jimbob22

still not a lot of sweets to be had after 9:30. What are they doing with all of those cakes from lunch? They can't plate individual slices and put them out later at night? I determined that no cruise has induced the sort of cognitive dissonance in me that MG just did--many aspects of the ship, entertainment, food were awesome--but then they'll slip you a dinner that's like 300 calories, it's 9:20 at night, and your only option at that point is pizza or panini. So that was just really annoying. I'd definitely do an excel class again--but I think I can be fine with medium-sized ships too, particularly if the cruise line conforms to the old standard where one or two apps+one entree+one dessert will satisfy a normal adult male appetite. And call me old school, but I do not recognize those metal ketchup holders as a legitimate vessel for providing a dinner portion of food.

can we start a grassroots movement to get them to keep Guy's and big chicken open until at least 8pm? Certainly if we do another excel cruise, I'd be willing to pass up an MDR dinner or two for those.

probably Celebration, which has big chicken, and includes chibang, P&A, Cucina. Mind you, Chibang is all small-plates, you may want to put in two order sheets at P&A (small meals), but it's neat that the excel class has more included options.

found them on amazon, look up " Brand: Weatherproof Vintage Weatherproof Vintage Men's Performance Weather-Flex Flex Flatfront Pant". I think they were around 15-16 bucks when I got them at costco, but that was maybe a year or two ago. My jeans are 32x32 and so are these pants, but I have to wear these with a belt b/c they seem to like to slide down a bit. They're probably half the weight and bulk of jeans.

This is a good plan b/c there are basically no sweets available after 9:30--other than swirls ice cream. On the last full night, we actually got paninis, put them in ziplocs, then in fridge, made for good lunch on the road the next day.

We just got off MG and I'd agree that it's a bit of a 'food desert' from around 9:30pm to 11:30pm, which is annoying when you get out of a late seated dinner that was only like 500 calories and you want to supplement it. Lido closes at 9:30. They do put out 'late snacks' at P&A at 11:30. We wandered over to examine (but were already full that night), but it did have some yummy looking beef and cheese sandwiches, grilled cheese, a few more savory things, only cookies and some bowl of mystery 'creme' for sweets. I think they've cut back staffing just a bit. Even the quick-serve places we went to would all have benefitted from one more person behind the counter. But 'it is what it is' and this is probably how things will be staffed going forward...

if you are planning on buying some photos of you two all gussied up, then maybe he'd want to bring it, but it's definitely not necessary. IMO, the greatest invention I've found are my khaki and olive tracker pants from Costco, super light weight, nice dressy casual look, I'd pair them with a collared shirt and that alone was probably dressier than many men in the dining venues.

we disembarked this past Saturday, it was a full ship, maybe it took us around 15-20 minutes to get off the ship and to the sidewalk. But that first sidewalk is a very busy area. Do you know precisely where the transportation is meeting you? You'd probably want to spend another 5 minutes rolling your luggage to someplace where they can pick you up and get out easily--but I'm not real familiar with the layout of things.

The excel class does have maybe 40 or so recent movies on demand on the tv, including the ones they play outside by the pool. We only figured this out near the end of the cruise (on MG). MG also had a really good variety of song/dance/aerial shows. Everything about it was excellent except for the noticeable down-grading of all dining where you sit and order off a menu. It seemed like meat portions were mostly normal, but they are skimping out on the sides. Eg. it sounds great that P&A is free on MG--but they do not give a ton of meat and they put any sides possible into little ketchup holders. So I do recommend excel class--but see if you can get two order sheets at P&A if you do dinner there. And everything at chibang is tapas sized, so you'd want 2-3 apps, probably 2 entrees. Due to the larger, possibly more international clientele, the dinner buffet might have been a tad more interesting than some other Carnival's we've been on.

My meal on MG looked similar, maybe a tad less white meat, the dark meat 'wheel' was a bit bigger. You got heaping portions of dressing and sweet potato, per current Carnival standards. I got a metal ketchup container filled around halfway with the cranberry sauce (a heaping portion per current standards).

we never felt like they were skimping on food until this cruise--but the existence of Guys, big chicken, blue iguana, panini, pizza seemed to offset it to a good extent. And you can get multiple entrees--but it's hard to know ahead of time which ones are normal, which are small. Excel class requires that the diner be more aggressive--asking for 2 breads, multiple entrees, multiple order sheets in P&A.

Is that the turkey dinner? on MG, it was a more normal sized dinner for certain--although my wife got the shrimp and grits, which was like a half portion.

we did one or two Carnivals where it seemed like it had maybe *some* mdr food, but definitely not all of it. The quality looked fine, but not a huge number of choices and quite a few leaned toward 'very heavy starchy/cheesy'. But I did see some good Indian food on the dinner buffet on MG this past week. I think that now that they seem like they've downgraded the MDR experience a bit (with unpredictable portion sizes), the buffet becomes more attractive.

we did not do chibang or cucina for lunch. Nothing against those, we just seemed to gravitate toward Guy's or BC, although amazingly I never had a Guy's only b/c the timing of what/when we were eating, and on certain days I had quite a bit for breakfast and didn't want to force down a big lunch... Rest of family said that Guy's was good (as always). Wife and son had done cucina on a different ship, pre-covid, and said it was good, a very substantial sized lunch. But at this point, who knows how big the portion will be. If you do the Cucina lunch, I'd make sure they know that you want at least a normal to somewhat large amount...

hi, do you (or anyone else know) if NYDP still makes bagels with lox and cream cheese? We are soon doing our 2nd HAL, first one was k-dam 5 years ago, and I could go there in the morning to get a bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon. As you mention, I quickly determined that I had to ask for extra meat to get a 'normal' amount. I'm scouring the HAL forums to brush up on things, since menus/policies could have changed a bit in the last 5 years... They don't seem to put menus on their website afaict...

just got off MG and the turkey was real. It was a few thin slices of white meat and a separate 'rolled and stuffed' thicker slice of dark meat. The plate also had an average (not generous) sized portion of sweet potatoes, and dressing. It was an adequate sized plate of food. Whereas wife got the shrimp and grits which was half a normal serving, had 5 small shrimp. On MG they are putting around 5 small shrimp in shrimp entrees. I've never been enamored of Carnival's dinner buffet, but I think that on our next Carnival cruise, I will strongly consider doing one or more dinners there. Note that we did like all of the quick serve places (guy's, BI, BC, pannini, pizza).

I watched your vids on this. We just got off MG today. We loved all the 'quick serve' and 'street eats foods'. We basically enjoyed Cucina, were ok with Chibang (some 'meh' stuff, some pretty tasty, better the 2nd time when we knew going in that it is ALL small-plates). We didn't do Rudi's or 455. But MDR and P&A were let downs for a couple of reasons: no way to know ahead of time if you'd get a normal-sized meal, or a 'carnival cutback' 300 calorie dinner, and they are now putting lot of meal sides in those little metal ketchup holders. This is pathetic. The meat portions were mostly pretty normal--but they are skimping out on sides, which can't actually be that expensive. We really wish Shaq's and Guy's were open for dinner. I think their MDR has lost some luster for us.

we just got home from the same sailing, have enjoyed reading your report. Sometimes, the line at Guy's was not bad at all (but definitely long at other times), same for BC. Our thought was that all of the quickserve places could have used one more person to keep things moving faster, but overall the lines were not too bad. Lines were even shorter at the 'street eats' area, but there were enough people on the ship that people were going there too, which is good to see (on smaller ships, I'm not sure if the 'international' concepts are as popular). In many ways our take is that Carnival really hit a home run with this ship. We are a different demographic than you (we are just a basic dull family with 2 teens. We don't get drink package b/c we don't drink nearly enough to make it worth it, we don't gamble but are not offended by any of it of course). We enjoy some outdoor time, going to shows, trivia, and not having to cook. Loved all the quick serve food places. Actually got some paninis last night, put them in ziplocs in our fridge to have some lunch for our drive home. Great looking ship, lots of people spread out into different 'fun zones', so the crowds were never actually bad for anything we were doing. Casinos were packed. We ate at chibang twice, but figured out for second time: everything there is 'tapas' sized. Any adult with normal appetite should order a minimum of 2 or 3 apps and 2 entrees. Carnival is now (by default) often serving dinners that are like 350 calories... Carnival is now often putting icecream and sides in those little metal ketchup holders. This annoys me. Last night, we wanted to try P&A for dinner, it was a very disorganized setup but someone did eventually arrive at front to seat us. Since *supposedly* you can get 2 entrees, I filled in that I wanted the salmon (I like salmon and was curious to try it) and brisket. The guy came back to me and said I could not get both. So I went with just the salmon. It was good--but not big. And I got a ketchup-container of collards, same of baked beans, and normal serving of slaw (same as Shaq's slaw). So my dinner was like 300 calories. I had to scavenge off of the rest of the family (or I probably could have gone through an entire re-seating, re-ordering). Why wouldn't the guy just bring the salmon and the brisket? They shut down at 9:30, 5 minutes later, and seemed to still have a ton of food on the ambiguous 'not-self-service' buffet, where guests kept walking up and either serving themselves or asking to be served, but it was just for the worker to use to fill the orders. So in general I noticed that Carnival sort of ruined the 'predictability' of the sit-down family dinner. In MDR, some meals were normal sized (TG turkey dinner), and others were half size (TG shrimp and grits). We ate at the Italian place one night and overall liked it. We really liked how they put olive oil, balsamic, and good parm on the table--but then they never offered seconds on bread. Skimping out on the bread is duly noticed. And the ketchup-sized servings are NOT saving them money. Here's what I notice: many people seem to put like 4lbs of food on their plates at the buffet, then they only eat about 2 lbs of it. *This* is where the food loss is. So I mention all this partly to vent and also give insight to people who have not yet gone. Overall, we had a great time, but everyone should be aware that chibang is ALL small-sized portions, and everyone should assume that the standard single app+single main in the MDR will only be like 350-400 calories. The desserts seemed pretty normal (except for when they put ice cream in the ketchup containers).

I was thinking the same when I read more about this. I'm not saying it's fiction--but something is very fishy (no pun intended) about the whole thing. Drunk guy falls in the ocean, treads water for 22 hrs, and is found?!?

Tons of ships have gym tour vids on youtube. Or if your exact ship is not on there, a sister ship is. There's usually a pullup bar that seems to be like 6" below the ceiling. I typically never see a squat rack or bench for doing bench press. There are pretty much always a couple of tilt-able benches for doing dumb bells. There is always 'selectorized' (where you put pin in the weight) machines that hit all the major muscle groups, and there are always a couple of rowers, although sometimes the placement of them is awkward and abnormal, eg, right in front of treadmills, turned 90 degrees relative to treadmills... The layout varies from ship to ship. The Fantasy class imo may have the best layout.

interesting observations, we'll be on MG over Thanksgiving. I think you noticed a key point: things are never really scaled up 2x or 3x in size on these newer mega-ships. Relative to the size of the ship, I really liked the gym on the Fantasy class ships, and it had prime front-of-ship real estate. I'm hoping that maybe around the 10:30-noon or so timeframe, the gym on MG is not too mobbed. It definitely does *not* have double or triple the equipment that the Fantasy class gyms have. It looks like it has more cardio and probably the same weighted stuff. I never understood why only Carnival was doing the cafeteria lines. We've done the other big lines (other than Princess) and they all seemed to have stations where you could examine things, either get right in, or possibly just get in a short line at that station, but the flow was natural, did not seem to cause irritation to anyone. Looking forward to trying the variety of eats on the MG, our first cruise in 3 years or so after a few years of doing one every 5-6 months or so.

in light of what you post, I don't understand why Carnival still has this live link in their site: https://www.carnival.com/test2/covid-19-legal-notices-test The link above says that an unvaccinated person going from an FL or TX port must have travel insurance. If this is no longer in effect, Carnival should really not have links stating old versions of the covid protocols, because it creates ambiguity. They should entirely get rid of the old versions of the protocol, or edit the pages to make it clear 'this is no longer the protocol as of mm/dd/yyyy'. We are planning a November sailing out of Canaveral to Bahamas. I'm 99% sure I (unvaccinated) do not need insurance, but wife thinks I do b/c the link above says I do.

You'll probably want to do a good amount of reading on these forums, it's also neat to look up specific ship tours on youtube. Also, the easiest way to see the ships (ages and sizes) for various cruiselines is probably on their wiki page. Oasis (or maybe quantum, the next size down) class RC ships are a good choice. Similarly, the newer, larger Norwegian ships are good for teens. Carnival's very newest ships rival these others, but Carnival does get a lot of families with kids/teens, so I wouldn't rule them out either. They all provide dinner. Royal and NCL have really good dinner buffets too (not that many choices on Carnival buffet). But the Oasis class Royal ships are a good choice, if the price and logistics work for you, that is as good of a choice as any. The websites for each cruiseline show what is included and what costs extra for each ship.

the 'image' is classier, but we have 'loyal to royal' friends that admit that the 3 nighter they took (to get the three nights of credit) was really wild and 'walmart-ish'. IMO, anyone that doesn't mix it up and explore different cruise lines is missing out a bit.

Correct wrt buffet. We've done a variety of cruiselines (based on my wife's work schedule, cost, logistics, etc.). And carnival is the only cruise line that for all buffets (breakfast, lunch, dinner) is really limited in selection (no curries, Indian things, Asian things). For breakfast every day, I seem to get the juevos rancheros with an arepa--and no other cruise line seems to offer this type of thing (note: there are other basic American choices, but I really like the juevos rancheros). And I noticed that even on week long cruises they never seem to have lamb chops (I love some good, herb crusted lamb chops...), so they're a tad more limited in what they offer--but they also have some of the best complimentary foods at sea (the burgers, now shaq chicken, blue iguana). And other vloggers have confirmed that even on their newer, biggest ships, the buffet is still kind of a downer (not 'bad', just not the variety that RC, NCL, Hal, Celebrity put out). Overall, it hasn't deterred us. We are likely about to book Mardi Gras for later this year. But this is just something for people to be aware of. Carnival is definitely geared toward a very 'middle America' type palate.