The Bubble and Beads Tour, October 2010 About This Page:

[DouglasE]

Originally Posted by B.M.

I'm just catching up; but sounds like the trip is off to a great start!! New Orleans is also on my "list" among many other places. I'm especially interested in all you have to say about your Carnival cruise as I am likely taking a carnival cruise the end of this summer with my dd- since it will be just the two of us I'm looking for cheap and a port in driving distance and Carnival fits the bill.
Looking forward to more.....

I am never short of opinions so you will definitely be getting my skewed view of life aboard a Carnival ship. Please feel free to ask questions along the way.

[DouglasE]

Sorry folks about the delay. I had to clean for Craig's visit. Then he was here for several days last week. Then overlapping that I had a tech rehearsal, a dress rehearsal and three performances with PGMC. It's been a bit busy and this trip reporting nonsense takes up soooo much time.

Ok, I attempted to film New Orleans gliding past as the Carnival Triumph sailed away. These are two crappy videos that I took. It's enjoyable for me because they trigger a memory. Because I zoomed in so much the image is fuzzy on the first video. The second video is basically a blooper but it is a clearer picture. Don't get your expectations too high. But I thought the voices in the background make the videos a little humorous.

YouTube - Carnival Triumph Sail Away from NOLA

YouTube - Carnival Triumph Sails Blooper

[DouglasE]

Carnival’s dining has three options. The first option is to be a part of the first wave of diners, eating their dinner early at 6:00 pm, roughly. The second option is to be a part of the second wave of diners, eating their dinner at 8:00 pm, roughly. The third option is to have “Your Time Dining”. It functions like you were going out to dinner at a restaurant at home. You show up for dinner at whatever time you desire. The advantage of the traditional timed dining is that you have an assigned table and wait staff. Every night you sit at the same table with a dining staff that gets to know what you like and can anticipate your desires. The advantage of “Your Time Dining” is the flexibility. Most of the Cruise Critic members had chosen early dining. Basically, our Sail Away Party ended due to the fact that so many had to get ready for their early seating of dinner.

Craig and I went off to explore the ship and most of the public spaces were empty of fellow passengers. I took a bunch of pictures at this time. We wandered and moseyed and made it back to our room. By the time we made it to dinner it was roughly 7 pm. Carnival Triumph has two dining rooms. The food is included as part of your fare that you paid.

On this sailing they were testing two new dining programs. On some Carnival Cruises, they have an additional specialty restaurant for which you pay an added fee. It is a steakhouse. The quality of the food is a notch above the fare you receive at the regular dining rooms. The Triumph is designed in such a way that they are not able to refit it with a specialty dining room. The new dining program is that they have a portion of the menu that includes items that you would be able to order at the steakhouse. For an additional $18, you could order higher grades of steak and or lobster and a few other items. The second program is the Chef’s Table. Originally, I had put in a request to have a reservation at the Chef’s Table as an additional birthday present for Craig prior to our sailing. Somehow I never received a response to my request. It still was possible to sign up for the Chef’s Table on the day of embarkation. They still had room. But I had second thoughts. It was a bit pricey and I didn’t want to spend the money. It is $75/person. Granted, it is an incredible experience. You get a tour of the galley, the Executive Chef creates a multi course meal, you have your picture taken and they present you with a signed cookbook. The experience takes roughly four hours. Cruise Critic members have raved about the experience. When I described the experience to Craig, he said that he would prefer to go to a fancy dinner in New Orleans. I guess I ended up making the correct decision.

All of the “Your Time Dining” passengers ate in the London dining room on the upper level. We approached a podium at the entrance to the dining room and were greeted by two lovely, blonde hostesses. We told them our stateroom number and they asked us if we would be willing to share a table with other diners. This is aspect of traditional dining that I do not like. In traditional dining they assign you a table in which you have to share your meal with strangers. I do not like everyone and everyone does not like me. Additionally, we are a gay couple and as gay men we have to make the decision about “coming out”. My idea of a fine dining experience does not include having to have awkwardness with some fundamentalist Baptist who is giving me dirty looks. So when I was asked about my willingness to share a table, I said I preferred to have a table for two. Craig said he was ok with sharing a table. The hostesses seemed to indicate that it would be more difficult to seat us at a table just for two. We acquiesced and said we would be willing to sit with others. Craig was really hungry and didn’t want to delay eating just so we could have a table all to ourselves. We were seated at a booth for four. We sat opposite each other and allowed room for another two people. It turned out that no other people were seated along with us and we had a nice little dinner for two after all.

For all of you Carnival aficionados, our Chef de Cuisine was Allan Gomes and the Maitre d’hotel was Mr. P. Grandhi. Our team head waiter was Jeffrey, our team waiter was Rafael, and our assistant waiter was Matlhomola. The team over all was pleasant. Although I felt that we had to wait quite a long time in between each course. Also, I thought our beverages could have been refilled a bit quicker. But I really had no complaints.

I took advantage of the option of making a pasta entrée my appetizer. I had linguine with Italian sausage, bell peppers, and mushrooms served with freshly grated parmesan cheese and a tomato marinara sauce and sausages. Carnival has to create meals for a wide variety of palates. Personally, I found the sauce for this appetizer a bit too bland and not seasoned properly. The pasta was cooked well and the sausages were tasty. It was a mediocre dish as far as I was concerned. Craig had a tomato soup. I obviously wasn’t paying close attention to all the details of the menu when I ordered because the entrée that I ordered had pasta in it as well. I had the Chicken a la Greque or as my server called it, “Chicken whatever”. It is a broiled chicken breast with herbs and tomato confit, virgin olive and basil oil. The chicken sat on a bed of penne pasta. I’m not exactly sure what Craig had. The chicken was a much bigger success and quite tasty. It was seasoned well. For dessert I had the Carnival classic, Warm Chocolate Melting Cake. Many of you might know it as a molten chocolate lava cake. It comes with a dish of vanilla ice cream. I loved the dessert but did find that it was too liquid-y. Once you cracked the surface it was entirely all liquid. There was hardly any cake consistency at all. Craig had a cheese platter that included port salut, brie, gouda, imported Swiss, and Danish Bleu. Being the cheap bastards that we are we had the tap water that was included in our cruise fare.





Craig's soup





My entree turned appetizer






Chicken Whatever






Craig's mystery entree






Warm Chocolate Melting Cake






Craig's Cheese Platter

[DouglasE]

Overall, the dining experience was a good one. We got to enjoy a nice quiet dinner, just the two of us. The food was good. I enjoyed it, especially the Chicken a la Greque. Alternatively, we could have skipped the main dining room and had dinner at the buffet area just as we did lunch earlier in the day. Dress codes for the main dining rooms are such that we were able to eat dinner in the same clothes we had been wearing all day. It’s sports and swim attire that is verboten. Other than that there is a lot of leeway.





We wandered around the ship a bit after dinner making more discoveries. Basically we were killing time until the big evening entertainment.

NEXT: The art of laziness

[Wendyismyname]

I just this Douglas!!!!

I at the sail away videos! Too funny listening to the people talk and hey, looks like you blew some good bubbles!!

[goofysdtr]

The whole eating with strangers has always made me hesitant to take a cruise (well, that and the $ thing ). It just seems like it could go well, or awkward, or downright BAD. Glad to hear you got your dinner for two!

[lauriep]

Love the videos. I agree with you about the dining-with-strangers issue. I was very lucky on the long Panama cruise to be seated with a wonderful family, so dinners were fine. But if I wanted a sit-down meal for breakfast or lunch (just me and my book), I was always made to feel that I was messing up their seating plans by choosing to eat alone. For that reason, I almost always ate at the buffet where I could choose a solo table. I love dining with friends, but, even if the strangers are nice, sometimes I don't want the small-talk.

[chezp]

I am so with you about the eating with strangers thing - we had a bad experience on our first Disney cruise and on the second one, we were lucky enough to hook up with people through these boards who became great friends. How great that you were able to enjoy a meal for the two of you!

[B.M.]

Sounds like yall are having fun; glad you two were able to have the table to yourselves....

[Big Baloo]

Sounds like you two are off to a great start--We never have to worry about dining with strangers as we have always cruised with our neighbors/good friends--which brings our grand total to 7--pretty tight quarters at the dining table . Plus the fact that we always joke that there is no one stranger than us!! (I'll have to tell you about the mysterious case of the missing chair and the extremely confused waiter incident sometime....)
Can't wait to hear more!!

[Colexis Mom]

More great updates Douglas! Sounds like a good meal!

[DouglasE]

Originally Posted by Jillybean

Okay, I'm just catching up! How cool to cruise out of NOLA! And your cruise ship looks great - - I love the tiered decks!

How great that you could meet up with people from Cruise Critic! I've used their boards for info before.

Can't wait for more!

Jill

I'm so glad that you mentioned the look of the ship. I want to discuss the interior design of the ship. I will have to do that soon. I am full of opinions on that point.

I think meeting people from Passporter or Cruise Critic can definitely enhance a trip. You obviously know all about that as I have read many a trip report from you and your Passporter friends.

[DouglasE]

Originally Posted by cubfancolleen

Just found your TR, and looking forward to it. I have you to thank for our decision to go to Skansen while in Stockholm in July!
Hoping the cruise was all you hoped for. The only non-Disney cruise we've done was a Norwegian one, and that sort of put us off from trying non-DCL cruises.
But I love the itinerary for this one - not the run-of-the-mill ports.

Can't wait for your next installment!

I feel like I let you down. I just got so busy with life that I wasn't up to finishing that trip report. As soon as I get done with this one I am going to re-visit that trip report and finish that one. I promise. I didn't even get to my favorite part of the trip in my storytelling!

The thing that helped me with the cruise is reading the Cruise Critic message boards obsessively. It set appropriate expectations for me. This way I was not disappointed. I just rolled with the punches and was happy that I did not have to do any cooking or cleaning.

[DouglasE]

Originally Posted by Wendyismyname

I just this Douglas!!!!

I at the sail away videos! Too funny listening to the people talk and hey, looks like you blew some good bubbles!!

I'm glad that you got something out of those videos. I thought that for someone not on the cruise with me they would be rather lame. I wasn't the one blowing bubbles at that point. Craig and others were the ones blowing bubbles. I was just trying to hold the camera steady!

[DouglasE]

Originally Posted by goofysdtr

The whole eating with strangers has always made me hesitant to take a cruise (well, that and the $ thing ). It just seems like it could go well, or awkward, or downright BAD. Glad to hear you got your dinner for two!

I find cruises to be quite affordable. When you break everything down and compare it to a land cruise I think it is a really good deal. My thing is is that I really like to explore a destination. A cruise only gives you a glimpse, a survey of a destination. However, a cruise can be a great tool. Let's say you've always dreamed of going to Italy, but there are things that make you hesitate doing a land vacation there (like the language barrier). If you take a cruise, then you get a small inkling of what Italy would be like. If you liked the experience, you then can plan a land vacation to explore Italy more in depth.

Dining is my favorite part of cruising.