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CntPAcruiser

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  1. Don't feel bad--I don't think anyone else gets my humor either! Really enjoyed your review, as I have the others before them. Thanks for doing them!
  2. I knew it wasn't fish--it was wordplay. Sole the fish versus the fact that it looked like the sole of a shoe! Or a flip-flop, maybe. That was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the picture. Oddly enough, I would probably still have eaten it. I like eggplant.
  3. Looks like a delicious dinner of grilled flip-flop with fried seaweed! Probably not what you were expecting when you ordered filet of sole.
  4. Much easier to ask your cabin attendant for whatever luggage tags you want--they are the ones who distribute them, and they don't care who gets off the ship when. Bizarre that you were told you could get off whenever at Guest Services, considering they make announcements all morning long on departure day to NOT do exactly that.
  5. The original recipe was from Swiss physician Bircher-Benner, a raw foods pioneer, ca. 1900: 1 tablespoon rolled oats 2 tablespoons water 1 tablespoon sweetened condensed milk 2 teaspoons lemon juice 1 large apple, unpeeled and grated 6 raw hazelnuts, or almonds, chopped Soak the oats in water overnight, blend in the remaining ingredients and serve. Makes one small serving. Nowadays most substitute some other form of dairy for the sweetened condensed milk and add other sweetener, like honey, if desired. Additional fruits/berries may be added on top.
  6. We've seen domestic butter on board (including from Wisconsin, my original home state--specifically Grassland brand), as well as Dutch and Irish butter, and probably a few miscellaneous types depending on where the ship had been. On one cruise, we were seated at a large table for dinner in the MDR, and the queen of our table was a fabulous lady named Marla, who held court every evening and was a joy to dine with. BUT, she was fond of chilled, hard butter to go with her bread/rolls, so when we arrived for second seating, she would request the butter dish be replaced with cold rather than the warmed-up butter that had been sitting out. Forever after we have referred to cold, hard butter pats as "Butter ala Marla." If you're reading this, we miss you, Marla!
  7. As pointed out above, along with the recipe, this bread is actually Austrian Striezl or Striezel, not Stollen. Either way I suspect you would confuse the waitstaff asking for it by the German-language name.
  8. We tend to visit the same bartenders/bars once we find the "best" ones on the ship, and they typically don't need to be told to use a voucher. If we're using an unfamiliar bar, we'll specify just to be on the safe side, and they will also often tell you how many vouchers you have left. You can also usually use your spouse's vouchers if you're in the same cabin/same folio. We have found that in the main dining room, they may not run the drink through immediately, so if you head out elsewhere in the ship afterwards, you may get incorrect information about the number of vouchers left. Happened to me, and guest services took care of it the next day when I had an unwarranted charge. Sometimes even when we specified whose card was to be dinged for the voucher in the MDR they would still not always get it right. You can check things on the app, too. Bar charges or voucher usage show up almost instantly.
  9. Sauna and steam room on Adventure are fairly large. Steam room might fit 8 seated; sauna up to 12 maybe. The sauna has small windows to the outside with slats so people passing by on the outside cannot see in, so it's not a great view. There are two areas with showers, one right across from the steam room and sauna, and the other adjacent to the locker area (six showers in total). There's a restroom with a urinal and toilet in the locker area (men's, of course; the women's is probably different).
  10. A few tips regarding wine by the glass. The MDR has a slightly different selection from some of the other venues on board, and I got tired of what they had on offer within the voucher price so I started getting my wine on the way in to dinner. Another issue was that they would either not charge the voucher to the right account between me and my husband, or they would not run the charge through until later and it would create discrepancy a between how many vouchers were actually used versus how many were available. More than once I had to go to guest services to get things fixed or remove a charge that shouldn't have been. Fair warning to be specific whose voucher you are using, and even then sometimes they would screw it up.
  11. We enjoy the free coffee machine as well as having a place to meet others who cruise often. Usually it's very pleasant, either as a quiet space during the day or as a place to meet like-minded people in the evening. That was not the case on our last cruise, surprisingly, since a large group of pinnacles took over through the entire happy hour and commandeered most of the seating, with the concierge's blessing. That really ruined the lounge's vibe. But otherwise it's always been enjoyable. It's also a good place for a quick breakfast or snack, since they have one of my favorites, the smoked salmon, throughout the sailing, as well as cookies most other times throughout the day. My DH loves the dipped strawberries as well. I can't say as we've ever noticed many officers stopping in to chat on most of our cruises. That would be nice, actually. We dd have a few cruises in the pre-COVID days with the all-you-can-drink happy hours. The new system is more to our benefit, as my husband doesn't drink alcohol, but enjoys the virgin drinks he can get with his vouchers. And I like being able to spread out my drinks throughout the day. It's also nice to have access to the full range (almost) of spirits and wine, instead of the old short list of what was available in the lounge. Never got the impression that the liquor was watered down. Back in those days, they had a small bar setup right in the lounge with a dedicated bartender or two, and you could really customize your drinks, within the limitations of a very limited spirit menu. The vodka, scotch, whiskey, and gin weren't much to write home about, but they offered cognac and port, among other things. We rarely left the lounge for dinner without a drink or two for the road. Many times, when they took over part of the Viking Crown Lounge (back in the day) as more Diamond Lounge space, if you got to know the bartenders, they would make almost anything you wanted, and now you can pretty much get that with the vouchers.
  12. In many ways it is a nice place to live. Close to a couple of large cities but also has beautiful nature all around. We can be in NYC by train in a couple of hours--we even went to NJ cruise port by train from home.
  13. They did this to us on our Vision cruise out of Baltimore last November. The smell wasn't so bad because it was open-air, but with the weather in the Chesapeake, no one wanted to swim on the main pool deck, and now the solarium pool was made unusable for basically the last 3 days of the cruise. At least they heated the main pool, so as long as you stayed in the water, you didn't freeze. I did not have many fellow swimmers out there, however--just me and the lifeguard!
  14. Adventure still has free sauna/steam facilities in the separate locker rooms, though. Much better than a thermal suite in my opinion, anyway.
  15. This was similar to the "lobster mac & cheese" I was served on our last cruise on Vision, November 2023. It was like pasta with lobster bisque. I didn't eat it. Not good at all.
  16. We live on the other side of the river from HBG. It's not that you can't find some good food, but we do refer to our area as a food desert. Even the national chain restaurants struggle to put out a good meal here.
  17. Thankfully they have not ruined Adventure and Liberty... yet. Freedom, Voyager, and Navigator all had their nice locker rooms with complimentary sauna/steam facilities ripped out in favor of adding cabins and other things that generate revenue directly.
  18. The quoted message includes "Indiana" instead of Indian, hence Pennsylvania. I live in Pennsylvania and I don't recommend it. In Central PA they add tons of sugar to everything: salads, sauces, even sausage!
  19. In olden days it was sometimes worth it, or good for a snack. Nowadays not so much, sadly.
  20. The sushi class was fun, and we ended up with a lot of food to finish off. On some ships, they won't let you leave the restaurant with it--you have to eat it or leave it behind. Some people just had other family members come by at the end of the class to help finish off the sushi they made. My DH doesn't eat raw fish, so we made a special request when booking the class that he get different items, and they accommodated as much as they were able.
  21. These comments are right on the money, pun intended! Our experience at Chops on Vision most recently was far from perfect and would have been close to pre-COVID main dining room in some respects, the difference being the food items were of better quality. Sadly, the preparation and food temperatures were not up to what I would consider fine dining.
  22. The sauna/steam facilities are complimentary, available within the men's and women's locker rooms of the fitness center. They are separate, unlike the thermal suites on the newer ships.
  23. Royal has Indian food in the Windjammer for lunch and dinner (possibly breakfast too), and an Indian selection on the main dining room menu each night. It has always been available on the buffet, but has come and gone on the MDR menu, so at times we've had to ask for it.
  24. My DH and I always bring our tuxes and wear them on formal nights ... except for night two on our most recent cruise. For whatever reason, we just didn't feel up to it on this most recent cruise, and our tablemates weren't dress-up types, so we didn't dress for the second formal night.
  25. Can confirm very poor food quality on Vision of the Seas in November 2023 sailing out of Baltimore. Even the Indian food was bad! So-called New York Strip was a shredded mess in the MDR. We were so disappointed with the quality drop in every venue we tried on that sailing. Even Chops had issues with the food temperatures for the sides and steaks.
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