Live From the Carnival Breeze - BC6

[jimbo5544]

Great start to you "live" review. Can't wait to read the rest.

[BlueJai]

I am so glad you are back 'live!' and can't wait to read about your adventures. I was singing Day-0 right along with you.

Have a great trip. Loved your book and love your reviews!

Jai

[Kokomo_Man]

Day 1

 

 

First a little bit of unfinished business. Remember when I was kinda bragging that Carnival had changed from the Bubba orange hip pocket shop rag at Guy Ferengie’s Burgers. Well, today I was right and I was wrong. I was right that I have absolutely no pull with Carnival… and I was wrong that Bubba’s shop towels had been replaced with linen. Bubba’s shop towels were back today. So rather than moaning any more, I’m just going to start collecting them for when I work on my car back home.

 

I planned to sleep in today after the late night in the piano bar last night. But I don’t know what it was, but I woke up about 6:30 AM. It was daylight out so I took a peak out the window and to my surprise we were docked in Nassau. We were supposed to have two sea days on our way to St. Thomas and go to Nassau at the end of this cruise. But I figured that something had changed and they didn’t want to wake anyone up until later.

 

So I started to get dressed to go ashore. I planned to just do a walk-about and go to the pirate museum in Nassau and I don’t care what day that happens. Just as I was starting to put on my tennis shoes, the ship started moving away from the dock. Once clear, we turned around and headed back out to sea. It turned out that there had been a medical emergency and we ducked into Nassau to drop off the passenger & family. With that done, we were on our way again. We will still get to St. Thomas on schedule. So, we were back to the regularly scheduled a sea day.

 

On the first sea day Carnival always has two of their classic pool side activities; the “Master Mixology” contest and the Hairy Chest contest. For those that don’t know, the Hairy Chest contest normally has nothing to do with a hairy chest. Rather it’s for guys that have a beer belly on top of their beer belly. The winner comes from the guy that can dance and shake his belly so that it looks ocean waves during a hurricane. Today was a little different. The guys with the huge belly were eliminated first and a reasonably fit guy won. Miracles will never cease.

 

This afternoon, John Heald had an afternoon “Tea”. Besides a selection of tea, John came around to the tables serving cucumber sandwiches. Yuck. They did serve some tasty pastries including one particularly good Chocolate-Chocolate cake. I had seconds of that. It looks like I better head for the gym soon.

 

I spent the rest of the afternoon watching the football game. Not that I was particularly interested in the ball game, but that was the big activity in the Red Frog Pub. More than anything else, it was just a social gathering. The play-off games were on almost every TV in public areas of the ship including the big screen above the pool on the Lido deck. This will probably be good news for those who were wondering if they were going to get the Super Bowl. I think the answer will be yes… whether or not you like it.

 

Oh… before I go get ready to eat I need to tell you about that Master Mixology contest. This contest is where passengers try their hand at brewing up some booze drink that the poor bar manager has to try to sell all over the ship for the duration of the cruise. These are usually some gawd awful combination of foul tasting 199 proof swill. This time the winner’s drink was amazingly good. It was won by an astonishingly handsome guy who was wearing an outlandish shirt with parrots all over it and a lime green hat with an orange, blue, yellow and red parrot on it won the contest; and finished everything off by doing a John Travolta style “disco” dance. The name of his frozen concoction to help you hang on is “A Woman to Blame”. The vote by the judges was unanimous and when they announced the winner, the handsome guy jumped up and down with joy at winning his first ship on a stick in sixteen Carnival cruises.

 

More later,

 

Bob

Searching for Kokomo

[pizzaeater]

Congrats on the Ship on a stick pal!

[DEBnGAB]

Oh… before I go get ready to eat I need to tell you about that Master Mixology contest. This contest is where passengers try their hand at brewing up some booze drink that the poor bar manager has to try to sell all over the ship for the duration of the cruise. These are usually some gawd awful combination of foul tasting 199 proof swill. This time the winner’s drink was amazingly good. It was won by an astonishingly handsome guy who was wearing an outlandish shirt with parrots all over it and a lime green hat with an orange, blue, yellow and red parrot on it won the contest; and finished everything off by doing a John Travolta style “disco” dance. The name of his frozen concoction to help you hang on is “A Woman to Blame”. The vote by the judges was unanimous and when they announced the winner, the handsome guy jumped up and down with joy at winning his first ship on a stick in sixteen Carnival cruises.

 

More later,

 

Bob

Searching for Kokomo

 

Congratuations on the big win my friend! :D:D

[DEBnGAB]

Ummmm…. I need to say a word to my Funatic friends “D” and “L” of the “Official Funatics”. Although I miss you, I think it’s a good thing you weren’t in the PB last night. Ron played a new “late night” song. I think that if you were there, you may have been displaying your assets. NO! not those assets; those would be on the 26th. In this case, think “Girls Gone Wild”.

 

Bob

Memories of Naked Fanny

 

Lmao Bob!! What? Not D and L!! We're innocent! :eek: Cant wait for April and hugs to you and the other Funatics having a blast!! :D

[LJCRUISER]

Jedi I got off Breeze on 1/13 and I remember seeing the orange napkins also! Hmmmm and I missed out on the unlimited internet plan also. Was a great cruise though, yah? :-)

 

 

 

Interesting. I was on the Breeze that just ended yesterday and they still had the shop rags. Personally, not an issue with me. You are eating a sloppy burger at times after all and therefore it fits with the theme. They had the "white linen napkins" right behind though on the cleaning table (the one behind the topping bar) in a basket for those that wanted them.

 

And yes, the unlimited was ended the cruise right before mine (so January 12 was the last day). The Internet lady told me it was a test and they are going to be upgrading the system before attempting it again and going fleetwide. Too many complaints on speed and being overloaded (after all for $30 for a week of unlimited, you can't beat that, but when maybe 500 people are doing that, it can really bog the system down.) She estimated to me early spring before it comes back.

[JediSkipdogg]

Jedi I got off Breeze on 1/13 and I remember seeing the orange napkins also! Hmmmm and I missed out on the unlimited internet plan also. Was a great cruise though, yah? :-)

 

 

Ship was magnificent. Not sure all the hype over Butch, great personality but I thought terrible scheduler for all the activities. Can't complain to much though, lots to do to keep one busy and I could barely tell there were 4200 people on the ship.

[LJCRUISER]

Ship was magnificent. Not sure all the hype over Butch, great personality but I thought terrible scheduler for all the activities. Can't complain to much though, lots to do to keep one busy and I could barely tell there were 4200 people on the ship.

 

Even embarkation was quick. The only time I saw a large number of people was when everyone was released at Curacao. I could have used more activities myself. :-)

[Kokomo_Man]

Before I get on with the day, I’ll do a little “house keeping”

 

First… Hi again to all my Funatic friends. I won’t use all their names here because after the last cruise with them, they probably want to stay incognito. I’ll just say that I’ll never think of a full moon the same ever again. And Mickie… you and Jim are included in the Funatics. You’ll just have to join in on an upcoming cruise.

 

bythehex is correct and I have made an awful mistake. Guy Fieri was never on Star Trek. The apostrophe was in the wrong place. The burgers I have been talking to you about are really Guy’s Ferengie Burgers. Mmmmm-Mmmmmm Good. And since Ferengie are a little greasy, they are best with a couple of Tums for the tummy. (Since those of ya’ll that read my stuff regularly know that I’m a Parrot Head, a Pirate (300 years too late) and of course a cruise junkie, you might as well know that I’m a Trekie too. So many sicknesses… so little time.)

 

I should also mention to bythehex that Ferengie ears are the delicacies, but they are not served here on the ship.

 

Last night in the piano bar was a bit unusual. There’s a singles group on board this cruise and they filled up the piano bar “early set”. I knew a little about this group before the cruise began. If you check out the web site it looks like it is just another travel agent type web except that they are in the business of finding roommates for singles so they don’t have to pay the outrageous premium (100%) that Carnival charges for one person in a cabin. So, if you get two people to share a cabin it would cut the cost almost in half.

 

And I think for at least a lot of the women they are doing exactly that… sharing a cabin to reduce expenses. However, it was obvious last night in the piano bar that the men have a completely different agenda. First, the men are dressed to the 9’s. It looks like they all have tried to have the slickest tux to out-do everyone else. I have never seen so many tuxes on in all of my 16 Carnival cruises. Clearly the peacocks were out strutin’ their stuff.

 

You could see all the men maneuvering around to “hit on” the women. It was really funny how they would all try to get in position for the “strike”. I should mention that the age of this group was older than you might expect. I would have thought they would be twenty-something or thirty-something. But most, at least in this group, were fifty-something and sixty-something.

 

Anyway… there they were. Like a bunch of old World War I biplane pilots circling around their target… each trying to get an advantage over the other before swooping in for the big kill. Look out Snoopy and the Red Barron... you’ve got nothing on these guys. Everyone in the singles group has sort of a bead necklace with their name and it identifies them as part of the group. I overheard a couple of the women say, “I sure am glad I took off my necklace… I’m tired of all these guys hitting on me”.

 

By the way; I’m told that there are 80 women and 60 men in the group. Hummmm… maybe I’ll crash their next party. Do you think a guy wearing a bright orange shirt with parrots all over it can out-maneuver the World War I “aces”. (That is how you spell “aces”, isn’t it?)

 

I do have some bad piano bar news for those hoping to have Ron Pass on the Sunshine for the next New Years cruise. I talked to Ron and he said that it isn’t likely… I’m gunna go eat worms.

 

One last thing before I go out and about for the day. Just before closing down the piano bar for the night, I requested Ron Pass to play Fat Bottom Girls and of course he did. Soon after that I went to bed and dreamed of moon beams coming through the window and into my cabin.

 

I’ll post on the today’s adventures later.

 

Bob

Kokomo Found

 

P.S. Mary… I know you are somewhere on the ship but I have not caught up with you. Come see me. I spend most mornings in the Red Frog Pub. (Not in St. Thomas… I’m diving early.)

 

P.P.S. I welcome anyone else on board to come by and chat too. I just warn you… you too could be no-named character for my next post.

[mickiemac]

Yay Bob!! So proud of you win. Very appropriate name. Can't wait to try it!!

[ready2cruzagain]

 

Ready, we would LOVE to sail with you guys again!! Victory, October...come on!:D

Awe Linny would love to but already had plans for Oct:(

 

Congrats on the win Bob!.

[Doug910]

...Reliving the Breeze through Kokomo Man's eyes. Keep up the great work!

 

...We were also just off the Jan. 13-19 sailing. What an outstanding ship. But it was Ron Pass that made the cruise.

 

...After looking forward for months knowing he was going to be on the ship with us, we caught him hanging around the Piano Bar before sailing. We introduced ourselves to him, and after speaking with him for five minutes, he had felt like an old friend.

 

...In 23 Carnival cruises, my wife Elaine had never stepped foot in a Piano Bar. Always opted for the Casino. Do you know what it takes to keep Elaine out of the Casino? Ron Pass Is THAT good. She spent three nights with me there closing the place. It was like Ron had invited us into his house for a few drinks, a few laughs and a lot of great music.

 

...We definitely consider ourselves part of the "Rontourage". It's a great time listening to him play the usual piano sing-a-longs, to TV theme songs, to Billy Joel/Elton John and, of course, his personal rendition of "Old MacDonald".

 

...If you're reading this, and are lucky enough to be on this Blogger's Cruise, make sure you get into the Piano Bar and have a few "socials" with him. "Social!"

[DEBnGAB]

Awe Linny would love to but already had plans for Oct:(

 

Congrats on the win Bob!.

 

Can you join us for New Years on the Sunshine? Oh, btw, the Splendor had the De Chevre....I thought about you :o

[DEBnGAB]

You could see all the men maneuvering around to “hit on” the women. It was really funny how they would all try to get in position for the “strike”. I should mention that the age of this group was older than you might expect. I would have thought they would be twenty-something or thirty-something. But most, at least in this group, were fifty-something and sixty-something.

 

Anyway… there they were. Like a bunch of old World War I biplane pilots circling around their target… each trying to get an advantage over the other before swooping in for the big kill. Look out Snoopy and the Red Barron... you’ve got nothing on these guys.

 

Hey Bob, were they anything like these spry gentlemen? (from the Splendor). These guys were like B-52 bombers!

[Irishlinny]

Bob, congrats on the win! You've managed to perfect it, I see!:D When you come home, you'll have to share the recipe. You're the 2nd Funatic to win this...guess that shows where our priorities are:p

Ready, you have to get on the social network so you can keep abreast of future plans...we want to see you again at some point!:)

[Kokomo_Man]

Day 2

 

 

I’m sitting here in the Red Frog Pub contemplating the activities of the day. It’s our second sea day in a row. If you include Day 0, the sail away day, it’s almost like three sea days in a row. (See… I managed to get in another “Day 0” so now you’ll be singing the Bananna Boat Song all day long… and cussing at me for putting it in your head again.) Although I enjoy sea days I don’t really like a lot of them in a row, so I’ll be glad to hit land tomorrow.

 

I slept in again today. Duh… what else is new? For the rest of the cruise I won’t mention that I slept in. Ya’ll can just figure that I’ll always sleep in and I’ll never be up before 10:00 AM… 9:00 at the earliest. I’ll only mention it if there’s a news flash and I’m up early… you know, 8:55 or something like that. (I’ve just made enemies of all the folks reading this who have to get up at “oh my gawd it’s way too early” to go to work while I’m here on a cruise ship.)

 

I just took a break from writing and went out on deck to get some vitamin D. It’s a very nice day. The sun is shining, the sky is blue with white fluffy clouds and it’s quite warm… about 85 degrees F. Now I’ve made enemies of those of you that are up in the frozen tundra and suffering through winter. To me, Winter = anything below 70 degrees F. So that means that almost everyone in North America is sending daggers toward me as they read this. I’m just glad the internet won’t zap me from your computers.

 

I usually find some funny comments about folks by the pool. But not this trip. There was a guy that walked by wearing a clown nose, but I figure he is just going to a kids entertainment function on board. There was also a woman displaying her knitting. What she had made was a cross between a quilt and a knit garment. She was probably fifty-something… and as you know, fifty-something is the new twenty-something. And she was a “well endowed”, attractive fifty-something/twenty-something.

 

Her knitting reminded me of a quilt because it had those holes between the patches of cloth, and it reminded me of a knit garment because… well, because it was a knit garment. Of course to display here knit one ­- pearl two prowesses, she was wearing her handy work… It was her bathing suit, and it was two sizes too small. I can’t exactly describe it here, but it reminded me of late night in the piano bar. Late nights, Ron Pass, Brad Alexander (and others I’m sure) sing a unique version of Kokomo. If you’ve heard that version, you know what I mean. Yeooooooowwwwwwww!

 

(I wasn’t sure if I should leave that last paragraph in, but oh well… I’m not using the delete key now.)

 

Other than Ms. KnitOnePearlTwo, everyone else seems to have quite appropriate poolside attire. I do have to say, my compliments to all the surgeons. Now I don’t know with any certainty that anyone has been surgically improved, but there are quite a few “mature” women that can’t possibly be that ummmm… perky. There also are a few fifty/sixty-somethings that don’t have a single wrinkle on their face. Of course, they can’t blink or smile. And the frozen face crowd has more than just women in it… I saw several of those World War I biplane pilots that way last night too.

 

I do have to say that those surgically and poison improved people certainly were attractive. And I understand wanting to age “gracefully”… I hope to age gracefully. But, if “they” are obviously “enhanced” or you can’t smile then you can have them. No fake boobs or Botox faces for me.

 

(Now I really should delete that last paragraph, but… oh well.)

 

That’s all for now. It’s late in the early afternoon and I need to check my eyelids for cracks.

 

Bob

Kokomo Found.

[T C 2]

I do have some bad piano bar news for those hoping to have Ron Pass on the Sunshine for the next New Years cruise. I talked to Ron and he said that it isn’t likely… I’m gunna go eat worms.

 

One last thing before I go out and about for the day. Just before closing down the piano bar for the night, I requested Ron Pass to play Fat Bottom Girls and of course he did. Soon after that I went to bed and dreamed of moon beams coming through the window and into my cabin.

 

 

Awwwww.. sad/bad news about NYE cruise, but I am not surprised. Ron and a lot of the entertainment crew don't like the Destiny (they call her the Death Star) and aren't going to give her a chance as the "Sunshine" just yet, :(:(

 

A N D ... thanks Bob for the Queen FBG dedication :D :D I'm sure Ron smiled.

[ready2cruzagain]

Can you join us for New Years on the Sunshine? Oh, btw, the Splendor had the De Chevre....I thought about you :o

Okay Deb...you all just keep making plans when I already have plans:p:p. Hopefully someday and boy do I miss that pizza!

[MrPete]

Need pix!!

[ardnassac79]

All caught up :D

 

Congrats on the Mixology win!! Yeah I tried that once with failing colors... hey at least I got the cocktail recipe book.

 

LOL at the WWI Biplane pilots, I can only imagine. And Deb - yep that pic seems fitting!

 

And to Mr. Pete who just posted, not sure our Kokomo man can do pics with the ridiculously slow internet on board the ship... remember this is a "LIVE" play by play - not a review!

 

Keep it up, Love to read these updates, even though it's a balmy 23 degrees outside right now :p:p (daggers...ZAP!)

[MrPete]

All caught up :D

 

Congrats on the Mixology win!! Yeah I tried that once with failing colors... hey at least I got the cocktail recipe book.

 

LOL at the WWI Biplane pilots, I can only imagine. And Deb - yep that pic seems fitting!

 

And to Mr. Pete who just posted, not sure our Kokomo man can do pics with the ridiculously slow internet on board the ship... remember this is a "LIVE" play by play - not a review!

 

Keep it up, Love to read these updates, even though it's a balmy 23 degrees outside right now :p:p (daggers...ZAP!)

I implore you, if search is up, to look up LIVE FROM threads by a poster named Radio.

[Kokomo_Man]

Just a quick answer to Mr.Pete. I will post pics when I get to a good high speed internet place. Cruisecritic does not let you post directly on their servers as part of the post. Rather, you have to post them to some place else, and then you link to them.

 

 

Also, I always post the highest resolution I can, so it does take some additional bandwith and/or time to put the pics up. At the ships speed and cost for internet time, I won't waste my money.

 

 

Instead, when I get to a place with high speed wifi, I'll post them. You can look at my last pics of the Breeze at facebook.com/KokomoManToo. That's also where I'll be posting when I get to a high speed connection.

 

 

Bob

Memories of Naked Fanny

[Kokomo_Man]

Live From St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands.

 

 

As I pen these words I’m indeed coming to you live from St. Thomas… but the heading should really read, “Live from Hooters in St. Thomas, and there’s no virgins here”. Remember my comments about surgeons yesterday? Well, they must have really good surgeons here. When I ordered my snack from the waitress, I also ordered a defibrillator. Before I’m finished I’m going to need it. Believe it or not, this is the first time I’ve ever been in a Hooters.

 

We went SCUBA diving this morning. It was an “Oh my gawd what are they doing knocking on my door this early” kind of morning. Our dive was scheduled to start at 8:30 AM. So we set up to have a light breakfast delivered to the cabin at 7:30… that alone is too early. But just as my dreamin’ came to the part where a buxom wench appears on the poop deck of my pirate ship, I heard a pounding on the door. I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, but there was even louder pounding again.

 

Aaaaarrrrrgggg! Why be ye a poundin’ on me door this earrrrrrrly! It was still dark, so in the half asleep fog… thinking it might be the buxom wench, I went to the door with a smile on my face. When I opened it, there was a guy standing there with a there with a tray full of stuff. I looked at my watch and it was only 6:30…

 

SIX friggin’ A.M. THIRTY… ON A CRUISE! Needless to say, the smile on by face went away. Oh well… it is probably a great cruise if the biggest thing there is to complain about is getting up too early to go SCUBA diving… in the middle of January.

 

After the early wake-up things have gone very well. Coffee was hot and they brought a gallon of it. The diving was very good. Of course, it’s winter conditions. Here in the Caribbean that means that the water temperature is below 80 degrees F. Today it was 79 degrees. It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it.

 

 

We’re definitely in the Caribbean Toto.

 

St. Thomas is a strange blend. First, it’s definitely Caribbean. The water in the harbour next to the dock is the brilliant turquoise blue of most of the region; the diving is great; there are lots of palm trees; lots of busty dark skinned women; and the houses have all the pastel colours. Note that I spelt harbour and colours that way on purpose because of all the British influence here. Clearly, this was colonized by the English. They even drive on the left side of the road here.

 

But the catch here is that the heading is correct. This is a U.S. Territory. There is a U.S. Post Office in the compound where the ship docks. (You can mail boxes home from here at regular U.S. Postal rates.) The people that live here are U.S. citizens but can’t vote in any U.S. elections. The license plates on the cars say “Americas Caribbean”. And this clearly isn’t a poor, “third world” kind of place. Our dive guide was telling us that it costs about $8 for a gallon of milk. She said that everything else has that kind of high cost too and housing is even the worse.

 

Hummm… I just re-read what I’ve written to here. If you’ve read this and my last post, you may be starting to think that I’m a dirty old man. I’m NOT old! I guess being in Hooters may have something to do with it.

 

Quit your snickering! I really am here in Hooters because I was told that they have good wifi. Honest… that’s really why. And well… okay… I’m just a guy.

 

The very funny Bill Engval does a comedy routine that says, “I should have shut up… so I’ll do that now before I dig myself in deeper. I fill in on some of last nights stuff on the ship later and after another ice cold brew… and after I go get new batteries in my pacemaker.

 

Bob

Kokomo Found

 

P.S. My appologies for not getting any pics up so far. Even the internet in Hooters has been junk. The speed is awful, and it has crashed out three times just trying to get this posted.

[crewsweeper]

Bob,

I'm further behind on your review than you were on DODs Day "O" Part 1. So I'll have to get out my red garage rag and dust off the keyboard and say "Hey" and congrats to the spiffy dresser on his winning concoction. Have a great Blogger cruise. Best to Ron and the Ronettes.

Aside to CD...those " WWII bombers" in that pic... the one on the right looks like a reincarnate WWF wrestler.:D