Analog187

I don't eat asian food but I saw that they had something like that.

Day 3 – La Coruna We went to the buffet for breakfast. It was pretty chaotic and hard to find a seat. I wasn’t impressed with the breakfast at all because there’s just not a lot of options. I miss the old Carnival buffets with the giant pile of donuts and pastries. However, the omelets are really good and as expected, they were pretty similar to the ones we had at the MDR the day before. As long as the omelets are this good, I’ll be fine with breakfast despite the limited options. They also have POG (pineapple orange guava) juice, at least they did this morning and it was great. We got off the ship right after breakfast only to realize the train doesn’t come for another hour and a half. La Coruna is a nice little town and once things open up, it’s not bad to walk around but at 9:30am there’s just nothing going on. We killed time the best we could and took a bus to the train station to go to Santiago Compestale which is the main reason the ship docks at La Coruna. It’s where most people are headed to. It’s a cheap half hour train ride but they really pack that train. Was pretty difficult to find a seat but we did. Santiago de Compestale is a nice town that’s not too touristy. The main thing to do there is to go to the cathedral which is one of the top tourist attractions in Spain. Of course we get there just in time for mass at noon as they didn’t let us in. We then walked back to lunch. I had Burger King (meh) because I don’t eat Spanish food and my wife wanted her authentic Spanish food. Her lunch cost almost as much as mine. She loved it. There’s a ton of restaurants near the cathedral and some are good and some are not so good so its always important to read the reviews. The reviews were spot on in this case. The cathedral was amazing. We’ve been to a ton of old cathedrals in Europe and this was probably one of the most ornate cathedrals we’ve ever seen. After that we just walked around for a bit and then got the train back. The bus schedule doesn’t really seem to follow the right schedule. Most of them were on time but some were just completely canceled as they never showed. They also only accept exact change so if you only have a 5 euro bill, you just paid double for two people because the driver isn’t going to give you change. Luckily we had change and we made sure to get some more for the way home. By the time we got back on the ship it was after 4. We walked about 8 miles. I got a few things done on the computer and then we took a quick nap before dinner. I had the chicken which was pretty basic since I get everything plain but it was pretty good. Had a good flavor to it. The cheesecake was pretty good too. I should mention here that the service at dinner is really good. So good that we are going to write something about one of our wait staff so she gets proper recognition. The one waitress knows I like lemonade so she gets it for me as soon as I sit down. I don’t even have to ask. Everything is done right away. She’s really on top of everything but the other wait staff serving us is good too. There’s two people for just our table of six and then there are other people that sometimes help too. Really amazing. We spent a few hours in the casino after that and we did pretty well but ultimately lost a little. Got a lot of playing time out of a small amount of money. The show tonight got moved to tomorrow and the Love and Marriage show got moved to tonight. It was fun but it seemed like it was the express version because the cruise director Frankie read all the answers which takes a lot of the fun out of it. Not sure if that’s just his style or he did that because they moved things around but I’ve never seen that done before. Still a good show but always better when they have to say the answers themselves. Some people brought their kids which was a little strange. R rated comedy show was after that. I definitely like that one guy better when he does his R rated stuff. Having comedy every night is great. I didn’t have a big dinner so I went up to the buffet to get something quick to eat and there’s a weird gap between 11 and 11:30 where the only food is pizza and I didn’t want a a whole pizza to myself. They should have slices like RC does. Long day but we get to change clocks back to get a little more sleep. We are having a great time and we are both really surprised by how nice this cruise is going. Luckily we haven’t experienced any noise in the hallway since the first night. The front desk has called several times to check on us and they even sent a letter. That’s really amazing.

Day 1 – Dover, UK This is my 4th Carnival cruise but my last one was about 20 years ago so none of that experience is really relevant to today. I’ve been on something like 45 cruises by now. This is my wife’s first Carnival cruise. Embarkation was about 5 minutes. It was the quickest we’ve ever gotten on a ship. Pretty incredible. As soon as you got on, they have you do the muster drill which was really easy. We just walked right over to it and they showed us how to put the life jackets on. Took all of 5 minutes. We were on the ship by about 11:30. A lot of people were already out by the pool but the buffet never seemed crowded. Since our schedule is still off we weren’t starving so we each had something small. I had one of Guy’s burgers and I thought they were better than just about other cruise burgers (which are usually horrible) but it wasn’t amazing. Looking forward to trying the pizza and other sandwiches. The iced tea at the buffet was sweet which is unusual for cruises as it’s usually unsweet. I brought on a bunch of cokes since Carnival lets you do that. We hung out for a while until our rooms were ready. Our room is an inside cabin right near the theater. There were no other cabins available when we booked the cruise but it’s actually a decent room given the age of the ship. 3 of our 4 bags were outside our door waiting for us. There’s lot of storage and the pillows are nice. The AC works well which is rare for us anyway on cruises. The bathroom seems really outdated but its functional. The TV is small but we don’t really watch TV on cruises anyway. I was absolutely wiped from lack of sleep so I took a nap for about an hour and a half. The bed wasn’t perfect but it’s better than other cruises I’ve been on. Our cabin steward dropped by and we asked for an egg crate. He looked at us like we had 10 heads but after some explaining, he said he’s put a comfortable under the sheet. Our 4th bag showed up right after he left. Guy knocked on the door to hand it to us instead of just leaving it out there. That was a nice touch. It was time for sail away so we went outside to watch it but due to some delays, we didn’t actually leave until after 6. Since our dinner is at 6, we weren’t able to watch it. Not the end of the world. We had MyTime dining but after hearing about all sorts of issues with that I changed us to the 6pm dining a few weeks ago. This means that we would be sitting with other people which we usually don’t like. Luckily we have some nice people at our table so it was a nice dinner conversation. I had the chicken parm and it was pretty much cafeteria food. I really don’t think there’s much of a difference between the buffet food and the main dining room food on most ships post-covid. Since I know what to expect going in, I’m not really disappointed. The dinner rolls were great though. Hopefully they have them at the buffet. We caught the first comedy show and he was good but not amazing. I love the Carnival has 2 comedy shows every single night. That’s awesome. There will be 4 comedians on this cruise. Really nice tough. I then gambled a little bit and broke even. The casino was mobbed since this was an elite cruise. It was very smokey unfortunately but that’s to be expected. We went to the Welcome Aboard show. Cruise director seems nice but the show was mostly him talking. They did have the production cast come out and do a few songs. I’m usually not into the dancing and singing but they did a great job. The production was great too. Hopefully the other shows are like that too. The late night comedy show was right after that so we went to check out that comedian. He was amazing. It was nuts. Such a good time. Will be interesting to see him do a PG show. I also want to see if the other comedian is better in an R rated show tomorrow. It’s only the first day but so far, so good. I was a little hesitant to sail Carnival again given their reputation but I’m really liking how a lot of things are done. I really like the Hub app but I wish messaging was free. It’s $5 for the cruise which is annoying. We’re not gonna bother with it. Although the ship is old, I think it looks nice. Really looking forward to checking out the steam room and sauna tomorrow which is free. You don’t really see that anymore on the newer ships. My only real complaint from today was a minor one which was that there was not football shown anywhere on the ship. But it turns out that this is not Carnival’s fault. It’s a licensing issue because we are in Europe. Day 2 – sea day I was pretty happy with the sleeping situation last night. Pillows are great and the bed is much better than most cruises I’ve been on. The AC worked better than probably any cruise I’ve ever been on. Only issue was that there was a lot of noise from the hall all night. Seemed to be crew members pushing carts of stuff down the hall. Hopefully that was just one night. There was a sea day brunch so we went to the MDR to check that out. Even though there were a million empty tables, they made us check in on the app and then have a seat in the lounge only for them to come get us about 3 minutes later to tell us that our table was ready. Kind of a weird because with the MDR we just walk in. No big deal though. I suppose this brunch is not that different from a regular breakfast since we just ordered breakfast. We both had omelets and they were really good. The bacon was good too. I went to the casino after that to put some time in. Did pretty good. Would have been better if I didn’t try to chase this one machine with these firecrackers you have to light. Didn’t get any bonus and I just wound up losing. Made some of it up on other machines. We met back up for the Suess parade and the cruise director said that this is the first time that no kids wanted to join in. There’s 57 or so on this ship which is nice because you barely see them. Blink and you miss it but it was still cool to see. We went to lunch afterwards and I tried the grilled cheese and the BLT. I really like that little sandwich station. The BLT was great because that is some amazing bacon. Grilled cheese was pretty good too. The wife went to go play trivia after that and I went to the gym to get ready for all this walking we have coming up. Gym was nice. After that I went to the sauna and steam room. There was hardly anyone there which is nice. I don’t think a lot of people realize its there. Felt so relaxed after and hour and half of that so I met back up with the wife in the room and we took a nap. Good thing I set an alarm because we could have kept sleeping. Tonight was elegant night and as expected, there was a wide variety of dress from short sleeve polos to tuxedos. We don’t bother getting too dressy but we just try to look nice. I was looking forward to trying the grilled fish which was barramundi but it didn’t seem grilled at all. I wasn’t a fan but thankfully I wasn’t hungry at all. My wife had filet mignon and she wasn’t exactly thrilled. Again, we have low expectations so none of this really bothers us. As long as we can find some good food on the ship, we’ll be happy. I also had key lime mouse which was really good. They were supposed to have the wait staff dance or something at dinner but due to a delay which I think was caused by a power issue, they couldn’t so they had some random crew member sing. It seemed a little strange and far from elegant. It was so loud that we couldn’t hold a conversation for 10 minutes while it went on. I suppose it was a nice thought but I think they should have just skipped it. We went to the 8pm comedy show. He was good but like a lot of comics, he’s better when he can do his R rated stuff. Both of the comedians had R rated shows later one but we want to get up early tomorrow since we have a full day planned. So far, this cruise has definitely exceeded my expectations. Today was a great day but it went by fast. Didn’t get a chance to check out the water slide because it was raining in the morning and by the time it cleared up, I already had stuff planned. I’ll check that out at some point.

Took my cruise, did a decent amount of gambling, for me anyway. More than the casual person but I didn't live in the casino for hours each night. No idea how much coin in I actually put in. Didn't get one email at all.

Thanks, this is what I was looking for. I realize that "coin in" is the real measurement here and that's going to vary on an individual basis but if I had a large enough sample size, I could get an average for dollars lost. On HAL I probably had around 800 to 1000 coin in over the course of the cruise and I still came out ahead which is rare. I've also run through $50 in a matter of minutes in Atlantic City so it all just depends. Since I'm getting an $1800 cruise for $200, I don't mind losing $800 or so. If I get nothing out of it I'll still come out ahead. We'll see what happens.

We are sailing on our first casino offer next month. Really nice 9 day cruise around Spain and Portugal. This was a Fun Match and I plan on gambling on the cruise in the hopes of keeping these offers coming. On average, how much do you think one would have to spend to get Carnival to offer you another free cruise? I gambled a decent amount on our last HAL cruise that we paid for and I haven't received one email from them about anything. Was hoping I'd at least get a casino discount or something. Since I'm already on Carnival's radar, I'm hoping to gamble more this cruise to stay on their radar. My budget is about half the price of what the cruise would have cost. Will stick to slots.

Never been on either but I am familiar with both. Not trying to compare the two, just surprised that there's no other lines sailing around that time. Makes me question whether these cruises are popular enough. I wasn't even really thinking about cruising this area anytime soon but I found a really good deal on MSC for a date that works for me but I've heard nothing but horror stories. So on the fence as to whether I should roll the dice and cross that area of the world off my list or should I do something else.

Trying to plan out the rest of my year and I noticed MSC has some cruises in November and December that visit the UAE and Oman. I've always wanted to go to these countries as they seem really interesting. The price is pretty good too. So I think a cruise would be an easy way to explore this area. I don't know anyone that's actually been on a cruise in this area so I was just wondering if there were any recommendations. Is this a great area to cruise or no? Only other option that time of year in that area is Seabourn so I thought that was a little bit of a possible red flag. Been on over 40 cruises. Over the last 15 months we'll have gone to Alaska, the Med, Norway and Spain/Portugal (in September). Thanks in advance.

It was the city bus. It's right on Google maps. Just type that in as your destination and then select public transportation. It'll show you the times and everything. I didn't even look at the receipt since we were going regardless but it's public transportation so I doubt it was anything crazy. Norway is a cashless society so you just tap your card. I didn't see one person using cash the entire time I was there.

Thanks! I always like to hear when people appreciate my pics. I do my best to get good shots.

here you go https://www.facebook.com/travelingwithjef

Yeah, I guess it's all about perspective, taste, interests, etc. Some people think Olive Garden is the best Italian food anywhere, others don't. Some people do pineapple on pizza, others think that's crazy. But it seems like post covid some people get upset when you have different opinions about anything. Anyway, I have nothing else to add as I put my final thoughts in the disembarkation post. I can't possibly suggest a Norway cruise enough especially one that goes to Flam and Eidfjord. If you have any questions, feel free to let me know.

Yes, we literally didn't change a thing. 10pm room was a nice temp. By about 1am it was as hot as the sauna.

I don't even think you can use cash. You use your key card and charge everything to your account. What's crazy is that there are no charges for this. I know other lines have a % unless you hit a certain level or something but with HAL, you just charge it to the room. The only thing is that if you have OBC you cannot use it to offset the casino charges. I made it a point to cash out every night anyway so I had hundreds of dollars in charges and a little more in cash since we actually won. Glad you appreciated my posts.

I don't doubt that at all. I'm sure the people in the cabins on either side of us had different experiences than we did. As I mentioned, at least a dozen people were very, very cranky so perhaps they had much, much worse experiences or they are just really cranky in general. No idea. It's nice to know that the AC thing isn't a shipwide issue.

You get it 100%. Not sure why other can't although at this point I think one or two of them are just trolls.

It's in my profile. I probably can't link to it here. Let me know if you can't find it

HAL had that this cruise. There was usually a line so I didn't bother.

Have you been able to compare NCLs specialty dining with HALs? We thought NCLs was way better. I think that shocked us the most.

We told them the AC seemed to shut off in the middle of the night. They assured us it was fine. I wasn't about to argue with them as they just didn't seem to care about a lot of things. That's my take. I can't believe how many people are getting triggered because I have an opinion or an observation. You'd think they owned the cruiseline. If I think something is the best ever and you think it's horrible, cool, you do you. But nope, a lot of people can't handle that. Lol. The world is going crazy. I admin 3 FB groups and one of them has almost 300,000 members. We have to delete so many comments because people get triggered over nonsense.

Agreed, their food is mostly trash these days. But they do have a few good things. We were just really excited about the food on HAL and in the end, we were disappointed.

I appreciate that. I spent a lot of time giving everyone the real picture of what I encountered with no hidden agenda. Despite that people got triggered. I wonder if it was just my room that was hot. I should have asked around. Either way, nothing was gonna get done about. It really seemed like they were understaffed.

That's what he goes by, the Pianist with the Hair. His real name is julian gargiulo. Either way, look him up on Youtube. He is really incredible.

And yet you're still here

It's nice to know that some people get it. Other people get triggered for some reason. I remember when you could express an opinion on these boards. Such is the internet these days. Probably the same angry people cursing off the cruise staff.