Monday, September 21 – Poblanos and pickles

Chris: Monday morning, wake up a bit too late to go to the dining room for breakfast, so we go to the Lido. Lido deck breakfast is actually a bit lame, since it’s all generic banquet breakfast food – pancakes, breakfast sausage, hot-table scrambled eggs, etc. Not eating breakfast at the Lido anymore this cruise.

Heather: And then there’s the “bacon police”. You can take as much as you would like of most everything yourself, except the bacon (and ham) – those are being watched over by an employee, who will serve you from the inside of the station. Not a big deal, really – if you want more, just ask. You can also get regular eggs at the omelet stations, not just omelets.

C: Also decided to make a point of eating some form of seafood at every meal. (Which might be foiled by the NASA tour, though.) Did something else (don’t remember at this point) for an hour or so, before going to Camp Carnival to sign the kids up, and took Talia over to Beauties so she could hang out with her Camp Carnival friends. Stephen went too, but he’s not quite as sociable.

Had lunch in the dining room, where Heather had an unimpressive pasta dish, and the kids and I had other things.

H: Yeah, pasta with meatballs, what was I thinking? I don’t generally eat pasta to begin with, so to get a huge bowl of it for lunch wasn’t one of my best ideas.  Honestly, though, I think next cruise I won’t eat lunch in the dining room so much. The menu is ok, and I do much prefer sit down means to walking around with a tray of food, but I think I’d rather go for the Taste of the Nations in the buffet. And the only day we really had trouble finding a seat was on the last day anyway (but that’s really getting ahead of the story!)

C: Heather and I took a nap, since we didn’t get much sleep the night before. One of the kids comes back, and I wake up. I decided to go to the Lido. Didn’t time the visit very well, though, because I missed the Mediterranean buffet line, which had falafels, hummus, and whatever else.

H: See what I mean about eating lunch at the lido? Dude, falafels and hummus! I ate pasta and meatballs instead of falafels! From here on out, the rule is going to be lunch at the lido, dinner in the dining room.

C: Grabbed a couple things from the dessert area (pumpkin cake and key lime pie), and came back to the room to wake Heather. It was starting to get to the point where Talia needed to go to the Spa to have her hair done, so we split up. Stephen and I got dressed in our tuxedos, and Heather and Talia wore their respective dresses. We had our pictures taken by a bunch of photographers on the way to dinner. Oddly, the one background that Heather wanted was too crowded to be able to wait in line before dinner, and the one background that we weren’t sure would work is the one that we buying four 8×10’s of.

H: The photo opportunities on the ship are one of my favorite reasons for cruising, especially since it’s so hard and expensive to get the 4 of us together for a photo shoot. It’s been quite a few years since I’ve been able to take the kids for a “yearly” photo session, so I was really looking foreword to having photos done on the ship. And I was not disappointed:

C: Saw that there were a lot of couples dressed up for elegant night, which is a good thing – as long as people keep going to elegant night, Carnival will probably keep doing it. For that matter, they probably sell a ton of pictures after elegant night, so they likely have a financial incentive to do so.

H: I don’t know if it was because of the mix of people on the ship or what, but I was thrilled to see so many people keeping up with what really is one of the hallmarks of cruising – dressing for dinner. It’s one of the things that make cruising what it is, and I hope it doesn’t go away any time soon.

I was also amazed at the lines of people waiting to have portraits done. Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention last time, but I don’t remember having to wait in line for a certain background – but this time, there were backgrounds that I wanted to use that we just didn’t have time for before dinner. (And knowing my kids, and how they always manage to wear their food, before dinner is a better time than after!)

C: Met our waiters, Putra (Indonesia) and Tomi (Serbia). Somehow goofed up the order of the Zinfendel, since Putra brought a bottle of White Zinfendel, instead of the Red that I had intended. Ordered lobster, prime rib, duck, and a chile relleno.

H: That description makes it sound like we were restrained in our dinner ordering choices. I really do think that the first formal, sorry “cruise elegant” night is the best of all the dinner menus, and I ordered accordingly. ^_^ Talia ordered two lobster dinners, I ordered two lobster dinners and a prime rib, Chris had the duck and the lobster. Only Stephen ordered one thing, the chile relleno, which was the biggest poblano pepper I’ve ever seen in my life.

Ordering multiple entrees is never a problem – as long as you order them all at once. It’s just easier for the wait staff – and the easier you make it for them, the better they will treat you.

C: Showed the kids the “Carnival ride” sign, did a few other things, and came back to the room to change. Found the first towel animal, a dog.

Hit up the Lido for a couple grilled cheese sandwiches and some pickles. I ordered the grilled sandwiches, and noted that the server was from India. There was an awkward silence as the sandwiches grilled, so I asked, prefaced by saying that I hoped not to offend, but were there any Pakistani’s onboard. He replied and said no, so I asked if there was a reason, or if it just happened that way, and he said there was no reason, but there are three Afgani’s onboard. I noted that it was good for them, and the sandwiches were up.

H: Leave it to the kids to find the pickles.

Had enough time to get them in bed so we could see the second comedy show with the one stand-up comic from the welcome aboard show. Picked a lousy seat off to the side, though – the acoustics were so horrible we could barely understand what he was saying. I was so tired that I actually fell asleep during the show. After the show, we wandered toward the casino, and saw the comedian at the bar. Heather was so impressed with him (her throat was sore the day after the welcome show from laughing so hard) that we stopped by and spent a couple hours with him at the bar. Paid for the one round of beverages that he ordered (Corvoisier and a Michelob Ultra), and he eventually returned the favor by buying us a Corvoisier. Heather hadn’t had a chance to have anything at the bar, so I had her drink it. In retrospect, that might not have worked out that well.

H: Yeah, see that look on my face? That’s meant for Chris, and it means “When I throw up from drinking this horrid old-man booze, I will be sure that it is in your direction.”

I wanted to sit down with Carl because he really was just hilarious. His first show just had me laughing so hard my throat hurt. His second, “R-rated” show was adult in nature but funny on its own merits, not because he threw in the f-word everywhere just to make it funny. He was just really a great guy, and I was glad that we were able to sit and talk with him for a while.

Realized it was 2AM, and headed back to the room.