Carnival Splendor to Canada 9/1/14 ... a ramble (with pics!)

[Crusin Karen]

What I do is order something from room service, then use the tray that they bring you. One less thing to buy or pack!

 

I thought of doing that, but then what do you do with your room service dishes and how do you keep the room steward from taking it?

Jamman gave me this same advice in between our Feb and May cruises. I would just put the plates on the table and put the tray in your closet. Or under the bed! ;) I was really going to do this but I was afraid of getting dirty looks from everyone else in the buffet line. :o Just a dumb move on CCL's part, I think, taking the trays away. :(

[Cyber Kat]

Day 2 continued

 

Ah - okay - Fun Times consulted and my memory is good!

 

We kind of just wandered around for a bit, because they were doing the Wine and Food Pairing in the Steak House at 12:30pm. We missed this on our last cruise because we were doing a Slot Pull at the same time. We did it once before on the Miracle and it's fun and informative. It's $15 pp and you get to taste 6 wines and some steak house food. It also fills up kind of fast so you need to be on time.

 

With all this fog we figured it might fill up faster than normal and we were correct in that assumption.

 

Fog ...

 

More fog ...

 

The fog horn was going off on a regular basis all day and all night. I have one word of advice - book aft if there is any chance you will encounter fog on your cruise. We were aft, but near the dividing line between what Carnival considers aft and mid-ship. We could just barely hear the fog horn if we listened for it when we were in our cabin with the door closed. If you were forward - fuggedabout it! It would blast you off your feet!

 

I didn't think to take my camera to the Wine and Food Pairing and I wish I had. People were taking photos of the bottles afterward so they could remember what the wines were. So if you go - take a phone or camera.

 

We had a nice time, sitting there tastying our wines - 3 white (a Vouvray, Sauvignon Blanc, and a Puilly Fuisse) and 3 red (a Chianti Classico, a Cabernet Savignon and I think, a Merlot). We tasted the wine, and then we tasted various bits of food - brie, salmon, filet mignon, blueberry, strawberry, lemon to see how the food changed the taste of the wine - which it did. Vladimir was the sommelier. He was a little hard to understand, but very knowledgeable and passionate about wine. He answered all questions and even hung around after to answer even more questions. He was very helpful in advising what wine would go nicely with the surf and turf, I planned to order when we went to the Steak House for dinner the next evening.

 

After the Food and Wine Pairing we went to get something to eat (the little bits had wet my appetite. I had in mind some food type things I wanted to do and had planned on ordering the Shrimp Salad sandwich and the chocolate cake from room service, and eating on our balcony - but it was kind of silly with the fog.

 

DH wasn't interested in eating - as usual - so I ticked off one of my other planned food items - a hot dog with chili and cheese sauce from the grill. I love the Carnival hot dogs - they are so tasty. I usually eat only healthy foods, so I don't want to know what's in these - I'm on a cruise - it's all good for you and non-fattening! :D

 

So we headed for the Grill by the Lido pool. After I ate my dog (should have had 2!) with some potato salad, we headed back to the Liner Bar for a drink. I wanted to try a Mocha Chocolate Getaway, but that's not a before you eat drink, so I had it for dessert! Soooo yummy!

 

Ingredients:

3/4 oz Irish Cream

3/4 oz Dark Rum

1/4 oz Butterscotch Schnapps

1/4 oz Kahlua

2 1/2 oz Ice Cream Mix

Chocolate Syrup

 

I could make one of these!

 

We poked around in the shops for a bit. They had ship specific merchandise - something I haven't see for awhile. We each got Splendor t-shirts and I got a tiny LED flashlight to replace the one I lost somehow.

 

We took our stuff back to the cabin, to drop it off. We sat on the balcony a bit just watching the fog - I don't know why - there was nothing to see, but for some reason it fascinated me.

 

I said, "Let's go play mini-golf!" DH agreed and we moseyed on foward, got our clubs and balls and climbed the stairs to the course at the top and forward part of the ship. Well - not only was it foggy - it was a mist, so it was wet, and cold and windy. Plus the fog horn was sounding constantly. We decided this wasn't such a good idea, and returned the clubs and balls. The crew member at the counter, said, "That was a fast game!" with a big smile - I'm assuming we weren't the only ones who changed our minds.

 

By the way - the Slide was open and the line was long - brave souls!

 

It was nearly time for the Seuss-a-Palooza and I decided, I wanted to see Cat in the Hat! They were finishing up the Palooza part in the El Morocco lounge (above the Gold Pearl dining room) and were about to start the Parade. I rushed over to the El Mojito bar area hoping to get some photos, but they didn't come out very well. They were moving and I was backing up. I haven't quite gotten the hang of taking movies with this camera or I would have done that.

 

Everyone participating looked like they were having a great time, so if you have kids or are a kid at heart like me, I recommend checking this out!

 

The first sea day is usually Elegant Night, and that's the way it was on this cruise, so we moseyed around a bit more and headed for the cabin to change for dinner.

 

We get sort of dressed up - I do - DH, not so much. I had a new black long slinky dress with a beaded neckline that I got for $40 from the Venus swimsuit catalog. I usually wear a black chiffon skirt and beaded top (I have several) but I liked this so I got it.

 

DH wore tan dress pants and a red plaid dress shirt. We were good!

 

We visited with Melody at the El Mojito, then headed down to our 2 top in the Gold Pearl for dinner. Most everyone was dressed nicely. There was a family with sons and a husband in t-shirts, but they were the only ones I saw who weren't at least in Sunday best. I did not do an inspection ;)

 

I had the stuffed mushrooms (tasty), the West Indian Pumpkin soup (sooo good!) lobster and shrimp (oh soooo yummy! Lobster was perfectly cooked!) and DH had his usual fruit cocktail and the Prime Rib - an end cut. He said it was weird for Prime Rib but tasted okay. I told you - he's not a foodie!

 

I had the apple puff pastry thing for dessert. It was yummy also.

 

After dinner we went down to deck 5/Promenade to get some photos taken. I was hoping they were doing the pics on the stairs as they have in the past, but they weren't this cruise. We checked out some backgrounds - they have a lot of strange ones. Finally we settled on one with the ship in the background and one with a railing and the moon. The photographer on the railing/moon one was great! Best we've ever had. He wasn't too crazy pose and he actually got DH to smile. I think we bought most of the photos he took.

 

After that we got a night cap from Melody and went back to the cabin. I like the shows and the comedy club, but DH isn't much into that kind of entertainment, so I was okay with that.

 

I am sorry we didn't do the piano bar one night. The guy - Dana - seemed quite good. But with a 5 day cruise when you're used to 8, you run out of time to do all the "we shoulds."

 

So I'll leave you here. There wasn't much to shoot with the fog, but Day 3 is Saint John and I have a lot for you. Stay tuned!

[092306]

Kath, DH is very excited about the return of ship specific t shirts. Do you happen to have a picture or can you give him an idea of what they look like? Looking forward to day 3, thanks!

Edited September 13, 2014 by 092306

[Cyber Kat]

Kath, DH is very excited about the return of ship specific t shirts. Do you happen to have a picture or can you give him an idea of what they look like? Looking forward to day 3, thanks!

 

Don't have any pics handy at the moment, but DH got a navy blue one with the ship and Carnival Splendor on the front. The back was a nice map of the New England and Canada ports. I think it says North Atlantic ports or something like that.

 

Mine is turquoise with the same ship and name on the front and the back is a map of the world with that compass rose thing a pic of the ship and some ship facts. I liked his shirt design better, but I like the color of mine. They also had some white ones with the ship name in blue and a little bling. There were some in grey as well, but I didn't see what they had on them.

 

They had hats and bags and all kind of nice stuff!

[092306]

Perfect, thank you!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[Cyber Kat]

Day 3 Saint John

 

Sorry, I didn't get to add another post yesterday. Things got in the way as they often do. But we're off to day 3

 

I'd been to Saint John (never St John or St Johns - the natives don't like you confusing their city with St John in Newfoundland) before. We did the Reversing Falls on a boat that went right up close. Only licensed pilots can go up during the periods outside of slack time. The guy who was running these tours and the jet boat tours, went out of business or decided he didn't want to do them any longer. Too bad because it was great!

 

I wasn't sure what we were going to do. The New Brunswick museum is nice, but small. I though DH would enjoy it and this was his first trip to anywhere in Canada. I checked into various ways of getting to the Reversing Falls, but none seemed to be all that great or to work out with my agenda - which was to get a lobster roll and a Moosehead Pale Ale (which you can't get in the US).

 

I read through the Carnival excursions trying to decide if that's what I wanted to do, or to just wing it on our own. We finally decided on the Top 10 of Saint John - it got good reviews on both the Carnival site and Trip Advisor. It seemed to cover all I wanted us to see, plus it included a trip to the sea caves in the village of St. Martins. So I booked this with Carnival.

 

One thing I have to say upfront - this is a great tour, and you do get to see a lot, but it would be better if it was a Top 8 or a Top 5. They really try to cram too much into a short time, so you don't get to enjoy it as much. But the guides were great, the bus comfortable and as I said, we saw a lot.

 

Now if you remember, when I left off on Tuesday night we were socked in with fog. There was still some fog Wednesday morning when we got up - no sunrise again. We were up early because the ship was scheduled to dock at 8:00am and our excursion was to leave at 8:30am.

 

I don't know if I mentioned, but the Splendor has eliminated the nice real trays in the buffet and replaced them with big plates-pretending-to-be-trays. I want to go on record as saying, they need to bring back the trays, but the plates weren't as bad as the ones we had on Royal Caribbean. They are flat - like a tray - so you can balance other things - like a fruit bowl on them.

 

I figured with an early port arrival and lots of excursions, room service wasn't going to work out well. I'd picked an aft section cabin, because I knew it was convenient to a lot of areas, the Lido buffet included. I came prepared with a small tray that I picked up in the Christmas Tree shop for $1.99 - it worked out well!

 

I ran up, got juice, coffee, a couple of danish and some bacon and brought it back to the room on my tray. We ate as we got ready, sneaking peaks outside to see what was happening - not much to see, but we did hear a great noise on the way in. We found out later it was a place that crunched up metal into little pieces for export.

 

As soon as we were ready, we headed down to deck 3 to get off the ship. It was now pouring, I mean torrential pouring, down rain. UGH! I had ponchos for both of us - light weight and heavy weight, gloves (it was a bit cold), an umbrella, a nylon jacket for me - all in one of those nylon back packs.

 

So everyone lines up and I thought about putting one of the ponchos on, but I could see that everyone was under cover on the ship, then there was a covered gangway that went right down into the terminal building - so I only got a little wet going from the ship to the gangway.

 

I had to laugh, there was a guy sitting near the end of the ramp. He looked like a port worker. Someone asked him if it was supposed to rain all day. He said, "No, it's supposed to clear up. Should be a nice day around 26 degrees." We were all like "Yikes!" Thinking we should turn around and get warmer clothes on. He just laughed, and said, "Celsius!" He didn't know what that was in Fahrenheit and we didn't know the Celsius, but he assured us it would be warm.

 

The terminal building is new since the last time I was there in '07. Back then they had a tent and we would have gotten drenched because you had to walk there from the ship.

 

I should also mention that because of the tides they have special ramps that can go up and down. When I was there in '07 we came down a high ramp and went back on the ship just up a ramp that was just about level with the dock.

 

Inside the lovely new terminal building, they were taking photos, as usual - there was a Mountie, and a Lobster fisherman, and the usual Welcome to... signs. There were people from Saint John handing out welcome roses. And there was mass confusion.

 

There were signs for all kinds of tours, but we couldn't find ours. We connected with a couple of others looking for the same tour. I spotted a sign for Aquila Tours - I knew they were also doing ours, so I asked about the Top 10. She said to have a seat, we would be the next group.

 

We sat for about 10 minutes and they announced the Top 10. I began digging out my umbrella, but when we got to the door of the building, the rain had already stopped. And it washed away the fog. YAY!

 

We boarded the bus - nice bus, comfy seats, big windows. We had Diane, dressed in a Loyalist costume and Albert the driver. We had one too many people on the bus. Took a few minutes to sort out and we were off.

 

Diane explained the costume. Apparently during the American Revolution, many who were loyal to Britain fled to Saint John. So there is a lot of that heritage. She gave us some history and told us where we would be going on the tour, and that we would be starting at the Reversing Falls. She told us we would make another stop at the end of the tour, so we could see it at different times.

 

As luck would have it, we caught it at slack tide both times - and nothing happens at slack tide. It's a toss up because the tides are always changing and it's not something you can really plan for when you're only there one day.

 

We only had 15 minutes at the Falls View park, but we did get to see the area as we rode around on the bus. I'm going to give you some photos now and I'll include a few from my last trip when we were there at high tide.

 

It was still kind of grey but not raining ...

 

 

This is a shot of that large rocky island from the boat trip

 

This is a shot as we went under the bridge

 

The bridge on my last trip

 

Bridge on this trip taken from Falls View Park

 

And that's 6 so on to the next post

[Cyber Kat]

Day 3 Saint John continued ...

 

I don't know if you can see them, but on the left side of the rocks there is a large flock of cormorants. The fishing is good there so they have taken up residence. Last time we also saw seals, but they mostly come there when the tide is high because it churns up the water and the fish ...

 

You can see them in this photo from my last trip

 

Cormorants in flight

 

Some of the rapids we saw on the boat trip from last time

 

 

We re-boarded the bus and headed back into town. Saint John is huge territory-wise and we were still within the city limits. Diane told us all about the Irvings who own just about everything in and around Saint John. She also told us that McDonald's in new Brunswick and some other areas of Canada, serves a McLobster sandwich - no thanks!

 

Our next stop was the New Brunswick museum - Canada's oldest continuing museum. I think we had a whole 45 minute here! It's not a big museum and I've seen it before, but I would have liked to have more time. It's in the Market Square - which is your basic shopping mall with a few Canadian twists ...

 

 

And that's 6 so we'll move on ...

[Cyber Kat]

Day 3 Saint John continued ...

 

I'm posting this photo from the last time so you can see the difference in the tides - this is high tide

 

 

Same spot - low tide

 

Whale jaw bone in the museum - I believe it is a right whale (so called, because it was the "right" whale to catch)

 

Stuffed moose - I love the moose

 

The first photo is the Carnival Victory which brought me to Saint John in '07

 

This is the Splendor in the same spot

 

And that, once again is 6

[princessliz]

What I do is order something from room service, then use the tray that they bring you. One less thing to buy or pack!

 

I tried that last time! Our room was way at the front and I was dying by the time I got back with breakfast for the 3 of us! :eek:

[Cyber Kat]

Day 3 Saint John continued ...

 

We went from the Museum up to the Saint John City Market but I'm going to give you some photos of this area

 

This is across from the Cruise Ship Terminal. I loved the bear in the hockey jersey and the Moose Crossing sign - which we saw all over

 

This is near the entrance to the museum and this artist's - John Hooper - work can be seen all over the city.

 

 

 

Kings Square, Park across from the City Market

 

And one of the the entrances to the City Market

 

And inside the Market ...

 

Last time I was there, the butterflies were not - children in the school made them. I thought it looked wonderful!

 

Diane, the tour guide, told us that we would be headed out to St Martin's village, and that we might want to get something for the trip. I had lobster rolls in mind.

 

I knew I could get one at Billy's Seafood, but it was before noon and I wasn't sure they would be open. The time was confusing me because they are an hour ahead of us, but we were on ship's time. So I think it was after noon for them. DH wasn't hungry and didn't want anything. I tried to talk him into some fruit, without success. We did a little tour around - there's lots to see if you have time - which we didn't!

 

I found a stall that had fresh fish - North Market Seafood and they were selling Steve's lobster rolls! $6 for a small, $11 for a large. I got the small and DH decided on a bag of chips - at least he was eating something! By the time I got my sandwich, the few tables that were there, were taken. So I said, "Let's go over to the park and I can eat there."

 

The sun had come out and it was starting to warm up. King's Square Park is a lovely little park and there were a lot of people walking about. We found a bench that had dried a bit after the rain and had a lovely few minutes while I ate. I mostly ate the lobster and some of the roll, but I decided I didn't need the extra bread. People were feed a large flock of pigeons, so I figured, why not.

 

We walked up to where they were and I threw a piece of bread. It didn't go as far as I thought and all the pigeons came at once. I had to apologize to some poor man who got engulfed!

 

Got to go, but I will be back with more ...

[SMSACE6]

Thanks so much for doing this review! I am enjoying it very much, and I am getting quite excited about my next year's cruise:) Love your photos.

[nybumpkin]

We boarded the bus - nice bus, comfy seats, big windows. We had Diane, dressed in a Loyalist costume and Albert the driver. We had one too many people on the bus. Took a few minutes to sort out and we were off.

 

Diane explained the costume. Apparently during the American Revolution, many who were loyal to Britain fled to Saint John. So there is a lot of that heritage. She gave us some history and told us where we would be going on the tour, and that we would be starting at the Reversing Falls. She told us we would make another stop at the end of the tour, so we could see it at different times.

When we visited Saint John in 2011 we booked the "Fundy's Hidden Coast" tour. (BTW, it was very foggy and the coast was well hidden.):p Our tour guide was dressed as a Loyalist as well - and, as if would happen, the date was July 4. We had fun on the tour.:D

 

Really enjoying your review. We've never made it to St. Martin's in six visits to Saint John.