~~~Carnival Glory~~~Review~~~Part 2

THE RESTAURANTS: We had the late seating (8:00 PM) in the Golden Restaurant. Our waiter was Vladimir and Inga was his assistant, they were OK, nothing out of the ordinary, he was good and she I would rate as fair. In my opinion the service was significantly better on the Pride. The food was pretty much the same as on the cruise two years ago. We noticed that they had changed and added a few new dishes from our last cruise. Cappuccino that was free on our last cruise cost $2.50, we were really annoyed about that. There is also something new that Carnival is trying out called "Carnival Colors", it is like color war at camp. The dinning room is broken up into 3 teams using the Carnival colors, red, white and blue. The winners of the activities onboard are awarded points for their team, every night toward the end of dinner they would update the points won.

We all went to the dinning room for breakfast, like the idea of being served food that is made to order and you do not have to stand on line to get it. Only did breakfast in the Red Sail restaurant a three times, on the days at sea. The lines at the buffet were long but not that bad. At lunch the lines were longer. When at the buffet I ordered egg white omelets, they were very good.

For lunch we mostly did the buffet, we ate pretty much all of the different types of international foods except for the Indian section of the buffet. We always hit the deli, they will make you a half of a sandwich if you ask for it. The quality of the meat was very, very good. The pizza was good but not as flavorful as here in NYC. I tried the fish and chips along with the calamari, the fish was good but the calamari was different than what you would get in any Italian restaurant. It was a clump of squid fried in like a ball shape without the usual tomato sauce on the side, but I enjoyed it anyway. We did the dinning room for lunch on the last day at sea and enjoyed it very much. After eating breakfast and lunch in the dinning room, that there were better waiters and assistants than who we had for dinner. A big plus was the Sushi Bar, everyone really enjoyed it and you can find it at the Japanese part of the buffet for lunch also. The grill is always a popular spot with excellent burgers, the line are usually a bit long but worth the wait.

THE EMERALD ROOM on Tuesday evening was excellent. It was the dinning highlight of the cruise and was well worth the $25 charge. The service, impeccable and the presentation like any excellent restaurant. My wife and I had the Chilean Seabass, it was unbelievable. My friend Dennis had the 24 oz. Porterhouse Steak which he could not finish. His wife had I think the Prime Rib. The meal lasts close to 2 1/2 hours, they do not rush you from course to course so you can really enjoy the experience. My only disappointment with the restaurant was that I brought up a bottle of champagne that someone had given to us as a gift THROUGH CARNIVAL and they charged me a $10 corkage fee, It was the amount but the principle. If it was purchased through Carnival there should be NO fee. I had a little bit of a disagreement with them about this and did not get anywhere with them other than it is Carnival policy to charge the corkage fee. When I got back to my cabin I received a phone call from the head of the Emerald Room and they took off the fee from my bill. I am glad but I am still going to complain to Carnival about it.

ENTERTAINMENT: John Heald was so funny, he would not be able to keep a straight face and laugh also. The different people that he picked for certain things on stage were great. You would think that he picked out these people before hand. The names of a couple of the people were funny in itself. The 2 guy band at the midship pool were fantastic. One was a keyboard player and the other played a steel drum. The classical musicians were very talented, there was also live music in the casino that played 70’s and 80’s music, they were also good, the Pride did not have an area for that. There was an Asian duo that sang in atrium which were great also. One of the highlights at the Amber Palace was Marcus Anthony, he is a R&B singer who is extremely talented and got the whole audience involved singing. We went to see three late night "R" rated comics during the cruise, Percy Crews, Michael Macy and Al Ernst. Can you say side splitting? They were hilarious. There were two shows that were also great, The first one is a Vegas style show called "Livin in America", The second was called "Rock Down Broadway" I believe, also very good but not as good as the first show. I am sorry that I missed the illusionist, I heard he was good. On our first cruise on the Pride I noticed Troy Linton was everywhere onboard involved in most of the activities, John Heald to me was not as involved. By the way his "Bedtime story" was GREAT!!! Not to be missed!!

SIDE NOTE: It was great meeting all of the Cruise Critic people at the Black and White Library on Monday morning, Pam, Liz and her husband, Chad, Rich (thanks for the TastyCake mugs), Barbara and Storm’n Norman. I apologize if I forgot someone. It was a pleasure! Thank G-d we were lucky that week weather wise!