starstruck05

It very clearly says $48

Neither is George Forman.

Having met Chef Emeril several times (I'm also from New Orleans) and dined in his restaurants I assure you he will not put his name out there on anything he doesn't directly have his hand in. You may not have ever had the pleasure to have a conversation with him but he takes his job and his name seriously. If it says he will have a hand in revamping some on the menu, then he will.

I peg the Saints to still win the Falcons game on Sunday. We might have a riot here in the city if they lose to them. The whole NFC south sucks right now, however.

They way the Saints are playing right now, I can sacrifice and go on a cruise during football season. 🤣 But hey, they still have 2023 to redeem themselves. I'm rooting for the playoffs for my Pels for this season.

I have the 14 day Journeys cruise on hold that's Dec 1, 2024 on the Liberty. Less than 3000 for 2. Just waiting for my cruise partner to come back from her current cruise to confirm she wants to go. Panama Canal, Aruba, Curaco, Cartagena.

I think the advantage for NOLA is we can handle more than 1 ship while Moblie can only do one but I do think it is hurting the market being so close. I've taken 2 cruises out of there and I probably will again when the next ship, I think the Sprirt? comes. But only because it offers a slight bit of variety. Key word is slight. But I would rather have a Big ship in NOLA, especially one that can do long cruises, further out.

IKR. I was hoping for a big, newer ship, but no....I don't know why it keep being said the river can't handle a big ship when it absolutely can and has before. 🙄

I have no idea what happens if you can't pay the fine. The guy said he didn't have it and he was trying to get his family to help him. I assume you sign some kind of promise to pay or get banned from Carnival if you can't. Obviously you can't stay on the ship.

There is no way for anyone to know that Carnival isn't doing anything about it. The penalty for being caught is a fine. So unless you have spoken directly to someone who was smoking and asked if Carnival fined them, you have no way of knowing. I mentioned on another thread that I happened to be next door to someone who was fined. We reported the issues several times and they were warned at first and fined for the repeat offense. They had to pay the $500 before leaving the ship.

You don't really know what happened to the drunk guy and to be honest he is the one at fault. No they shouldn't have put their hands on him but being cussed at, harassed, called slurs, is not acceptable and people have their breaking point. Security not already having at least one person posted in the casino is a concern to me as I ALWAYS see one in there. They took way too long to come and the fighting could have been prevented. Anyone deserved a fine or to get put off it was the drunk guy and I sure he was reprimanded.

I'm going on my first Solo cruise in my first inside room and it all had to do with price and 99% of the people who answer will tell you the same thing. It's a 5 day cruise and I paid less than $300 for an inside 1a and the next up was an ocean view at double the price. I don't actually have a room preference. I hardly ever use the balcony and I close the curtains in my Oceanview.

Update your password on your email and get double verification if you can. That's how scammers find out where you shop and spend money at and are able to get this information. It's never that they hacked the actual company site. I work for certain company we all shop at and get calls all day with the same issue. Their accounts are all perfectly fine but it is sickly easy for scammers to hack your email over actually hacking your accounts on company sites. If they get get your info they probably wouldn't have used it to do anything actually with Carnival.

Oooo I like your gifts! Kind of wish we did get the extra bottles of water. Glad someone won the raffle!

I trust I know it should be marked up but that's like selling a can of Sprite for the price of a 12 pack. The sodas on boards are only about a $1 mark up from buying a single can at a gas station these days. That's really my point its a big jump. It needed to jump but not THAT mush. I actually wish they sold Boxed water onboard. Eco friendly and tasty water. I did try the ship water with my CPAP and my machine said heck no and stopped working until I flushed it out. 🤣

14 cruises, I'm fully aware of that and I choose not to lug a gallon of water on board when water can be delivered to my room for me.

The price of water is still less than $1 each which is fine except the same brand of water is sold in a 6 pack at Dollar Tree and Big Lots for $1.25. I buy the 12 pack every cruise but the $9.95 mark it is not equal to the value or quality of this water. Some people can't drink the direct ship water because it still has a bit on sodium in it , so tgey sweel up or it causes issues with certain medications and it can't be used for CPAP machines. If it was a better brand of water, I wouldn't care about such a price jump but because I know how much it actually is valued the cost increase doesn't make sense.

Monday, October 31, 2022 - Time to go home. My morning started early. Lights from the various ships and barges on the river shined bright. We were up and out the room just before 8 am. We headed up to the Lido for a light breakfast. (Had pretty early lunch plans). Still no Guava juice. I'm very sad about this but I ordered some on Amazon so I'll get over it. Lol. They called self assist by muster and zone tags in batches. Muster stations A and B must had had a ton of people getting off because they called them while we were still in the room, long before 8. The C and D and tags 1-10 got called when we made it to the lido. We had Tag 14 and got called in the next group. It was completely unorganized once you stepped out of the elevators on 3 and everyone just shuffled until they got to the lobby and were forced into single lines. Pretty much smooth sailing after that until the elevator line for the garage but still only about 20 minutes wait. We hit the road by about 9:35 am which is almost the exact same time we arrived 4 days ago. So for the tourist and local who have never been, our lunch plans were to go to Don Phoung Restaurant and Bakery. It's way out in New Orleabs East on Chef Hwy but 100% worth the drive. We went in the are because early voting had started and this was the only day we could go do to vacation of course and my work schedule. Don Phoung is Vietnamese food. Plus the second best French Bread in the city. If you can please stop by. I had the rice noodle bowl with pork and shrimp. All in all we had a great cruise despite the hiccups. I take it in stride. I'm looking forward to my solo cruise on the same ship in January. It will get me through the long retail holiday season!

At the current moment it is not affecting river traffic. For this part of the river it's not even the lowest its ever been like up north. They are continuing to monitor it but not changes yet.

We headed back to the room to get ready for dinner and get in our "costumes". We wore matching Buckee Halloween shirts and crystals and TuTus. Just festive enough because I couldn't decide on an actual costume. We headed to dinner. Table ready less than 10 minutes. Same table as yesterday, 133 in the back. Two lovely girls at the window seat was a nice change from yesterday. Had the Shrimp cocktail, salad and boil strip loin. Pineapple sherbert for dessert. Sorry, I forgot to get a picture of the Strip steak but it was good. Cooked perfectly.( med rare) Not the best cut of meat but we'll cooked perfectly for me. Got a side of Mac and cheese from the kids menu as well. Anyone miss the Mac and cheese with bacon? Was that at brunch or dinner? Whenever it was it was good and I miss it! Mom had the Steak and Ale soup, salad and the fried chicken. All good but baked Alaska was 1/3 of Alaska as her ice cream was only chocolate. After dinner I finally went to guest services. I stood in line among the confused about on board charges people. ( one lady thought the break down for who gets what from your gratuities meant she was being charged everytime she ate at the Buffet. I wish I was making this up.) I happen to get to speak to the guest service manager who listened and apologized and was throughly shocked. He ended up calling the Entertainment Manger and the cruise director. Since it was right at another show time, neither could come speak to me directly but they offered their apology and that it will be taken care off. I was offered a refund on my deal or no deal cards. ($50 package) which I wasn't expecting but accepted. I am happy I put in the effort. I sorry, some may say I was wrong or took it too far and you are entitled to your opinion but just note I'm usually one to brush stuff off and not care but bad customer service? Being that rude? No I can't let that go. We ventured to the casino to play a bit and cash out our banks. I ended up playing the $40 sitting in my bank trying to be a big spender. Lol. I did win but played it back. After I calculated, I didn't even outright spend half the money I brought to gamble. I played back what I won and I'm still going home with money. Win in my book. I probably won't ever be invited on an Elite cruise, but I'm okay with that. Who needs a driver and free liquor in my room and $1000 casino credit? ( Can you tell I'm lying? ) TBH gambling onboard is just a pastime. I much prefer land based loyalty programs and their perks. I was whatever the second to highest level at Hard Rock before the pandemic. I've since of course dropped all the way down. So after the casino and went back to the room to finish packing. It was almost 10 and bags needed to be out by then. I ,at first, was going to carry everything off but we honestly have no rush to get off the ship. We still ended up with an early tag 14. We decided to stay in and finish our wine from the steakhouse and watch a movie. (Free Guy) I was feeling very tired and drained. I don't usually do deck parties and we knew we were not going to win the costume contest as some of the costumes around the ship were super elaborate! A lot of Alice in Wonderland, Sanderson Sisters. The Addams Faimly. Flo from Progressive. I was impressed! I forgot to mention, I received my last Casino gift. A beach bag a huge towel. Only a set for me, not for Mom however.

Sunday October 30, 2022 (Buckle your seat belts) Today is pre Halloween! Very excited to dress up tonight. Several people were dressed up yesterday so I think some got confused which night was which. Anyway, it's another almost jam packed day. We need to go get bingo cards, brunch again, two trivas starting at 11 with Broadway Triva (One is Harry Potter which I will not miss) try to squeeze in tea time, Q & A, the seafood shack, bingo, dinner, and the Halloween Party. Oh and packing. I despise packing. I also have not been to the library and have decided to get the 50th anniversary ornament. We are putting our tree up next weekend so I decided to get it now. Yes we are those people. It's 8:53 am and I'm trying to decide if going get the bingo cards at 9:30 is worth it with the possibility of the line being long and also brunch running late and missing triva. Decided to wait and go to the normal Bingo sales at 1:45pm , which is also the Q & A. This morning is also the Dr. Seuss breakfast. It's $10 per adult $8 per kid and can actually be booked on the app but it's completely sold out. I'll include screenshots from the app. We headed to breakfast around 9:45/10 and took about 10 minutes to get a table. Many people either not wanting to use the app or can't figure out how it works. Carnival may need to send out a video before the cruise to explain all the features. I think that will help. Breakfast was exactly the same as last brunch, sub bacon for sausage. Took a bit longer than normal but we made it out just in time for Broadway triva. While was somewhat hard and I question one of the answers but......I won! 8 out of 20 which the host thought I said 10 but even at 8 no one else was even close! No ship on a stick however. I got a shiny metal with a 50 anniversary lanyard. Believe it our not, this is my first triva win! Not a successful at Harry Potter Triva but tremendously easier than past Potter triva on other ships, I will say. I missed a couple of easy ones and ended up with 8 right again but the winner had 17. Now we are in a bit of a lack of activity time. So we are reading in the lobby for a bit. Bingo sales don't start until 145 and it's 1213 right now. I don't think we are going to make it to the seafood shack or tea time, which is a bummer but oh well. We will see. Boy has it been an interesting afternoon. I should have done this live so ya'll could have hear what happened in real time. Bingo card sales started at 1:45, except the venue changed and it was not in the theater but rather in the Eagle lounge aka the comedy club, same for the Q & A and the actual Bingo. Anyone else see a problem with this? I'll wait..... So people were obviously upset and the lines were long. I got in slow line it seems and sent Mom inside to grab a seat. The lines were so long, most people could not tell that you didn't have the stand in line unless you were getting a Bingo card. So I won 2 $25 Bingo packages. In the past have won the same and even the casino credit. In the past I have been able to just combine the 2 $25 packages to get 1 $50 ($48) package. Makes sense right? Not to the guy from the Fun Squad. I did not catch his name but it wasn't the point of him telling me no. That's fine if I can't be done that way anymore, I understand. It was how he spoke to me. He told me "Stop talking about the Big package because you're not going to get it!" Excuse me! I have worked in Customer Service since I was 13, I currently work Customer Service for one of the world's biggest companies. I deal with 100 different personalities a day. You do not speak to people that way. If I was wrong, explain why I was wrong. If you didn't understand , get help but do not talk to me like a child. I left with no bingo cards, pissed as h*ll. I decided to report the issue to guest services because he needed to know that won't fly if you are in a customer centric job. I could have let it go but no. I decided to wait however because I was also hangry at this point and wanted my Seafood Shack. Headed to the Lido and the food came out quickly. Pretty decent but still lacking seasoning to my New Orleans taste. Lobster roll and fries. FRIES had a TON of seasoning BTW. We sat in on the Lido for a while reading. Also I was trying to decide how to approach this issue. BTW virtual Queue for guest services does not work.

We headed back to the room and took much needed naps. OH and the casino hosts dropped off a plate of cookies while we were in port. A nice surprise! I thought it was going to be those chocolate canpay things. We started getting ready around 330 as there was alot going on tonight. It started with scary movie triva but we actually ended up taking too long and missed it. There is also deal or no deal tonight, the love and marraige show and the only gateaway casino only event tonight at 11. So we wanted to get to dinner early. Not really hungry at the point of writing this but dinner doesn't open for another 10 minutes at 530 so we are just sitting in the lobby listening to the string trio.(Also amazing.) We ordered our table at 5:29 and it was ready less than 5 minutes later. Tonight was lasagna and bbq ribs on the menu. The dining room was dead but not surprisingly. We were seated in the back, one table from the window. We were going to ask to move to that one and then they sat two more people at that table. And boy were they a pill..complaining about the special menu since one of them had an allergy. Anyway our dinner was great but I could barely finish it. I got the lasagna as a starter with my salad and the bbq ribs.Ended with Pineapple sherbert. The starter portion of the lasagna was huge, I was scared to see what the entrée size was! Ihaven't had it in years as this night I usually get the alligator benefits. Mom got that and the warm chocolate melting cake. After dinner, which was just under an hour, we listened to the string trio finish their set and waited for deal or no deal card sales to start. It was 1 for $20, 2 for $40, or 3 for $50. We ended up getting 3. We only won on 2 cards so hindsight, should have just gotten two! Lol. (Wait until tomorrow) Did not, thank goodness, get picked to go on stage but the first person got over $400. They didn't have the $1000 case either! The second person went home with a little over $100. I won two $25 bingo packages. So now we are playing bingo tomorrow. Guess I made my money back? After Deal or No Deal was the Love Song Triva which was fun except the people not playing shouting the answers or trying to sing the full song, title included, while the rest of us are playing. We didn't win. The last like 3 or 4 songs were obscure country songs that we had never heard of. I'm obsessed with the show, Monarch, now so I'm getting back into Country. After was the Love and Marraige show which was a bit different. Every cruise director has their own style. Louis was funny and quick witted. He changed up how he picked the middle couple which there is some debate over who actually won. The show was entertaining as always. I don't think I've missed a love and marraige show in all my cruising years. Next would have been the Comedy show in the big theater, which was usually watch if they move it here because the normal comedy clubs are way too small. We usually skip it. But we had to skip this time and head to the casino for the only Gateaway only promotion of the cruise. This was called Dodge The Bull. They picked 4 or 5 names and you roll a dice as a multiplier (sadly every single person got 1) and then spin the wheel with cash prizes between like $50 and $300. The highest actually the only "winner" got $150. Everyone else landed on the Bull and got the default $50. My name scrolled on the screen several time but no luck, I didn't get a chance to play. It was fun to watch and many people who were picked weren't there. We ended the night with ice cream and cookies and went to bed around 1 am.

So plans changed. We decided to walk around the port. On a mission for Vanilla for my brother's mother-in-law and a Christmas ornament. Then a drink and lunch. We had a little breakfast on the lido. Not bacon day. On a 4 day, it seems to be the sea days. No big deal for me. I prefer sausage. Grabbed that and the hottest boiled eggs on the planet. Strangely no Guava juice. I'm gonna run down tomorrow before seaday brunch and see if it's just a fluke. It was nearing 930, with breakfast over at 10. We got off the ship and walked through the terminal. The Sunshine was pulling in and the Paradise was already in. Two ships we have not sailed yet so it was exciting to see. However 3 ships also meant 3 ships worth of people and the most we have had since the restart is maybe 1 other ship in Port, so the crowd was noticeable. I would love if the port had more seating. I know they want us to walk and shop but we enjoy people watching and seating is still so few and far between. I literally know where every bench is and have sat on them all. Plus it rained right before docking so everything was wet. We sat and checked our messages and any calls from home. We have Verizon so we have data, calls and texts in Mexico included in our plan so either wifi (which we usually use Fat Tuesday) or our own unlimited data worked on roaming. I can attest this does not work in the Bahamas and a $50 charge had to be removed earlier this year. (Didn't actually use anything in the Bahamas, it caught us while switching switching from airplane mode to Margaritaville's wifi) After some people watching, we moved to shopping. No Christmas ornament that I thought was unique enough, so I may buy the anniversary one still. Did find the Vanilla we like at I think the shop is called Joe's? Right by the pharmacy and we get the Aztec brand. They only had clear this time however. It was a bit after 12 at this point, we decided to get a drink at Fat Tuesday. Normally we go to Pancho's but we also have been to Fat Tuesday many time. TBH drinks back in NOLA at New Orleans Original are better (same brand) but when in Mexico. We shared a beef nacho which was huge. $16 and Both got 24oz size frozen drinks. $18 I pretty sure mine was a time keeper or something like that. It was good fruity and strong and I'm still slightly tipsy writing this. Mom had a margarita. Very good and strong as well. Here's the drama because there always is something. I wanted the sports bottle because I have absolutely nothing I can do with the yard cup. I wanted a bigger drink because the price difference was hardly a couple of $ for a 12 oz cup to 24 oz. I don't know if it was the language barrier and I didn't attempt Spanish as I'm horrible at this point at it. But he somehow assumed we wouldn't have enough cash to pay for what we ordered. I explained cash was fine. I assured him I could afford it. I didn't even have any cards on me anyway. The drinks came out as 3 12 oz cups and we had to have the conversation again. Issue fixed but still annoying. I don't know if he had issues in the past but I would never order anything I couldn't pay for and we had more than enough cash between the two of us. Not our first rodeo. I've used both card and cash in Port with no problem and have patronize all the port restaurants in all these years. I brushed it off. He was very attentive after that, however. We enjoyed being by the water and the nachos were pretty good. Giant jalapeños. Had to cut them in half. Our bill came to like $59 he said there was a system issue so he couldn't print a receipt. I just gave him $60 and $10 in tip it should have actually been more like $52 ish but whatever. I'm on vacation and would have spent way more than that between the taxis and drinks/food at the beach. We were significantly tipsy so decided to head back to the ship. It was maybe 1 at this time? We walked through the shop and mom decided to take a bike taxi back. I walked. She tipped him $5 for the ride. Mind you I carried the Vanilla all the way back. Thanks Mom. Lol.

Saturday October 29, 2022 Well to start both of us made it through the movie. Not without drama before and after. Let's break it down. The movie before that "started" at 9 was Ghostbusters: Afterlife. I've seen the movie a ton of times because I'm a huge Ghostbusters fan. So we walked to the lido around 11:45 pm I noticed Ghostbusters was on and only about let's say 20 minutes into the movie. Oh heck no. We found loungers non the less on the section equal to the hottubs and waited. 12 came and still Ghostbusters was on but the crew was already on it and heard the (very loud) complaints. Around 12:10 am, Blackphone came on and it was 1000% worth the wait. Loved it. Wish I had actually saw it at the movies now. The movie ended about 1:50 am and we headed to the Aft of the ship to get to our room. The Blue Iguana side was roped off. So we did the Guys side. I considered a late night ice cream since I haven't had one yet but they were cleaning the machine. So we head the the back only to be stopped by a door. Opened the door and they are cleaning the carpets on the back side. That's cool but the other side is also blocked off. The security lady happened to be walking back and I asked her how are we supposed to get to the back. She looked confused and just said go through the door until she opened it and saw what was going on. She went off on the team and walked us to the other side with the guy in charge and asked him did he realized he roped both sides of the Lido off and were they crazy as it was not only a security risk but you also trapped half the ship from the other. We were eventually able to get to the back elevators. There were at least 30 people out by the pizza as well who had no idea they couldn't get back to the front of the ship. I woke up around 730 Am. Tried to go back to sleep but didn't work. I started getting ready for the day. The original plan was a beach day at either Playa Palancar or Buccanos. Neither place had we ever been. They weren't A. I.and that's exactly what we wanted. However, I discovered we were only in Port until 330 which seemed weird to me but also messed with our plan as neither placed opened to the public until 11 and one was at least a 20 minute taxi ride. I didn't want to risk it with such a short port day and hardly any beach time. I'm pretty sure we are normally in Port until at least 5.