nybumpkin

Sea day, combined over 20 years of Carnival cruises: Wake whenever. Probably wouldn't be much later than 8:00 - but then, DH and I aren't late night people. Breakfast. Either the dining room or the buffet. If the dining room, I'm having eggs sunny side up (dippies!), white toast (got something to dip in the eggs😃), and bacon. DH gets an omelet, either in the dining room or at the buffet. After breakfast, we settle in on the promenade deck for rounds of cards and coffee from Java. Maybe play a round of trivia. Lunch: Probably the buffet. I'll opt for Guy's or fried clams if the fish place is open. Love the clams.❤️ If I see something I like elsewhere, I'll head there. (Maybe Chinese?) Afternoon, we'll find some entertainment - or if the weather's good, we'll head for a pool. (Definitely a pool if we're in Havana.❤️) Dinner: Probably the dining room. I've never had much to complain about in the area of food. Favorites? For appetizers, just about any of the soups (Carnival has always done soups right for me). Dessert? Creme brulee. After dinner: Maybe a show if we're interested. If not, we'll go for a band in one of the lounges (maybe Red Frog?) End of day. Next day? Repeat.

DH has done guest choir twice - once in 2019 on 2-week WB TA and one last year on a one-week EB TA. Both times they asked for black and white as a preference (not a problem for DH - he travels with a tux), but nothing required. DH really enjoys the choir. Rehearsals are sea days after lunch. We'd have lunch and then he'd go to rehearsal while I found someplace comfortable to read.

We did this tour (wow - was it really 2014?) Absolutely a great tour - we've said that if we go back to Alaska, we'll do it again. Our sons were 14 and 18, and they had a great time. I think they'd do it again as well.

A sad reminder of our cruise to Norway last year on Pride. I went to get wonton soup and found that someone had made off with all - and I mean all - the dumplings in the container. Nothing there except broth and scallions. Looks like you had a better lunch. I've enjoyed your review. Spirit is the only Spirit-class ship we haven't sailed, so it's nice to get a look at her.

Aw, Jeff - My youngest son was at that game. He's gone to more games since he went to Buffalo than he ever did before.😃 I'm really enjoying your report! Yes, I'm here to the end.

Karen, I have a minor in Spanish. I can read Spanish fairly well (helps with the tourist signs) and it translates over to French - I can read it enough.😘 I think "old dogs" who have one foreign language down can manage the other. And one of my retirement projects is learning French.

I was picturing a plastic stencil they'd use to put the picture on the drink. I guess I'm just too old.😶

Hi Karen - I love the Seafood Shack! Last year when we sailed NYC-Eastern Caribbean on Magic we ended up staying on the ship at HMC (another story - but it was worth it to us!) and commandeered a table on Lido for the afternoon. I got the clam strips and DH went for fish and chips. I think the clams are very good - maybe not what I remember from HoJo's in the 1970's, but I really liked them. Oh, and they go very well with gin and tonics.😃

I can't agree more with you about NYC, Jeff! I think we're up to about 20 NYC sailaways - mostly Carnival, with some Cunard and Norwegian in the mix. I never get tired of it. I loved the Tribe live reviews - really want to see yours!

I sailed Norwegian Prima last year - my one and only time on NCL to date. Why? DH wanted to get me a cruise as a retirement present, and Norwegian works for sailing from Manhattan in the off-season. This was a 5-day NYC-Bermuda cruise; I sailed with our daughter-in-law. I liked the ship, but I have to say that if you made me choose between NCL and Carnival, my choice would be - Carnival. I'm not crazy about the "freestyle" sailing that NCL promotes. Instead of "do what you want, when you want," I found myself trying to plan meals and activities far in advance - otherwise, you wouldn't get in on NCL because you were expected to make reservations. We never did get to see "Summer," since the show we were able to book ahead of time had to be canceled due to weather. This just wasn't my experience with Carnival. Having said all that, the food on NCL was very good, and we never had difficulty getting seats for meals.

The first thought that crossed this retired lawyer's mind! But the pictures would be fun!

I remember meeting some folks from your cruise in Cozumel - I think you had a much more difficult time than we did. When we were supposed to be in GC (but sailing instead to Cozumel) we were told that the Captain thought the Mississippi would be closed and that if anyone really needed to be back on time we should arrange transportation from Cozumel. I don't think there were many - if any - takers. And we didn't have to get off the ship in New Orleans until a reasonable hour the on the 11th.

July 10, 2005 - We were supposed to be in New Orleans that day after our Carnival Conquest cruise. Instead, we spent the day sailing around rigs in the Gulf until they opened the port. We managed to deal with Dennis three times on that trip - once when leaving Montego Bay (we skipped Grand Cayman and went directly to Cozumel), once at the end of the cruise, and the last time on our flight home. Our only casualty was a drinking glass in our sons' cabin on deck 1.

I tried NCL out of NYC this past year - end of March, beginning of April. No, thanks - lovely ship, but you want to be outside to really enjoy it and that sure wasn't happening. At least now I can say I tried sometime other than summer in NYC.

We first saw Playlist shows in 2014; to be honest, I didn't care much for them. However, one of the "backstage" shows explained that Playlist was much cheaper to produce and easier to change. (I assume it's even cheaper not to change them often.😉) The live-action shows they produced "back in the old days" were much harder to change. And over the years, I've really enjoyed some Playlist shows; my favorite has to be "Celestial Strings."

The drink that makes the Cheers package worthwhile.💗

Back before I retired (wow - I love writing that), I was on a train with a lawyer having a very loud phone conversation with one of his clients. Another passenger finally got up, took the phone from the lawyer, and said to the client, "Congratulations - you and your lawyer have completely destroyed any expectation of privacy you might have had in this conversation. I'm with [number of] people who have just heard all of the details of your planned deal, and you'd better hope no one who knows the other party has just overheard this." We didn't hear another word from that lawyer for the remainder of the trip.

Jeff - I finally finished! (Sorry it's so late, but we went away for Thanksgiving.) That was a great review, and my thanks to Patti for some great pictures!

Absolutely! The Chart Room was our after-dinner routine every evening.

Thank goodness, no. They did this on NCL earlier this year and it was miserable. Carnival was easy in comparison.

We did 21 days on QM2 in 1999 (an EB transatlantic and a 2-week WB transatlantic) and nothing repeated.

If it's the same cruise, I was aboard - along with DH and my sons. It was Carnival Liberty in Costa Rica. No, we never met the passengers in question, but it was really weird to watch a network news program with a story about your cruise.😮

Your explanation is that you know where you should be focusing!

Yeah - The sons are all Mets/Knicks/Giants fans. Not sure how that happened when DH follows Browns/whatever they call the baseball team and I follow Iggles/Phillies.🙄

If you're from South Jersey it's not an issue - Go Iggles!