scuba_ninja

I had it on my cruise a few weeks ago and I'm sad I didn't order 5 of them and keep them in the fridge in my room for snacks. 

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/237469/chia-coconut-pudding-with-coconut-milk/

That recipe should get you pretty close. 

New Year's Eve celebrations were actually great. They did a fantastic job keeping it classy but fun. Everyone got a free glass of champagne (provided they were of age).

A lot of staff were even on deck enjoying the party. Some were on duty, but there were lots of off duty staff all dressed up clearly having a great time too. 

Very cool experience. The crowd was great, respectful and fun. Kudos to the staff for managing the crowd, drink service and fun so well. 

I also loved that they blew the ship's horn for a while. It was just a darn fun party. 

There were a few ships around us too having a celebration. Clearly the best picture I took on the whole cruise. 

I went to bed very shortly after midnight. I had an exciting day ahead of me in Jamaica. Spoiler alert. Jamaica isn't great. I wouldn't chose to go back willingly. But we'll get into that. 

Dinner was pretty decent. We spent a lot of time talking to our tablemates, so I forgot to get pics of it all. Sorry. Here's the oysters, Veal, flatbread, and Crab and pickles mushrooms. 

The pappardelle was actually... not good. Sauce too sweet and noodles gummy. Our tablemates said the eggplant roll wasn't fantastic either. The lamb chops were actually pretty good. 

The flatbread was... not great and didn't even look that good actually. 

That night we were treated to a lovely sunset. 

And some neat toys along with our towel animal. 

OK, stop the presses. I need all y'all's help. My wife and I are having a full out brawl over this. Is the animal a crab or frog? Choose your answer wisely, answer wrong and I won't post any more pictures of food. Or some other suitable punishment. 

Tonight's special menu (yes, it was formal night)

Before dinner though, we went to the show. It was actually pretty good. I'm a hard rock fan. My wife, who apparently only knows country music (which I hate) only knew like 2 songs. Her loss. 

If you'll notice, there's lots of heads in the way in the pics. Pro tip, the first floor of the theater isn't angled, so getting good views is difficult, even though we were in the third row. You'll have a better view of the show one level up.

I'm sorry folks that this review is taking so long to bust out, but good things come to those who wait? 

I'm having a devil of a time getting re-adjusted back to real life/work, and I have tons of pics I have not even gotten to sort through yet. 

Last we left our heroes it was dinner on the 30th. Before I forget, because it was asked for, here's a pic of the Valor passing us on the 29th. 

Because I'm broken and couldn't sleep, here's the sunrise on New Year's eve.

A damn fine sunrise picture if I don't say so myself. 

Seaday Brunch menu

and my order of fried chicken with Kimchi. My wife had the steak and eggs. The steak was fantastic. The chicken and kimchi was great, but the biscuits... not so much. We also had the chia seed pudding which was so good, I wished we had ordered more and saved them for later. That's for sure one of those foods that you should try. The texture might not be for everyone, but it is good stuff, and pretty good for you too. 

OK, someone has to explain this to me. 

This guy was walking around every day at breakfast with a plant in a bottle. He never gave anyone the plant. Or leaves from it. Or anything. I just saw him walking around with a plant in a bottle. What the heck am I missing here?

The Hairy Chest contest was that day. This is all I caught of it. I dunno, didn't look very interesting to me. But this guy was for sure hamming it up in the shower. 

At first I was thinking they should have a hairy chest contest for women too. But then I realized I probably don't really wanna see that. No. The more I think about this, the less I want to see that. At one point I passed by something happening on the Lido and a 70 year old granny was twerking. I think that was planned. Because seeing that sure made some folks hit their 15 drink limit that day. 

Moving on, there was also a neat ice carving demo that day. 

Apparently this guy makes all the carvings for the ship. Fruit, ice, soap, etc. Pretty.... COOL. GET IT. ICE? COOL?  

Here's some more pics from around the ship, including the chicken tikka masala sammich. Which was actually super good. 

On 1/13/2020 at 6:31 PM, Mavrick_RN said:

Like DQGal, we too are on the Jan 19 sailing out of NOLA and can hardly wait. 

 

Super great review and PICTURES!!!!  I am all for the Miiississsssippppiiii River sights.  Especially want to see the oil rigs at night.  It would be a real treat to see other cruise ships and even pass one coming back.  Was born in St. Louis and used to watch the river boats all the time and dream of takin' a raft down Ole Man River.  Did you see the "You Are Beautiful" graffiti on the old Rice Mill (converted to condos) building ?

 

Can you remember what night was lobster night in the MDR?  (Please don't be Tuesday cuz we have reservations at the Steak House).

 

Once again Super enjoyable review.  I get your sense of humor and proper evaluation of ribs.  (Falling off the bone is boiled rot)

 

Mav (and Patty)

 

 

THANK YOU!

I GOTCHU FAM! 

Lobster was the second formal night actually (not NYE). So, not Tuesday, but your sailing may vary because of the lack of holiday. 

On 1/13/2020 at 1:47 PM, VentureMan_2000 said:

Any Escargot… or beef wellington... or Lobster... or lamb shank... frog legs... ox tails...?

I'll have to try the ox tongue.

I've got pics of most of those from this trip. 

The lamb was very good. I should have ordered two. 

5 hours ago, BigEasyCC said:

Expect to see the oil rigs around midnight. If you're going to be up that late I would suggest checking out your schedule if another ship is docking at New Orleans the day after you leave. If so, you will pass the ship returning near the mouth of the Mississippi River around 11pm usually. If it's the Valor, expect to hoop and holler as you pass the other ship! You will pass fairly close in the river!

I have a picture of our Valor passing! I will post it!

On 1/12/2020 at 7:30 AM, clmsntgers said:

Yay!  Loving this review - we'll be on the Glory in June.  Question - you said to stay up late to see the oil rigs leaving NOLA.  About how late?  My son would love to see them.

 

Also, we are trying to decide whether to come down to NOLA on Friday and spend an extra day pre cruise so if you do have any suggestions/pictures at the end of the cruise review, I personally would love to read/see them!

We left about 5 ish I want to say, yeah, it was around midnight before we saw any. On my last cruise on the Dream 2 years ago, we ended up seeing them sooner. It could have been the ship, weather, river traffic, etc. but I do remember not having to stay up as late. Or maybe now that I'm 2 years older I'm just more tired. 

On the way home we hit the rigs much earlier. I'll post a few great pics I have of them at sunset. 

Glad you're enjoying the review! YES!!! SPEND EXTRA TIME IN NOLA!!!! In my humble opinion, do it before the cruise. After and you'll be too tired/full to really enjoy the city. I will for sure post more NOLA pics and suggestions at the end (feel free to remind me too!). I just wanted to make sure I got to the cruise itself before people got antsy. 

On 1/11/2020 at 4:17 PM, DQGal said:

Thanks for the great review!!  We leave on the Glory Jan 19th,  with our daughter,  son in law and 3 children  lol  5, 3 and 8 months!!.  Except for our daughter, it will be their 1st cruise.   I use to have chinchillas,  they are so sweet!!!  We also have booked the front rooms with the secret deck, on several carnival ships. They are nice with out the cost of a balcony. 

Yeah! Chinchilla owners unite!  Ours were so happy to see my wife when we got back. I'm apparently not as important. Even though I do most of the cleaning, feeding, etc. 

Glory is a good ship, you'll have fun. I'm going to try for those front rooms every chance I get. They were great!

Just got off the glory and stayed in one of those rooms. 7201. Fantastic. Not a lot of foot traffic in front of the room, very quiet and great views. Would stay in one again for sure. Blackout curtains on the window worked great, but tons of light when we needed it. 

22 minutes ago, BigEasyCC said:

Pictures all look great! You may have even convinced me to try Ox Tongue. I've tried Frog Legs and Escargot on Carnival and both were surprisingly good!

Yessss!!!! Come to the delicious side!!! Ox tongue is even tastier to most than those two. Tastes a lot more like the meat you're used to. Just way more tender. 

We'll get to the escargot and the foggy legs. Both also favorites.

The rabbit in the puff pastry I did not try. I've had rabbit a few times. In Paris I found it inedible (saying a lot from a guy who eats pig snouts). But in New Orleans I couldn't get enough of it. I figured I'd leave it at the good experience this week. 

2 minutes ago, luvcruzing said:

Don’t be so sure.  It was hot in Miami on our cruise in November, and we stood there so long waiting for them to get started, that my travel buddy almost passed out.  Had to call for a wheelchair.  Of course none of the crew had a radio.  Horrible.

That's because Miami is Satan's armpit. I lived there for two years and I can tell you there's only two things in that city I don't hate. La Moon's hot dogs and Pollo tropical chicken. The rest of the city runs entirely on drugs, human trafficking and bribes from those industries. Thankfully, at least in winter NOLA is generally more mild than Miami. 

Dinner was a pretty good menu. 

One of the best things I've eaten on a carnival Cruise is the ox tongue. I ordered three. I'm not kidding. 

Look, every has a very different palate. For some people mashed instead of baked potato is adventurous eating. I really encourage you to go outside of the box, especially on a cruise where it doesn't cost anything extra. Ox tongue is delicious. I personally will try anything that's not immediately poisoning me, and in general I enjoy foods most here would never dream of, so my frame of reference may be different. But, I also don't eat tomatoes and I can't even choke down spinach. I gag and puke on it every time I try. I'll eat tongues and ears and all manner of strange parts, but I can't eat two of the most common foods. Go figure. 

The ribs were.... Ok. Too soft for me. Real BBQ folks know ribs should be chew off the bone, not fall off. Falling off means they were boiled. I get it, they don't have a smoker on the ship, but these were not particularly great. 

The bitter and blanc did not disappoint.

Neither did our dinner show, or the towel heart. 💙

My wife told them it was our honeymoon (slight stretch) but they did give us some coupons for pixels and $5 for a treat at the treat shop. 

Here is a few more pictures of the different lounges and things. The Ebony Cabaret (comedy club) Cinna-bar piano bar, bar blue and the white heat dance club. That club was probably the emptiest room on the ship. No matter when I passed by day or night, it seemed very lonely in there. The DJ didn't sound that bad either. It was just a ghost town. Except one night when I passed by after finishing an 11pm comedy show and there was ONE person inside. She was obviously stumbling drunk and trying to "dance". Alone. 

The comedy club is a decent size but often got to be standing room only packed. The masks decor was weird. I guess it was supposed to be "African" themed. Amber Palace if I had to guess was an Eastern European theme. The buffet was a "stuff your face with fried stuff" theme. 

The gingerbread scene was neat. I particularly felt a kindred spirit with the snow devil. 

As I mentioned before, I like money too much to gamble it away. The house always wins. I have some serious card sharks in my family, but I guess I didn't get that Gene. I did however get the one for premature grey hair. Thanks Dad!

The casino was pretty smokey as they often are, but this felt particularly bad. Because of the position I had to walk by/through it often and that annoyed me. Ventilation there isn't great. I suspect that the ship in general is having age/maintenance issues honestly. The casino smell would waft over or strange places often and is suspect it has to do with vent system issues. Why would the starboard exit to deck 11 always smell like smoke when casino in on Deck 11?? There were a few other places like that around the ship too. As a non-smoker it felt like the casino was leaking around the ship a lot.

I don't think deck 5 is particularly well designed. There's only one side of the ship that actually goes through, I don't see why they couldn't have had ways to walk through the casino on both sides. It made that hallway super crowded, especially around dinner time. The club O2 lounge is right there, and the kids were often milling about outside it. That in itself isn't a bad thing at all but it made that area feel more cramped. 

Oh, and to make it even better, they always had pixels photo backdrops set up in the that walkway. Not a great design. 

This casino felt Bigger than other ships I've been on, so if you're the gambling type, yay for you.

I Never walked into the arcade but from the ship Map, it looks pretty big. 

Carnival cruise ships are known for gaudy decor. If that's your thing, this ship doesn't disappoint. The theme seems to be colors, but also international colors. Like, the camel club is vaguely Egyptian themed and brown.

The ivory bar is white with Indian sort of decor and so forth. The colors lobby is all about getting stoned and seeing colors, hence the pot leaf on the floor. 

Thanks for the compliments folks. Sorry for this review taking so long, but I came back to hell damnation and pandemonium at work. 

The first two days were sea days and sea days are awesome.

You can see That the bridge was decorated a little bit for the season. They had a tree and some other little festive touches.

Room stewards also has festival towel animals on their carts

I spent a good part of the first day just wandering and staring at the ocean.

I only ever actually had. A small snack at the buffet, but I did wander through a bunch. Some dishes looked better than others. I did find that on the whole the cakes were pretty, but flavorless and dry. As we learned in our tour, all of the "sponge" (cake base material) is baked overnight and then decorated as needed in the morning. 

For those curious about the tea and lemonade, here are a few pictures you probably were better off not seeing. This stuff is as far from natural as you can get without it being legally classified as liquid plastic. The lemonade though does contain some real lemon pulp, so it's slightly more natural? I decided my best course of action is to mix the two and make what I called "Arnold's plastic surgery". Like and Arnold Palmer, but with more artificial flavor and preservatives. 

30 minutes ago, Tiger0613 said:

It looks like a crab rangoon.

Ha! It does! 

Both posts above have videos in them, check 'm out if you can. The first post is a snippet of the Hanukkah celebration and the second is the ship starting to turn and pull out. 

Here's some night shots of our towel animal tonight (starfish?) , pics from the Deck 7 Secret deck, some more sail away/sail down river and some awesome stateroom door decorations. We had a ton on this ship. I was glad to see that the room stewards mostly left them alone and didn't bother people about them. 

SAAAAIIILL AWAY... COME SAIL AWAY WITH MEEEEEEEEE.....

Ok, some sail away pics. If you've never cruised done the miisssiisssippiii (that's the correct spelling, right?) river, you're really missing out. BEAUTIFUL! I wish we could see more of it during the day. STAY AWAKE LONG ENOUGH TO SEE THE OIL RIGS!!! SUPER COOL!

Now, something I've NEVER Seen posted about on CC... the Hanukkah Menorah lighting! We were lucky enough to spend the last night of the holiday on board, so we got a night of Menorah Lighting! THANK YOU MICHELLE ON THE FUN SQUAD FOR LEADING THIS! Including Michelle, my wife and I, I think there were a grand total of 6 Jews on the ship this week, but we really appreciate that Carnival does this. And I for one also appreciate all those who were not Jewish who came out to see the lighting. I had a really nice conversation with a deeply devout baptist who was curious about the ceremony and came to watch. This is part of what I really like about cruising. I know there were arguments a few weeks about about how much some people hate sharing tables because they hate "small talk", but I enjoy getting to meet folks from all walks of life on the ship. 

Hanukkah is actually not a major holiday as far as religious importance goes, but it started becoming a bigger deal after WWII. Since it happens around Christmas time usually, celebrating it publically helped displaced Jews feel more part of the communities in which they settled, particularly in the US.

Anyway, back to Cruisin' 

Dinner that night was pretty good.  Nothing on the menu looked super special, so I ordered the indian meal. I really enjoyed it actually, and I would get it again for sure.

The cheese plate for dessert was delicious actually. 

Also, above is a picture of the sugar straw drink wrappers. I got a sugar straw just to try it. It's gross. But I love it. They melt and turn to wet noodles really quickly. Did you ever have those "Candy Bones" candies for Halloween? Or the not bubble gum candy cigarettes? Imagine those, but with awful lime flavor. I can't explain why I liked them. I shouldn't have. I dunno, I'm weird. You can see the Calamari in the background. 

Also, here's some glory damage from the inside, right next to our table. You can see that the ceiling is a little wonky still, but otherwise, can't really tell anything happened. 

Because I am a kind and generous deity, I am including some menus and Fun Times. 

Yaaaay! Fun!  The comedy on the ship was good. We ended up seeing I think 5 shows total. Wish we got to more, but we got tired some nights. 

They had to heavily modify some shows and cancel others because we were short performers on the ship. As we learned in our behind the fun tour, it takes about 6 weeks to train a carnival performer on the current shows, so don't expect the show schedule to be complete for at least the next 6 sailings. There is no lip synching whatsoever, so if a performer is sick, they can't perform, which might mean a show is cancelled if they are a soloist. They did "fly on" a few folks, like the Phil Hughes guy for Viva Variety. He's a talented ventriloquist who can do neat things with his voice, but his material is SO BAD. SO SO SO SO BAD. I give him 1 out of 5 stars. Skip his show and watch some paint dry instead. Or laugh at the art auction. The Epic Rock show was very good though. 

If you look at the last picture above of the Colors Lobby, you'll see an interesting leaf shape motif on the floor. Maybe that's a sign as to why the Glory had a little accident in Cozumel?  OK, bad joke, I know. 

I hope you guys enjoy the crazy amount of pics I'm posting. I'm also specifically trying to post pics of things I don't see on here. The Glory in general doesn't get a lot of mentions on CC, so I'm trying to fill in the gaps. 

Also, more ugly art. Sorry if I'm offending anyone here, but man... some of this is.... awful. While we're on this subject, let's get into a brawl about the ship art sales. I get it, if you see something you actually like (supposedly they had stuff on board by an artist I do like, but never saw it) and you're on vacation.. blah blah blah.. you don't mind overpaying. Heck, I paid $8 for a 10¢ made in China magnet. But please, for the love of all that is good in this world, don't for ONE SECOND believe that the art they sell is genuine, or any kind of bargain. There are volumes written about this online, in magazines and in art circles. Just based on the shady and awful practices of the company alone, I would never buy art on the ship. 

Moving on, I've also included a pic of the infamous butter crocks we've all argued about. I asked, yes, it is real butter. It comes in giant bins. It is then warmed and whipped in an industrial size kitchenaid mixed (saw it in action on behind the fun tour) and put in crocks. Some of you are calling it a crock of.... stuff... but I saw it with my own eyes. 

Some ship pics might seem kind of random, like the tables in the Amber Palace, but again, I'm looking to show details you don't always see that some people might find interesting. If you look closely in these pictures you'll also get a good idea of the ship's condition. The ship is perfectly seaworthy, but really showing its age. If you care about rust, worn carpets and broken trim pieces in cabins, you won't like the Glory. Me personally, I couldn't care less about most of that stuff. It didn't make any difference in my cruise. The ship really needs some TLC badly though. When the sticker "paneling" in the elevators is peeling off, it's a sign you need some refurbs.

Embarking day is for 'splorin the ship, so here's a bunch more random ship pics, and some ketchup and mayo drill pics. Shhhh. I was sneaky and took pictures!!

Let's talk about muster for a moment. What a craptacular experience. Look, I get it, we all hate how much it interrupts our fun on day one, but this was so poorly organized. There was no direction. No good signage and the staff with orange hats who are supposed to be directing us had no idea where to go. They just pointed for us to keep walking down the overcrowded stairs. I had taken a picture of the muster instructions on the back of the cabin door, and that was more help than any staffer. We were packed in to the area near the lifeboats by the Amber Palace theater. Thank goodness it is shaded/covered from rain. Still super hot and and crowded, but at least it was out of the sun. This was so badly controlled that several people in my area actually just straight up decided to leave early. As far as I could see, nobody stopped them. No penalty. In a real emergency I think this crew would be toast. I get that scanning one card per cabin gets it over faster, but I don't know that they actually visually checked for each person. At least we didn't have to bring our life jacket. For those curious, there's a service walkway on Deck 3 that runs the length of the ship on both sides. Muster station A5 is right outside Amber Palace. The rest are on either side of the ship, same level up and down the walkway where the lifeboats are held. Crew muster station is actually the very tip of the bow. We learned that on our behind the fun tour, which I'll talk about in detail. 

These pics take us up to sail away and there's one in here showing a nice top down view of the glory hole repair too. Not sure why the order they want to post in is weird, but I'm sure you'll all survive. 

25 minutes ago, lostsoulcruiser said:

Keep posting, love your review so far. I'm on the Glory in May (May 3) and looking forward to the rest. Having been on the Conquest (same size as Glory) and Dream ( bigger), I found the Conquest just the right size.  I know this ship will not have all the modern stuff newer vessels have however, good food, good companionship, an attentive crew are as important as a roller coaster or whatever. 

Couldn't agree more. I don't give a rolling hoot about coasters. I want good meals and a friendly crew. And a clean bed I don't have to make. 

Spoiler alert, I was on the Dream two years ago and liked it MUCH more. I promise I'll explain why. Glory isn't a bad ship, but Dream is better. The one thing I liked better on the Glory is that for whatever reason the aft adult only pool was significantly less crowded most of the time. That could just have been the random mix of people on this sailing too. I also think Glory had more swirls stations, so there was never a line for processed frozen dairy-adjacent dessert sludge. Which I consumed more of than I should have.