Cruiseathoning

They somehow lost one of my Wife's cruises so I was the only one invited. I did not attend, as I refused to do so without her.

Just off the Freedom, and as my review indicates, the food was very inconsistent. While some items, particularly at lunch, were very tasty, others fell flat completely, and the buffet was a non-starter.

First off the Seaday Brunch is a very limited menu-and a deal breaker for my Wife. She likes a true lunch menu and I do too. While the flaming tomato soup is decent, it is an excellent attempt to dress up canned tomato soup. It is also a huge portion for a starter, not a problem for some, but a dietary concern for others. The filet mignon and eggs were both overcooked, and small, especially in comparison to the soup. The eggs benedict never did arrive with a sauce that had not split-a basic skill of any chef.

But I ate it. It was ok. Not inedible. The buffet on the other hand was disgusting. If you were not getting salads you were treated to undercooked fish, an overcooked red meat protein invariably swimming in grease, and way way too many soft vegetables and a dearth of good ol' fashioned sides. Baked potatoes were found in abundance, but not mashed, no mac n' cheese, no creativity at all. And it was all lukewarm and slimy.

As far as the new menu, yes it is by and large tasty but not MDR level food. First off-it is not WHAT you are serving as much as WHAT is the quality of ingredients. So you want to put fried shrimp out for an entree. Fine. Wide variance here-is it frozen dressed up Sea-Pak or hand breaded butterfly?

In this particular case it was something in between. But all too often, the sauces and spices had a boxed character to them and left us underwhelmed. However, this was not the case across the board.

For example the mac n' cheese that to my knowledge never showed up on the buffet, was at dinner among the best I have ever eaten. The spaghetti carbonara was incredible-just the right amount of sauce and garlic with a perfect, but not too salty bite. The whipped potatoes were buttery and smooth, with a clean finish-no grit.

Most soups were good to great, and even the bread-sliced asiago and cranberry, were a delight as we prepared for..

A letdown with most entrees. This is the head scratch factor. While clearly, most apps and soups were hand made from scratch good, the entrees being turned over were below bad banquet level. Why? The salmon was poor-overcooked and stale sitting upon a beet puree-as bad of an idea as it sounds.

The chicken could have been used to patch a flat tire. The shrimp used in the lobster elegant night were good-but the only decent sized shrimp we had access to, except for the final elegant night. In between, somewhere between Sea-Pak and Captain D's. Why? Why did it all to often seem as if we were eating at a different restaurant from course to course?

Desserts were typical Carnival, which is to say delicious. The white chocolate banana bread pudding was a huge success. Hand crafted and moist, with the perfect background of rum and vanilla, the dish melted in your mouth. The warm chocolate melting cake-well nothing needs to be said here-ethereal as always.

Lunches were not only good-if you avoided the buffet, but fun. It was nice to traverse the different offerings between the efficient and spectacular Guy's Burgers and the Blue Iguana or Fish n' Chips. All terrific and all well received so far as I could tell. Again, wildly different ingredient quality.

All in all, eating on this ship was like enjoying Disneyworld in between thunderstorms. The sunny moments were wonderful, and made for great memories, but all too often you found yourself caught in a downpour of rancid food that indicates to me multiple distributors and inconsistent overhead management.

If you were taken to a neutral location, and served the various items I have discussed without information, there is little chance you would assess them as being of the same origin. Again, as with so much involving Carnival, especially compared to Royal-high ceilings, and very low floors.

What I mean by that is I had several tastes on this cruise better than most anything you would find on Royal, but on several occasions bit into food that was worse than ANYTHING I have ever had on Royal, who is consistently good to great but never in my opinion, spectacular.

Carnival has taken an odd approach to its food service and has cut corners in obvious, and inexplicable places. Cutting corners rarely leaves you a product that is leakproof..

A particularly bad trait for a cruise line.

6 out of 10. But so much missed potential.

We started with Carnival in 2006-it is much different now in terms of ingredient quality.

Navigator is a spectacular ship, with excellence permeating every crevice.

Because of the 2.0 changes, experience varies widely ship to ship. In general Royal is much more of the party ship now. Deck parties, promenade parties, and the like.

Carnival 2.0. Where do I start? The cutbacks are glaring. If you have ever cruised before you know the difference. The shows, for example. Look, Carnival is about fun right? To that end the shows are typical high gloss cheese, and if you approach it with the right mind set, you will have fun.

On the Freedom, the talent is incredible. From the singers to dancers and side entertainers and band, you will not be disappointed. But you will also see retrofitted treadmills, cheap lighting, and hear no orchestra. Those are cutbacks. The graphical presentation is high schoolish as well. But they try-and deserve your respect, as does the vast majority of the crew. They try, and do the best they can with what Arison's crew has given them-and that is not much. This wonderful crew was basically forced to Redneck Engineer an entertainment program. And did.

On this cruise there were no magicians or hypnotists, and maybe those get old for you in any case. Fine. Well, I should not say no magic-because our service staff Kris and Marija in the MDR made Applebee's level ingredient quality a fun and enjoyable experience. That is a trick.

The overriding analogy is that of a beat up car, poorly maintained, in need of literal paint, and a 5.0 engine. The talent and excellence of this crew can not be overstated. Better than the corporation deserves.

The little touches are long gone-mints, gone. At the MDR you even pour your own water at dinner, unless you get anytime. They simply lack the staff to pull off more.

Like trivia? Go to Toys R' Us and buy Trivial Pursuit. Most days there were no planned activities until past 3. RCI's Navigator has more planned activities on a PORT DAY than Carnival had on SEA DAYS. Read that again. The Fun Ship logo is now an anchor.

The live band? Awesome. Steel City Groove led by Gramm and Kristen was terrific. The venue? Inexplicable. The side of the Casino bar, which by the way wrecks deck 5, and makes the Freedom eligible for a rename to the Carnival Ashtray. Once again, consummate pros on the ship, idgits in Miami. Or in vehicular terms, a high performance vehicle is being forced to stretch an oil change. Maddening. Inna and Dima (Indi Duo) on several nights saved our evenings with relaxing sounds and smooth vocals in the one space we could find not overrun and crowded.

The comedy-Cowboy Bill was awesome; invite him for dinner sometime. Billy D. Washington was vulgar, and not funny. My Wife saw Caroline Picard and did not care for her racial humor. We stopped into Russ Nagel long enough to hear a pedophile type joke and left. Not that we could stay-on this ship for every half hour of entertainment you had to invest that or more to find a seat. We were chasing micro-entertainment the entire cruise it seemed.

The entertainment hosts? Engaging and exhausted. Poor Jen, the CD, is working her tail off to make you the happiest you can be-I literally believe if you complained to her about the cruise she would want to cry-she is THAT committed.

Dan, Andrea, and Kris with a K care-they care far more than the Miami Bean Counting Machine and deserve better.

Back to food. Guy's burgers? Top notch. Best meat quality on the entire ship. Get them-get a lot of them. Blue Iguana? Good fish. Fish and chips? Quality. Lido buffet? Vomitous. No consistency whatsoever. The MDR did their level best to provide good flavors and presentation with food that was obviously from the frozen section of a discount grocer. And hey-I buy food from the frozen section of discount grocers. I just don't expect to while on vacation.

I could not figure out how the quality of the food varied so widely venue to venue and even between dining rooms. As an aside embark was painfully slow, debark chaotic and unpleasant, but somewhat faster. Again-it comes down to staff.

Made, pronounced "Mah-Dey", our room steward, was phenomenal and when it came time to tip-I found no envelope. He told me they are no longer allowed to leave envelopes, so I had to Vegas him-a handshake with a folded bill-not proper. Way to undercut your stewards, Carnival.

The Habana Bar on Deck four is a lovely but unused space. An extra host could have done more than the six hours of karaoke we had the entire cruise. Or trivia. Or something. Why am I mad? Because the 1993 St. Louis Cardinals could have won the World Series. Let me explain. That was the year the Philadelphia Phillies lovable bunch took the N.L. East led by Darren Daulton and Lenny Dykstra.

BUT-my team, the Cards, had a chance. All they needed was one more bat and an arm in a trade. And they sat pat. The Phillies took the east, and lost a classic World Series to the Toronto Blue Jays. I was reminded of that on this cruise. "If only", "Just a tiny bit more", "so close!"

The Freedom with just the SLIGHTEST of adjustments could have been spectacular. No smoking on the promenade, a bit better food, more entertainment staff allowing us activities during the day, and this is a different story. We still had memorable moments, and had smiles brought to our faces. You will likely have a good time, as we often did. With rare exception we kept our concerns to ourselves (and then just talking about Washington and small shrimp to one veteran cruiser) and a good thing we did, as this was the least outgoing, angriest group of passengers I have ever cruised with.

I took stock of my mindset. I smiled. I reached out, but this was a very surly group of passengers and I felt like the unpopular kid in the cafeteria all week. We had a few good conversations with table neighbors at MDR, but on Lido and in the entertainment venues it was all chair saving, all the time. No generosity, and little help to fellow passengers. I made a point to swallow my concerns so that others could enjoy the good stuff. I did not annoy guest relations with these problems because this is the sort of thing best resolved with a well-worded letter in detail.

Still my Wife and I danced, and talked, and connected so the cruise had its moments. But for all of our benefits I intend to pursue an audience with the head of guest relations to attempt to get these concerns resolved, as they are things that can be quickly addressed.

If you do vacation right, and avoid complete disaster, good memories should outweigh the negative. I think this cruise will. But I am sad about the lack of friendship building-on the Emerald Princess we had a marvelous time just learning about people and making friends. Very little of that of that here. Why? Why were the older PAX on Princess so much friendlier than the by and large 30-40 somethings on Carnival?

I have heard Carnival referred to as Wal-Mart of the seas. This is wrong on many levels. I shop at Wal-Mart, I use coupons, and always have. I am not too good for a Wal-Mart and take offense to that kind of classism. I am as often found in a burger joint-even more so, than fine dining, even though I have moved in a wide range of stature circles. But this ship could be so much better in that the only term I can assign it, fairly, is

The Negligence of the Seas.

The comfort foods were a cutback, originally. Fried Chicken, meatloaf, those are not MDR worthy meals. But now they have cutback the cutback. BBQ Ribs of a sort, cornbread, and beans.

No I am not kidding. No bisques, one gazpacho, zero tarts. They did the best they could-but it was Applebee's level food.

Magic is a great ship-fantastic. Much better than the Conquest class, which is not to my liking.

How about 19.4 percent. If 19.4 percent does not jump out at you, congratulations, you should sail Crystal.

$6.75. Most drinks are $8.75-$9.25. Spiked drinking at the coffee bar is a bit cheaper, $5.95. All prices are not including gratuity. Formal nights are nights 2, and 6.

I will save and upload the Funtimes when we get back for y'all.

The ship feels small, crowded, and has rocked the whole time. I wish I had better news for you.

Still fun to be had-crew is loyal and even lovable, it is THE PEOPLE on this cruise, surly, unfriendly, argumentative-(witnessed a near violent security episode that the passenger evoked race about.) I am not sure it was justifiable anger, as it was not my business. We were just listening to Inna and Dymo in the Atrium-(awesome, beautiful couple BTW) and this argument cascaded across deck 3 by Chic.) The security was very patient and non-aggressive, much less so than they may have had a right to be.

The argument had to do with, according to what I could understand between F bombs, the man's Wife being ejected from a club or show, perhaps over a theft accusation. Again I witnessed NOBODY on the Carnival team being out of line. Still this has been a very angry cruise, the complete opposite of our happy Princess crowd in January, which is surprising.

was the best cruise we have ever taken. (9-14)

25.

Don't play the casino, no not sure. I think if you play enough you get drinks. But it is an ashtray, so your experience may be affected.

As far as trivia, yes, but like everything else, in bursts. One day with a gaggle full of trivia, then nothing. One day with a bunch of karaoke then nothing. No steady streams, which is what is maddening. No grooves to find.

tried some sort of weird oatmeal cappuccino cream cookie thing. That worked as poorly as it sounds.

Other than that there was bland cherry bread and diet lime coconut cake on the buffet.

MDR is blah. Date and fig pudding, nutella tiramisu. Just bizarre to me.

Observations so far-fun ship with exhausted crew, many on last run of contract. Yes that matters.

American Table is an unmitigated disaster. The food is not inedible, it is just not MDR quality in presentation, selection, or execution. That said the lunch variety is spectacular-flavorful, efficient, and fun. Many fellow cruisers agree with me on this point.

Entertainment is hit and miss. 80's production is show excellent. Comedians wildly different. Cowboy Bill awesome and a good ol' boy in the best sense of the word. Billy D. Washington uses a disgusting set. To each their own.

Karaoke 1 hour first three nights, supposedly will increase.

Promenade inundated by smoke, so the best band we have encountered in a while on a ship, Steel City Groove, is hard to enjoy. Great people too.

Overall we are feeling that inconsistency is reigning. The crew is visibly worn out, as are parts of this ship's exterior paint. But the interiors are fun and very clean.

Will you enjoy your cruise? Of course. We are for the most part. But to say cutbacks and changes are not evident is to ignore the obvious. Guy's Burgers, while terrific, are not going to make up for a lack of inventive exciting menu options at dinner. Or a lack of interactive activities, or energy level, or Carnivalness. I think this is what is maddening-they are not doing what they do well, party, fun, silly, but offering a "family-friendly" watered down version or what Royal does much better. But we did not cruise this time for a Royal type experience, as we often do.

We wanted Carnival-raw, fun, energetic, over the top, kitsch, engaging, and memorable.

At this point we are trying to ride with the stuff we like and just downplay the stuff not so great. Tonight for example, in the MDR, BBQ Spareribs with cornbread and beans. On Grand Cayman night. Unacceptable. This is a cruise not a rodeo and not a fair. I don't cruise for Dickey's BBQ. Carnival needs to jettison American Table immediately or risk being seen as exclusively a low end cruise line, which it is not.

It is at the moment, a very confused one.

*Disclaimer-the above is an opinion, not a fact, and yours may vary greatly, so take said opinion in a narrow context and do not be dissuaded from enjoying this cruise ship. There is plenty of enjoyment to be had, we just miss the old Carnival.

So long as Carnival allows multiple venues with smoking on the promenade deck they are a no-go for us.

we want them in Texas then.

Would not pay that for the Legend. You can get it later season for half that, and Princess in season for almost 25 percent less.

is crowded with the main gathering place Ocean Plaza. Still a fun ship, as you know, but try Freedom, we are thinking we will. Maybe even on the same cruise!

K2, how long are the shows on the Freedom? We like varied entertainment, but not 'microentertainment."

but in general, it is common to find reviews like this about any ship-"Worst cruise ever" juxtaposed with "Incredible vacation full of memories." Same cruise date, same ship.

Just like movies, or restaurants, a person's opinion can be colored by preconceived notions, or certain prejudices, or just a bad attitude. Sometimes mistakes, and aggravations, even rudeness happens. The trick is to keep from one moment destroying all subsequent moments.

But you need to understand, I was one of those guys watching the Triumph incident and going, "While I feel for the passengers, goody deals on cruises coming right up!" Not for a moment was I dissuaded from cruising. Go have fun, be objective, and make up your own mind, letting each experience stand on its own, not clouded by any negativity, and you should have a ball.

Call Princess and request a mattress topper for your bed. Sometimes you need to fax, but a call and a double check worked for us. Our steward actually stood there pleasantly and asked us to make sure the bed was satisfactory or he would go get another topper.

Prior to our first cruise in 2006, we had been blessed to have many wonderful vacations together as a couple. On the Elation, I broke my elbow slipping on a sports deck close to the pool.

It was still one of the very best vacations I had ever had.

Since then we have gone Carnival twice more, and each time had fun. They have made changes, but have also brought in tasty burgers, new fun pubs, and made it more inviting for multi-generational families.

No Carnival is not that bad. Off strip Vegas is that bad, wandering off the Quarter in NOLA is that bad. Carnival is a blast. Stop worrying, and enjoy your hard earned time off.

we did not eat at a specialty restaurant-the MD was that good. It all was. The food was spot on excellent. As far as the activities, we were on Kelvin's last run before a break, and Henry's as well. I was told the new guy was going to revamp everything.

But tell DJ Tintin and Holly that Todd says hi!

is mostly line dancing on the pool deck, a lot of fun, and the band is great.

We just got back from a cruise on the Emerald a bit ago, and thought I would chime in with a few thoughts. The Emerald is a gorgeous ship, with a ridiculously dedicated crew and excellent food.

We had nothing close to resembling a bad meal on the ship. The room was nice, the bed was comfy, and the CD, Kelvin Joy, was a hoot and a real pro. Now the entertainment was ok, just ok, as the main shows lacked real vocal dynamos and the trivia was few and far between. I like trivia and karaoke, some don't, and to each their own. I would have like more of the aforementioned, but did get some excellent performances from Henry Hood and a fellow named Duncan who was a whiz on the guitar but a bit polarizing with his comedy.

Houston on a good weather day is a breeze, enough so that I am considering begging DW to give Norwegian another try. Yes, Galveston is that bad.

This was a good cruise. Will it match something you took to Rome? IDK. Probably not. But I have not been to Rome yet. It is just a blessing to spend seven days on a lovely ship meeting interesting people.

And that is the thing about cruising-meeting people with their guard down, learning about strangers, and seeing how we are still unique, talented, and worth a beer and a conversation. Or a friendship. On this cruise, instead of being wowed by Vegas style entertainment, we took in the subtle performances in the lounges, and made friends and had great conversations.

I got to learn about a couple's courtship and their marriage that has now crossed 40 years, and we traded "how did we meet" stories. We shared a lunch where I learned all about the Canadian tax system, and a breakfast where I met a man who could have been Sir Sean Connery's brother, and learned how this Scottish native served our nation in the Navy. I met an awesome couple from Vancouver, and picked their noggins about the best places to eat and stay should I ever visit.

I learned that the cost of parking spots in Pittsburgh are insane, and that Marines sat in a desert during their first Iraqi tour with no AC in their tents.

I learned that in this era of texting, and obliviousness, and nihilism, people have something to say, share, and teach. That is not something I usually learn in Vegas, or Disney World, or many other places where people are being rushed onto the next ride, or show, or event.

On a ship you can blast away at your senses with stimulus or you can relax and smell the roses. It's up to you. It most times comes down to your mindset. So yes, go on the Emerald and have a ball. Don't look at it as a ship full of people you have nothing in common with because of age, but full of people whose wisdom you can benefit from. Go and relax, and dance, or sing, or sit in a hot tub and jabber about baseball.

The Emerald is not the glitz of some of the Norwegian or Royal ships, the luxury of Crystal, or the energy of Carnival. It is just a well maintained, well appointed, welcoming ship that can show anyone magic, even without all of the big props, if only the audience is willing.

Of course the real trick is not a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, covered in fog, illuminated by lasers, rocking its ears to pulsating techno beats. No the real trick, and one anyone with an open mind and heart can pull off-is to be your own magician. Sail often, my friends.