HappyTexan44

I kept searching and in another of Rose's cake books, Heavenly cakes, she has a carrot cake. If DD doesn't like that, the problem will be with DD 🙂 . Unfortunately, DD seems to find her favorite foods while we are on vacation. Fav. mac and cheese was in Hollywood, FL. In CA, she fell in love with a Fig and Brie grilled cheese. That was at least easy to replicate.

Thinking about this, DH might be a fan too. When we were dating he made me a bargain that he'd mow my lawn if I'd keep his favorite sugar cookies in the freezer. As time went on I tweaked the recipe to his taste and eventually settled on 10X the original amount of nutmeg (14X was too much). So, he'd probably like a spice cake I made.

I am totally stealing this. I am quite proud of my homemade frostings and what most places serve is ... merely adjacent to real frosting. From what I read pre-cruise about Royal's desserts that is what I'd expect and why I never ordered a dessert except for ice cream. I am away from home with my aunt who is 4 months into her 2-3 months-to-live hospice. So I don't have access to my cookbooks. I've become a fangirl lately of the Cake Bible lady. I looked online and I don't see it in her list of recipes. So, I'll keep looking. But, now I know a generic good recipe will work. As a Texan, cream cheese frosting was the first frosting I mastered. I'm known for my Brown Velvet Cake, which is a good Red Velvet cake recipe without the red food coloring. Thank you everyone, you've been very helpful!

Teenagers! OK, she confirmed it was the carrot cake. Can anyone tell me about the carrot cake? Is it a generic carrot cake with cream cheese frosting? Any idea why she thought it was spice cake? I don't dislike carrot or spice cake, but I'm not a huge fan. If there is a choice I'll get something else, or skip it unless I'm hungry or that would be rude. I googled for the carrot cake and all i really saw was someone else asking on the RC Blog and bnot getting an answer.

You guys are just so darn helpful! I texted the photo of the Spiced Rum Cake to her to see if that looks like it. I just had a feeling it wasn't a basic spice cake. I don't think it was in the main dining room. On the second evening her meal was desserts. I think she'd tried every dessert on the MDR menu. She didn't eat all of every dessert, but none went to waste. For example there was one that none of us had had before so we passed it around the table having a taste (and none of us really liked it). Our group was four adults and two teenagers. She'd said she'd had it the evening before our last full day. She'd looked forward to having it again, but on the last day she was sick.

I'd had the same reaction when I looked at the prices online. I have a vague memory that the dollar price used a peso/dollar conversion that was heavily favorable to them. But, there is something to be said about not having to convert money.

Could it have been a carrot cake? She had said that it was a spice cake with aspects of carrot cake. I don't really like either so I don't order either and I don't know how close they are. Since it was about 6 months ago maybe she'd gotten that wrong. She is this weird child that doesn't like frosting. So, she likes cakes that don't really need frosting. I suspect that it is really that she doesn't like shortening frosting and that was what you almost always get unless it is homemade or expensive bakery cakes.

Hi this is the OP, my friend had preferred the Card Room idea. So, we ended up going there and it worked out very well. We were the first there so we had our choice of comfy seats. It has lounging seats and sit upright to play a game seats, we took the lounging ones. We didn't end up mentioning the medicine. It was right around that time that they stopped her medicine, so I don't remember if we even had it. It is a medicine that is stopped "around puberty" so we knew it was coming but not precisely when. Funny thing, we went up the wrong elevator to get to the 7th floor when we first arrived. One of the crew was telling us directions to get to the correct elevator (since it had to be the one right next to the card room). We were perfectly happy to go to the other elevator. Then he decided it would be easier to just lead us down the hallway. There weren't any carts just an occasional open door. I really wish I'd gotten his name to give him a generalized "Did a great job and so friendly". The card room was very full by the time they opened the rooms. The wagon wasn't any problem. The daughters and husbands were able to run around without any luggage at all. I was able to tuck it between mine and my friends seats.

We were on Voyager in February. I JUST now learned that DD loved the Spice Cake on Royal. As in, it is in her top two favorite cakes. I looked on the internet, and I couldn't find the recipe online. Normally if I've eaten something I can find a close recipe, but I never had the spice cake. Can anyone help me out? Maybe you know of a recipe that might be close? BTW, teenagers! Her best friend recently made her a cake for her birthday as a surpise and she'd asked me ahead what type of cake DD liked. While they were eating it DD told her best friend that "Strawberry was her third favorite type of cake." She knew immediately how bone-headed that was.

One funny thing I forgot to add. DH is going to rehab twice a week. First rehab after he got back they said, "Did you eat?" His weight hadn't changed at all, and it wasn't because he didn't eat. We did use the stairs much more than I expected. The stairs seems much less of a bother than I expected. Maybe each story is shorter than I'm used to? I know the one at work is much taller than normal, so maybe that skewed my expectation. The steps were padded, and maybe that made a difference. We were on Floor 7, and our MDR was on 4, and the pool etc was on 11 or was it 12? So, within that range, we used the stairs unless we were just pooped.

Overall, I was really impressed with the Royal's Galveston Terminal. Well, except for the lack of signs on the street. I thought I'd mention something that came as a surprise to me. When you go to get your luggage, all the luggage is out there and available. You walk into a giant warehouse. There are ribbon barricades to corral the traffic. The luggage is in labeled groups with empty floor space between. I really wish I'd taken a photo. Our group had maybe 40 pieces of luggage. This was our first cruise, and we got group 24 which was expected to disembark at either 9:00 or 9:30 am, they kept changing that. We'd probably left our rooms at 8:30 am. Our daughter was sick, so we'd left her in the room and ate breakfast. The cabin attendent seemed happy with us after we'd tipped him, so he said it was fine to leave on the later end since he'd be working on other cabins. About 8:40 we were on the right floor and I told the crew guy standing there that we were group 24 and asked where we should go. I was expecting him to point me to a waiting area. But, he said to just get in line. Since it was long, by the time we got to the front they'd be calling our number. The line went past the elevators. So, we get in the line which was moving pretty fast. No problems leaving. No one asked for our group number, and while in line I didn't hear any groups called. We got to the luggage warehouse and I see all the luggage and our luggage group. DH goes to get the car from covered parking, while I grab the luggage. It seems that we were the first from our group to arrive. I'd had yellow ribbons on all of ours, so they were easy to find. The porters seemed very eager to help people with the luggage. There was a line of them waiting to help people and it happened to go near our luggage. A porter tried to get me to ask for him (so he could cut the line) I just took the next porter. I just had the porter take our luggage to the barricades since DH wasn't back with the car yet. DD and I waited at least 10 minutes for DH to come with the car. We had the car loaded up including tetrising the luggage in the trunk, and we are just getting into the car to drive away when I hear them call "Group 24." The front outside area had been sparsely populated when we first got there, but was crowded by the time we left.

I thought I'd report the duck situation from our recent cruise. I overheard several adults commenting with disappointment that there were fewer ducks on that cruise. One lady on the elevator was showing off the neat duck that she'd found to her friend. She brings one home from every cruise. We hid a duck and it was found before the rooms opened. On the last full day I was with my friend and her daughter in the library. I noticed that a duck was really high on top of the highest books. I moved it lower where a kid could find it, and it turns out that my friend's daughter had hid it. Not five minutes later a mom and preschool boy came along and the boy was so happy. The mom smiled at it us, since I'm sure she knew we'd hid it since we were paying such close attention. Then the boy 'hid' one of his ducks in the same place. My friend's daughter snagged that one.

A commentary on this particular cruise. I really really didn't want to be on a cruise that was a partial charter. So, it is with irony to say that there was partial charters and it was a benefit. There were two big religious group charters on the cruise. One of them was "Sing and Sail." I forget the name of the other one. One of those had church services in the afternoons. That meant that a large chunk of the people disappeared in the afternoons, and I assume that the bars were less crowded. A work friend was interested in cruising because I might have been talking about it for awhile. They are considering joining their next cruise and the next one in America looks like one that will be announced in a month, is 7-days and I assume leaving from Florida based on the ports. I mention this in case someone wants to be a normal passenger on the cruise. There were still lots of the normal cuise passengers. DH and I joked that he was a party attractor. He'd find an empty area, usually outdoors not near the pool to sit and vegitate. He'd be there for about 10 minutes, and then the space would be filled with loud drunks. He'd find another empty space, and *bam* a party would show up.

If I were interested in the pool, I wouldn't get a cabana. I'd just claim a chair by the pool. I've been thinking about this and I think one of the things we really liked about the cabanas was that it felt like we had the beach to ourselves. Since we are all introverts that was a welcome mental break. They have plants between the cabanas so you don't really notice the other ones. We had to go to the bathroom when we were near the sea lion show. As I walked into the Chank. bathrooms a woman leaving said, "Only one of the toilets has paper." The first one I looked at had paper, but no toilet seat. Although someone came by to clean while I was in there. We originally reserved for 8 people in a VIP cabana, plus a one-hour massage and that totalled $320.

That was included. It was a one-tank dive which lasted a little less than an hour. One of the teens just had a face mask and nothing else. Manuel at Booth#7, our guide, took a TON of photos. I don't know that there was enough to see for a two-tank dive. Unless I guess you just like hanging out underwater looking at the prettiness, which I can get behind. But, since we had non certified, I assume they HAD to be with us. Also, he charged extra for using the credit card. I was feeling stupid for not grabbing more cash, and it was so much cheaper than I expected that I didn't fuss. Then at the end he'd done such a good job taking care of the girls that I'd sent DH to get a $20 to tip Manuel.