The World’s Longest Miracle Review, Part 10featured
When we woke up this morning, the boat was really rocking, so it was no surprised that when we pulled back our curtains, this is what it looked like outside:
In all of my cruises, I’ve never sailed in such conditions that there were many consecutive days of bad weather. Of the eight days of our voyage, I think there were only two or three that had absolutely no rain. While I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be coming home as dark as I usually do, I was also thankful for the respite from sunning and swimming. We’re creatures of habit. We wake up at the same time on our sea days, we go to the same place for breakfast at the same time every day, we go to the same pool and grab chairs in the same area. We stay out for a few hours and then we’re done. In this, we miss a lot of what’s going on around the boat. Until we encountered all of the rain and rough seas on this cruise, we’d never noticed how much goes on around the boat while we’re out tanning. Trivia games. Baggo tournaments in the atrium. Dance classes. Tours. Scavenger hunts. How had I not noticed this before?
But besides the ability to participate in activities we never knew existed, it also allowed us to rest. I’ve said it a million times before, but we always come home needing our vacation from our vacation. We’ve never done a cruise without a pre- or post- cruise vacation, except for our January cruise on the Miracle because we couldn’t swing any extra time off with the last-minute trip (but we did spend two days in our favorite part of Atlanta- one on the way there and one on the way home). Anywhere in Florida (except Miami), we’ve always done Disney before or after (sometimes both) a cruise. When we went out of Miami, we did a pre- cruise and a post- cruise in South Beach. When we did the Mexican Riviera, we spent a few days in Disneyland and a few more in Beverly Hills. This cruise was no different with our two and a half days in NYC before the cruise. And then there’s the cruise, itself. We stay out late, we stay up watching movies even later, and we get up early. There’s really no R&R on a cruise for us and we come home exhausted and spend a week catching up on our sleep, but with the rain this week, we really got much more rest than we usually would.
So we went for breakfast at Horatio’s, which was surprisingly empty at 9:30 am. I guess most people just decided to sleep in. Mom and grandma were going to start packing after breakfast, so Stephanie and I decided to grab a Caper from the espresso counter (they’re always there if you need an extra) and plan our day. There were arts and crafts at the Fountainhead, two trivia challenges, the galley tour, a baggo tournament, and scrapbooking in the morning and early afternoon, and then a hip hop dance class, the love and marriage show, bingo and more trivia later in the afternoon. And it was formal night. So even though it was raining, the ship was our oyster and there was plenty for us to do.
I originally wanted to do the galley tour before we even got on the boat because we’ve never done it before, but it was hosted by Maitre’D Frankie, and because of that, we decided not to. We’re not fond of Frankie, going back to our cruise before this one. He came off as smarmy, annoying and we were put off at the way he’d pander for tips the night before the last night of the cruise. And having sat within view of the podium on both cruises, we felt like the people who did the brunt of the work and the people who would come by every day and see if everything was alright and just to chat (Jogi on our last cruise, Dewey on both cruises and Karuna on this cruise) got no credit.
We decided to head down to the Phantom for Funship Trivia, which was a trivia challenge on the history of Carnival and the ships, as well as random nautical trivia. It was pretty crowded, but Stephanie and I won by one! I was really excited. In seven cruises with Carnival, I’ve never won a ship on a stick before. I’ve won two bottles of champagne, but no 24k gold solid plastic ship on a stick. To be fair, though, I never participated in anything that would win me a ship on a stick before. But I always wanted one. Stephanie let me keep it since I answered more questions than her.
We stayed for the Historical Moments Big Screen Challenge, where there are various dates and pictures put up on the screens and you have to name the event and we did decently, but not enough to win a ship on a stick for Stephanie. We were going to head off to the casino when we looked out the window of one of the portholes in the Phantom and saw that it was clearing up outside. So we scurried back to the room to change into our swimsuits and headed up to the aft pool, where Mom and grandma would eventually join us when they finished organizing everything they needed to pack and packing anything they wouldn’t need for our last two days.
The pool area filled up quickly. We laid out for awhile before swimming and then laying out again. There was a young woman having a coughing fit behind me. I didn’t pay much attention to it until she got up and then hocked her phlegm off the back of the boat. Hello, genius. There are balconies below you. I’m sure they’ll love going outside to watch the waves and find your phlegm on the railing. Trash. But you’ll find these classless cruisers on any line. We’ve encountered similar Einstein’s on our Princess cruise, too.
We had lunch at Horatio’s and it was as fantastic as it had been all week. Really, I’ve never had such good food on the Lido deck of any ship I’ve been on. The carved meats at the rotisserie were excellent, Taste of Nations was hit or miss in flavor (but I’m picky) but varied in selection and the Asian food was consistently very good. There was always a stir-fried chicken and beef dish, a vegetarian dish (which were amazing), a fried rice, a cellophane noodle dish and either spring rolls or wontons that were the hit of the ship and commanded their own line. They had six or so dipping sauces, too.
Since it was formal night, we needed to get an early start on getting ready so we went back to the room after lunch to shower. Stephanie flat ironed before tea, so I just sat on the balcony and watched the waves for a bit and then headed back inside to watch a movie (I think we watched Twilight).
We headed down at 3:00 for the 3:30 tea time so we could snag one of the few tables for four. There are many tables for six or seven, a handful for two, and maybe one or two that can accommodate four. And then there’s the bar for singles or people who can’t find tables and the Aradiane room.
Thankfully, there were no crying babies or running children drowning out the piano music this time, but there were some awfully loud adults. Tea time was getting more and more crowded with each passing one, but it seemed to be filled more with people that wanted free sweets than it was people who enjoy the antiquated tradition of it. Those are the people who come buzzed or in pool clothes, or who bring children that behave poorly and do nothing to stop them or crying babies. You can spot them from a mile away. We enjoy the tradition of it and it’s sad what it’s become, all for a doughnut or a muffin. We actually enjoy the tradition of it so much that we’re going to start trying all of the tea places in Chicago. We don’t really have the cool, kitschy ones like they have in NYC, but we want to try the tea at the Drake, the Peninsula, the Ritz, the Four Seasons and Russian Tea Time (but if you have any suggestions on good tea places, please let us know). Stay tuned for posts on those.
I keep forgetting to go to Teavana to see if they have some chamomile tea. It’s my tea of choice on the boat and I really enjoy it, but they offer so many different teas for tea time. Stephanie and Mom both enjoyed the Darjeeling. We sat for awhile and reflected on our cruise and talked about what cruises we’d like to go on in the future and the places we’d like to see, and we went through a few pots of hot water in the process. The tea sweets and sandwiches today were in the same vein as they always were (petite orange meringue tart, cream puffs, cucumber sandwiches, salmon sandwiches, chocolate frosted doughnut, almond muffins, a meringue), but they vary from ship to ship. The Miracle has finger food, but when we were on the Glory last year, it was cakes and edibles that you’d need a fork to consume.
We headed to the casino for a few spins on the slots (where we won nothing- again) before heading back to the room to get ready for formal night, or as it’s now known, “elegant evening.” Listen, I don’t care how you dress. It doesn’t affect me in the least. We dress up because we like to. As we get older, occasions to get really dressed up are becoming fewer and far between. Most of the boat seemed dressed up. We saw women in full-length formal gowns and men in tuxes. We saw women in cocktail dresses and men in suits. We saw people who didn’t get dressed up at all and spent the evening in shorts and tanks, but we didn’t see ANY of them in the MDR. They were usually in the casino or up on the Lido deck.
I’ve seen many people complain (in person and online) about how they shouldn’t need to dress up to eat in the MDR because they paid the same for their meals, etc etc yadda yadda. Okay. But if you want to eat in the MDR on formal night, you need to follow their guidelines. If you went to any land-based restaurant with a dress code, would you complain that you have every right to eat there wearing whatever you want? There was a dress code sheet put in our rooms on the very first night detailing the dress code for every night on the boat. I’ll scan it in later, but this is the excerpt about formal night:
“Gentlemen- Dress slacks, dress shirts. We also suggest a sport coat. If you wish to wear suits and ties or tuxedos, by all means we invite you to do so.
Ladies- Cocktail dresses, pantsuits, elegant skirts and blouses; if you’d like to show off your evening gowns, that’s great too!
Not permitted in the dining room during the cruise elegant dinner for ladies and gentlemen: shorts, T-shirts, beach flip-flops, bathing suit attire, jeans, cut-off jeans, sleeveless shirts for men, sportswear and baseball hats.”
If you want to eat in their room, you follow their rules. It’s pretty black and white. If you don’t, the Lido deck restaurant is plentiful in options, most of which are directly from the MDR that night. But you won’t feel left out if you decide to get all dressed up on Carnival elegant evenings. Most of the ship will be dressed up right along with you.
But I got off topic again.
So we went back to the room after the casino so I could flat iron and get ready. I take forever to get ready. I wish I didn’t, but I do. Everything seems so frenetic on the boat and I’m not at home sitting at my vanity, where I know where everything is. I was getting ready to get ready (ladies, you’ll know what I mean) and I decided to flip through the channels to see what was on and I remembered it was Saturday and the ship has FOX (for the longest time it didn’t) and I was wondering if FOX Saturday Baseball was on. So I flipped to it and this is what I saw:
HOME SWEET HOME! The Cubs game was on…what luck do I have?! I’m seriously such a girly girl. I own more clothes, handbags and shoes than anyone I know. I have drawers full of makeup and toiletries and counters full of hair supplies (Stephanie will not think twice to tell anyone that I dominate all of the counter space in our bathroom). I love getting all dressed up. But as much of a stereotypical girl that I am, I love my sports. I’ll talk shop with the rest of ’em. Wrigley Field is like my second home in the summers. Stephanie decide to take pictures of me getting ready. And then she got bored and started taking pictures of herself and Mom. I don’t advocate doing what I did (because even with a trained hand, I still burned myself trying to flat iron my hair while watching baseball), but Demp was throwing a shutout and my team was finally hitting (that wouldn’t last).
At some point, I was taking too long because I was watching the game more than I was getting ready and Stephanie threatened to turn the TV off because we were going to be late to dinner and wouldn’t have time to take balcony pictures (one of our favorite formal night activities) and I’d miss martini time in the lobby. So I hurried myself up so we could get our balcony pictures done before dinner. I think we clean up pretty nicely.
I wanted to stop and get a martini in the atrium, but we were late so we decided to go after dinner and take our time to people watch. Grandma was watching the Cubs game, so her nap was going to be delayed until it was over, anyways.
When we got to dinner, Jephson asked us where we were the previous night. We told him we were at the supper club and how much we enjoyed it (and he laughed at Stephanie ordering chicken at a place that specializes in steaks). He then told us that Carnival would be getting rid of the supper clubs as they are and re-conceptualizing them into more of a steakhouse type of restaurant. He said they weren’t making a profit off of them, and I think it’s nearly impossible for them to: most people don’t want to pay an extra $30/person to eat when they can eat for free in the MDR or on the Lido deck and they’re already paying a lot for their vacations. I’ve never once seen the supper clubs at capacity, or near capacity, or even busy. On the nights we’ve gone, they’ve been nearly empty. So in addition to the costs of keeping it running when they’re not filling them up, I can’t see how they’re turning a profit on the food. The quality of the food there is something you’d see at a Morton’s or a Fleming’s. Yes, on a Carnival ship. It’s fantastic, gourmet and of such great quality. You can’t tell me they’re turning a profit off of the $30 I paid them for beef carpaccio, a spinach salad, a 9-oz. filet and a quad of chocolate desserts. That filet at any prime steakhouse would cost more than $30 a la carte. Add in the jumbo shrimps, beef tenderloin carpaccio, the lobsters and lobster bisque and the other cuts of meat that they serve (the 24 oz. porterhouse comes to mind), and it’s certainly feasible that they’re simply not turning a profit. He didn’t give us any timetable and whether it’s true or not remains to be seen, but that’s what we were told. I was under the impression that the newer steakhouses would be more in the vein of the Sterling Steakhouses on some of the Princess ships, where the cuts of meat are still fantastic (no lobster, though), but the starters, sides and desserts were normal fare (spinach and artichoke dip, baked potatoes, pecan pie, etc). I certainly hope it’s not true, but I can’t see why he’d lie or make it up. So we’ll see. I hope we have the opportunity to eat there one more time if this is true.
Dinner tonight was fantastic and one of the best served in the MDR. Mom started with her usuals (shrimp cocktail and caesar salad) and after the previous night’s dinner in the supper club, the MDR shrimp cocktail wasn’t doing it for her. The shrimps were miniscule in comparison to the ones she had last night. She had the shrimp entree for her main course and thought it was good, but the shrimps were relatively small and it was just okay. We all had the baked alaska for dessert and we all thought it was fantastic. Stephanie started with the broccoli cheese soup and thought it was very good, and then had the green bean and roma tomato salad, which was just good. This salad used to have shrimp in it, but that’s been cut. For dinner, she had the chateaubriand and felt it was too rare for her so she switched with me (I’m less picky about how my meat is cooked as long as it’s at least medium). She thought the more cooked one was very good, and that’s a supreme compliment coming from her since she usually doesn’t care for meat. I started with the chilled cherry soup, which was good, but not as good as the strawberry bisque. I had the starter size penne siciliana, as well, and that was a bit different than it usually was. Less vegetable pieces, I think. But it was still very tasty. Carnival has some excellent pasta dishes that are really never noticed or talked about in the shadow of lobster, filet mignon and coq au vin. I thought the chateaubriand was excellent and was the only more-than-decent meat dish I had all week. It wasn’t overcooked for the first time, there wasn’t an ounce of visible fat on it, and the jus and béarnaise sauce it was plated with was fantastic.
Cream of Garden Fresh Broccoli
Chilled Creamy Bing Cherry Soup
Green Bean and Roma Tomatoes
Penne Siciliana
Chateaubriand with Sauce Béarnaise
Grilled Jumbo Tiger Shrimps
Baked Alaska
We headed back to the room after dinner so we could change our shoes and found tonight’s towel animal, and so I could see if the Cubs game was still on. It wasn’t, but they won 7-0, I think. Our room steward this week was just fantastic. He left our room impeccably clean and he was very creative in towel animal making. He made us towel animals we hadn’t seen in all of our eight cruises.
As we suspected, grandma watched the Cubs game and fell asleep a bit later than usual, so she was still napping. So we went down to the martini fluge (yes, I know the correct term is “luge,” but I’ve always called it the fluge), where they mix your martini and then pour it through an ice sculpture to chill it. The line was a bit long and I couldn’t decide which one I wanted. I ultimately decided on the Aquarius martini, which was excellent, but packed quite a punch. We settled into a couch in the atrium to people watch and see what everyone was wearing while I sipped my martini.
Grandma was awake and ready for dinner by the time we finished with martini time so we all went up to Horatio’s. Stephanie and I left a little early so we could head down to the Phantom to grab seats for Ticket to Ride, the last big production and by far, one of the best shows on all the seas. Stephanie and I ordered some drinks and Mom and grandma were down to join us before our drinks even arrived.
Bingo preceded the show, and I believe this was the night of Bingogate 2009. Leonnie was hosting bingo (it was usually Sam and Justin, or occasionally Kyle or Simon) and at some point, someone thought they had bingo and Leonnie heard the freespace number wrong (they plug it into the computer so they can see the card and determine if it’s a bingo or a bongo) and plugged the wrong number into the machine and deemed it a bongo even though it was a true bingo, and kept going. The crowd was shouting that she put the wrong number in, but by the time she realized what everyone was shouting, someone else had a bingo. Sam had to come out and try to soothe things over with the winners. Leonnie got booed. The original winner should have won $500, but was forced to split it with the other winner. It was a bit of a tense situation. I thought it was the wrong thing to do. It wasn’t the first person’s fault for the error and they won $500 fair and square, but I guess they didn’t want to peeve the second-place winners. I didn’t think it was right to boo Leonnie, either. It was a bit of a tense situation.
Because of Bingogate, the show started a few minutes late. I won’t ruin the best parts of the show for you (which are the end), but if you’re on the Miracle, don’t miss this show. “Ticket to Ride” is a tribute to the Beatles (and features our favorite band at sea, Music Unlimited). Everything from the costumes and sets to the arrangements to the powerful ending is unbelievable. There aren’t words to describe how amazing this particular show is. We stayed for both performances (and an uneventful session of bingo that preceded the second show).
(Note: there is no flash photography or videotaping allowed at any Carnival shows. These pictures were taken with the flash off and the guide light off, right after the bow and while the house lights were already back on).
Grandma went off to bed after the last show, and Stephanie, Mom and I went up to the Lido deck around midnight for some hot dogs. It was always very active at night up on the Lido deck, but towards the end of the cruise, it was over run with young girls (who were maybe 11 or 12…they certainly weren’t teenagers) who would scream, run around, and talk loudly. None of their parents were in sight, and I just don’t think I’d feel comfortable letting my 11 year old roam the ship with people they had just met a week ago without supervision late at night. Anyways. The hot dogs always tasted better at night. They had hamburgers, cheeseburgers and grilled chicken sandwiches, too, but we always stuck with hotdogs or pizza. And fries. Carnival has awesome french fries.
After our late snack, we walked around the ship a bit, taking pictures and trying to take everything in. I knew we only had two sleeps left on the boat and post-cruise depression started to sink in, even though we were still on the ship.
We soon headed back to the room to watch some movies and we ended up on the balcony watching the moon reflect up off the water.
I knew that despite the weather, the next day would be melancholy and we would no longer be able to delay the inevitable: we’d have to pack up our stuff and get ready to disembark the trip we’d spent so much time planning. So I did what I do best: I thought about what cruise we’d do next.
Up Next: Fond Farewells on our Last Day at Sea
Today’s Lido Lunch Menus
Today’s Lido Dinner Menu
