Splendor March 3-10 novel and review

Carnival Splendor March 3-10, 2018

So we have just arrived back to the cold and the snow here north of Barrie and I thought I would return in-kind my own recount and review of our cruise down the west coast of Mexico last week. I have enjoyed reading the many reviews and tips from others and I thought I might provide some of my own. And yes I am long winded so feel free to bail at any point. I like a good story. I hope you do as well. So here it goes….

Background

The wife and I in our late forties with the lad 11 and the princess 9 (she would scrunch her face at me hearing that!). We live live north of Toronto and our beach holidays are usually spent at resorts in the Caribbean and Mexico a couple of times a year (one with the kids and one without). This was only our second cruise. I never thought I would like cruising and I was obviously very misinformed (actually ignorant would be better). Our last one was another family cruise in March of 2017 on the Norwegian Breakaway out of NYC to the Bahamas and back. We had stayed in an Aft Haven one bedroom suite on the Breakaway, so I realize these were two different experiences but it is the only thing I have to compare it to so that is what I will do.

Day Minus One

We had booked a smoking deal on direct flights from Toronto to LAX on West Jet for $394.00 round trip!!! I couldn’t believe it. Great deal… but I degrees (and I do that a lot so you may have to endure).

Our flight left Pearson around 6:30pm and arrived at LAX Terminal 2 around 9:45pm (three hour time difference). The flight was nice. Boy does WJ have a large movie inventory on their web app…. Amazing!

So I had wanted to stay at the Maya Hotel down by the Long Beach Terminal but they were full up and while I was ok with springing for a room at the Queen Mary… alas they only had rooms for a max of 3 so two rooms at the Queen Mary was something stupid like five or six hundred $USD plus the thirty some percent exchange so that was a little much for a place we were not going to see until near midnight for a few hours sleep.

So I booked the Travelodge by the airport… what was I thinking. Seriously! I booked it because it was close, free shuttle, wifi and breakfast. All the TA reviews said it was clean and friendly and the price was right so…. They said to call once we had the luggage…. did so… told us where to find the shuttle pick up… found pick up… waited… waited… waited… saw it drive by… LOL.. called… said he would come back! LOL ***? Kids tired, wife tired, i am tired… moved to taxi stand… they take one look at our four big bags and carry on bags and there were no taxi’s big enough but one nice guy managed to flag a mini van taxi for us after about 10 minutes (meanwhile the travelodge van arrives…LOL GONG SHOW (us… not them!). I just started to laugh. OK… all in the cab on the way… all good. I started to laugh harder when I see that we are talking about a $11-12 cab rid… I LAUGH HARDER and give the guy an $8 tip as we pull into the Travel lodge.

OK.. this is a budget place. There is a 24 hour Denny’s right on site. The desk people are friendly and efficient and within 5 minutes we are being directed to our room but before that they asked us why we were in LA and so we tell them. They ask if we had transport to the Pier… We say NO. They say they can arrange an SUV… about $70. We say Perfect…. off to the room.

We got a two bed room overlooking the pool as requested. It is old and needs a refresh but it was in fact clean and tidy (but for one exception I will get to). So, kids get settled, I plan to pop out to the Carl Jr’s across the street for some sliders and fries and the gas station next door for a beer… I leave.

So I knew that this part of the airport area backs up onto Inglewood and there are parts that are not the greatest but I have worked in far worse on the south and west sides of Chicago so my square rural Ontario ass went forth to Carl Jr’s at 11pm… it was sketchy with all kinds of characters but it was friendly, hot and fast and I was off to the shell… Walk in… NO BEER??? ***…. I go across to the other gas station… ahhhh perrrrfect… beer for tonight and wife for the cruise… I go to the cooler and pull on the handle… pull… nothing. I look a the hinge confirm I am not a moron and not operating the door incorrectly… nothing… move to another door same thing! Yes I am a moron… giant sign announcing booze sales are 7am to 10pm??? I guess coming from the LCBO silly land of Ontario (Liquor Control Board of Ontario for those not in the know) I should not talk and know better… so no beer and sliders buy the pool for me. Oh well.

Back to the hotel across six or seven lanes of busy traffic on Century Blvd and I am back at the Travelodge. I round the corner to see a group of three employees standing in front of my open motel door…. They turn to me with wide eyes and back away. No I am not sure why they did that… perhaps I looked threatening with my greasy bag of sliders and fries. I say “WHAT the…” but before I could get that out the DW meets me at the door with a smile and a laugh while a hotel employee exits the room and joins the others after they leave and good tidings are exchanged…. WHAT was that about???? DW is laughing hard.

You will recall that I said that the room was clean… it was except for the sink. Niki goes to get the tooth brushes out and when she looks in the sink it was as black as tar!! Someone must have dumped a mop bucket or something in the sink and then forgot to go back and clean it.

I said they sent 3-4 people? Yep… anyway. They fixed it in 1 min and apologized… good laugh. The princess asked if I lost my job or something because, “this hotel sucks!” LOL it was fun family moment.

Anyway… the next morning breakfast was very good and included. The Princess announced that she loved the breakfast and that the hotel might not actually suck. Promptly at 9:20 the day shift front desk called to say that our 9:30 drive had arrived and we could come down at our leisure.

We manœuvre our FOUR GIANT suit cases, four carry on and all manner of back packs and purses (what were we thinking… more later) down to the lobby only to see a big black lincoln or crown vic… now normally that would be fine for four suitcase and one carry one but NO… we had packed more than I would take moose hunting ten hours north of here for ten days! Now granted… our driver tried very very hard to move things around and try and make it fit but its was like shuffling deck chairs on the Titan…. sorry bad analogy for a ride to a cruise terminal. No problem he says, we have a Navigator across the street… holy crap… 30 seconds later there was a new giant lincoln navigator right there. We agree on $70 and we are off around 9:30am for Long Beach.

Traffic was pretty light and were there in about 30 minutes.

We find our way to the cruise terminal which was very busy with outgoing passengers going here and there shuffling deck chairs of their own to get more baggage into taxi and car trucks than the laws of physical will allow. Anyway… my only other experience with dropping bags off was in New York and there the porters were on you like my bulldog to a dropped hot dog! We got out of the cab and luggage in tow found our first smiling CCL employee who said to just flag down a porter with a cart and give them your bags and then she turns to find, “Carl…. Carl can help take your bags”. Carl grabs our four big suitcases and I give him a five and some ones and he was off with a smile! All of this took place between the south east corner of the dome and the parking garage. Bags off (hopefully Carl worked for CCL LOL) we walked over the west side of the Dome which has a nice view of the midship port side of the Queen Mary. That is where the entrance is. By this time it was about 10:40 am or so. There were signs with three distinct lines. The one in the middle said priority/FTTF (I did not see the words Diamond or Plat.). The line to the left was labeled “Too Early or Too Late” and then there seemed to me another light to the right and I think that one was for Wedding parties and Plat and Diamonds. That morning there were about forty five local travel agents that were going on for the afternoon it looked like on an educational junket or at least I surmised that from hearing one of them stating this to another person at the BBQ buffet line as she carried an ungodly quantity of food to feed a village back to her table (more on that). So we are in line. It is sunny (had been pouring earlier that morning). Everyone is in good spirits. About 11:50 they let the wedding folks and travel agents into the dome. About ten minutes later we were let in. We were directed to a little bar height cocktail table with a nice lady with a tablet. She booked us in and then we went through the metal detector and our bags were x-rayed and we were then directly to the back (west side) corner of the new terminal which had a roped off FTTF area. there were benches just like the rest of the waiting area or if you had or boarding paper they would let you into a little lounge area with club chairs and lemon water. The new terminal is very nice. The fire department room capacity sign on the wall I saw said something shy of 1800 max capacity. The only thing I did not like about the new terminal was the moulding strips they put on the floor to define the decorative floor treatments every six feet or so. They just were a nuisance for rolling luggage. HOW’s that for minutia feedback… i digress. About 15 minutes later they called for the wedding parties, the diamonds and plats and then the FTTF… put the ramp you go and right onto the ship. We were on the ship by about 11:15 or so.

I can’t say for sure but I think we entered on deck three near the lobby by guest services. We found our way to the elevators and deck six and then all the way to the back. We had booked two rooms. This was an experiment for us to compare it to the posh luxes of the Haven Aft suite which was about 650sqft and 15ft by 11ft balcony. I told the kids to tell me at the end of the cruise if they thought the last cruise was twice as good as this one as it was close to twice the price.

We had 6 487 which is an aft extended balcony directly in front of the starboard hallway and 6 477 which was a twin inside room. Both were open and waiting for us but we never saw our steward until later that afternoon.

So the rooms are nice but certainly dated. The orange and pinks and the style of furniture is looking it’s age although very well maintained and nothing was “beat up”. There is lots of storage space in the night stands, closets, drawers and in the bathroom. The extended after balcony is much larger than a regular balcony but the two aft corner suites have a truly large wrap around balcony. There is no comparison to the one we had on the Breakaway though. We did not spend much time out there. We strung a clothes line a few times and it worked well. A seagull thought the pins were food and came in to investigate much to my kids delight.

On the wall there is a red SNOOZE aka do not disturb sign on a hook and right beside it was a hook to order continental room service the night before an put it on your door. We did it twice but after the second time we took a pass. I will tell you why later. I am getting tired and I have a 5:30 am train to catch in the am so I going to call in quits for now.

I promise i will speed things up a little tomorrow and tell you about the polar dip!!

Later… Mark

Really enjoying your style and review.

I am enjoying your review and love your writing style! We will be on Splendor March 24 with our 3 generation gang of 10.

Yep

You boarded on deck 3.

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

I'm hitching a ride on your review....so far very interesting! I love your daughter's remark about losing your job! That's a gal with quick wit!

Ok... on my train so I will peck away at this some more.

Day One

So rewinding briefly, I am not sure why our priority bags were so late getting to the room. Perhaps we could have mentioned it to Carl the porter but we did print out the orange fttf tags in color. We learned from our last cruise to pack a tiny stapler so we could secure the tags last minute.

FYI before you get on the ship or just after to get off, there are some bathrooms outside the terminal but they only have a stall or two so lines can be an issue.

Ok, more about the rooms. I had booked the balcony room as the main hang out room and suspected that the princess would claim the bed with mom as the boy is one of thos deep sleeping Kung Fu masters that kick you all night while rotating 360 but sleeping soundly so he would bunk with me at night in the inside cabin. Alas no... dad was relegated to the dark tomb by himself while the boy claimed the convertible sofa in the other room.

All the beds were comfy as were the pillows and there were extra comforters in plastic zip bags in the closets. You will find you SnS cards in a little mailbox outside your room. They kind of look like those plastic bag holders you attach to a cupboard or closet door. They will put messages and Fun Times and other stuff in them if you have the Snooze sign on when they come by. Our steakhouse reservation was in there.

The bathroom shower stall (no tubs) has a retractable clothes line in it so bring a few clothes pins. The circulation and or dehumidification system worked great and the wet bathing suits dried in no time. Tons of towels and clothes replaced daily. I saw the lad leaving our tomb with a towel and I asked where he was going and he said to have a shower in the other room. Are there not towels there? I inquire. “Yes but the girls gave me grief for using their towels last time.” Smart lad... you will go far!

There is really only one outlet so bring a splicer or extension cord. Nobody ever unplugged our devices while we were out. On NCL they would on occasion. Our rooms were directly above the Comedy club venu so there was some noise at night. It was fine for me but ear plugs might be a good idea. I also brought some suction cup hooks and a suction cup toothbrush cub to affix to the shower wall (ikea) that worked good and would give a little more space if one was sharing with one or more ladies (yes ladies you cart around a lot of Sh$t but we love you.)

There are those stupid but practical wooden coat hangers that don’t have a hook on them but clip into a holder on the rod (so you don’t steal them). Just ask your Stewart for more hangers and they will arrive for your. My room was great. They brought ice twice a day and when I put the bucket in the fridge he got the hint and refilled it there twice a day so I always had ice. One tip I got that truly makes a difference is leaving the door to the cabinet that hides the mini fridge open all the time makes a huge difference, by while I mean slightly cool vs ICE cold.

Ok so bags were dropped in the room and we were off to get a cocktail and then to the Buffet for some grub. We bought the Cheers for the wife and I and the kids got the Bottomless Soda. Was with worth it for all but the princess as she might have had one or two sodas per day.

We pretty much had the ship to ourselves at this point. We went and checked out the bbq spot which you access either via the stairs behind the desert station at the buffet on deck 9 or from the outside deck door on the starboard side of deck ten.

The BBQ is very tasty. They serve it on 10-12 inch aluminum pizza pan type plates, but you are certainly welcome to grab Carnivals platter sized dinner plates at the buffet and bring that up and trust me... many people do. There are four sides, three meats and corn bread (slaw, P salad, baked beans, Mac n cheese, brisket, chicken (all dark meat from what I saw) and pulled pork. There is a Q that starts where the brasket of cutlery wrapped in a linen cloth is. You tell the guy what you want and he serves it up. I can tell you that there were some plates that must have been 3500 calories that I saw. Awesome. People having fun and enjoying the out of the ordinary for a week.

I tried everything but the corn bread and it as all totally yum yum. I smoke lots of meat at home using both offset smokers and Kamado smokers and while I did not see much evidence of smoke rings (we are on a **** and I am sure charcoal is a non starter...thank goodness) but this was really goo stuff IMO.

BTW... you will find the wrapped cutlery (knife and fork) at all the food outlets. Spoons are keeps on a tray near anywhere that serves a dish requiring them. You will also find (at times) baskets of folded linen napkins only if you are just getting a sandwich from the deli or the pizza pirate. I liked this a lot. I hate paper napkins. I don’t recall whether the NCL buffet had them or not as I rarely ate at that buffet. With respect to drinks in the buffet, they have plastic cups for orange, apple and punch and ice water and four stations ( two on the port and two on the the starboard).... oh my train is pulling into Union Station. More later.

Mark

Great review so far! Following...

This is so funny. Great writing. :')

We are long time cruisers, and will sail on Splendor with the family of 5 in October.

We have sailed on Splendor before, but it was a long time ago. The Facebook Carnival page sure has a lot of negative things posted so I am happy to read something positive.

I am waiting to read more. Thanks so much.

Patti

Ok.... beverage stations: they have water and ice dispensers. The juice machines are filled with lemonade and unsweetened ice tea the rest of the day. They have honey and sweetener there for you as well. The plastic lumbers are a good size 10-12 oz I guestimate, unlike NCL which are tiny. There are cups for tea, coffee and hot chocolate. There is also a machine for decaf. As with all cruise lines they ask that you use a new cup each time so as to avoid cross contamination. 99% of the time we all know there is contamination, but you will be looked at the putz you will be if you use your own mug. My wife is the doctor but I don’t need her residency in pathology to know it is just the smart thing to do.

The coffe is not great but not bad. My law school buddy put me onto half coffee half hot chocolate whenever the coffee is so so. He is right. Perrrrrfect!

These machines are only down for a few hours in the wee hours. If I did not drink alcohol or I was a family on a budget.... this was just fine!!! Pizza and lemonade at 02:30 hrs.... yum!!

My only critique would be that there was not full bar right in the buffet area during lunch and dinner like on the Breakaway so you would have to go to either of the pool bars (aft or in atrium) before going to the buffet if you wanted a soda, beer, etc with your buffet. There are soft serve machines with cones and bowels around the buffet 24 hours... but for cleaning.

So after lunch we did some exploring and of course a few more tasty cocktails and beer. By 2:30 my nervous system was sufficiently numb that I suggested to the lad that we take on the waterslide. The wife shook her head and the princess was having none of it (likes me to keep our pool at 88’C). My wife pointed to the lifeguard in the parka and hat...

But I knew the lad was with me... we have a hunt camp in northern Ontario and we have had more than a few rock dives into the water in the shoulder seasons so he said he was in and we were off to the room to change. I should mention that upon review of my sail and sign print out I had drinks at...11:38, 12;09, 12:51, 01:17, and 02:33....so I had a liquid blanket which included those 800-900ml Fosters cans!!!

The lifeguard told us we were nuts. It as in the mid 60’s in Long Beach and the sun was out but there was a good breeze. The water was salt and in the low70’s....brisk. The lifeguard said we were nuts! Jack was hopped up on the colas. We don’t allow pop at home but for this week we said they could have-ater as my dad would say.

The first run was garnering some stares and pointing. The second was met with a crowd and pictures and the third came with the comments that we must have been from Northern Minnesota! “Oh... Canada... explains it.”

So after our polar bear dip it was time to get changed and get ready for the boat drill. By the time we got back it was after three and our luggage finally arrived, so we unpacked, stuck the suitcases under the bed and headed down to deck four starboard to lifeboat station G with the crew directing us with orange and green hats. Not sure if there was some sort of hierarchy or rhyme or reason to it.... “Adam... I see you have been promoted to the green hat! Looks good! That shade of neon suits you much better.”

Ok... I only have the Breakaway to compare it to but this was pure chaos! I taught at a university for six years and I know a thing or two about the teaching/learning process and this was all about having a drill and more importantly getting each and every sail and sign card scanned so they can show the coast guard or whatever auditor comes a looking for their records. They only valuable task was the fact that they wrist banded all the minors listing their muster station in case they get separated. The rest was a gong show with people talking in all manner of languages with little clue IMO as to what was going on. I must say I was annoyed with the cruise director when he came on the PA system and starting singing and joking in a high pitched voice...”in case of FFFFIIIIIRRRRRRRE!” Like a Whitney Huston chorus. But in fairness a day later I said to myself... Chill out and don’t be that guy! MarQ was a very good cruise director by the way. The lawyer in me was just thinking of the poor guy in a deposition if there was ever a fire and but for a better drill minus the jokes... you get the picture. Wait a minute... was there a fire on the Splendor in the past? Or was that another ship? Matters not it was over in 30 minutes and we were released. BTW... the bars and venues shut down during all of this as you imagine why.

Carnival the boat drill was your only fail I think. The NCL one was much more organized and conducive to passing on important information

Anyway... it was time for another cocktail and then to get ready for the Steakhouse.

Following along.

Keith

Pinnacle Steakhouse

I had booked the steakhouse for the first night for 6pm. I had booked it back in January. BTW... the free bottle of wine goes with the booking. So if your party went at different times or in our case sat at separate tables we would have gotten two bottles or two discounted purchases. We sat at the same table so only one bottle for us. I should point out that the free bottle was never mentioned until I brought it up while paying the check (the family deserted me!” to let me pay and sip my XO. Anyway... we were drinking wine by the glass with our cheers so a bottle was not ordered but I found it odd that they did not offer it up. I was mildly annoyed and I think it showed, but again the shoulder angle said don’t be a d&ck so I smiled ordered another XO, tipped and told them it was a lovely meal, and it was. The kids ordered off the adult menu as the princess was going to try the snails... why I do not know... she had snails in her fish tank that died... the mention of this garnered a kick and stare from the dear doctor. Turns out neither liked the snails so yours truly ate them. We also had the French onion soup, shrimp cocktail and bisque. All very good. They had the rosemary bread people say they like. For steaks it was fillets, ribeyes and a cowboy which is just the bone in rib steak. All were good. I ended up like a bloated goat as neither the lad or princess could finish (as expected) but they got through 1/2 each. The 4-6 oz kids fillet would have been just fine for them but anyway it was a cheap steak house dinner for $140 plus tip for what you got.

The one thing I had joked about before going to the Steakhouse before hand was I hope they don’t give us the table in front of the washroom doors. There is an excellent and very funny video on YouTube from FFlyDDrum1 of his 25th carnival cruise on the Splendor. In it they go to the steak house and there is a running joke about being seated in front to the bathrooms. Very funny. That’s where they sat us. I thought it was Karma and very funny and of course 9 and 11 year olds find a thing to do with toilets and poop to be roll on the ground funny so it all worked out but if you are looking for an evening of elegance and seeking the inside of the bathrooms throughout your meal might spoil your evening... tell them you would prefer to sit elsewhere.

Ok... so I catch up with the family around 7:30 or so and we decide to take in one of the productions in th3 big theatre. It was a song and dance number and it was good. 7/10 I would say. The kids were toast at this point so they retired to the balcony room with the good doctor. I stayed up for a while longer. When the bar tender told me I was at 13 drinks I figured it was time to call it a night, especially given the fact that more than a few of those were Long Island ice teas with god knows how much booze and many of those huge Fosters beers. BTW the Forsters is a good choice for those busy bar times as by the time you are done (and visit the loo) the line at the bar is down and it saves a trip or two to the bar....or...if you are a high functioning alcoholic you can basically double your 15 beer limit. Lol

So great!! Really enjoyed your post. Those Californians think 16% Celsius is cold, my cousin thought i was nuts going out in a t shirt while she was in a hoodie and a jacket. 16 is nearly summer weather in Vancouver.

Jammy

11 days until my first cruise

Love the detailed review so far !!! Thank you so much and can't wait to hear the rest...

PS...I was born and raised in So Cal...don't even own a coat or umbrella and yes to me 65F / 18C is really cold to me lol

Great review with tons of details...actually impressed that you have the recall from that first night with coming at the magical number of 13! So how were the public wash rooms???

What a great review! We sailed the Splendor this past January and we really enjoyed ourselves. Also, we are from Northern Ontario and I’m loving the Canadian jokes. We were “those people” as well on the colder days 🤣

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Do you recall what movies were played nightly at the "Dive In" and by any chance did your kids go to the kids club, and if so, do you have a copy of the schedule? Thanks in advance.

Day Two

Back home Norman wakes us at 5:30 if we are not up. Norman is our Newfoundland. Why can't he be like Farley, who love to sleep in... he is our English Bulldog. Ok... the point is we are early risers so we were up before six am. The sun was shining and the water was calm. We had both put out the room service cards on the door the night before but we had planned to sleep in so we have asked for the 7-730 time slot for delivery, but a quick call to room service got them to bring it to the balcony cabin earlier. Mine did not show up until 745 when we got back from breakfast. Anyway, what is there to do at 6am on the Splendor you might ask? Well... aside from pizza and slot machines... the Basketball court opens at 6am and my lad is all about basketball this time of year, so up we went. He loved the place. He spent hours up there the first three days.

OK so we head down to the buffet at 6:30. It said in the Fun Times that there was a continental buffet at 6:30 and then breakfast started at 7 but for the first three days the main hot breakfast line was up and going 15-20 minutes early. They divided the aft buffet into two sections that are identical but only open the port side line once it gets busy after eight. You start on the side which has the plates and cutlery and then there are containers of milk and chocolate milk and yogurt. We kept a few for the fridge. There are all the usual items. The odd thing was that the white and brown toast was kept in the middle of the hot buffet so you basically have to wait or "butt in line" to get toast if that is all you want. There is no bread bar with a toaster. That is one thing i really do like. The custom eggs lines are the in the centre. There is a pastry and fresh fruit and cottage cheese buffet on the opposite side in the centre.

Later on... not sure what time.. the dining room opens for table service breakfast. Brunch on sea days. I never went to either but the good doctor and the princess did steak and eggs a few times.

It was only after breakfast that I discovered the coffee bar down on deck five before you get to the Casino. They have all types of coffees, milk shakes, spiked coffees such as Irish, which was my go to every morning. The milk shakes are huge. They have teas, water, Perier in the can, rock star, three types of Vitamin water and two power aides. With the cheers I would grab a power aide or vitamin water or water for the fridge for later, so there was always something in the Fridge. A few of the bar tenders never opened by Fosters beers so I would put them in the fridge and we took them on the Cabo port call along with some of the other stuff in a backpack cooler from Canadian Tire. Allan our stewart gave me a big bag of ice. Anyway, my point was that if you have cheers and are walking by any bar you can grab some beverages for later. I never asked a bar tender not to open the beer but I am sure some of them would if you did. I just kept the ones they gave me unopened for the fridge.

The morning of day two was spent reading, a little shopping, etc. The boy played basketball for a few bloody hours!! Lunch was pizza and the Deli. In the afternoon, the lad and I went in the dome pool. It was cold and again we got some stares. There were so many kids that wanted to go in and when they saw us in there they came over but there were no takers. A few adjusts came in and got to their knee and left. Again the lifeguard and others were laughing. There was a Swede who joined us but that was it.

We grabbed some towels at the stand and a few chairs and ordered some drinks and took in the drink mixing competition. That was fun. The contestants had to do a dance with the martini shaker and it got the crowd going. MarQ did a great job and there were some characters. There was a panel of judges and a few others form the audience tasking their creations... some good... some bad and some undrinkable. It went on for about 40 minutes. Really good fun.

We took in the Invicta watch sale, which is the same on every cruise line. They are one of the only inexpensive lines that actually sell automatic watches starting at $150-$200. We bought a few on our NCL cruise an I found a nice dive bezel automatic for $200. The boy wore it for the week.

Another round of mini golf and a cocktail or two and we were good for some down time before getting ready for the first elegant night. from our after balcony we got some good views of the mountains lining the west coast of the Baja peninsula. I brought a pair of optics from my hunting bag which were great for looking at the shore and passing ships. Last year I brought compacts but this year I brought some of my good glass form my hunting kit and it was much better. There was a Princess ship following us for a while and the kids and I used the glass to try and read the name.

We chose an early sitting in the dining room. We were assigned a booth near the top of the port stairs in the Golden Perl on deck 5. Elegant night was lobster tails and prime rib. We ordered med rate but it came REALY rare... My wife who likes little if any pink was grossed out and this woman does Autopsies!. LOL the kids ate it without complaint. We were both surprised. I ate mine but I have to admit it was really really rare. If someone can tell me how to download pictures I can show you. Unfortunately most of the lobster tails were undercooked. My dad taught me to eat what i take or whatever someone puts in front of you but I couldn't finish the Lobsters and I am a Blue Noser from Nova Scotia! The rest of the meal was lovely. They were a little disorganized when it came to drinks in the main dining room.

The wife ordered a Blue moon Cocktail and and I ordered some wine but they never came until I said something and then her blue moon cocktail came as a Blue moon can of beer. Anyway that was a minor thing and there was never anything other issues in the main dining room thereafter. That said, I think the first sitting is just not set up to deal with a lot of pre, during and post bar orders. I am not sure where they have to go to get them as i didn't see a bar in the golden or black perl dining rooms. I think they must come from another part of the ship. They have various wines, coffees and after dinner liquors on the menu but I think they are just so focused on getting people turned over that they really are not set up to say... start with a Pinot with an appetizer and then a different wine with the main. It felt rushed, but again I don't think that would be the case of the later sitting. We still had coffee and desert (once the kid abandoned us... long dinners are not any kid's thing). They did the usual signing and dancing and it was fun and I think they did a good job. The Princess really did not like the dining room and she did not want to come back. I had packed a suite and two shirts and two ties thinking we had two nights. It was not to be. LOL

I think we took in a family comedy show that evening but i think I left early and turned in as the lack of sleep was catching up with use. I think we were all in bet by 8:30/9pm on the first sea day. We had a plan for the next day's first port of Cabo, which is a place we have never been to. Thanks to cruise critic we formulated our own little excursion that worked out great! More on that tomorrow. I will also try and address some of your questions. I regret all of my fun times and other paperwork ended up used in the "Blue Flame" but that story will also have to wait.

Nite... Mark

A review of your "Novel and Review"

After only a few chapters in...I find myself riveted... cannot put it down. Cannot wait to find what will happen next!😀

Loving your review- 12 days until we sail!

loving your review

Thank you for the review. It’s fun to read.

Sent from my iPhone using Forums