SpainAlien

I am boarding Horizon in a couple of weeks and following it up with Celebration straight afterward, I can see that the CDs are Lee Mason and Georgia Craig. My previous two cruises were both with Felipe Couto who was great fun, we kept seeing him around the ship always with a smile on his face and involved in entertaining the guests, what do you think of Lee and Georgia, will I be disappointed?

Just a note, I am on Horizon at the end of the month and Celebration from 5th May, both are showing CT at $119 per person (plus grats) It does say "Sailing on Panorama, Firenze or Venezia? Your ship has an upgraded Chef’s Table experience! Enjoy an elevated menu with premium options for food and wine"

Last time I sailed with Carnival if you were booked in for the speciality dining on nights 1 or 2 you got a free bottle of wine per table but based on the wording on the website today it looks like you only get it on night 1 now but it is one bottle per couple. Enjoy a Free Bottle of Wine When You Reserve Select Specialty Dining Dine with us at Steakhouse, Rudi's Seagrill, Il Viaggio and Cucina on select ships* on embarkation day and enjoy one free bottle of our house wine for every two people – or half off select bottles of wine listed under $100. Book dining for your second night at Steakhouse, Il Viaggio or Rudi’s Seagrill, and get 50% off wines listed under $100. Terms and conditions *Applies to all Steakhouse, Rudi’s Seagrill, Il Viaggio, Jiji & Cucina reservations. Excluding Cucina on Mardi Gras, Celebration & Jubilee. No promo code needed, redeem offer onboard when dining on these nights. Not valid for AUS sailings. For offer details, please refer to our Specialty Dining FAQ section above.

The land sailing is through Carnival but everything else is through Viator

We're doing the ABC itinerary in April on Horizon, we have booked an ATV for Aruba with cliff jumping, in Bonaire we are land sailing and then a semi private tour of North and South Bonaire, for Curacao we are doing a semi private tour to swim with the turtles then go to a nice beach.

We're on the same sailing, good luck getting an early reservation for the steakhouse on days 1 or 2, fully booked until 8pm

According to Carnival that is exactly what they are https://www.carnival.com/help?topicid=1123

You get 5 bottles if wine from a select list

After a few years of being loyal to NCL I recently tried Royal again. The entertainment was on a par with NCL but the organised parties were better, the food was slightly better and the service was outstanding. I have been disappointed with NCL cuts to entertainment but the food and service are, in my opinion, still generally good. However on NCL I have noticed that the crew seem a little more downcast these days. I am now booking my cruises for this year and next and I regret that none of them are with NCL. Perhaps if NCL reinstate the production shows or have an itinerary that I particularly want I will go back.

I was on Ovation of the Seas last week and it was Lurpak spreadable

Still having a great time but there have been two more Alpha calls today, I do hope those guests are OK as we are still a good few hours out of Sydney. Apparently there are over 100 people with covid onboard and they have run out of anti viral medication. We do have 4300 guests onboard though so 100 is still quite a small percentage

Cold, wet but pretty. Didn't see an6 wildlife but we always seem to muss. So far people have seen albatrosses, dolphins and seals and we haven't seen any lol

I'm in the same cruise and have had no real complaints regarding the food, there is a good choice of fish, beef, chicken, pork and vegan options. I agree there is no turkey but it's not Christmas. The crew are friendly and helpful. It was disappointing that we couldn't get off in Auckland but sometimes these things happen. All in all I would come back on this ship happily and am looking at booking my next cruise already with Royal Caribbean

We had a sea day yesterday so despite being over 60 and overweight we had a go in the bumper cars, what fun. Again, we have been generally pleased with the food and the service but I wouldn't recommend the lobster mac n cheese, not what I expected at all. I expected typical cheesey mac n cheese with bits of lobster but it was like they had used lobster soup instead of milk so it tasted fishy and was brown in colour, not one piece of lobster to be found. It was the UK menu yesterday and we neing from UK we would recommend the Atlantic cod and chips or the chicken tikka Masala. The yorkshire pudding isn't like a yorkshire pudding from UK but more breadlike so we avoided the roast beef entree. The trifle was good as was the sticky toffee pudding but that was more like a date pudding with toffee sauce. Generally not a bad attempt though. There was a medical emergency on board last night which resulted in an attempt to airlift the patient of the ship but it was too windy so that had to be aborted and instead we had to meet up with the pilot boat ftom Dunedin so that they could take the poor guest yo hospital. The arrival in the sounds is delayed a little as a result (about 1 hour) Yoomia was the entertainment last night, I wasn't particularly impressed, I was expecting rock music on an electric violin but mostly it wasn't although she did do a little Queen and Sweet Child of Mine at the end. I'm going to pop into Next Cruise to see about booking another cruise.

Wellington today. The shuttle bus into town was efficiently run and there were lots of them. The port volunteers (pink vests) were handing out city maps too. The bus drops you at the "beehive" which is the new parliament building then we walked down to the sea front and along to the Te Papa museum (about 20 minutes). The museum is pretty good with plenty of info about the maoris and the white settlers. If you want to go up on the chair lift buy tickets before you arrive, they were sold out online today. The city is very built up with modern buildings but a few of the older structures are still there which is nice.