Duke95

I am curious about the salad bar. Hubby loves steaks and pork and he is very find of this type of Brazilian restaurant but I eat only a plant-based diet. We would have gone to Samba Grill, but we weren't sure if there would be anything I could eat and the price was too high to pay if I couldn't eat.

I think that the salad bar only option is just $15.

I really shouldn't have downplayed the salad bar so much. It did look very nice and there were lots of different options up there. I believe there was shrimp ceviche along with your regular salad greens and such. There were also some nice deserts and things to get at the salad bar when you were done.

Could I make a meal out of it? Probably. It was certainly as good as any salad bar elsewhere on the ship. Not sure I would want to pay for it, however.

It is simply shocking to me that anyone would find the meat cuts at this restaurant "blah" unless you just don't like meat. I guess to each their own.

On a sea day in which we were traveling west from Jamaica towards Cozumel, it was pretty warm that whole day. Even in a sports coat, I did not notice that the temperature was unbearable in the shaded areas.

The restaurant was extremely warm in parts of the Solarium when we first got in there. The "signature table" as they called it, was in direct sunlight until about 7:30. We decided against that table and stayed in the shade towards the salad bar. We all agreed that was a good decision. The table further out away from the salad bar area certainly had amazing views though. Guess it all depends on what you can handle.

Since others have asked, thought I would put together a quick review of our night at the Samba Grill. We had reservations for a party of 6 at 7:00 on Thursday of last week.

Upon arrival, we were invited to help ourselves to the very extensive buffet featuring multiple cold cuts of salamis and sausage meats which were very nice to whet the palate. (As you will notice, I did not mention the salad - no self respecting carnivore would talk about the salad bar in a place like this. My wife did say the salad was very nice, however and they really loved the cream of asparagus soup.) While enjoying the appetizers, they brought out some cheese-bread balls (think cheese in the middle of a piece of dough) that were deliciously sinful. One bottle of wine gone, we finally got around to pushing the button to turn our light green and the heavenly meats began appearing.

I'll try to list them in order, but I think may be off here:

1) Chicken wrapped in bacon - this was much better than I thought it would be. The chicken got a little too much saltiness from the bacon, but was surprisingly tender. I normally am a steak nut, but this was not my least favorite like I thought it would be.

2) Filet mignon - this was very good. Made rare to my taste, it was a wonderful piece of meat that was cooked perfectly and had good flavor. Again, a little salty for me but otherwise it was very nice.

3) Sirloin - Again, a very good piece of meat. I have to admit that at this point between the wine and the dancers, some of the meat started looking and tasting the same, but it was still very good.

4) New York Strip - this was incredible. Again rare for me and it was done to perfection with some nice marbling and a good fatty flavor without being gristly. I had 2 helpings and should have had three.

5) Lamb chops - I'm normally not a huge fan of lamb but this was a very good cut of meat. A lamb fan at our table said it was amongst the best she has had.

6) Top Round - We normally consider this to be a stew beef type steak and were all a little surprised at how tender this beef was. Very little in the way of marbling so it was not my favorite but I was really surprised at how tender they kept it.

7) Skirt steak - Again, not something that is normally a high end steak, the skirt steak surprised me more than the top round. It was very good with great flavor that seemed to permeate the meat a little better than the other steaks. If the Strip hadn't been so good, this would have been my favorite.

8) Pork Loin - I don't love pork, but this was very tasty.

9) Sausage - At this point late in the meal, things were really beginning to slow down. I love sausage and this was good, but it wasn't memorably great.

I had 2nds of filet and strip. I wasted way too much room eating those cheese breads which probably cost me a few more bites of beef, but otherwise I was proud of my meat consumption overall.

Dessert for me was a custard which was not so different from the custards I saw at the Mexican food restaurant. It was good, not great. The rest of the desserts at the table looked good but most were so full they really didn't comment much.

Overall, it was my favorite dining experience (we also did Izumi, tapas at Vintages, Rita's fiesta, Central Park 150) barely nudging out Central Park mostly because of the vast quantities of meat.

I'll try to answer any questions.

Since I am the one that provided the contents of the coupon books in the link that Carol provided.........those are both the old coupons and the new coupons with the exception of what Gina has added.

Wonderful. Please tell me from that link what is contained in the Emerald books as was asked by the original poster.

Thanks in advance.

Let's see if I can explain it to you:

Those specific coupon books are not, in fact, what she asked for but rather the old books prior to the changes. As she specifically asked for the "new" coupon books, your link was not at all pertinent to the question asked.

A simple use of the search function would have resulted in your having noticed that those specific coupon books were not the new ones. :D

Thanks to mommabean for answering the question.

http://www.boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1278365

Why would that thread help answer her question?

I am partial to 9730.

;)

Paul, I don't know if you read these original posts anymore but I did want to resurrect this one to thank you for sharing this story with me. Although it did "waste" about 3 hours of my time today, it was an absolute blast reliving the detective work of yourself and those posters over at scubaboard.com.

What an amazing story.

Please let us know when NBC will be airing their piece they did on it.

You are not going to find that perfect spot. :rolleyes: No free parking at beach hotels while you cruise, You will need to park at the port if staying at the beach. Shuttle service and some parking opportunities would be aavailable at hotels closer to downtown or the airport. Not beach resorts, I'm afraid.

You are going at peak time, Even places like Hyatt Place North or summerfield suites will be over 200$ per room. Some in your group will have to make some concessions.

 

Perhaps look at some of the resorts further from the port. Have you researched the area and hotels on tripadvisor yet?

Oh, I know that we won't find the perfect spot. My post was a lot of jest to make light of some of the requests that members of my party were conveying to me.

We have done a lot of research and this is what we have found out:

1) Beach hotels will absolutely let you keep your car there... if you stay with them for a week before the cruise. One night - not so much. The Ritz Carlton offered to keep our cars there for the week, but I really don't feel like shelling out $1,500 for three rooms.

2) I did look into some options that were away from the Fort Lauderdale area and some were fantastic. However, I think the general consensus is that we want to be close to the port so we can have a nice leisurely morning on the day we sail.

3) I think we have finally settled on giving up on the beach resort idea and instead going with a hotel away from the beach. Anyone know anything about the Hyatt Place - Airport South?

Thanks everyone for all the help. We will get this worked out.

This seems to be the place to ask questions of this sort and my guess is royalcruz can help when he gets back in a couple weeks. (How dare you leave when we are in need of information?)

We have a group of potentially upwards of 15 going on the Allure in late March. We will all be coming in by car and we will likely have three and possibly four cars. We will be arriving on Saturday and can arrive at any time including very early. The cruise departs on Sunday. Here are our needs (wants?):

1. A hotel on the beach (the Bahia Mar is not an option because one of our group is very picky about being on the beach).

2. Free parking during the cruise.

3. Safety for our car while on the cruise.

4. Price is not the primary issue but it would be nice if we could PL or HL although I know that March is the worst possible time to do it.

5. Shuttles to and from the port would be nice but are not a dealbreaker. Obviously, we don't care at all about shuttles to the airport.

6. We would like to get as few rooms as possible - question becomes do we need a separate room for each car which we will be parking at the hotel?

7. I plan on sitting beachside or poolside the whole day filling my rumrunners in preparation for the following week all the while making sure to keep myself hydrated by sipping liberally from the bottles and rum runners. Thus, I don't care much about how nice everything is and would be just fine with a cheap room by the port. Alas, the remainder of my group is very concerned with making sure everything is nice and resortlike.

In a nutshell, we want a cheap room, that has a fantastically wonderful resort like atmosphere, that will let us park our car there while we go on the cruise and keep it safe, and that will basically cater to any other whims we may have. Any ideas?