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Glory Western, 2/10/07 - The Good, the Bad and the HOLY CR@P!

bcs819

By bcs819,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

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Knights on the Beach

Knights on the Beach

Posted
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I'm with you. AARP strikes again!!! (they are a very STRONG lobby for as long as you can breathe ...you can drive)

 

I am really glad they were not delayed awaiting the police to finally show up and take a report yada yada yada... In Memphis that would have been a 2 hour delay.

 

I'm surprised it didn't take longer too, but I guess they took one look at the bus full of cruisers ready to get on their ship and they just knew better! :p

 

Anyone want to take bets on where that lady was from?? ;)

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bcs819

bcs819

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In answer to the question about the tips, once all the bags were off the luggage carrier, we kind of put ours together and I walked over to the driver/unloader - "These are ours - thanks" and handed him the money. I always OVERtip the baggage guys. This plus shameless flirting and wearing a lowcut shirt while bending over to check our luggage tags always gets our bags to the proper destination. I won't make this a public service announcement - just an insider tip.

 

Finally, we're on the ship. Smile for the little machine, and we're on! It was about 12:15 and we were asked not to go to our cabins till 1:30. Uh-oh, what's that noise.... It's a Dirty Banana calling my name. We entered the ship through the lobby area and I was a bit surprised because I kind of expected the area to be more like the Pride which seemed to go up forever. This was more like the Victory. It was nice, just not what I was expecting. We stopped by the Purser's Desk to make sure they had put out the "FULL SHIP" sign. They did so I gave my nod of approval and picked up a Capers and a mini-map. I don't know why they don't hand you the map when you walk on the ship, but they don't. THere were Carnival folks holding elevator doors for you and pushing the Lido button. Thank heaven's they were doing that, otherwise someone might have pushed the button for a different passenger deck and gone to their cabin. We behaved ourselves and headed to the Lido Deck. As we came off the elevator again I was amazed at how similar the ship was to the Victory.

I was carrying a pretty heavy bag on my left shoulder with all of our camera equipment, glasses, etc and I think it may have turned my body in the direction of the starboard pool bar. We stood impatiently waiting at the bar while our bananas were dirtied and poured into a regular glass. It was good thing he was quick as I was holding my breath the whole time. Her comes another PSA:

 

If you want to smoke (and I won't open THAT debate), why hold your arm behind your back? Are you holding out your cigarette for someone else to try? Do you not want the smoke to blow in your face? It's your cigarette, let's keep it in your personal space, Spaghetti Arms (Thanks, Dirty Dancing). We grabbed our Dirty Bananas and headed off to explore. Brain freeze or no, those Dirty Bananas went down pretty fast. We were on the port side and went to the other bar by the pool. Something was strange here - like a weird smell. I stopped for a moment and tried to focus - was this that sewage smell you hear about sometimes? It did smell a little bit fishy, a little bit salty, a little bit like coconut. Wait! I know - it's CLEAN AIR! I was confused and then saw, shining like a tent built for Fisher PRice Weebles - Thank you for NOT smoking. The port side of the ship was NON-SMOKING! Allelujia! Another Dirty Banana for us and then up a level to peer down at the folks coming on behind us, and across to look at the Disney ship in port next to us.

 

Read thru the information I had picked up and saw that the Maitre D' was open at 1 pm. Uh-oh, 12:45 - I had to hustle. I ran down the stairs and dashed my way along to the dining room. Did we get our requested table for 2? Would I be able to eat this week? Curses - foiled again! Tables didn't have numbers on them yet! Paused to pull the low-cut shirt a little lower, thought some horrible thoughts to get a tear in my eye and approached the Maitre D' station - "Excuse me, can you tell me if we're at a table for two?" A magic screen came on with a layout of the dining room. "No you're a lovely window table for 8 with other passengers your age".

Cue lip tremble - "Well, it's my birthday and our anniversary and we requested a table for 2" - sniff. Voila - "no problem, miss, here you go a table for 2".

 

The whole charade took less than 5 minutes and I was back up to Deck 10 to watch the show below for a few moments. First things first - where the hell is the f-deck? We wandered around and around the funnel looking for it. Ugh - not cool. You have to go thru the basketball court (where several teenage boys were already playing) to get to the stairs which are clearly marked. I equated this to asking my mom if she knows where I left my porn. It was like a cruel joke all the way around.

 

We zigzagged back and forth along the decks working our way down checking out every lounge, and bar and cubby hole. At about 1:25, we headed in search of our cabin...

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tisabee

tisabee

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Posted

The whole charade took less than 5 minutes and I was back up to Deck 10 to watch the show below for a few moments. First things first - where the hell is the f-deck? We wandered around and around the funnel looking for it. Ugh - not cool. You have to go thru the basketball court (where several teenage boys were already playing) to get to the stairs which are clearly marked. I equated this to asking my mom if she knows where I left my porn. It was like a cruel joke all the way around.

 

Too darn funny! This is like the best story ever...keep it coming!:D

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bcs819

bcs819

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We opened the door to our cabin and HOLY CR@P! I guess someone went a little crazy on the Bon VOyage gift page. Our cabin was decorated with streamers and all the Bon Voyage decorations (it was neither my birthday nor our anniversary - but hey, a girl's gotta do...). There was also a beautiful bouquet of red roses.

After school special moment -

I am so lucky to have someone who loves me. <sniffle, sniffle>

 

Laying along side the note that came with the roses, was my gift -

"48 drink coupons will be delivered to your table #xxx at dinner"

Um, oops. We won't be at our table #xxx at dinner. Gosh darnit - now I had to worry about catching up with our drink coupons.

 

I would have said that we were totally happy in the cat 8 cabins we've had before, and we were, but this cabin rocked! The vanity and walkin closet area, the bar area lined with a shelf of glasses, the bigger balcony - a TUB! We checked out all the features, the goodies in the bathroom and made sure our safe would work with my grocery store card - it did, it did! Went back to watching the show below for our balcony and waiting for the ever-popular muster drill. Hopefully, you can tell by my review I am far from uptight, but it really upsets me when people complain about, or try to get out of the muster drill. This is something very important and everyone should appreciate it and pay attention. Once it's over you can have as much fun as you want deliberately stepping on people's trailing vest belts, but until then, pay attention D@MN iT!

 

We got back form our muster drill and our luggage was already outside our door. Dragged it inside and headed up to watch the ship pull out...

 

Sailaway was nice as it always is, but a bit cold. It was -1 at home, so we suffered through the biting 50 or so degrees it was as the sun started to set.

 

Back to the cabin to unpack, and get ready for dinner. Plenty of space to unpack everything. I pack everything on hangers and just lift it out and hang it up so this was a 5 minute job for me. We relaxed and took a little nap before dinner. Only one show for Welcome Aboard tonight. Since we're not wild and crazy enough to think the whole population of the ship fighting for seats in the Amber Palace was fun, we opted to skip the show.

 

Dinner was nice. Most of the tables for two are in the main traffic flow but ours was a little out of the way. We could see our original table from where we were seated and we were happy that we had moved. One person at the table wore shorts or jeans all week, including on formal night. I wouldn't have been able to keep that opinion to myself - especially with 48 drink coupons burning a hole in my pocket. We both had the NY STrip. It wasn't good. I was afraid I looked like a dog with a chew toy and finally gave up. Can't remember what we had every night as far as other courses go so I'll sum up the hits and misses here:

 

LOVED:

Prime rib

Beef Wellington

Lobster

Seafood Newburgh

Warm Chocolate Melting Cake

Grand Marnier Souffle

 

Liked:

the fruit soups. THis was the first time tried them. I thought they were ok, a little thin for me, wold have liked them if they had been creamier or had a little more body to them. He loves milk, and would (and does) put milk on everything so he loved them.

 

Still stuck in our throat/teeth

NY STrip

Chateaubriand

 

All of the apps/salads wer ok-good. Disappointed with the balsamic vinagrette. Wasn't emulsified and I had to beat it with my fork before pouring it over my salad. I'm on vacation - this was too much exertion. I just ordered ranch for the rest of the week, but this dressing thing may have ruined the cruise for me.

 

Decided to call it a night after dinner. A nice leisurely walk by the bar area and then headed up to Chateau 7248.

 

No flames, please, I'm just posting facts and absilutely nothing you can say or write will convince us not to do this part, so save your keys...

 

We propped our balcony door open with our bungees and drifted off to sleep to the sound of the ocean outside. It can be done, just make sure you close the balcony door before openig your cabin door. Trust me on this.

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bcs819

bcs819

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Sunday, February 11 - AT SEA

 

Woke up to the sound of the ocean and feel of the sun on our skin. Ahhh. Vacation.

 

After getting our obligatory dose of the Anna Nicole tragedy news, I went up to the buffet to bring back breakfast. Lines were not long for the most part any day, the omelet station either had a huge line or no one. Remember, you can ask for eggs - over easy, etc, at the omelet station. Only complaint here was that it seemed like they couldn't keep the beverages full. There was always someone working and filling the machines, but in the 10 cup a day of java world, the coffee emptied out fast. Every monring with my breakfast I had a cup of hot chocolate. Fill half the cup with hot chocolate and then top off with half-and-half - makes it taste like the real thing.

Breakfast food was ok, potatoes were better at the end of the week when they started grinding leftover baked potatoes into hash brown patties - they were yummy especially with syrup.

 

Weather was really yucky today. Overcast, chilly, raining. Tonight was formal night so we kind of wandered around, relaxed, people watched, drank some coupons and hung out in Chateau 7248. Ordered from room service (every day we ordered lunch actually). BLT, the grilled veggie sandwich, 3 fruit plates...love that grilled veggie sandwich. The mushrooms soak up all the marinade flavor and were fabulous!

 

We've done formal night many times now, so we skipped most of the festivities before dinner and relaxed with drinks on our balcony. I'm not ashamed. We brought a bottle of Amaretto and a bottle of Southern Comfort on in our checked bags. Wrapped in bubbles and packed in a ziploc freezer bag - no problems.

 

For dinner I had surf and turf - the prime rib and the lobster. Yummy! Our waiter tried to get me to eat more lobster but there were some yummy looking Marines at the next table in their dress uniforms and I didn't want to look like Darryl Hannah in Splash - so I refrained. We spent a little time wandering around after dinner waiting for the 11 pm adult comedian. Very funny. Laughed and laughed. A whole day of doing absolutely nothing really tired us out so we headed back to our cabin. Cozumel tomorrow.

39 drink coupons to go.

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alb1956

alb1956

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Sunday, February 11 - AT SEA

 

Woke up to the sound of the ocean and feel of the sun on our skin. Ahhh. Vacation.

 

After getting our obligatory dose of the Anna Nicole tragedy news, I went up to the buffet to bring back breakfast. Lines were not long for the most part any day, the omelet station either had a huge line or no one. Remember, you can ask for eggs - over easy, etc, at the omelet station. Only complaint here was that it seemed like they couldn't keep the beverages full. There was always someone working and filling the machines, but in the 10 cup a day of java world, the coffee emptied out fast. Every monring with my breakfast I had a cup of hot chocolate. Fill half the cup with hot chocolate and then top off with half-and-half - makes it taste like the real thing.

Breakfast food was ok, potatoes were better at the end of the week when they started grinding leftover baked potatoes into hash brown patties - they were yummy especially with syrup.

 

Weather was really yucky today. Overcast, chilly, raining. Tonight was formal night so we kind of wandered around, relaxed, people watched, drank some coupons and hung out in Chateau 7248. Ordered from room service (every day we ordered lunch actually). BLT, the grilled veggie sandwich, 3 fruit plates...love that grilled veggie sandwich. The mushrooms soak up all the marinade flavor and were fabulous!

 

We've done formal night many times now, so we skipped most of the festivities before dinner and relaxed with drinks on our balcony. I'm not ashamed. We brought a bottle of Amaretto and a bottle of Southern Comfort on in our checked bags. Wrapped in bubbles and packed in a ziploc freezer bag - no problems.

 

For dinner I had surf and turf - the prime rib and the lobster. Yummy! Our waiter tried to get me to eat more lobster but there were some yummy looking Marines at the next table in their dress uniforms and I didn't want to look like Darryl Hannah in Splash - so I refrained. We spent a little time wandering around after dinner waiting for the 11 pm adult comedian. Very funny. Laughed and laughed. A whole day of doing absolutely nothing really tired us out so we headed back to our cabin. Cozumel tomorrow.

39 drink coupons to go.

Can't wait to hear about Cozumal..........that's the only excersion we booked!!!

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alb1956

alb1956

Posted
Posted
Sunday, February 11 - AT SEA

 

Woke up to the sound of the ocean and feel of the sun on our skin. Ahhh. Vacation.

 

After getting our obligatory dose of the Anna Nicole tragedy news, I went up to the buffet to bring back breakfast. Lines were not long for the most part any day, the omelet station either had a huge line or no one. Remember, you can ask for eggs - over easy, etc, at the omelet station. Only complaint here was that it seemed like they couldn't keep the beverages full. There was always someone working and filling the machines, but in the 10 cup a day of java world, the coffee emptied out fast. Every monring with my breakfast I had a cup of hot chocolate. Fill half the cup with hot chocolate and then top off with half-and-half - makes it taste like the real thing.

Breakfast food was ok, potatoes were better at the end of the week when they started grinding leftover baked potatoes into hash brown patties - they were yummy especially with syrup.

 

Weather was really yucky today. Overcast, chilly, raining. Tonight was formal night so we kind of wandered around, relaxed, people watched, drank some coupons and hung out in Chateau 7248. Ordered from room service (every day we ordered lunch actually). BLT, the grilled veggie sandwich, 3 fruit plates...love that grilled veggie sandwich. The mushrooms soak up all the marinade flavor and were fabulous!

 

We've done formal night many times now, so we skipped most of the festivities before dinner and relaxed with drinks on our balcony. I'm not ashamed. We brought a bottle of Amaretto and a bottle of Southern Comfort on in our checked bags. Wrapped in bubbles and packed in a ziploc freezer bag - no problems.

 

For dinner I had surf and turf - the prime rib and the lobster. Yummy! Our waiter tried to get me to eat more lobster but there were some yummy looking Marines at the next table in their dress uniforms and I didn't want to look like Darryl Hannah in Splash - so I refrained. We spent a little time wandering around after dinner waiting for the 11 pm adult comedian. Very funny. Laughed and laughed. A whole day of doing absolutely nothing really tired us out so we headed back to our cabin. Cozumel tomorrow.

39 drink coupons to go.

Can't wait to hear about Cozumel.............that's the only excursion we booked!!!:D

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SmooCruise

SmooCruise

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No flames, please, I'm just posting facts and absilutely nothing you can say or write will convince us not to do this part, so save your keys...

 

We propped our balcony door open with our bungees and drifted off to sleep to the sound of the ocean outside. It can be done, just make sure you close the balcony door before openig your cabin door. Trust me on this.

 

I'm completely with you on the propping the balcony door open. We did it also on our cruise on The Pride. LOVED going to sleep to the sound of the ocean against the ship. And loved waking up that way too!

 

Loving your review! Thanks for posting! ;)

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MszKitty

MszKitty

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I'm completely with you on the propping the balcony door open. We did it also on our cruise on The Pride. LOVED going to sleep to the sound of the ocean against the ship. And loved waking up that way too!

 

Loving your review! Thanks for posting! ;)

 

SmooCruise...I'm going on the Pride in July. This will be our first balcony cabin on a Carnival ship (usually sail RCCL and their balcony doors are sliders). Will we need the infamous bungie cord to hold the door open?

 

bcs819...loving your review and looking forward to the rest of it.

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vermonter16

vermonter16

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Posted
SmooCruise...I'm going on the Pride in July. This will be our first balcony cabin on a Carnival ship (usually sail RCCL and their balcony doors are sliders). Will we need the infamous bungie cord to hold the door open?

 

A bungee cord sure helps or you can use a chair but sometimes the wind blows it and the door shuts.

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SmooCruise

SmooCruise

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SmooCruise...I'm going on the Pride in July. This will be our first balcony cabin on a Carnival ship (usually sail RCCL and their balcony doors are sliders). Will we need the infamous bungie cord to hold the door open?

 

I have read here on CC that there are "doorstops" in the room that will hold the balcony door open. But I never saw one in our room??? Also be aware that supposedly keeping your door open makes the air conditioner stay off. To be honest I didn't notice whether it was on or not? I slept very comfortably is all I know. During the day I didn't keep it propped open for very long periods, just at night.

 

I've posted some more Pride reviews this week on my Pride website if you want to go read them. And I will be posting some more and more pictures. The link is in my signature.

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rwillis9

rwillis9

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That is so funny that she kept hitting the bus. I was a Paramedic for 10 years and had some lady driving a Caddy that could barely see over the steering wheel back into our truck. She proceded to go forward and back 5 times before we could finally get her attention. I had to turn the lights and siren on. Now wouldn't you think that hitting a huge steel bumper 5 times would give you a clue? Nope. She was going to try it again, but my partner reached through the open window and turned the car off. She then started screaming saying that he was attacking her and yelling rape. Could the day get any worse? PD finally showed up and we got the great honor of filling out paperwork all day long! Ugh! AARP does strike again!

 

Glad to hear that it did not delay you too much from getting to your VIP Privileges! lol :D

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