'Twas the Week Before Christmas - Live from the Eurodam

[POA1]

The food and beverage department manager was nice enough to agree to give me copies of the menus on a memory stick. (Thanks for the suggestion Roger!) That will save some scanning time, but it will delay the posting of the menus for a bit.

 

I dropped off the memory stick yesterday and I'll post the menus as soon as I get the sticj back and have a good Internet connection. Tomorrow is San Juan and Wednesday is St. Thomas, so I should have cellular data both of those days.

 

Our goal tonight is to try to hit the piano bar to give you some feedback. Our dedicated team is also going to scope out Lincoln Center. They've got a 6 PM show which we can make before dinner.

[SilvertoGold]

Re: Sunday's elevator photo.

 

Cute and classy shoes, nice dress. I vote for that combo over a gown!

[POA1]

Re: Sunday's elevator photo.

 

Cute and classy shoes, nice dress. I vote for that combo over a gown!

She said, "Thank you." Apparently Poohby Joe and Christian Louboutin shoes are okay for posting. (under the Poohby and Loubies rule.)

Edited December 19, 2016 by POA1

[POA1]

A couple of phone photos of the Christmas display in the lobby. I'll take some with a proper camera later. This is a little something to tide you over.

 

 

[kazu]

Just a thanks to the Institute of Cheer departments for all of their hard work researching :)

 

Looks like the ship is very pretty for Christmas from what you have posted:D

 

You should be in the spirit (Christmas or otherwise) by the time you get off.;)

[superoma]

Enjoying this immensely. Thanks for taking us along.

 

 

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[IndyDenise]

I'm not Dave Barry. He's much funnier. I'm a technology consultant and formerly a systems engineer with AT&T Labs and Bell Labs. As most people know, engineers are known for their hilarity.

 

 

 

Dave Barry has nothing on you.

 

POA for the win.

 

 

 

 

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[IndyDenise]

She said, "Thank you." Apparently Poohby Joe and Christian Louboutin shoes are okay for posting. (under the Poohby and Loubies rule.)

 

 

 

Yes, please let Huskerchick know that I think she has lovely shoes to match her lovely hands.

 

One day maybe we will get a head shot!

 

 

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[mek]

A couple of phone photos of the Christmas display in the lobby. I'll take some with a proper camera later. This is a little something to tide you over.

 

 

 

I was on the ship last week - did they ever get the train running?

[SilvertoGold]

Would love to see more of the Christmas decorations!

Great posts, must be hard work doing all that onboard research, though. Much appreciated!

[AtlantaCruiser72]

POA1 - Might I be so humble as to suggest that the Institute of Cheer immediately transfer you to the Department of Rest, Recumbency and Relaxation! You have been working much, much, MUCH too hard for a Holiday and need two WangWang's IMMEDIATELY!!!!!! :p:p

Edited December 20, 2016 by AtlantaCruiser72

[Krazy Kruizers]

Loving all your reports and links.

[LadyVol1]

The Institute of Cheer's Department of Scanning Things is pleased as punch and tickled pink to announce that your request has been fulfilled. Kinda makes you wish that you had asked for something better, like a big cash prize or a pony.

 

http://www.evernote.com/l/AFiLwVjtootA3a9km7QkQFePfVVJRHZUfmA/

 

As always, the Dept of Scanning Things runs OCR (optical character recognition) on all its PDFs. That means that most of the text should be selectable and available for copying and pasting. If you have your computer's accessibilty options turned on, you can even even make your computer read the PDFs in a robot voice.

 

 

THANKS and I love reading your posts. Cheers!!

 

 

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[POA1]

Loving all your reports and links.

 

Thanks! You'll be pleased to know that we did a full, deep dive, in-depth photo essay and caviar report Monday night at the Pinnacle. We've got photos, observations and laboratory notes forthcoming once we hit Puerto Rico tomorrow.

 

Remember how I used to post that the caviar was a steal at $45? It's now $70/oz and it's still (IMO) a great value. (DO NOT TELL ANYONE. HAL's caviar is still less than half the price of Celebrity's.) If we had one criticism, it would be that we could either use a few more - or - slightly larger blinis.

 

We've managed to find our groove and our cruise is firing on all cylinders. Thank you all for bearing with me and I hope I didn't come across as too whiny. We have a dinner in the MDR tomorrow, followed by De Librije on Wednesday. I (pinkie swear) that we will take some food pix soon.

[erewhon]

Thanks for your reports.

Good to see photos of the Christmas decorations.

[65 Gator]

Great reporting... I looked at the Bar List and noticed that there is NO Guinness listed. Can you ask your wine steward if it is available? I was able to get it with my SBP last cruise...

[POA1]

 

We've been going to San Juan for years. We've even stayed there a number of times. If DW & I got to pick, we'd take a taxi to the San Juan Ritz Carlton and have frozen mojitos at the poolside bar. They're worth the trip. However, we're traveling with DFIL and we should probably do something more educational and worthwhile. That means that we'll probably tour San Cristobal. (We visited El Morro with him in 2014. If we get all the Spanish colonial forts punched on our punch cards, we get a free cannonball and a replica dubloon.)

 

 

The Department of Advanced Planning had a little bit of a brain fart last night. They forgot to grab a premade sandwich to stick in the fridge for what we like to call or post-game debriefing. Then, due to a scheduling mishap that may - and I repeat may - have been caused by someone deciding that a Maker's Mark night cap might be a good idea, we didn't make it to New York Pizza before they closed. It saved some unneeded calories, but i was counting on having something to absorb the alcohol. Since we were snackless, I used my liver.

 

 

It's time for some mid-cruise shout outs. (I can't believe that I'm trying "mid-cruise" already! We envy you retired people. Seven days is just not enough.)

 

 

 

Our room stewards have been great. Their names are Catur & Tri. We use Cat up a Tree as a mnemonic. They're like cleaning ninjas. It seems like the minute we leave, even if for only a moment, they make our room up. We haven't made any special requests of them, but they do their regular job exceptionally well.

 

 

As I mentioned earlier, we're very fortunate to have excellent cabana stewards, Brian & Rod. They are very attentive and we've been using them to grab lunch for us each day so far. Dining al fresco in the Retreat Cabana area is a little more relaxing than wandering down to the Lido. Remember the happy & joyous children I mentioned earlier? The pitter-patter of little feet is approaching thundering herd o' buffalo levels at certain points during the day. Rod & Brian are also quite helpful in reminding us to have our Champagne every afternoon. (Technically it's Prosecco, but my mother raised my to be polite and to never question people who were offering me bubbly.)

 

Our MDR waiters, Eri and Restu, have given us excellent service each night. They always remember DW's after dinner cappuccino and even managed to scare up an extra peach cobbler for my father in law last night. Our wine steward, Joan, has done a great job. (Joan is a guy.) We make it pretty easy on him though, because I pick out our wines beforehand, once we know what we're ordering. We have them bring everything but dessert wine out at once - because who ever has the most stemware on the table wins.

 

We have not hit every bar yet, but service has been uniformly good throughout the ship. Standouts are Henry at the Queen's Lounge/BB King Bar, Ronelio in the Boardwalk Bar (piano lounge) and Russel and Gin in the Crow's Nest. Russel is a woman and works behind the bar. Gin is a beverage steward who works the floor. She has an awesome name for someone who works in a cocktail lounge.

 

If you're keeping track, we have been to the Lido bar, Crow's Nest, Ocean Bar, Queen's Lounge and the Pinnacle Bar. We still have to visit the Seaview Bar at the aft pool and the Silk Den bar at the Tamarind. Rest assured, we're working on it.

Edited December 20, 2016 by POA1

[POA1]

Great reporting... I looked at the Bar List and noticed that there is NO Guinness listed. Can you ask your wine steward if it is available? I was able to get it with my SBP last cruise...

 

Will Do! That seems like a mission critical task!

 

I should mention that the Pinnacle Bar still has the old cocktail list with all the specialty drinks on it. Also absent on this cruise has been the "Drink of the Day." Mine's always Maker's Mark on the rocks, but I was really hoping for something prune based. Honest story - They had a prune based drink of the day on the Noordam in early 2014. It was not the Prunacolada, although that would have been an outstanding name.

[whogo]

Many thanks to the National Institute of Good Cheer and its Department of Half Full for the excellent research. How kind of you to spend your precious vacation time investigating the bars and service when you could be relaxing and having a good time.

 

Never heard of this Harry Fish, must be quite the salad bar guy to have people miss him.

[cruisingxpert]

Just wish you would cruise more so I could have my daily fix of fun reading. Love your posts.

 

Think you must have been imbibing some of the Makers Mark when you posted the fitness schedule on the

Urodam:D

[Liz54]

While I love a free drink when offered I'm not big on champagne. Would the steward in the Cabana's substitute a glass of wine? Failing that how bad is the champagne? First world problems I know!

[65 Gator]

Since I am burdening you with research, I would like to pile on... Last cruise, I became fond of an after-dinner drink that I called a "Baby Guinness" which was Kahlua topped with a layer of Baileys Irish Cream. As I recall, HAL calls it something else but I can't find the menu where it is listed. Just curious if it is on the new menu since we are 39 days out from a Panama Canal Transit on the Rotterdam. We have a large selection of ornamental HAL glasses that it was served in (on the SBP)...

[POA1]

How's the coffee? I like the coffee in MDR over lido only because I end up spilling it.

 

 

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It was fine. I'm not a coffee aficionado though.

[POA1]

Hope you don't forget this server last day of your cruise. Sounds like he went above & beyond. Looks like you're really enjoying your cruise. Enjoy reading your daily up dates.

Allan

 

Already done. We're a tip as you go people. I'll also remember her at the end of the cruise and on the survey.

[POA1]

Since I am burdening you with research, I would like to pile on... Last cruise, I became fond of an after-dinner drink that I called a "Baby Guinness" which was Kahlua topped with a layer of Baileys Irish Cream. As I recall, HAL calls it something else but I can't find the menu where it is listed. Just curious if it is on the new menu since we are 39 days out from a Panama Canal Transit on the Rotterdam. We have a large selection of ornamental HAL glasses that it was served in (on the SBP)...

 

Since this was a request directly related to our core research mission, we gave it A1 Super Plus Priority. We dispatched a technician to the Crow's Nest with the greatest possible speed to inquire about the Guinness. "Who wants to know?" asked the barman. "65 Gator." the tech answered. "Oh, if it's for Gator, we have both Guinness Stout and Blonde."

Edited December 20, 2016 by POA1