ArcticKitty Tackles Alaska - Carnival Splendor 02-10 May 2022- Trip Planning, Trip Report, & Mehhhhbe Some LIVE

[arctickitty]

After his nap, we got Special Someone more coffee at Jumpin’ Jimmy’s Java and visited the Top Banana produce market.

 

 

Habaneros, turmeric, and tomatillos

 

 

We never see unblemished eggplants up here.

 

 

The colors…

 

 

Plants for sale outside.

 

 

We never see fresh produce in such great condition.  And out in the open.  Costco has the best produce here usually but it’s all in packages.  Stores are super hit or miss and more on the miss, so I usually don’t bother.  

 

[arctickitty]

We wanted to visit the Ballard locks before dinner and walked that direction.

 

 

Generally…

 

 

Since I feel compelled to try scary things I got on that twisty thing and spin way too fast.  I also did what I could to climb the other parts.

 

 

We saw several elaborate catios.  
 

 

And found one more Little Free Library.

[arctickitty]

We made it down to the locks and realized there was more there we wanted to explore than we realized.  We decided to strategically hit up dinner early with a goal of walking back to the locks after.

 

 

Dinner was Walrus & Carpenter.  I don’t remember why Yelp led me to them, but their menu caught my eye for the combo of local oysters and fresh vegetable plates.

 

 

I started with sparkling wine from Venice and Special Someone had the beer from

Quebec.  Seemed kind of random but they were both excellent and also both were tasty with the oysters.  The beer had hints of those warming spices I like so much, almost like…cardamom.

 

 

We got three pairs.

 

 

They were delicious and I liked touching and looking at the shells afterwards.

 

 

Now I don’t think I’ve eaten kohlrabi since I was a kid and my mom used to get it at the farmers market for free, but this dish was bomb and bomb-rated compared to any vegetable.

 

 

This is the grilled treviso that we ordered because I was impressed that there exists on this earth a vegetable I hadn’t heard of before.  The cashews were incredible.

 

 

After tasting the first two veg and seeing our neighbors’ fried oysters, we decided to spend all our dinner money in one place instead of snack hopping and went for the fried.  So worth it.  Perfectly dry crispy coating and intensely moist and flavorful interior.  All those ocean flavors with no “fishy.”  Deep.  And the aioli, mmm.

 

 

This rapini was good.  Really good.  But it was outshines by the other veggies.

 

 

Somewhere along the line I ordered this cocktail, the Smoke Show.  Somewhere along the line I wandered into the mens’ bathroom by mistake.  This was a fun and delicious drink.

 

Now we went so early (4pm) and on a Sunday because the internet had led me to believe that it was a competitive sport to get a table and they don’t take reservations.  We lined up with lots of others on the street and gladly accepted the offer of a spot in their back garden.  It was a fresh and wonderful location.

 

And as for service, it was also fresh and wonderful.  We felt like the staff cared about the food and their passion pervaded everything in a positive way.  At the end, Special Someone did this thing he does every once in awhile and gave this poor kid a heart attack by asking to speak to the manager.

 

So that he could tell them what a great job the staff were doing.  
 

We felt happy and uplifted from dinner and felt that it was absolutely worth the money.

[arctickitty]

We got ice cream from Salt & Straw again.

 

 

I remembered to take a picture of the menu this time but not our cones.  I wished up and got a split scoop of Cinnamon Snickerdoodle and Salted Malted Chocolate Chip Cookie dough.  They were excellent.  Special Someone got Chocolate Gooey Brownie and it was good but I liked mine better this time.

 

Our after dinner walk was back to the Ballard locks and we thought it was a fantastic and fascinating place.

 

 

We saw a seal.

 

 

 

 

 

As fascinating as all that was, we realized we were in for a show when we saw a craft approaching that was a little bit larger than the average sailboat.

 

[arctickitty]

UnCruise Wilderness Legacy 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[arctickitty]

For those who missed it the first time around, here is the description of the smoke show cocktail:

 

 

That cardamom made an appearance again…

 

And for someone who doesn’t usually like orange, I kept seeming to encounter it…and like it.

 

We went to sleep very happy.

 

And excited…

 

The next day was to be CRUISE day!!!

 

I had a coffee shop picked out…that made their own cardamom syrup…

[arctickitty]

We woke up to light rain in Seattle.  

Surprise!

 

 

Instead of going out for coffee, I did yoga first and then woke Special Someone and invited him to join me on a coffee walk.  We wanted different drinks and I wasn’t excited about carrying two drinks in the rain, along with solid food.

 

 

It was a tough decision, but when I saw the daily special, I felt I had to try it instead of the house made cardamom syrup.  After all, I’d never had molasses in coffee before.  
 

 

Special Someone got an Americano with housemade caramel sauce.  Caramel is his favorite fancy coffee drink flavor and this caramel stood out.  In restrospect, I partially wish I’d stuck with my plan to get an americano with cardamom syrup…but…oh well!

 

 

The biscuit was good!  This was a rare time that I didn’t read a menu word for word and just shared what Special Someone picked.

 

 

Ohhhh…now I remember…we weren’t all that hungry because we’d pregamed with the dill havarti and cardamom bread back in our room.  Yum it was.

 

Special Someone for word the AirBNB had approved us to stay past the 10am check out until 11am so that we could catch our Uber then for our 11:30 cruise terminal arrival time.  Game on!  It was still raining so we walked back to the room and I worked on scrapbooking until it was time to go.

 

 

[arctickitty]

Carnival friends,

 

I am exhausted again, but I know this is a moment many of you have been waiting for…

 

And given the uncertainty in my life, I figured I’d try to get as far as I could today, so here we are.  
 

Cruise day.

 

Embarkation day.

 

All around hooray!

 

Have I mentioned lately that this would be my first covid vacation? 
 

Have I mentioned lately this was my first time traveling outside of Alaska since before covid?

 

Have I mentioned lately that this would be our first time traveling together except for camping/rustic options?

 

Have I mentioned lately that we both juggle a fair amount of stress and uncertainty at work?

 

I for one really, really felt like I deserved this vacation.  And we’re crazy about each other so I’m glad we got to experience it together.  
 

I wrote previously about the process in the terminal, but to sum it up, on May 2 they were enforcing mask wearing indoors but provided masks.  Everything was seamless for us because we had Verifly and ArriveCAN already completed so once those were checked we were

waved on though. Lines for those with completed apps moved very quickly.  
 

 

Before I knew it, we were climbing those steps.

 

 

And walking the gangway…

 

 

And I felt like the splendor and joy exploded all around us once we stepped on board.

 

 
 

I’m not usually one for hoopla, but stepping aboard this restart brought tears to my eyes. 
 

 

And for all the Andy Mercer fans out there, that’s him in the white shirt.  

 

 

 

 

[arctickitty]

Trip Day 3/ Cruise Day 1

 

The welcome aboard dancing was fun and festive but crazy loud.  We couldn’t hear each other.  We started to walk around the ship a little and the first place we popped in was the Alexandria Library.  The shelves were very nicely stocked with a wide variety of books; more than any other cruise ship I’ve been on.  I didn’t let myself look very much because I’d already collected more books than I would get to on this trip at the Little Free Libraries.

 

 

I was also impressed with the selection of board games.  They had the standard array of puzzles and classic games as well as dozens of brand new alternative type games like this one.

 

We were about to continue exploring when the onboard shopping manager introduced himself and then suggested we go muster, so we did.  Special Someone said we needed the red “That Was Easy” button.  Next we went to our cabin since we were the startup cruise and the rooms were ready.

 

 

 

 

 

We used the room service breakfast card several times and learned that our order would come 15-45 minutes early except one day that it came on time.  We never used regular room service because both the app and the QR code menu only had the for-fee room service menu.  If there is a free room service menu, I never found it.

 

“Art” in the bathroom.

 

I was happy to find the retractable clothes line.  I hadn’t seen anyone mentioning that Carnival had these.  We used it almost every day for our necessities because the laundry room one floor away was completely broken.

 

I didn’t pack shampoo or conditioner and didn’t research it in advance. The dispensers include shampoo and soap, no conditioner.  However, the shampoo was better than I expected and kept my hair soft and not-tangled.  It felt like it was a 2-in-1.

 

 

Papers in the stateroom.  We never got any more paper delivered unless it was a letter telling us something we needed to know.  I’m glad we didn’t have to sort through a mailbox of junk mail everyday!

[arctickitty]

Trip Day 3/ Cruise Day 1: First Masala Tiger meal aboard Carnival Splendor

 

 

 

 

 

[arctickitty]

Trip Day 3/ Cruise Day 1 views around the Carnival Splendor

 

 

 

Deli menu.  The special changed daily; egg & cheese, pulled pork…

 

 

The fancy cakes are only in the Lido at lunch, not dinner.  Dinner desserts were individually cut and not as extravagant.  You might be able to get a slice at Afternoon Tea on sea days.
 

 

We only tried the fancy cake the first day as we found it to look better than it tasted.  That’s the peanut butter s’mores cake.  The cake was dry but the frosting was yummy.  The snack was porchetta and broccoli from the lunch buffet.  I often stopped by the carvery even when I’d eaten elsewhere to sample whatever they were slicing.

 

 

These balls are in the sports bar off the casino.  Later on, I saw people using them as footrests but I thought they were fantastic ergonomic seats.  I only sat on them that first day, but I’m still glad they’re there.  
 

 

 

When we wandered through the casino, I was struck by the pretend horse racing.  I loved miniatures as a kid and my Grandma loved them her whole life.  I thought the realism was remarkable.  I wanted to take a video of it and Special Someone said you can’t take pictures or video in the casino.  I said oh well, I already have.  
 

 

Here’s the evidence.

 

The windowsills in the casino were actually nice cozy sitting nooks.

 

 

Our neighbors went all out on the decorating and we used this to know which way to turn.  Towards the igloo for aft and away for forward.  Very helpful.  When we were coming “home” we knew we were headed to the correct hallway when we saw a don’t mess with Texas display.

 

 

 

I was certain the decorator was a teacher, but she said she wasn’t.

[chadci]

I'm scared to visit Seattle.... mainly because I won't want to leave.

[scrotser]

Can't wait to hear all about your ports!  I'm living vicariously through your cruise until ours in July. 🙂

[TrqoisWtrs]

Great review of Seattle, took lots of notes for my next precruise stay👍.  And those shower curtains were awesome lol.

Looking forward to the rest, love the Pink Lady!❤️

[Eli_6]

OMG. The Masala Tiger looks AMAZING!  I can't wait.  We board in 12 days. 

[arctickitty]

3 hours ago, chadci said:

I'm scared to visit Seattle.... mainly because I won't want to leave.

You know, we were both a bit sour on Seattle after our first dinner.  We enjoyed the food and drink but the attitude was just such a buzzkill.  The neighborhood around it was perhaps just a little too hip and very, very busy (it was a Saturday night).  Not being able to find public access to the water that night was also annoying.  In the past when I’ve traveled to cities they’ve made me want to live in a city again, but that night we both felt like whoo-whee we are glad we don’t and it made us feel very fortunate that we live in Alaska.  I also feel glad I’m not surrounded by temptation all the time!  To live near $12 ice cream cones that are amazing would be tough.

[arctickitty]

2 hours ago, scrotser said:

Can't wait to hear all about your ports!  I'm living vicariously through your cruise until ours in July. 🙂

Ports are coming…all FIVE of them!!  Enjoy!

[arctickitty]

2 hours ago, cruisin*tigger said:

Great review of Seattle, took lots of notes for my next precruise stay👍.  And those shower curtains were awesome lol.

Looking forward to the rest, love the Pink Lady!❤️

You’re welcome!  This was a very different Seattle trip for me as I’ve always stayed near the airport and used the light rail, but I was really pleased with how it turned out.  I picked up a Seattle guide magazine at the airport and it has profiles on a lot of different neighborhoods and I think for the next time I’m through Seattle, I’d do a similar strategy and pick a different neighborhood and/or theme and go with it.  We both discussed the idea of doing a winter museum trip to get out of the deep cold sometime.  I definitely still want to visit the National Nordic Museum and I’ve never been inside any of the museums over by the Space Needle.

[arctickitty]

2 hours ago, Eli_6 said:

OMG. The Masala Tiger looks AMAZING!  I can't wait.  We board in 12 days. 

It’s absolutely bomb bomb bomb.  There will be more Masala Tiger pics ahead, too.  It was so fun to try dishes I’ve never seen in restaurants and great to enjoy lots of old favorites.  There is not quality Indian food in our area but the entrees at the non-quality place start around $20 a piece so we figure we more than ate our cruise fare just at Masala Tiger.  (I haven’t allotted $ in my budget for beef in a few years so I joked that I planned to eat my cruise fare in beef…probably was successful at that as well).

[luvcruzing]

6 hours ago, arctickitty said:

I wanted to take a video of it and Special Someone said you can’t take pictures of videos in the casino.

 
I believe the rules have been relaxed. I’ve got plenty of photos of my slot wins. Well, not plenty - a few. 😝

[arctickitty]

Trip Day 3/ Cruise Day 1

 

Afternoon Walk Around the Carnival Splendor

 

 

The pictures I took are a mix of things that caught my eye and things I thought Cruise Critic-ers might want to know.

 

 

 

I hadn’t seen the juice menu posted so I snapped it.  Java Blue opened at 6am and Juice and Java opened at 7.  You could get the basic espresso drinks at Juice & Java.  We did get green juices twice and really enjoyed them.  
 

 

 

 

Special Someone found this nook off to the side of the gym.  Initially he dared me to crawl into it just for kicks.  But it was so nice inside, I invited him in.  We sure surprised some people when we crawled out.

 

My original yoga plan was to do it outside, but it stormed the first couple of days, so that didn’t work for me.  I did go up to the nook one day and enjoyed it in that fashion.

 

 

Red Frog Pub on 4 had free games.  I love games but never got around to playing any

 

By the way, all the Red Frog confused me.  Three bars called red frog!  
 

 

My first view of the water slides.  I am not an adrenaline junkie by any means but I used to be so scared of falling I wouldn’t do just about anything physical. I found a physical therapist who helped me learn how to balance better and did a lot of hard work to try things that were scary.  Last spring and summer I started going down to a river bed to walk on driftwood logs and rocks and I’d purposely throw sticks over the water and make myself walk across.  My range of motion and balance are so much better now and I love being able to move better and do more.  So whenever I see something that looks scary to me, I pretty much just have to do it now, to keep pushing my envelope.  So the water slides were on my list.  And they looked nuts to me.
 

 

 

View of the 9 buffet from the upstairs BBQ area.

 

 

I took pictures of the buffet menu when I could.  My personal opinion is that it sounded better in written words than it did visually in the trays.  Lots of brown, plain food.  Many meals I could only find 1 or 2 kinds of vegetables.  I used it for snacks, which generally meant a taste of the carvery and a scoop of whatever veggies they had.  
 

Many others have posted that the serve the same food in the buffet as the dining room.  No, not really.  It’s not like the carvery meat is the same as an MDR entree.  You definitely see some of the same dishes but mostly not at the same meal.  For example there was a salmon wrapped in puff pastry one night at dinner and I saw it in the carvery a few days later.  So it was the same dish, but not at the same time.  Some side dishes appeared on the buffet as well.  For example, I had a really good roasted vegetable lasagna in the dining room and found it later on the buffet.  In the end, for me, I’m very glad I was traveling with someone mostly willing to go to the dining room because it mostly worked better for me.  I never had a whole meal at the buffet, only a “snack” or a second or follow up meal (aka second breakfast). 
 

 

They ran out of pineapple, kale, and yellow sugar packets across the ship later on.  Watermelon was not available at every meal so I tended to grab a bowl full whenever I saw it.  We heard complaints about the lack of bacon on the buffet but never had a problem getting it in the dining room.  I didn’t see any bacation signs.  
 

 

Looking down into the lobby.  I liked how it was open so many floors up.  I would have preferred if they had live music during the day on sea days or short ports instead of endless trivia, but there was always plenty to do.

 

 

Say Play string duo

 

 

Lobby bar

 

 

The sauce station at Guys.  The actual pumps never worked.  I couldn’t seem to remember this and kept trying to use them and they’d just make spitting noises.  They kept the condiments in squeeze bottles at Guys, the BBQ, and the Deli.

 

For the record, the best condiment on board was the truffle sauce at the Deli.  I would go get a little metal cup of that to dip cucumbers into.  And I really appreciated aforesaid metal cups.  I like to dip things.  It’s so much more satisfying to dip into a little cup than smear goo around your plate so thumbs up to Carnival for that.  Keep the cups!

 

 

[arctickitty]

6 minutes ago, luvcruzing said:

 
I believe the rules have been relaxed. I’ve got plenty of photos of my slot wins. Well, not plenty - a few. 😝

I definitely later saw signs saying no recording in the casino but given that the name of the game on a Carnival cruise is that you can do just about anything you want, few rules seemed to be enforced.  

[arctickitty]

Trip Day 3/ Cruise Day 1 first dining room dinner aboard the Carnival Splendor 

 

 

 

 

Special Someone wanted to do shared tables, which terrified me, but he said it was up to me.  I’m as brave and toggled the box on the app to indicate that we could be seated with others.  For this meal and all others, we never saw anything other than “less than 10 minute wait” and I don’t think it ever took more than 10 minutes for our table to be ready.  A few times we got lost (including the last night) and it took us almost our entire 10 minutes to get there.  (I think that last night was the worst we got lost because we were so sure we knew where we were going).  
 

Anyway, that was the only time we did shared seating because it took freakin forever to get through all of our courses and get out of there.  I also was really uncomfortable because I have a hard time sitting still for that long and I was self conscious to wiggle as much as a I need to and to go what I call “strategic walks” which is to walk after the order is placed and then again if there’s a wait between courses.  I felt socially pressured to sit still and Behave although Special Someone said I should do whatever I want and he didn’t want me to feel uncomfortable.  My bum leg literally starts to hurt if I don’t move it enough.  Anyway no offense to the others, but we didn’t try to sit with strangers for our other meals and service was quicker even when it was slow.  

 

 

[arctickitty]

Carnival Splendor Dinner 1

 

 

Roasted vegetable ricotta lasagna.  This was so good I got more at the buffet when they had it.  The veggies were completely caramelized and so delicious.

 

 

Quesadilla.  Lots of chunky filling and pleasant fresh toppings.

 

 

Calamari.  Tender and not chewy!  The dipping sauces were good but we both liked the white one the best.  It would have been worth getting two orders.

 

 

Indian vegetarian entree.  This was so dried out the dishes had grown crusts.  It was blech.  The bowl of white stuff tasted like plain old regular sour cream.  We didn’t order Indian food in the dining room again and stuck with Masala Tiger.
 

 

Broiled strip loin.  Tough and mostly inedible, but I ate all the veggies.

 

 

Chocolate melting cake.  Our table mate stopped the server later and made them add peanut butter.  The quality of the chocolate was not up to my standards so I did not join the melting cake fan club.   This was was almost entirely liquid inside, which we found out is not always the case.

 

 

Strawberry dessert I did not order but tried anyway.  Meh.

 

 

Strawberry bisque that I ordered and didn’t get but then asked for it again and then got.  It tasted like a too-thin room temperature smoothie.  I got so frustrated trying to eat it with a teeny tiny dessert spoon that I decided to do it my own way and lifted the bowl and slurped it up.  This was difficult to do and keep a straight face at the same time.  I’m sure the servers were glad to never have to deal with me again, although Special Someone pointed out that slurping is the pinnacle or politeness in some cultures.

 

 

Lilli Duo, my favorite 😍 was playing in the lobby during dinner so I enjoyed their music during my strategic walks.

 

 

I was frustrated and not full from such a long dinner and got second dinner at the buffet.

 

Edited May 13, 2022 by arctickitty

[arctickitty]

Carnival Splendor Day 1
 

After dinner explorations

 

 

Our first towel animal.

 

 

What caught my eye in the arcade.

 

 

Ive seen people ask about the arcade prices.  Single plays started at $1.10-1.35 and I saw as high as $2 depending on the game.  Most games had multiple play options for a discount.

 

 

 

 

 

The seas kicked up once we left Seattle.

 

 

Piano bar