imouer

2 hours ago, cruizergal70 said:

I find it very problematic to choose a cruise line because you judge certain people as being beneath you and not good enough to share a table with you in the MDR.

Yeah thats not the issue, we want to make friends with people we can relate to.  Its that simple, if you like music, tennis, science, environmental activism, hiking etc then we can have a drink, a laugh and a good convo... if you are someone that thinks those things are stupid or fake news well... its not a good time for us... its not about judging other people, its about us finding the right fit to maximize our fun. Dont read too much into it.

Thinking Celebrity and MSC are on the list... I like the idea of being around more Europeans, they are fun.  When we first started cruising on Princess there use to be a lot of them and the food was different in a good way

12 hours ago, navybankerteacher said:

It may not be a matter of being smarter - but some people prefer making an effort to make a meal more than just feeding your belly.  You do not have to put on good clothes to eat, or talk with other people about things that you find interesting, or only deal with people with similar education backgrounds - but having things in common - (I do not mean similar ideas, because radically different ideas can be put forth in a civilized fashion) helps.  And a very easy thing to have in common is an interest in making a meal an opportunity to share (not impose) ideas.

 

But, the bottom line is that smart people are able to make routine things interesting.  And making meals just a matter of filling bellies is not an interesting thing to do.

Right... its not that we feel smarter or feel the need to wear a tux per se OR that we are snobs (trust me we both grew up very blue collar and are not rich) but .... let just say... the last Carnival cruise we took felt like we were trapped in a Walmart all week (and we are Platinum there).  Dont get me wrong, I like to shop at Walmart... but if I am going to pay be trapped in a retail store for a week, I would rather it be in a World Market or Whole Foods 😉  We are also both pretty athletic and active and in our early 50s (young at heart), we take the excursions that involve effort.  We like to meet up with folks that we can have adventures with too.   I guess its fair to say that we have outgrown the lines we started with but perhaps our budgets have not grown as fast... but then we are helping 2 kids got to Med school too so there is that.

We have been on many Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Princess sailings and we have noticed in recent years (especially on Carnival), that the atmosphere is a bit tense, less friendly and less formal.  We are fun loving, open minded folks that like to drink, dance and let our hair down and be crazy but also we also like to dress up at formal night and have high minded conversations about science, medicine, environmentalism, travel, culture and current events etc .   The last few cruises we were on were odd, there was a lot of camo and flip flops worn in the formal dining room, not a lot of new friends being made like in the past, felt segregated and we felt we were in the vast minority from the rest of the passengers as they seemed unrelatable frankly.  Not sure if its the current climate or if the cruise industry clientele is changing or both but its definitely not feeling as welcoming for us as it use to be.  

Is there a line or a sailing that would feel more welcoming and like a better fit for a couple of east coast scientist that we could sail with on our MD kids?  We are not rich so it has to be affordable to middle class folks but just a bit more.... of our "tribe" to borrow a Carnival marketing term.  We LOVE cruising and meeting people and we are getting desperate to find a cruise experience that we can enjoy again... its either we find something new that fits us are I fear that our long held dream of cruising non-stop in retirement in will have to come to an end 😞

OK, thats odd....   Its a nice feature to have.  Now I have no way of contacting my new friends, we all thought PMs worked here 😞

Did CC turn off private messaging?  I thought I use to use it.  We met a bunch of people on our last cruise and I was supposed to contact them via CC PM to arrange our next trip and Its disabled for me 😞  Is this working for you all?

Thanks!

Gentle persons: healthcare isn't an appropriate subject for this forum. I suggest you take this discussion elsewhere.

Lol why are you quoting me responding someone else talking about healthcare I never brought healthcare up?

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Our right to not have medical care comes the day after the Emergency Room. And all thereafter.

So much for personal responsibility yay free lunch!

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I assume you were not a history major in college.

 

You need to look at the context of "general welfare" in light of the time the Constitution was written.

This may help you better understand:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/ajbulava.wordpress.com/2011/08/13/original-meaning-of-the-general-welfare/amp/

 

Again, providing for things like healthcare and public education are nice goals and there's even legislation in some states and within the federal government that have created related requirements to provide for them.

However, the US constitution (as originally written and intended) has nothing to do with healthcare being a "right."

 

 

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No I was a history minor not a major. That’s one person‘s interpretation of the general welfare clause I can provide you with links that counter that all day long but suffice it to say it’s definitely open to interpretation just like the Bible. I think I’ve made my point that your blanket statement is not so black-and-white however

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That everyone should be able to access decent healthcare is a reasonable concept.

That said, as regards it being a "right" in the US, you may want to reread the US Constitution where, basically, the only things protected as "rights" involve commerce and defense.

 

 

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Actually you’re wrong here it specifically says to provide for the welfare of its people and when you look up the word welfare in any dictionary the very first word is health and safety. Don’t take my word for it Google it

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They had lobster on my seven day cruise last week but I can tell you it taste like a rubber chicken no big loss it’s nasty

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They would just let you on anytime you get there they may not get through the same line but they will be held to a specific time

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1- Ditmar, I'm jealous of your country's health care system. Ours is awful. Health care should be a right, not a privilege.

Agree 100%

2- As for snobbery, I find cruising to be extremely affordable, even for us poor folks. (I'm on a teacher's salary.) The fee includes a week's lodging, all you can eat 3 meals a day and tons of entertainment (both on your own like the pools, but also on stage). The only thing that boots a cruise's expense is the airfare.

Agree 100% we are civil servants with kids and always loved the value and escapism.

3- How do I block certain posters on this board, like someone who feels a need to preach about his fit and healthy lifestyle on a cruise board, as if any of us care?

How rude is this? If that was your take away from my earlier post then I suggest you work on your reading comprehension skills. There’s a whole lot of context that you apparently missed by skipping around I guess. I wouldn’t describe my lifestyle as particularly healthy or fit either, just normal (for a coastal elite LOL) unless of course you compare me to your average carnival cruiser out of the golf ports ;)

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This is my absolute favorite Carnival ship we loved it on our two-week trip to Hawaii it’s just beautiful

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Many of them might look rough but if you're in trouble, they would not hesitate to give you the camo shirt off their back.

I hope you where a XXXL

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To further clarify my earlier statement, I may live in NC now but I am originally from the northeast. I have also lived in the Midwest and deep south. I understand about regional prejudices. I have been the victim of judgemental attitudes more than once in many places I have lived....getting the "where are you from" question and chastisement on inflections of my verbal accent, or lack thereof. It's not nice to judge people on where they live or where they are from originally. It is no reflection of who they really are. And personal political leanings or beliefs are really no one's business nor should people comment on red or blue state, etc.!

I’m with you hundred percent. Ironically I have a pretty thick southern accent and I normally get treated like the hick around people from the Northeast Midwest etc. so it was really a different experience to be treated like the Yankee elitist on this last cruise quite a turnaround lol

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Perhaps they felt you were judging them as much as you felt they were judging you?? Just a thought.....

 

I don't know, as I was not there but I agree with one thing, I NEVER judge a person by where they live. There are wonderful people from all parts of this country, and the world in general. It just pays to keep an open mind and heart.

Well to be fair I am being a bit more judgmental now in retrospect because I’m feeling pretty put off about our recent experience but at the time my attitude was one of acceptance for sure

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What a great looking dog. Funny enough, our screen name is a tribute to our dog Domino. She doesn't want her picture posted, she is embarrassed to not even be a Crown and Anchor member.

 

On a separate note, I understand people being afraid of dogs, but how can someone "hate" dogs?

 

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I am afraid of dogs because I’ve been mauled by them In the past and my child get very very sick around them with severe allergic reaction’s. They also tear up your house it ruin your property value. Every friend I know that has a dog they jump up on your crotch and hurt you and their house smells like dog. I have no problem with legitimate service dogs for blind people and such but don’t subject my kid to being ill because you want to bring your pocket pet into a store or public place because you have supposed anxiety, That’s just being selfish

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I have chosen a ship over another because it had the Tandoor Grill. Some of the best food available at sea.

 

 

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One time my wife were eating at the tandoori Grill in this lady with the heavy North Carolina accent walk by and loudly proclaimed that that was the worst damn Chinese food she had ever had! LOL

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Wow. Talk about judgmental. I almost commented on an earlier post of yours but I didn’t because I wasn’t sure. Now I’m certain. Your attitude is exactly what this whole thread is about.

Trust me if you met me you would be shocked. I walk around in sweats and holy Levi’s, camo T-shirts and drive old fords. Both my mother and my mother-in-law grew up in trailer parks as well. That said I want to feel special when I’m spending my money to go on a cruise ship, we all do. We pay to be pampered and treated like royalty for one week of the year. We want to dress up for elegant night and feel like $1 million even if it’s only temporary. But when you’re surrounded by people that look like Larry the cable guy in the formal dining room you can I have to wonder why you wasted your time and money when you could’ve just going down to the local Honky-tonk or Walmart for that matter. But here’s the real kicker, on our last cruise that a New Orleans my wife and I were is open minded and friendly as we possibly could have been but the people being judge mental were the people that look like I described above. We are both fit and trim, well dressed in our cruise wear, and once we mentioned that we were from The East Coast we just got blank stares in the conversation is ended there. This happened about five or six times a day throughout the week. We even heard a Comment about living in a blue state. These oversized midwesterners and deep Southerners were looking at us and judging us, I found them to be borderline rude. trust me it’s a two-way street.

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Am I wrong in thinking your comment was less than kind to a certain segment of society? :confused: Just because a person has a blue collar job does not make them low class......just sayin'.....

I don’t know what to say here but our last carnival cruise looked like an actual carnival with real carnies with the majority of people seemingly being covered with tattoos in camo ball caps.. even on elegant night. I essentially grew up on welfare in the hood but I really have a hard time relating to the people I’m seeing on the ships these days, it’s really changed. I used to feel like the poor kid that was stepping up in life surrounding myself with successful people on the ship but today I’m Literally embarrassed to tell my coworkers we cruise

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ANY cruise line is the wrong spot to reproduce regional favorite foods.

Please don’t tell that to the Indian chefs at the tandoori Grill because they are knocking it out of the park

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To be honest the way the cruise industry has been going the last couple of years nobody on a cruise ship especially in the Caribbean has anything to be snobby about it’s becoming a real blue-collar experience

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So the Dream no longer has Tandoor?

 

 

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Yes they still have it but it’s slated to disappear sometime in the near future. And yes I get that you cannot expect spot on local taste on a crew ship I can tell you that the Indian chefs prepare incredibly authentic and consistently great dishes at the spot. The lamb stew is to die for the meet melts in your mouth.

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I understand it being rude to go on and on about one's own successes but at what point in time did it become snobbish or inappropriate to ask people what they do? That's typical ice breaker conversation when getting to know new people. What's next....it's snobbish to ask someone their name?

 

 

 

Perfect example of a Cruise Critic problem.

I agree what people here are seemingly offended by seems like normal conversation to me I mean you’re sitting next to strangers what are you supposed to talk about the first question out of our mouth is normally where are you from. But if somebody asked me what my room is I’ll be happy to explain to him why I think it’s a smarter move to get an inside room I don’t care. On my last cruise a guy walked up to me and told me he was a midwestern lawyer in a partner in the firm immediately and asked me what I did and then told me well you probably make more money than me. I thought this was typical stupid lawyer conversation crap and ignored it. He then turned to my wife in upon learning that we were from Virginia proceeded to ask us about blue stake politics. At this point we looked at each other and decided to leave the alchemy bar. In fact this cruise out of New Orleans had no other East Coast people that I could see them clearly people were profiling us as coastal elite‘s because every time we told people where we were from they basically shut down. I guess they assumed that we look down on these folks in the flyover states or some stupid crap but we definitely felt like people were not friendly on the ship and this is what I would call reverse snobbery

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Did you try any of the other sauces, i.e., bourbon brown sugar, spicy Sriracha, or Kansas City? The sauce you mentioned is supposed to be Guy Fieri's Carolina #6 BBQ sauce which shows cider vinegar as the second ingredient on the label. I've had a lot of different Carolina sauces from different places and they all seem to taste different. It sounds like Guy's #6 must be different than you're used to.

 

https://www.carnival.com/~/media/Images/explore/dining/menus/guys-pig-anchor-bbq-menu.pdf

 

https://www.amazon.com/Guy-Fieri-Carolina-BBQ-Sauce/dp/B008GN2QVE

Good to know I did try some sauces that I liked but didn’t have these good frame of reference for judging them so I went with what I know. End it sounds like I stand corrected that pulled pork is only in the Carolinas and Virginia I didn’t realize it was this far down is North Florida. I live in central Virginia which when I was a kid had a pulled barbecue joint on every corner in zero fast food restaurants. Here barbecue strictly minute pulled pork which I know is a different tradition than other regions. I appreciate flavors and styles of all kinds but for the purposes of critiquing again the pulled pork was just OK the sauces were massive disappointment despite what the ingredients may have listed it was sweet and barbecue here just isn’t sweet. As for the brisket Lord knows what they were thinking when I serve that but I’m gonna tell you guy would probably be humiliated to see his name on that product but maybe that was unique to our experience that day.

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