schazzy

2 hours ago, dezertcruzer said:

If so, I am double heartbroken.  My husband and I met onboard the Fascination in 1995 and were married in 1997.  Before this pandemic hit, we had planned to do another cruise on her to celebrate 25 years together.  So sad it will never happen now.

 

Same here, the Fascination was the ship I took my now husband on for his first cruise and he fell in love with that ship and cruising in general. We had considered doing a cruise out of San Juan on her to commemorate that cruise, but alas, that will probably not happen now 😟

4 hours ago, Joebucks said:

The Deli is very underrated. Remember when the change was considered a "cutback?" The new menu is way better.

I agree, I enjoyed it more than I did the old menu. I prefer toasted sandwiches over panini pressed and the fries were a welcomed addition. 

I've so far tried and enjoyed the falafel wrap, tuna salad, and the pastrami. 

We're booked to leave out of PC on the Elation on April 27th and are still planning on going unless something happens and Carnival cancels the cruise. We plan to just keep up taking the usual precautions we normally take during cold & flu season like the CDC recommends and try not to panic about this and just hope for the best. 

36 minutes ago, conjr said:

I got my Bubly from the coffee bar on my cruise in January.  The barista handed me the can.

I'm assuming it was served cold?

9 hours ago, adventuredancer said:

 

found your reply. we are on the radiance in may. looking to switch to an oceanview deck5. was worried that with the pub and club, it might be noisy

If you can get one, go for it! It's a great location, loved being close to the coffee bar for that first morning cup and they serve breakfast at Ocean plaza. And with an elevator bank right there, not far to go up to Lido or down to the dining room.

3 hours ago, NC.MOMCRUZ said:

Anyone have a picture?

 This was posted by CC's favorite brand ambassador recently.

We sail on the Elation in April on a 5 day to Grand Turk and Amber Cove and I'm assuming that was your itinerary as well. Amber Cove is a new port for us, how did you enjoy it?

Also, we will have YTD as well, how was it? was there much of a wait to get seated? TIA!  

JiJi's and Cucina del Capitano were open for lunch every day we were on the Sunshine last year. They are located at the very back of the Lido deck. 

Also, There's a BBQ buffet on Deck 5 at Ocean Plaza on Embarkation day that was really good and not crowded. 

12 hours ago, Markmom18 said:

Hi bdever,

  I don’t drink alcohol.  I DO drink bubbly water 😆 every day here at home. I prefer no flavor though. I also no longer drink soda. But, for treats on my Cruises I’ll have a couple energy drinks.
 

I’m curious as to how much the waters are that they can justify the cost of the Cheers Package. Wondering if I should get a Cheers Package now ....

  🛳🛳

   Bobbi 

Soft drinks were $2.50 a can last time I checked, so without drinking alcohol and only soft drinks, you'd have to drink over 20 of them a day to break even with Cheers.  But the Bubly water is included in the Bottomless Bubbles package and it's $8.50 a day. 

Taco Salad from Blue Iguana for lunch.

I enjoy the pizza and the new deli sandwiches.

With the exception of the lobster, I like the seafood dishes offered in the MDR. More specifically the Sweet and Sour Shrimp, Frutti de Mare, and the Teriyaki salmon.

Enjoy your anniversary cruise!

Well, 

13 hours ago, back.2.cruising said:

Hello everyone,

 

it’s been a long time since my last cruise. When we used to cruise, we sometimes didn’t feel like going to the MDR for dinner. What time is dinner served in the Buffet? What are some options? We will be on the Carnival Sunrise. 
 

Thank you. 

On our last 3 cruises we did a mix of the MDR and buffet for dinner, and experiences varied by ship.

On the Ecstasy in 2017, they served several dishes that were similar to the ones on the MDR menu each night, but it was kinda "meh", not bad, but not as good as the food we had in the MDR.

On the Miracle in 2018, same deal as the Ecstasy, but this time, to our amazement, the food at the buffet really good and was better than most of what we had in the MDR.

Most recently on the Sunshine in April of 2019, lunch and dinner at the buffet was something called "Comfort Kitchen" and none of the MDR dishes were served and the food was very underwhelming and pretty much the same kind of stuff everyday. After a couple tries, we just stuck to the other non-buffet Lido food options that were much better.

I personally would recommend Cucina del Capitano. The food was delicious and you get plenty of it! And at only $15 a person, it was my opinion, quite a bargain considering we've paid more than double that for a similar meal locally.

10 hours ago, cruiselover19811981 said:

Thanks for sharing these photos. Is that some sort of cheese pizza in your pics, or chicken parmigiana? Looks tasty!

It's chicken parmigiana, it was huge and DH whom is a chicken parmigiana connoisseur said it was excellent. The second picture is the tomahawk pork chop and it was amazing! 

I'm not sure if anything about this has already been posted, I didn't see anything, so here we go:

Well, we are considering doing the Chef's Table on our cruise next year, so I went to look at booking it.

Last time I looked into booking it, if I remember correctly, was just a straight up $75 a person, and you didn't have to pay up front and I thought gratuities were included in the $75.

Now it looks like you have to pay at the time of booking it like you are buying from the Fun shops and I'm not sure what is going on here, but look at the following screenshots:

4 hours ago, cruiselover19811981 said:

Thanks to all who replied to my post. Seems as though the majority have enjoyed their experience. We know food can be subjective. E.g. over the past 8 yrs, we've cruised 3 different lines...RCCL, NCL & Carnival. People complain in reviews and on these CC boards about the food and service on each of these lines. I'm no celebrity chef, but my husband and I have Italian parents, and so we do enjoy cooking and baking our own meals from scratch. We have enjoyed each line (MDR only) thus far....never gone to specialty yet...and each line impressed us equally and in their own way....including our kids, who enjoy trying new dishes (9 & 11). I get it...lots of fats, shortcuts and corners happen when feeding 4000+, but overall, the value on these lines has pleased us. We are thinking to branch out for our August 2020 cruise on the Breeze...and the steakhouse was looking pretty promising....how about Cucina Del Capitano? Is the marinara and meat sauce authentic? The reviews on YOUTUBE look great....but being ones who can our own tomato sauce each September, wondering what thoughts are on this?

We thoroughly enjoyed Cucina on the Sunshine back in April, plenty of good food and well worth the $15 per person for dinner. The included lunch options were good too. 

On 12/27/2019 at 11:18 AM, marci4tony said:

We had such stellar wait staff in the dining room, I would consider paying the "upcharge" for those dishes to be served in MDR next time.

We too had a not so great experience with our one visit to the steakhouse, but my family members and I who have ordered steakhouse selections in the MDR have not been disappointed with them.  

We were in a aft cabin on deck 5, and even with Ocean Plaza almost right next door and the Casino not far away, it was pretty darn quiet in our cabin. 

And as far as the smoke goes, surprisingly, I never smelled it outside the casino, and we were on an Ultra cruise  and it was full of smokers. Granted they did have some kind of air freshener devices by the entrances that helped.  

1 hour ago, Butterbean1000 said:

I finally talked the hubs to going to the sea day brunch on our Breeze cruise last month. We waited 30 minutes for someone to bring us coffee.  It was another 15 minutes before someone took our order.   After waiting another 30 or so minutes for our food,  we just got up and left.  By that time, Guys was open. We saw the couple that was sitting next to us later that day. They said it was another 15 minutes before they got their food.  The dining room was not busy at all.  It will be a long time before I can talked the hubs to trying the sea day brunch again 

 

This sounds kinda like our experience on the Sunshine earlier this year. It felt like we waited forever as well. Although we did stick around to finally get our food, it was not worth the wait at all. My steak was ordered med rare, it came well done and was like a hunk of leather. DH's eggs were ordered over easy and were over well and scorched. To top it off, everything was cold and obviously sat on the line for a while before it was picked up. 

Honestly, with the exception of the very first one we went to on the Ecstasy in 2017,  we haven't had a good experience with sea day brunch since, with each one getting worse than the last. Which is odd since the vast majority of our dining experiences on Carnival have been good to excellent, just can't catch a break with the brunch. While I hate to not try again, in hopes we'll get another experience like our first, I'm also very hesitant to give it another shot as well. 

I've only been 8 cruises in my life, so I can remember which ships I've been on, now on the other hand, the details of those ships can be a bit fuzzy. 😂

While I've enjoyed many items, the ones that I look forward to the most from the regular menu are the fried shrimp appetizer and the Indian vegetarian entree. I also enjoy trying the port of call items. Dessert for me is usually the fruit plate and sometimes with some ice cream. 

12 hours ago, Organized Chaos said:

I can't believe this has sparked a 6 page thread in just a couple days. 😲

You must be new here 😁

Sorry, couldn't resist, anyways, back to the subject of this thread. The change for the most part really doesn't bother me as I've never been particularly loyal to any one soft drink company and I've enjoyed various Coke and Pepsi products over the years.

That being said, only one thing about this does bother me. One of my favorite cruise drinks is a Cuba Libre, which, like some others on here pointed out, I don't feel you can make with Pepsi, so that is disappointing. 

But on the other side, I do drink a good bit of flavored sparkling water at home to feed my carbonation addiction and reduce my consumption of sugary drinks, so I'm thrilled they will have Bubly and I won't have to squeeze limes into club soda anymore. You win some, you lose some I guess.

23 minutes ago, grandmarnnurse said:

How would splitting the dining rooms be a problem? On NCL, we had 3 designated MDRs, but they were nothing like the huge banquet style MDRs of Carnival. They were more like restaurants. With NCL Freestyle Cruising, you choose not only whenever you want to eat, but wherever as well. Besides the MDRs, there is a sit down restaurant/Pub with a full menu, and open 24 hours, plus their buffet, which opened back up at 9:30pm to 11:30pm for late night snacks. We LOVED everything about Freestyle, but we loved everything else more so about Carnival, so we have to put up with just YTD. 

We've been more happy with the YTD on Carnival than the traditional seating, and I feel that we'd enjoy NCL's freestyle dining concept. We've considered trying NCL for that reason, but since I haven't been able to find an NCL cruise that goes out of a port we can drive to during our preferred cruising time, it hasn't happened yet.

2 hours ago, eileen2664 said:

He will eat ice cream....only vanilla though and I'm not completely sure he'll eat the softserve kind (I assume that's what they have)

It's serve yourself soft serve on the Lido, but in the dining room they have regular scooped ice cream on the dessert menu. I usually get a couple scoops of vanilla along with a fruit plate as I'm not much for most of the more rich and overly sweet desserts. 

If they do it like they did on the Miracle, it's not a restaurant, it's a counter where you place your order, they give you a pager, you come back when it goes off and they'll have your order boxed up and you can take it to practically anywhere on the ship to eat it. 

On the Sunshine in April they were making all the sandwiches to order. I'm not picky and would just get mine how they came, DH is the picky one and would order his how he wanted it and neither of us had any problems getting what we wanted. 

I also must say I really liked the new sandwiches, I much prefer the toasted over the panini press which I felt always made my sandwich taste burnt.