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Spaniel Lover

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  • Posts

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About Me

  • Location
    Pasco, Washington
  • Interests
    Photography, Videography, American Cocker Spaniels
  • Favorite Cruise Line(s)
    Carnival (Havana area on Vista-class)
  • Favorite Cruise Destination Or Port of Call
    Caribbean
  • If you have a personal or hobby CRUISE or TRAVEL BLOG, include the url here:
    https://jimzim.net/CruiseHistory.html

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Spaniel Lover's Achievements

Cool Cruiser

Cool Cruiser (2/15)

  1. American Eagle is the first of twelve new "Coastal Cats" for American Cruise Lines. Even though construction completed over two months ago, and she's completed quite a few cruises with passengers, it seems like there are very few actual photos or videos of the ship online. Even on the American Cruise Lines web site, instead of actual photos, they're still showing a series of computer-generated artist's concept drawings of the ship. If you'd like to take a look at how American Eagle actually turned out, and see some of the gorgeous scenery on the Maine Coast where she did some of her recent cruises, have a look at this video I made:
  2. Two of my recent cruises have used Starlink as the Internet Service Provider, including a recent cruise on Celebrity Solstice. I had high hopes that Starlink was going to improve the quality of Internet access on cruise ships, but in both cases, the Internet connection was quite slow. Take a look at this video where I show you the specifics of the Internet speeds I was able to get using Starlink on cruise ships, compared to a much faster connection I had recently on a cruise ship that was not using Starlink.
  3. I've been running speed tests all week long, just to verify that the results I had early on we're not some fluke. Upload speeds have been consistently better than what I got in that other test I posted, and ping times, too. Download speeds have remained close to what I originally showed you.
  4. I was recording a time lapse video last night at the cruise ship dock in San Juan when I saw something I've never seen before. Here's the video: Valiant Lady retrieved her mooring lines and began her regular scheduled sailaway. She didn't even get a ship's length away when she came right back to the dock and tied up again. She stayed tied up for about an hour before finally sailing away for good. I'm told by a passenger onboard Valiant Lady that there was a last minute medical emergency.
  5. Yeah, a professional film crew gets access to the bridge, but a lowly YouTuber does not! 😄 But I did almost get a similar shot. Do you know who Calvin is? I ran into him when I had my camera with me, and I introduced myself and explained about the "new ship smell" video I was trying to make. I asked if he'd be willing to let me sniff him for the video. Unfortunately, he claimed to be forbidden from appearing on YouTube.
  6. I know, right?!? She was a great sport about it, and totally willing to play along. Obviously, I told her exactly what I was going to do. I asked her to look at me suspiciously. She came up with the rest.
  7. Back in 2008, Carnival made a classic television commercial to publicize the debut of Carnival Splendor. The commercial featured an actor stopping at various parts of the ship and taking a deep breath in through his nose to appreciate the "New Ship Smell". You can see a copy of that old commercial here: I've never forgotten that funny old commercial, and since I'm sailing aboard the new Carnival Celebration this week, I thought I would create a tribute to it. (Some might say a parody of it.) Here's my version: No copyright or trademark infringement is intended towards Carnival Cruise Line. I'm actually a big fan, and a Diamond-level VIFP member. I would love to hear your comments about my version of "New Ship Smell"! Post them here, or feel free to post them on YouTube.
  8. The speed test I showed you earlier was done at 6:38 AM... before most of the other passengers were awake and using their devices. I thought it would be a good idea to do another test at 11 AM when presumably I would be competing with a lot of other passengers for bandwidth. The download speed was only a little bit slower, at 61 Mbps, but still excellent for a cruise ship. Surprisingly, the upload speed was hugely better than it was earlier, and the ping time was improved by a bit. All and all, a stellar connection... and I was easily able to upload a short video clip to Facebook this morning.
  9. I've been on plenty of cruise ships where I was lucky to get 5 Mbps. When I booked the cruise, they were offering a deal where premium Internet service was included in the cruise price.
  10. I'm onboard Carnival Celebration this week to shoot some new videos for my YouTube channel. I noticed that the Internet service seemed fast, so I decided to run a speed test this morning while we are at sea. The results surprised me. 92Mbps download speed! That's fast for a cruise ship! Another pleasant surprise was last night's entertainment on "Center Stage" in Celebration Central. They had some really great live music during what was basically a welcome aboard show, although they didn't call it that. This is my 58th cruise overall, and I've seen a lot of musical entertainers over the years. The ones they've hired for Carnival Celebration are really good. I remember the days when Carnival's idea of good live music was to hire a Phillipino cover band that would work for cheap. They've come a long way since those days. I've read a lot of bad comments here on the Cruise Critic boards about Center Stage... so I was delightfully surprised by the show and the venue last night. I liked it a lot more than I expected to. The sound in that venue, especially up in the seats on the 7th floor, is really good. I tried a couple of different seating locations to see how the sound differed. The worst were the seats up on the 8th floor... as there is a lot of noise from people walking by, and loud people at the bar. The best sound is on the 7th floor, in what are essentially balcony seats hanging out over the 6th floor, where the stage is. One bad surprise was to discover that they took the Trash Can Nachos off the menu at the Pig & Anchor. This is a huge personal loss for me, but I will stay strong and cruise on. Thankfully, the brisket is still as good as I remember it.
  11. If I lived in Miami, I probably would be! But I'm at the far opposite corner of the country... so, I can't just pop over to smooze with the Carnival brass at the naming ceremony. But I'll be getting aboard the new ship quite soon. I just don't like to book the very first cruise, or even the first couple of cruises of a new ship, because I know the crew needs time to work all the kinks out of their processes. Heck, even when I sailed on MSC Seaside when she was new... and they had been doing cruises for about two months before I got there... the crew didn't know what the heck they were doing. It was the most disorganized cruise I had ever been on... and a good reminder to give a crew a little bit of time to figure out how to do everything the best way. Carnival crews seem to be a much sharper bunch than the folks working for MSC, plus I'm sure there have been a lot of lessons learned from Mardi Gras... so I'm pretty confident that they'll be pros by the time I get there a few weeks from now.
  12. I didn't see that. I just went over to FB and looked through all of John's posts from this morning and didn't see anything about Diamonds & Platinums, other than where he showed the lounge where they would wait before boarding. Perhaps you could bring me up to speed by summarizing whatever it was you read.
  13. Thank you... that's very nice of you to say. We'll be on Carnival Celebration, next month... and of course, there will be videos on my YouTube channel about it.
  14. I'm just curious... Were you not impressed with it based on a sea day lunch you had there? Or did you dine there for dinner? I'm not all that impressed with the sea day lunch buffet they offer outside the Pig & Anchor... but the sit-down dinners inside the restaurant, I LOVE those. The dinner at the Pig & Anchor is completely different than what they serve at lunch time. I worry that people might be un-impressed with the lunch, and then never try the dinner version. Do try the Trash Can Nachos sometime, if you never have. They are unlike other nachos you've probably had.
  15. They offered me the whole range of arrival times, as early as 10 AM. I chose the 10:30 - 11:00 arrival time window. Boarding group is B. I'm assuming A is probably wedding guests or perhaps people in wheelchairs.
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