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Just off the Breeze 10/8 - 10/15 (Sorry, no pics)


cruisenewbie1
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Cheerio and pip pip hooray everyone.

 

My family of 4 just got off of the Breeze this past Sunday and I wanted to write a review. I have though long and hard about what to say and the format in which I am going to write it out. I think that I am going to wing it and go from there. Please feel free to ask questions and I will do my best to answer.

 

About us, we are a family of 4 from the Little Rock AR area. It is myself (Head Dork), my DW of 11 years, my 8 yr old DS (Dork 1) and my 7 yr old DD (Dork 2). It was my 4th cruise, 3rd on Carnival. My DW's 3rd, 2nd on Carnival and the kids have never cruised before. It has been 9 years since we have seen the deck of any ship.

We left Little Rock at 3 on Friday 10/06 and made it to Nacogdoches that night.

We got up the next morning and used some of our fuel points to top off the tank. We got into Galveston a little before noon 10/07 and thought we would take a chance and see if our hotel room (Days Inn on Seawall Blvd) was available. I can assure you now that it wasn't. Well we drove downtown and DW wanted to ride the trolley and do some 'splorin. We at lunch and then spent almost 2.5 hours riding the trolley. Definitely got our fill.

By this time we were ready to go to the hotel so we returned and our room was ready. The kids wanted to swim and as it was 300% humidity, we quickly agreed. We killed an hour in the pool before getting ready for dinner.

Before we left, i had joined Joe's Crab Shack club and received a coupon for a free appetizer. DW wanted to go there as they had a play area to keep the dorks occupied. (Can you guess what happens next?) Well we get there and we joke around with the maitre'd and they realize that with the dorks we wanted somewhere where we could see them play outside but they quickly shut that down saying the play area was closed. Now the dorks didn't handle this well but they did overcome and adapt. We already knew what we wanted and got our order in. It was good food and wew were definitely stuffed. After dinner I suggested something from Ben and Jerry's. To give the rest of the family they did put up the appearance of a good fight before finally agreeing to stop. After that, we went to the hotel and chillaxed while I went and dried our bathing suits downstairs in the laundry area.

 

The next morning 10/08 (cruise day, yay!!!!!) we got up and the kids were raring to go. Just an afterthought but the day before we had received an email from Carnival stating to delays on the previous cruise that we needed to delay our arrival to check on by an hour. Back to my forethought. While in the little dining area we were treated to generic cold cereal, one waffle maker, spoiled yogurt and milk. I went to Mickey D's and got some sausage biscuits. We checked out and then made a pit stop at Walgreens to get some last minute supplies.

We had prepaid for parking at Indoor Cruise Parking for the week. We got there and parked quickly, here where things slowed down. I had it in my fat head that things would move quickly and once my family was on the bus, they would take off, uh no!!!!! We had to wait for it to fill up. Once that happened we took off like a herd of turtles. Traffic was crazy. It took longer than I would like but then I was slightly impatient as you can imagine. Once we got to the port, they unloaded us and off we went to find a porter. even though I tipped him he didn't put the orange FTTF sticker on our bag like he promised. Porter 134. I will remember that #. We went to where people were lining up and once I realized there was a separate line for FTTF, things prococeeded much faster. We proceeded through check in and got to the desk to deposit funds. I put enough down to get started (used cash and gift cards the whole trip) After that, they were boarding and our happy hineys proceeded onboard. It was about 1230 at this time so we proceeded to our stateroom,dropped off our carry on's and headed up to find some grub.

Now I admit, on the first day I wanted Guy's burger for lunch and I got it. It was a good burger and fries and I was now happy. This iswhere the details get fuzzy. I don't remember everything in order that we did. I do remember we asked about Dr. Suess breakfast and was told that they were already full. i also asked about signing up for behind the scenes tour and was informed that we were able to book this excursion online and that it was full. No big deal. My loving DW felt really bad that I didn't get it but I wasn't. No one was hurt as a result of me not getting it so no biggie. Live and learn for next time.

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PART 2: Cabin

 

CABIN:

We had booked stateroom 2306, a cove balcony on the port (left) side) This was the stateroom that we were going to get when we were supposed to be on the Dream last year. I really wanted it again this time and was lucky to get it. To be honest we were nervous with the dorks and a balcony and on the 1st day Dork 2 threw something overboard, no not DS. We got onto her about this and after that they couldn't go out there with anything in their hands.

This was a good size stateroom, maybe a little smaller than our balcony cabin on the Dream in '08 but not sure about that. It has the 2 beds into 1, the couch which made into a bed and the bed that came down from the ceiling. The kids were comfy. It came with a flat screen tv and plenty of closet spaces. Personal note: I wish that in the 1 closet there were side out drawers instead of 4 shelves.

The bathroom was a decent size and I got what I expected from previous cruises. DW did the unpacking and did a great job of finding a place for everything.

It was a little warm in the room at times but not miserably so and it may have been that we were hot when we walked into the room. We kept it as cold as we could.

The bed was comfortable and we reallly enjoyed the duvet. We brought some of our own pillows and DW didn't like the pillows they had but I wasn't bothered by them too much.

We did try to keep everything picked up and not leave a mess for our room steward. Only exception was the towels. Not too much room to dump those.

Speaking of towels, we loved ours. My personal opinion is that the rougher they are the better they are. Shampoo and body wash weren't high end but they did the job well. We brought conditioner for DW's hair as it is so thick.

The TV worked and the kids loved the cartoon channels. Never saw a movie from start to finish on the 2 free movie channels.

Part of the reason this room appealed to me was that I thought (wait for it) we would take the stairs more. Oh, I had such grandiose ambitions. See, we are rather fluffy and while I did start taking the stairs more at work, nothing was going to prepare me for 8 or 9 flights of stairs multiple times per day. We did make the rule then that if we only had to go up 2 or fewer floors, we would take the stairs. That eventually worked down to going from deck 2 or deck 1 or 3. We really did have the best of intentions. Well I did, DW was more realistic.

Now for our stateroom steward. Enrico and his assistant Gede. We never had to worry about the room being clean. DW did tell them only 1 service a day but we needed towels and ice in the afternoon. They didn't do this most days but it turned out well. Enrico brought DW an extension cord for her CPAP and some water for it as well.

We did get lucky in that this was one of the cabins that had a gap overhead between 2 lifeboats. The only downside was that there was a camera right out side our stateroom. I feel really sorry for them if they had it focused on our balcony.

We had pre-ordered 2 12 packs of water delivered to our stateroom before arrival and it was there waiting. We ended up only using 1 case. More on that later.

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PART 3: Dining

 

 

  • Room Service - We set out the room service card the first night for the next morning. This was the only night we did this and it came about 10 minutes after the time we had requested. No biggie. We did order room service 2 other nights for late night snacks. The first night was on Tuesday night and it took a long while. They apologized profusely and said they were swamped. DW and the kids ordered a snack another night while I was out and they had nothing bad to say. We always tipped a couple of dollars at least.

  • Breakfast - We did Sea Day Brunch on the first sea day and it was delicious. I had the Huevos Rancheros while DW had the Salmon. We had done did put the kids in the kids club. It was good. DW did say she would have liked more sauce. We did the Sea Day brunch again on the next to last sea day and again, it was delicious.
  • I had the Blue Iguana canting burrito one day. It was excellent. I didn't order what I wanted exactly thinking we would all share it. It was meant to be sort of a pre-breakfast appetizer.
  • The rest of the time we ate breakfast in the lido. We would either take the kids for breakfast, drop them off at the kid's club and then we get our food later or we would take them there first, then eat and afterwards go get them for breakfast. We always found something we liked. There were 4 stations serving the same thing with 2 stations cooking omelets. There was also a station for pastries and fresh fruit cut up. There was always plenty of cold milk in cartons except for 1 day, we got there late and we got the last carton of chocolate milk and they weren't putting out any more. The dorks had to share it. They weren't happy.
  • Someone on another page mentioned the scrambled eggs. They said they were powdery. I didn't taste this. I liked the eggs and normally I am not the biggest egg fan. They seemed more like liquid eggs.
  • I had an omelet one day. It was delicious and the only reason I didn't ever get another was that I didn't want to deal with the lines, even though they were usually short.
  • We got plenty of bacon. Always got more if we asked for it.
  • I don't drink coffee but the wife said it was good, though she does doctor it heavily.

  • Lunch - 1st day, we had Guy's burgers. My only complaint here was that you couldn't see the menu sign until you were ready to order and there was a ton of people in line behind you waiting on you to order and giving you the look of death. I got the plain cheeseburger both times I went there. They were good.
  • Only had the Pig and Anchor once. The meat was flavorful but the sides left something to be desired.
  • Never had the Blue Iguana for lunch or the Mongolian Wok so I am of no help there. Sorry.
  • One day i did get the Tandoori Grill and it was delicious, beyond delicious. Probably one of my favorite places.
  • I never did get Pizza either. They can really do better here. They don't make them fast enough and I never felt like waiting around for them to get one going. From what I could tell, they were of a good size.
  • We got the dorks hot dogs from the deli twice and they seemed well made. DW got a Reuben once and wasn't really impressed.

  • Dinner - OK, here is where I am going to lose some of you so be prepared. We had early seating at 6:00 pm. Our servers were Sugar (hey that is what he told us to call him. His real name is Sudarmanto. DW reminded me that he was from Indonesia. His 1st assistant was Juan and he was from the Phillipines. His 2nd assistant was Aleksandru and was from Serbia I believe. Really nice guys and they did do a good job. We usually got there at 6 or within 5 minutes after. The last night we were 10 min late due to dropping the dorks off at kids' slub. This last night it took over 20 minutes for them to acknowledge us. It turned out that the reason was they had pulled Aleksandru up to the lido to help there and so Sugar was shorthanded. They all loved our kids and were upset that they weren't there after the 2nd night. Even the Maitre'D and his assistant asked about the kids. I was very impressed with that. They had on the first 2 nights brought our kids banana splits which they loved.
  • Appetizers were mostly delicious. DW had the Chilled Vietnamese roll the first night and she said it was ok but all it had in it were noodles, almost no vegetables. I never had a problem with any of the appetizers that I ordered. I had originally planned on running the ship out of shrimp cocktail but after the 1st night, never ordered them again.
  • Entree's were where they lacked any kind of pizzaz. We were able to find something every night but they weren't all that great. DW had the flat iron steak the first night and didn't like it. It was gristly (sp). She ordered spinach side dish and it came out cold. I had the Mahi Mahi the first night and while it was decent, it wasn't great. Hard to explain. I got 2 lobster tails on 1st elegant night. Good but not great. 2 nights I had pasta dishes and they were excellent I wasn't disappointed. The desserts were at best an 8/10. The cheese cake was probly the best thing I had.
  • On Belize night we went to the Farenheit 555 steak house.It was worth every penny. We each got 2 appetizers instead of an appetizer and a salad. The chef sent out this little tasting item made entirely of parmesan cheese. It was nummy. I had been dreaming of the Surf and Turf for years but when they described t, saying it came with a 4 oz portion of the filet I changed my mind and got the 18 oz Rubbed ribeye. It was all delicious. Wish I had the money to eat there every night.

Someone on another page said that the water on their ship was bad. I never had a problem with it on ours We didn't buy the soda package and had 2, 12 packs of water delivered to our stateroom. Our goal was to bring those water flavoring additives on the ship. However we didn't put them in the suitcase and we left them in the car. We could have kicked ourselves. I had insulated cups for the both of us and enough flavoring for her. I drank water most of them time. It was delicious. I always forgot to drink the bottled stuff. We ended up bringing a case home

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Food is subjective, but IMO you missed out on some of the best food on the Breeze by not waiting for the Mongolian Wok. I ate lunch there three times on our last cruise. The last time I had one chicken dish and one beef dish as I could not decide between the two.

 

My flat iron steak was very good. The Mahi-mahi was mehi mehi. Just not good. Salmon was great and had that 3-4 nights. Been on enough cruises to know what I like. I if I want to try something new, I will be sure to order a second entree of something I know I like. One night I ordered a pasta dish and the salmon to just add to the pasta. Oh yeah!

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Wife & I were on same sailing. We hated the scrambled eggs on lido. They were always watery and had a very strange consistency.

 

I actually liked the ship's water as well, but the coffee and tea were horrendous imo. I took to buying my coffee's at the Starbucks cafe on Promenade deck.

 

We actually did the Behind the Fun tour. Signed up at excursion desk as soon as we boarded about 1pm. I'm mentioning this b/c they take you to the crew's cafeteria where my wife made herself a hot latte with the free coffee machine down there and it was wonderful. She joked that she should slip our room steward extra cash just to bring us coffee from the crew cafeteria.

 

The Mongolian Wok was indeed wonderful although the lines were frustrating.

 

Overall we had a nice time, but we're going to explore other lines. I'm not a picky eater by any means but I do like good food. It was brought to my attention that it was next to impossible to get real orange juice on board. They were serving "orange juice flavored cocktail" at the Lido and dining room breakfast. This is just an example of the corners being cut. This wasn't the case last time I cruised Carnival about 6 or 7 yrs ago. We were pretty disappointed.

 

 

PART 3: Dining

 

 

  • Room Service - We set out the room service card the first night for the next morning. This was the only night we did this and it came about 10 minutes after the time we had requested. No biggie. We did order room service 2 other nights for late night snacks. The first night was on Tuesday night and it took a long while. They apologized profusely and said they were swamped. DW and the kids ordered a snack another night while I was out and they had nothing bad to say. We always tipped a couple of dollars at least.

  • Breakfast - We did Sea Day Brunch on the first sea day and it was delicious. I had the Huevos Rancheros while DW had the Salmon. We had done did put the kids in the kids club. It was good. DW did say she would have liked more sauce. We did the Sea Day brunch again on the next to last sea day and again, it was delicious.
  • I had the Blue Iguana canting burrito one day. It was excellent. I didn't order what I wanted exactly thinking we would all share it. It was meant to be sort of a pre-breakfast appetizer.
  • The rest of the time we ate breakfast in the lido. We would either take the kids for breakfast, drop them off at the kid's club and then we get our food later or we would take them there first, then eat and afterwards go get them for breakfast. We always found something we liked. There were 4 stations serving the same thing with 2 stations cooking omelets. There was also a station for pastries and fresh fruit cut up. There was always plenty of cold milk in cartons except for 1 day, we got there late and we got the last carton of chocolate milk and they weren't putting out any more. The dorks had to share it. They weren't happy.
  • Someone on another page mentioned the scrambled eggs. They said they were powdery. I didn't taste this. I liked the eggs and normally I am not the biggest egg fan. They seemed more like liquid eggs.
  • I had an omelet one day. It was delicious and the only reason I didn't ever get another was that I didn't want to deal with the lines, even though they were usually short.
  • We got plenty of bacon. Always got more if we asked for it.
  • I don't drink coffee but the wife said it was good, though she does doctor it heavily.

  • Lunch - 1st day, we had Guy's burgers. My only complaint here was that you couldn't see the menu sign until you were ready to order and there was a ton of people in line behind you waiting on you to order and giving you the look of death. I got the plain cheeseburger both times I went there. They were good.
  • Only had the Pig and Anchor once. The meat was flavorful but the sides left something to be desired.
  • Never had the Blue Iguana for lunch or the Mongolian Wok so I am of no help there. Sorry.
  • One day i did get the Tandoori Grill and it was delicious, beyond delicious. Probably one of my favorite places.
  • I never did get Pizza either. They can really do better here. They don't make them fast enough and I never felt like waiting around for them to get one going. From what I could tell, they were of a good size.
  • We got the dorks hot dogs from the deli twice and they seemed well made. DW got a Reuben once and wasn't really impressed.

  • Dinner - OK, here is where I am going to lose some of you so be prepared. We had early seating at 6:00 pm. Our servers were Sugar (hey that is what he told us to call him. His real name is Sudarmanto. DW reminded me that he was from Indonesia. His 1st assistant was Juan and he was from the Phillipines. His 2nd assistant was Aleksandru and was from Serbia I believe. Really nice guys and they did do a good job. We usually got there at 6 or within 5 minutes after. The last night we were 10 min late due to dropping the dorks off at kids' slub. This last night it took over 20 minutes for them to acknowledge us. It turned out that the reason was they had pulled Aleksandru up to the lido to help there and so Sugar was shorthanded. They all loved our kids and were upset that they weren't there after the 2nd night. Even the Maitre'D and his assistant asked about the kids. I was very impressed with that. They had on the first 2 nights brought our kids banana splits which they loved.
  • Appetizers were mostly delicious. DW had the Chilled Vietnamese roll the first night and she said it was ok but all it had in it were noodles, almost no vegetables. I never had a problem with any of the appetizers that I ordered. I had originally planned on running the ship out of shrimp cocktail but after the 1st night, never ordered them again.
  • Entree's were where they lacked any kind of pizzaz. We were able to find something every night but they weren't all that great. DW had the flat iron steak the first night and didn't like it. It was gristly (sp). She ordered spinach side dish and it came out cold. I had the Mahi Mahi the first night and while it was decent, it wasn't great. Hard to explain. I got 2 lobster tails on 1st elegant night. Good but not great. 2 nights I had pasta dishes and they were excellent I wasn't disappointed. The desserts were at best an 8/10. The cheese cake was probly the best thing I had.
  • On Belize night we went to the Farenheit 555 steak house.It was worth every penny. We each got 2 appetizers instead of an appetizer and a salad. The chef sent out this little tasting item made entirely of parmesan cheese. It was nummy. I had been dreaming of the Surf and Turf for years but when they described t, saying it came with a 4 oz portion of the filet I changed my mind and got the 18 oz Rubbed ribeye. It was all delicious. Wish I had the money to eat there every night.

Someone on another page said that the water on their ship was bad. I never had a problem with it on ours We didn't buy the soda package and had 2, 12 packs of water delivered to our stateroom. Our goal was to bring those water flavoring additives on the ship. However we didn't put them in the suitcase and we left them in the car. We could have kicked ourselves. I had insulated cups for the both of us and enough flavoring for her. I drank water most of them time. It was delicious. I always forgot to drink the bottled stuff. We ended up bringing a case home

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Wonderful review, just a few questions?

Did they have a band playing each night, usually Carnival has but I heard they are going from 3-6 piece bands down to 1-2 just curious?

Did you go play any slots, have any luck? My other half always has luck in the slots on Carnival, but I never am.

 

Mongolian, just can't understand why people love it so much, the quality of the meat the give you is passable human grade, sorry my opinion, but the veggies you can't go wrong, but when cruising on a Carnival ship that doesn't have the Mongolian I never miss it.

 

I hate the scrambled eggs on all cruise ships do believe they are liquid...I stick to omelets or I ask for fried eggs or take hard boiled eggs and make myself a bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich, and I never have any problem in being limited to the bacon.

 

Agree with Pig and Anchor tried it on each cruise that had it, sides ugh, but maybe because we are not BBQ people lol

 

All our past cruises we been taking the past four to five years, we don't eat in the MDR unless a ship doesn't have the Steakhouse such as the Fascination, we dine overnight at the steakhouse, overall always excellent! So glad you tried it!

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You are right, it is entirely subjective and Thank you for reminding me of that. What I did or didn't like may have not applied to anyone else. I really did want to do the Wok but when my food was cold half the time because I was helping with the kids, I didn't want to make things even worse by taking too long standing in line at the Wok.

Food is subjective, but IMO you missed out on some of the best food on the Breeze by not waiting for the Mongolian Wok. I ate lunch there three times on our last cruise. The last time I had one chicken dish and one beef dish as I could not decide between the two.

 

My flat iron steak was very good. The Mahi-mahi was mehi mehi. Just not good. Salmon was great and had that 3-4 nights. Been on enough cruises to know what I like. I if I want to try something new, I will be sure to order a second entree of something I know I like. One night I ordered a pasta dish and the salmon to just add to the pasta. Oh yeah!

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Thanks. It is hard to know what to write about. If anyone does have any questions, please feel free to ask. I do have copies of the fun times for at least 5 of the 7 days.

I am enjoying your review. Our last cruise was in a cove on the Breeze and I think it was my favorite balcony so far.

 

Eager to read more.

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I did love her. She was so easy to navigate. I didn't have any problems getting around. Only thing I did have to remember was that you couldn't go from front to back on deck 3 and that the only entrance to the Circle C was from the mid ships elevator.

Good review , We to are from Little Rock , We leave for our 3rd time on the Breeze in Dec , This will be our tenth cruise ,and we turn platinum on this cruise ! The Breeze is the best ship Carnival has
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Overall we did have a great time as well. Loved the ship and the people on board.

Wife & I were on same sailing. We hated the scrambled eggs on lido. They were always watery and had a very strange consistency. One day we did have watery eggs but that was on one pan of eggs. I looked at a couple of others and they seemed fine.

 

I actually liked the ship's water as well, but the coffee and tea were horrendous imo. I took to buying my coffee's at the Starbucks cafe on Promenade deck. I thought I would hate the tea as well but with my sweetener and lemon wedges it was tolerable

 

We actually did the Behind the Fun tour. Signed up at excursion desk as soon as we boarded about 1pm. I'm mentioning this b/c they take you to the crew's cafeteria where my wife made herself a hot latte with the free coffee machine down there and it was wonderful. She joked that she should slip our room steward extra cash just to bring us coffee from the crew cafeteria.

 

The Mongolian Wok was indeed wonderful although the lines were frustrating.

 

Overall we had a nice time, but we're going to explore other lines. I'm not a picky eater by any means but I do like good food. It was brought to my attention that it was next to impossible to get real orange juice on board. They were serving "orange juice flavored cocktail" at the Lido and dining room breakfast. This is just an example of the corners being cut. This wasn't the case last time I cruised Carnival about 6 or 7 yrs ago. We were pretty disappointed.

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Hopefully this answers your questions.

Wonderful review, just a few questions?

Did they have a band playing each night, usually Carnival has but I heard they are going from 3-6 piece bands down to 1-2 just curious?They had anywhere from 2-3 piece bands playing in the central atrium. Getting a 4th person in there would be a tight fit. The musicians were great. I enjoyed listening to them

Did you go play any slots, have any luck? My other half always has luck in the slots on Carnival, but I never am. I wish I could give you some information about the slots but it was hard for me to be in there due to the smoke. My wife did play twice and ended up being down about $25.

 

Mongolian, just can't understand why people love it so much, the quality of the meat the give you is passable human grade, sorry my opinion, but the veggies you can't go wrong, but when cruising on a Carnival ship that doesn't have the Mongolian I never miss it.

 

I hate the scrambled eggs on all cruise ships do believe they are liquid...I stick to omelets or I ask for fried eggs or take hard boiled eggs and make myself a bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich, and I never have any problem in being limited to the bacon. I did have an omelet one day and was impressed as to how fast they could work. Great omelet.

 

Agree with Pig and Anchor tried it on each cruise that had it, sides ugh, but maybe because we are not BBQ people lol

 

All our past cruises we been taking the past four to five years, we don't eat in the MDR unless a ship doesn't have the Steakhouse such as the Fascination, we dine overnight at the steakhouse, overall always excellent! So glad you tried it!

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Food is subjective, but IMO you missed out on some of the best food on the Breeze by not waiting for the Mongolian Wok. I ate lunch there three times on our last cruise. The last time I had one chicken dish and one beef dish as I could not decide between the two.

 

My flat iron steak was very good. The Mahi-mahi was mehi mehi. Just not good. Salmon was great and had that 3-4 nights. Been on enough cruises to know what I like. I if I want to try something new, I will be sure to order a second entree of something I know I like. One night I ordered a pasta dish and the salmon to just add to the pasta. Oh yeah!

 

 

I had the flat iron steak on another night and it was good. Just that first night it was a bad cut. I did order a seafood pasta dish one night and just ate the seafood out of it, leaving the pasta. I thought Juan would cry. He thought I was unhappy but really, just not a pasta fan. Wish I had thought to order the salmon to add to it. What a great idea!

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