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BecciBoo

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Everything posted by BecciBoo

  1. We missed it too but didn't consider them when comparing the two. I like crispy crust also, but this was just terribly dry and unappealing. And I like being able to order my own pie with all the stuff I want on it. It just wasn't happening there although we saw many people carrying full pies away.
  2. RCI is the parent corporation, RCCL is the cruise line. I have been learning for 25 years and find your comment exceedingly condescending.
  3. Oh I forgot the elevators. They are teeny weeny, barely held my chair and there were lots of them, they went pretty fast too. But way too small. Wish I had a pic Everyone was making negative comments about them...and get this, there are 3 bays of them as opposed to Voyagers 2 bays. As a person in a chair, there were many times we had to wait on 4-5 elevators because people who are waiting would run to jump in them and then I had lost my chance and that was me and Todd who tried to grab one before others got in. It was horrible, which speaks to the clientele mainly. Lots of people were accommodating but many more were just "Its all about me". There was no similar problem on Voyager, less peeps and bigger elevators though.
  4. Just back from our Voyager of the Seas/Carnival Jubilee B2B...here is the score: Embarkation/Terminal: Nothing gets any better than the new RCCL terminal...Period. Their phone APP blows RCCL's out of the water, you can do anything and everything on it...fantastic. Ship condition: This goes to Jubilee, she is quite breathtaking, no expense spared in deco and it's clear they are moving in the direction of RCCL esthetics. Voyager is looking a little tired but she's been revamped and freshly painted and smells good. However, the wayfinding and crowd handling with the design is pitiful. The halls, corridors and public spaces are so cut up and narrow and constricted, we constantly felt crowded and on top of each other. Decor exquisite, general design horrid. Nod goes to RCCL for her direct line of movement from stem to stern and Promenade. Also the food venues are all over the place, not in a central location, making you have go up/down/aft/and forward all the time. Cabin: Our ADA cabin on both ships is adequate, but the nod goes to the newer Jubilee, well designed, but lacking some stuff we have come to expect at RCCL, like no soap rests for bar soap and nowhere to hang your razor in the shower. Frustrating. Jubilee's cabin door opened automatically with the touch of a button...loved that. Air conditioner worked well on both lines, but Jubilee's could hang meat! Bedding: Nod goes to RCCL. On Jubilee, Beds when separated were almost as narrow as camp beds, and mattresses were just not up to what we had on Voyager! Now for Food (I know this highly subjective): RCCL wins hands down IOHO. Everything we ate on Voyager was excellent, in fact, greatly improved. I'm sorry, but I cannot agree with many who claim Carnival Pizza and Chocolate Molten Cake are the berries. Their newest Flag Ship's pizza was like eating burned crackers with cheese on top, couldn't even get past the tip bite! We asked about ordering one, but they informed us they didn't have black olives at all and looked at us like we had sprouted horns when we mentioned Supreme and veggies. They have many more venues though, but we only found 3 that were tasty enough to make an impression, Guy's Burgers, his Pig and Anchor BBQ, and Emeril's. Emeril's was the greatest...yum. All the other new food venues were just meh and many were extra charges, they even wanted to charge for cakes and desserts in their version of Promenade Cafe;Java Blue. So plenty of nickel and diming. The most frustrating thing about their dining was the open/closed schedule. We never could find places to get snacks, they didn't open until 3 or closed at 11:00 Their version of Mexican is Blue Iguana, which serves Burritos and tacos with the same exact fillings...the tacos the size of street tacos in Texas and the burritos larger, NO NACHOS! Horrors, El Loco Fresh is way better. Their version of our Windjammer was pathetic. Design is awful with port and starboard corridors with tables and chairs on both sides...large windows on the water which was great, but because it was more congested and closed in the sound/noise bounced around quite disturbing! They didn't have near the selection/variety that Windjammer has nor the openness/airiness of the large round or horseshoe shaped dining areas on our ships. The quality at Windjammer really shown here. Even in the MDR the Key Lime Pie was a powdered filling...yuk! Voyager's was scrumptious as usual. Here I will include a anecdote. First, you couldn't find a white tablecloth on Carnival if your life depended on it, even in the specialty venues. Secondly, since the app works so well, you are introduced to your table but with no menu. The waiter just left us, when he returned he said "What can I order for you?" Todd said, A menu might be nice? He did bring it but we thought that was just odd. Service on the meal was slow too. And we were not impressed with the presentation of anything hardly at all, they just put Broccoli branches down on your plate no sauce or anything. We finally went to Guest Services to talk to them about all of these little things that was putting a damper on our second Carnival cruise in 15 yrs. And she called the Maitre D and head of house keeping for a little meeting with us. One night our steward came into our cabin unannounced, and we had a doorbell! Hence the Hotel Mgrs involvement. So our second night at the MDR was different, they seated us at the best table in the house, comp'd a glass of wine and (giggle snort) NO MENU again! We laughed at this though. We also tipped them, we're not vengeful either. Entertainment: Carnival is no slouch here, their RIO CARNIVALE show was exceptional, feathers and all, and the Vegas Review The Residency was also very good. Carnival cruisers love their games, so no end to trivia, singing and all kinds of Love&Marriage etc. all over the ship. If you compared Jubilee with one of the sisters it would be very close, but with just Voyager slides and Flowrider, Jubilee wins this. We did ride their Roller Coaster BOLT ($15 ea) and it was phenomenal. I might add, Carni cruisers LOVE LOVE LOVE them some formal wear, I haven't seen that many slinky sequins in years on Elegant Night they call it! Bars: All about the same, great and Unique drinks at Dr.Inks and Golden Mermaid. Crew: All crew no matter which line were excellent, bless their hearts, I think most of our crew criticisms were training issues. I'll try to include some pics as soon as we download them all. Would we do Carnival again...so even though we enjoyed our cruises,(a cruise is always what you make of it)... we both agreed we could not invest more in their brand, so RCCL for us for good.
  5. I am well aware of that. I've seen lots of programs showing the water systems. But, water is precious always, we never waste it, even here. We are strictly rain water collection.
  6. You can legally take a flat iron for hair which I find does wonders for clothes in a pinch, doesn't get too hot and even dries damp things. And it doesn't waste the ship's valuable asset....water.
  7. But Jubilee has all the toots and whistles AND ports in Galveston so we can drive. 11 hrs but who's counting. I just love the balcony with the glass panel and the Opening door rather than sliding door and the long huge balcony looking out.
  8. Now that we are going back to the newer Carnival ships, I'll let you know if the $1000 difference in price is worth it. We won't get our free drinks but as we age we find its less and less important. Goofy enough without the liquor! LOL Don't seem to be hardly any perks left anyways. And if we like the Jubilee we'll be booking her again, We can get one of her coveted foward Cloud 9 Extended balconies for around $2700 rivaling Wonder and certainly Icon, which I'm glad to be able to do at least once, but probably can't do another with her rising fares. I'm looking forward to trying Jubilee, since Carnival is moving to more RCCL like design and features. I'll probably put a review on the Carnival page.
  9. Same here I just don't do that he does 😉 On my chair you can disengage the auto wheels and then when folded you can roll it from a handle like a piece of luggage, or if I get too old he can push me.
  10. For all these reasons we elected to buy one. Yes it was $1200 but I can take it anywhere, it fits every cabin ADA or not, folds up to 18" wide, is hefty at 57 Lbs but hubs totes it and has a joystick controller and the battery removes and charges etc. We love it..,..every time you rent you give them a couple hundred dollars, won't take long to recoup and am I going to get more mobile, nah. So I'll ways have it. I like this instead of a scooter, it turns on a dime and takes up less space in the elevators.
  11. Amazon didn't make a penny off my "light card", and if they did how much would that be at $1.88 per card? I got mine from Etsy.
  12. Oh but its so fun! Why can't we all let others have their fun! I bet every single one of us buys stuff we don't need, AMEX can attest to it. Remember that commercial...."We need more stuff...we need a bigger house" In fact I just bought one...😝
  13. Where is that card, I've been searching Amazon for 20 minutes?! LOL Yipee Etsy....thanks #Taglovestocruise....funny as all get out, the card was 1.88 but the shipping was 5 LOLOL🤪
  14. I won't wear unless it gets me something! I won't have time to achieve it anyways.🤣
  15. Of course there are no "requirements" and no one should spend a penny on this stuff, but it's just fun and being OCD I appreciate little things that facilitate cruising, like my wrist lanyard (yes, I'm aware you can't punch a hole in some cards) and my magnetic snail night light and my wall hooks etc. Nothing wrong with it, different strokes for different folks. What I don't understand is how that would aggravate others...live and let live right?
  16. Mine doesn't have a key at all, it has a removable battery. But mine fits in any cabin, I would never leave it in the hall.
  17. As you say, if we all rushed the ship, there really would be a problem, but we shall follow our original plan and get the first assignment and be sipping mojitos early.
  18. We've stayed at the Intercontinental, Holiday Inn, YVE and on South beach at two different independent hotels right on the beach boardwalk. They were all nice hotels, but I still hate it. That's just me. And Port Everglades is my favorite port. We've walked across the bridge onto the beach from the Renaissance and if I didn't know I wasn't in Miami I would think I was. Feels the same looks the same. But it's not the same. Ft. Lauderdale is really clean.
  19. I use them for all sorts of things around the house too, love 'em.
  20. I loath Miami, one of the filthiest cities in Florida. My first cruise from there, we went all over and liked the Bayfront mall but when I went in to use the facilities I was shocked at the filth, I couldn't bring myself to touch the toity at all and people had just thrown filthy papers and other stuff I won't mention all over it...from that day on, I've purposely avoided cruises out of there. Yes, I had to go at times since Symphony and most recently now Icon are based out of there, but I still don't like it. That and no one seemed to speak English there. South Beach was better, but I still avoid it.
  21. It's really nice to be totally unpacked at 2pm We choose to check ours, I hate to schlep bags around, we always get the earliest arrival appt. times so I know our bags are first on the ship, hence almost always waiting for us when we enter the room...and we are always unpacked by 2. My BFF says they live out of their opened luggage on the couch and never pack or unpack, but with my OCD I must have a place for everything and everything in its place hidden away. Our cabin is always neat as a pin. I'm a bit strange like that....🙄
  22. I take attractive ones usually available at T.J.Max. I ordered a bunch of these for the luggage tags and I use them to attach all kinds of things, even works with the beach bag to attach the zipper to my lounger. Not fool proof but way too undesirable to the casual thief. I am never far from it.
  23. We use an old Padi dive card no need to pay for one
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