later during our sailing.