Live from the Carnival naming ceremony in New York

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Chris Williams the CD (AKA The Flying Scotsman) welcomed everybody and told everyone the ceremony would be in the liquid lounge at 11.  We decided to take the little time we had and walk around some before the ceremony.  Next are some pics......

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Area on 5, we passed Carnival Corp CEO Arnold Donald along the way.  

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The Red Frog area is large and had a stage like in Oceans Plaza on other ahips.  

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Alchemy Bar, aft pool and tides bar and Lido inside.  

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Main pool area

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Kids area forward

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Shops area, and looking down on the atrium, yes there is a view up down and glass elevators.  

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Next up the naming ceremony

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So the group for this met up in the Liquid Lounge, it was noticeably small group from any other that we had attended, but had a list of Carnival who's who including Micky and his wife, daughter (ships god mother - her mother was the god mother of the Triumph, and Mickys son and girl friend (he is the President of the Miami Heat).  Other Arison family members, Carnival Corp CEO Arnold Donald, Carnival President Christine Duffy, other Carnival execs, members from the ship yard in Cadiz, a noted artist I will describe more about later, Carnival senior Spokesperson John Heald, and some other dignitaries one of which I will get into in a little bit.

 

Chris Williams introduced  John Heald who opened with some classic John humor and we had a little entertainment from the Playlist group.  John then introduced Christine.   

 

Christine did a nice job talking about the 200 million upgrade which went much smoother then the Sunshine upgrade and recognized the Cadiz shipyard attendees.  They showed a small vid of the ship from the Triumphs last sailing in New Orleans to the trip over and a quick montage of the work done.

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Some pics from the beginning of the ceremony

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From the playlist intro 

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John and Christine (sorry for the quality of the John pic)

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Christine then introduced Kathie Lee Gifford, long time spokesperson for Carnival.  Kathie Lee came up on stage and talked briefly of getting the spokesperson job for Carnival in what then the first national add program, her strong ties to the Arison family and even on her wines which are offered in the MDR of Carnival ships.  As a side note, it ws watching her Carnival commercials that got us interested in cruising. 

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Kathie Lee talking

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Kelly Arison has a rare disease called Erlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS) and Carnival made a contribution to this group to help fund the fight.   Here are some people from the company that leads in research, Kelly and Christine.   

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The ship was then blessed from someone from the Seaman Union (a long standing tradition) and then Kelly christened the ship with the Captain.

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That concluded the ceremony, we moved to the Radiance Dining room for a luncheon (the mid dining room).  John announced that embarkation had commenced so he asked everyone to go directly there.  We made our way there, and had a very nice lunch and here are some pics.

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Note the way the bread was delivered.  

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We only had a short time before we had to leave,  but here are some pics