Review: Fascination 9/27/2010 - Still on the ship

[itgeek]

I'm starting this now since we're stuck in Nassau overnight due to the storm headed to FL and internet time is 1/2 price until 6pm. :p Originally our itineary was Sea, Key West, Nassau, Sea. But they initially reversed it trying to miss the storm. They notified us this afternoon ~3pm that we were spending the night in Nassau and skipping The Keys altogether. I'm sure the crew is happy that we don't have to be back on-board until 5:30am b/c it means many of them will get to pop off the ship and spend a few hours in Nassau themselves.

 

- IT Geek

[itgeek]

Day 1 – Embarkation, Jacksonville, FL

 

We arrived at 12:15pm. Drop-off at JAX Port was easy, though slightly confusing. I liked being able to drive right up to the terminal door and drop off checked luggage curbside.

 

Parking was a bit of a surprise. I was under the understanding that parking was paid on departure. That was not the case. $75 parking fee was due upon arrival. Not the end of the world but since I was planning to pay for it with cash on departure, it cleaned out a nice chunk in my wallet early in the game.

 

The best thing about JAX Port is its smallness. The worst thing about JAX Port is its smallness. Being a small port makes it easy to get in and out and convenient for dropping off luggage and passengers. On the same token, it took about twice as long to get through all the lines as it’s taken on my previous cruises out of Miami (on NCL and Carnival).

 

The lines for x-ray/security moved about as fast as the TSA lines at the airport. Moving through check-in was expedient. Boarding the ship, not as much. I echo previous complaints about the walkway to the ship and the wait to get onboard. You walk from the terminal to the ship under a canvas type cover. Problem is there is no air flow. It covers the sides and the top. Today was only in the 80’s but we were all sweating and wishing we weren’t standing in that line in the humidity.

 

We checked in at 12:30p and were finally on-board at 1:15. Not the worst but not the best either – 1 hour total from arrival on-site to walking on-board. Once on-board, lunch in the Lido was chaos. They were serving at both the poolside grill and the actual Lido café. I purposely skipped lunch in the MDR because I wanted to see how bad it would be in the Lido. Luckily I was able to find seating by approaching a 4 person table with only 2 people at it. My usual question in those scenarios is “Would it offend you if I joined you.”

 

In the Lido buffet, quite a few things were nearing outage. The salad bar on both sides was approaching bare. The fresh cut fruit was also out on both sides. Thankfully the outages did not affect the dessert section. I had a wonderful chocolate torte… 3 pieces in fact.

 

Our room was ready at 1:30pm as promised. If only the sun had been as cooperative as our room steward. It rained/misted/pizzled all afternoon. I was hoping the bed would be set up as a single king but as luck would have it, it was set up as two twins.

 

The muster drill was uneventful. I was in the group assigned to The Palace. Not too much chaos.

 

I hoped to win a free spa service at the spa drawing. Luckily, I knew about the requirement to be present in order to win. That little tidbit if left off, seemingly on purpose, of the entry form. Didn’t win anything but I did walk away with a nice pocket mirror from GoSmile.

 

For dinner, we were on Your Time Dining. We showed up at 7:30pm and were seated right away. We experienced the detrimental effects of a large group (16 people) being sat in our section mid-way through our meal. I’m now of the firsthand opinion that Your Time Dining should be strictly limited to parties of a max of 6, maybe even 4. That large group completely through off the pattern of our 3 wait staff. They had to focus on getting that big group served and in turn were not able to adequately serve the rest of their section. Before the group arrived, service was absolutely fantastic. After the group arrived, it became royal suckage. The staffing for YTD is not designed for a large influx of people all at once. If it continues to happen, I shall have to formally complain. On the bright side, I did time dinner perfectly to miss the waiters “show”. I’m not fond of dinner being interrupted.

 

Dinner choices tonight included Talipa, Mahi Mahi, Center Cut Pork, and the BBQ ribs. I wasn’t feeling in a BBQ mood thanks to the rain/drizzle. I had: Fresh Fruit Plate; Caesar Salad; Center Cut Port w/ Mac & Cheese, Carrotts, and Green Peas; and a Tropical Fruit Plate w/ Lime Sherbet for dessert. The pork was overdone for me but still tender. The peas I could have totally done without and the mac & cheese portion was maybe 2 tablespoons in a ramekin w/ a wilted black olive as garnish! DOAH. My cruise partner had Caesar Salad, Mahi Mahi, and the warm chocolate melting cake… it was way too runny for my taste. It was more like a bowl of warm pudding with a slight crust on top.

 

Now don’t get the idea that I’m a diet fiend. I had scoped the Lido prior to dinner and had ulterior motives in all that “healthy” stuff. After dinner, I walked to the Lido and collected a salad bowl full of Mac & Cheese to make up for the anemic portion I got at dinner. Went back to the room and ate the whole thing by myself. :D

 

The Sushi Bar was virtually empty the entire night – at least every time I walked by it. I never saw more than 1 person there and the staff appeared bored. So for sushi lovers, tonight would have been a good bet.

This trip is my first one w/ the new Fun Times. I like the look and layout… but it feels like something is missing. I kept reading it over and over thinking I just had to be missing something.

 

Tomorrow at 2pm is our Cruise Critic meet-up. It should be interesting as quite a few of us are on this ship from the Carolinas – and a handful of us that are essentially across town neighbors but have never met before! I’m informally calling us the “Carolina Contingent”.

 

The 10:30pm Welcome Aboard show, by cruise entertainment standards, was about a 7. Of course it can’t measure up to the Broadway headline entertainment the lines are bringing to the mega ships but it was in line with what I’ve experienced on other small to mid-size ships. The comedian, Greg Russell, was also on par for what I would expect. Trevor Block, the CD, has his material down, as he should after 15 years with Carnival.

 

One slight disappointment… I did not run into Trevor outside of the scheduled activities. I always like to see the CD out and about on the ship outside of official activity duties.

 

There’s lots of other stuff scheduled late night tonight but after a drive and a long day, I’m headed to bed at a semi-reasonable hour. My travel partner didn’t make it to bed quite so early. Apparently while I was sleeping, he was the hit of the night at the karaoke bar and a dancing fiend at the club. Oh to be 10 years younger and non-arthritic. Hehe.

[oncruisecontrol]

Do you have photos to post? I love the Fascination.

[itgeek]

Day 2 – First Sea Day

 

Went to bed last night around 1am… slept peacefully until around 10:30am. Pretty much just as I had intended. I’m not sure why people like Carnival’s bed so much. For me, they’re too firm. Sleepable, but too firm. At home I sleep on a memory foam mattress so I guess I’m trained to like things that conform to me. On the bright side, I brought my own buckwheat pillows from home and they made things a lot more cozy.

 

Now, I did not wake up naturally at 10:30… I had an on-board announcement serve as wake-up call. That announcement was the news that we were reversing our itinerary. Instead of going to Key West on Wednesday and Nassau on Thursday, we would be doing them in reverse order. This was necessitated due to a tropical storm front moving up from Cuba across the Keys and Florida which was likely to produce crazy rains and wind. Hopefully things will be nice on Nassau.

 

The change in itinerary does throw on loop in my plans. Luckily I had not made any plans for Key West yet as I have been expecting this sort of thing to happen. I was actually expecting we’d end up in Freeport instead of Key West versus having the itinerary reversed.

 

Unluckily, I had made plans in Nassau. I had planned for an appointment with Cabbage Beach Massage (http://www.cabbagebeachmassage.com) on Thursday. Was looking forward to that 90 minute massage. :D Thankfully I was able to use the ship-board WiFi internet from the convenience of bed to send them an email immediately following the announcement. I hope they will be able to squeeze us in on Wednesday.

 

Once we finally managed to get up and dressed, we headed to the Lido to grab “breakfast”… well as much breakfast as you can find at 12:30 in the afternoon. On Fascination, it appears there is running difficulty keeping the salad bar stocked. I’m not sure whether it’s owing to more people eating healthy or the design and placement of it – which makes stocking while people are serving themselves very difficult. (It is accessible only from the front so they cannot stock without interrupting the line.)

 

For “breakfast” I had chicken parmesan, pasta and meatballs, a big salad and a large bowl of fresh fruit. That’s my kind of breakfast. Other choices included eggplant, rice and beans, steamed broccoli, and some sort of vegetarian option. In the pool grill they had hamburgers, chicken tenders, fries, etc.

 

At 2pm today, we’ll have our Cruise Critic meet-up at the Sushi Bar. I’m actually writing this review today from the Grand Atrium watching it thunder and lightning out the side windows. I wish I had this view from my real office. I guess we’re headed through another storm. Many of the people from out on the Lido are streaming through now and all the CD staff just when whizzing by with their audio/video equipment from the events on deck.

 

PS… if you’re a CC member, don’t forget to post a CC door sign for yourself on your next cruise and participate in the Roll Call. You never know what kind of goodies your fellow CC members might slip under your door. ;)

The afternoon was pretty much a wash – literally. Rain, rain, go away. I ended up taking an afternoon nap.

 

I do have a complaint about the inside afternoon activities - which played into my deciding to take a nap. They were all held in front of the Stars Bar/Bogart’s Café in the Promenade. This area is open the casino. That means it can be smoky. If any smoker is playing at the games or tables closest to the doors, it can be particularly bad. The casino does NOT have positive airflow to keep the smoke from flowing out into the adjoining areas. This is one area where Carnival definitely needs to take lessons from the major Las Vegas casinos. I heard several passengers saying “this doesn’t happen in Vegas” and complaining about the smoke.

 

Dinner was ok. I had prime rib, greek salad, and warm chocolate melting cake w/ strawberry ice cream. Tonight I was going to be dining solo since my cruise mate was off being the star of the karaoke bar and doing drinks with some folks he met yesterday. The staff at the Sensation were great about it. I told them when walked in at 8:30 that I was eating alone but would welcome guests. They seated me alone at a table for 4 and few minutes later Viktoria seated a nice older couple from Georgia with me.

 

The prime rib arrived pretty much room temperature but cooked correctly. I tested fate and ordered the warm melting cake. I was rewarded with one of the thin crusted pools of warm chocolate liquid that disappoints. Carnival really needs to work on attention to detail with this item. I’ve seen lots of postings complaining about the quality slip on this particular dessert. I ate the little bit of crust and gave up . Instead, I drizzled some of the chocolate liquid over my ice cream and asked them to bring me a fruit plate instead. If you order the warm chocolate melting cake, keep in mind that your enjoyment will heavily depend on the skill of the hands who baked it off. I plan to take the Behind the Fun Tour and I’m going to mention this issue to the Head Chef. I’m wondering if their ovens are out of calibration. Cruise ship food is all about repeatability and recipes. When something can’t be consistently repeated, there’s a problem in the process.

 

After dinner, following a quick wardrobe change, I headed to the “Adults Only” comedy at 10:30p in the Puttin On The Ritz lounge. I arrived at 10:20p and couldn’t find a seat. And standing room was already full too! Eventually I ended up sitting on the floor up front. Based on the number of people trying to take in this show, it should have been held in the Palace Theatre.

 

I’m not sure why they even bothered to call it “R” rated. At best it was PG-13. 100% of the content could have aired on The View at 11am on ABC without any censoring. It actually felt as if comedian, Greg Russell, was stretching himself to try to make it adult. It just doesn’t fit his personality or demeanor. I think his time performing on weekends as Disney World growing up colored his performance persona. I could easily see him in that environment.

 

On a side note about smoking, the CD assistant who introduced Greg went over 3 rules with the crowd before starting (18+, no video, and no smoking). When she said “this bar is non-smoking”, a good 3/4 of the crowd applauded. So many people applauded at her remark that I was actually surprised. I’d take that as a sign that the winds have shifted toward making all public venues non-smoking. That sentiment was reinforced when I was walking back to my room afterward. 3 people were going back to their room complaining to each other about the dance Club being so smoky.

 

Sitting here writing this review, I called to order room service. YAY for room service! Boo for the 45 minute wait quoted on the phone. I ordered what I call my “bedtime yin-yang”. That’s a piece of chocolate cake, green salad and veggie sticks. I’ll let you figure out which is the yin and which is the yang. (Hint: I LOVE chocolate.)

 

Weather forecast for Nassau tomorrow… rain… rain… squalls… rain. Looks like my massage on the beach is going to get rained out. Been looking forward to that 90 minute massage from Cabbage Beach Massage for the past 2 months. It was to be the highlight of my birthday week cruise.

[itgeek]

FYI, Cruise Elf has started hers over here:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1286029

 

I'll be working on mine here for the next few days as I gather stuff off my phone, scan photos, etc.

 

I do have the Fun Times for the whole week to scan also - minus the main paper for Wed. Somehow I lost the main paper but managed to keep the tear-off section w/ all the activities.

 

- IT Geek

[Gypsywych]

Geek, you're much much much more organized than I am! But I do have pictures! Excellent start to your review!

[itgeek]

Day 3 – Nassau instead of Key West

 

As expected, the morning started off rainy. In fact the weather forecast for the whole day is for off and on rain. I woke up at 8:30am, checked email, popped my head outside and figured I might as well go back to sleep since it was raining. I got back up around noon. Headed to the Lido Buffet when I finally got up (since the main dining rooms were supposedly closed in-port).

Buffet was ok, nothing particularly memorable about the food. But I did meet a wonderful middle-aged couple (Charlotte and Dave) and ate with them. Not sure where my cruise partner was… he’d come in late and gotten up early. (I assumed he was asleep in a lounge chair somewhere – a suspicion later confirmed to be true.)

 

Today were supposed to have a massage from Cabbage Beach Massage (CBM) over on Paradise Island. (http://www.cabbagebeachmassage.com) Colyn, the owner of CBM, had been nice enough to email me at 7:30am (which I got when I checked email at 8:30am) to let me know the day appeared to be a wash-out for them.

 

Around 1:30pm the sun finally started dominating the sky, so I popped of the ship with the intent of picking up and mailing some postcards back home. Oddly there are only a couple stores in the downtown Nassau area that have postcards. I did find a few and mailed them from the post office in the port terminal. Note for future reference, they sell postcards AT the post office! Doah.

 

While I was out, I used one of the Batelco payphones to call Colyn at CBM. As expected, the day had been a total washout for them and they weren’t able to give any massages on the beach due to the rain squalls. I thanked him for the early morning email so I knew not to try to rush over to Paradise Island.

 

We had to be back at the ship at 2:30 for a 3:00pm departure. So I got in line ~2:20pm. Around 2:35, I finally made it to the front of the line. It had drizzled on us in line the whole time – just enough to think about using the umbrella I had with me but not enough to actually make me open it. A couple minutes after I got back on-board, the bottom fell out and soaked everyone waiting in the line, which now snaked all the way behind the ship, to get back on.

 

At ~3:00pm, Trevor (the CD) came on to let us know that due to weather, the Captain had decided we were spending the night in Nassau and that we would not be going to Key West at all. Instead, we would have 2 back-to-back sea days to close out the cruise. I was quite let-down as were many passengers but on the bright side, we’d get to spend the night out in Nassau if we wanted. The new call time for passengers and crew was 5:30am. As you might imagine, this would lead to a large contingent of cruise passengers and cruise line crew/staff spending the night at Senor Frogs. :D

 

In my case, I took it as the opportunity to take Colyn at CBM and his staff out to dinner. I headed back off the ship to a Batelco pay phone (note, you cannot use the “Call Home” phones that take credit cards to call someone on a local island number) to call and set up dinner. We ended up doing dinner at Café Matisse, behind the police/justice department downtown, at 8pm.

Café Matisse was a big surprise. Haute Cuisine… served to people in shorts and t-shirts as well as ties and slacks. $350 and 3 hours later, we all left stuffed and happy. FYI… the cheapest thing on the entre menu is ~$25, most hover in the $30-50 range, so bring some cash.

 

Got back to the ship around 11:30pm. The security folks looked at me cross-eyed since most people were heading OUT at that time, not coming back in. What can I say, I’m a geek.

 

Went to check my email and found the internet connection on the ship unresponsive. (Found out on Thursday that MTN had been doing upgrades to their gateway server all day – screwing up connections for both passengers and crew off and on all day and night. The satellite connection was just fine. Problem was you couldn’t get out to the internet because the gateway was down.)

 

Grabbed some fruit from the late night buffet and headed to bed around 1:30am.

 

- IT Geek

[itgeek]

Weather Leaving Jacksonville

 

One of the few kids on board. There were only ~150 kids (anyone under 18) on-board. So things were pretty peaceful around the ship, at dinner, etc.

 

Pool area

 

One of only 2 hot tubs on this ship, never saw them empty except when it was raining. This ship needs more hot tubs!

 

- IT Geek

[itgeek]

Passage to India, now non-smoking

 

Sushi Bar. Located on the Promenade, Deck 9, just around the corner from Casino and Photo buying. Never saw more than 2 people in line EVER. Maybe it was because our cruise was mostly Southerners. Open 5pm to 8:15 nightly.

 

View from Sports Deck. Never got a chance to play mini-golf. It was too windy.

 

Waiters the first night for Your Time Dining

 

- IT Geek

[itgeek]

Goodie basket in bathroom. Happened to be the exact guy's razor my travel partner used. I hated the Bienvenieu soap. Used the body wash from the shower any time I needed to wash my hands.

 

Swag we got for taking Behind the Fun tour

 

Our Behind the Fun tour group. Ross, the Training Director who lead our tour, managed to sneak out of the photo!

 

Jacksonville, FL beach the day of debarkation. Since we didn't get to go to any beaches while on the cruise, we took a couple hours in Jacksonville when we got back.

 

- IT Geek

[itgeek]

Mini-Golf (raining outside)

 

Serenity Deck (raining outside)

 

In port in Nassau. Overnight there were 8 other ships docked to wait out Tropical Storm Nichole.

 

- IT Geek

[itgeek]

Sensation Dining Room

 

Crew only area at front of ship. They have a pool (broken and empty at the moment), some desk chairs, and a smoking area. There's also a commemorative bell from the shipyard who built the ship. Weren't allowed to ring it as the captain gets pissed when it's rung! At night there's NO light in this area b/c it is directly below the windows for the Bridge.

 

Atrium

 

- IT Geek

[Kel040]

Thanks ITGeek for your review - it was very thorough !

 

We will be sailing on Fascination in a couple of weeks and so I am taking in all I can get !!! :D

[itgeek]

Ok, I've scanned and uploaded the following docs:

 

- Fun Times (all schedules but missing main paper from Wed, not sure how I lost it)

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B4mSgGf670qFMWM3YWYzNWMtMWQ4Ny00N2E3LWFkZGQtMWJjNDdlN2Q4Zjhi&hl=en

 

- Random Handouts (ship diagram, letters, etc.)

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B4mSgGf670qFZDFiNTM2MGItMDhmOC00NzhiLWIyOTYtNDZlOWRlNzQ5N2Qy&hl=en

 

- Behind The Fun Handout

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B4mSgGf670qFMDQyZjNlMDItMTI1OC00YjBhLWJmNDQtNGFjODQ0OWFkNTZm&hl=en

 

Some of the files are to big to upload to CC, so I'm posting links to my Google Docs. My apologies for the rotation of the pages. Didn't bother to go back and fix them since I figured most people would print them out anyway. If you want to read them on your computer, just rotate your monitor. ;)

 

I'm missing the letter from the Captain informing us of skipping Key West and the refund of the $10.38 in port taxes and fees we'd be getting because of it. If I find it, I'll scan and post it. Has the captain's signature and his maritime seal.

 

- IT Geek

[itgeek]

- Fun Times (all schedules but missing main paper from Wed, not sure how I lost it)

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B4mSgGf670qFMWM3YWYzNWMtMWQ4Ny00N2E3LWFkZGQtMWJjNDdlN2Q4Zjhi&hl=en

 

- Random Handouts (ship diagram, letters, etc.)

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B4mSgGf670qFZDFiNTM2MGItMDhmOC00NzhiLWIyOTYtNDZlOWRlNzQ5N2Qy&hl=en

 

- Behind The Fun Handout

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B4mSgGf670qFMDQyZjNlMDItMTI1OC00YjBhLWJmNDQtNGFjODQ0OWFkNTZm&hl=en

 

FYI, Google should NOT require a login to view those. If you're a Gmail or Google Apps user, you may get prompted to log in if you have an expired Google cookie in your cache. You can either 1) log in or 2) click "Sign in as another user", don't enter any info, and click the link again to access the page w/o logging in.

 

- IT Geek

[navybaby1113]

Thanks for the review!

[itgeek]

FYI, Day 4 and more pics coming tomorrow. Today I spent a crazy Monday playing catch-up.

 

- IT Geek