Carnival Pride - Day 4 - Nassau (Part 2)

I insisted we get to dinner right when they open so that we'd have a chance to being done before the Hasbro game show at 7:30PM. This was also an activity they'd added since I last sailed on Carnival and I wanted to make sure I saw it. When we got down to Normandie restaurant, there was already a super long line. One of the hostesses walked the line taking cabin numbers and group sizes. There was plenty of extra wait staff at the door when we finally made it to the front and the hostess was telling the waiters to take everyone directly to specific tables. Either our assigned waitress was having a bad day or the sight of us disgusted her because she copped an attitude 10 sizes bigger than the tiny two top table we were led to. She held out my chair and then proceeded to slam it back into the table before I could even get my second leg under the table and then stormed off. New bruise, party of one leg. 

Our team waiter was much more pleasant. We mentioned needing to be done for the show at 7:30PM and he replied "Oh so you want the express dinner?" He was so on the ball with service we were done by 6:30PM. The only issue was that he brought me a coke when I ordered sprite. Before I could even speak up, he did an about face and came back to our table realizing his own mistake and got me the correct soda.

This time I went with multiple appetizers not liking many entrée choices. I had the Fried Shrimp appetizer, the Shrimp Cocktail, and the Marinated Chicken Tenders. Joni really liked her Chicken Patties order from the Port of Call choices.

Joni went with the Braised Short Ribs entrée and liked everything except the potato and pea gratin on the side. I asked for just a side of French fries instead of an entrée.

For dessert, we each got a side of ice cream to go with our choices. My Cheesecake (with strawberry sauce already on the side in a little dish for you purists like me) was paired with vanilla ice cream and Joni's Buttered Popcorn Pot De Crème finally gave her the chance to have that butter pecan ice cream! Guess she was in a B-P kind of mood.

With unexpected time to kill, we walked the outside deck and stared out at the vast ocean taking in the beautiful sunset.

Arrived at the Hasbro game show within plenty of time and found seats a few rows from the stage. The theater did get fairly full by showtime. I ordered a sprite from a roaming bar waitress and she brought me a $0 receipt to sign. To each their own I suppose. My guess is that she was trying to make sure I had the opportunity to provide a tip. Unfortunately though one sip of the sprite she brought me and it tasted way off like either she brought club soda instead or gave me the squirt from the fountain gun right after they'd flushed it out.

Michelle and Bradley warmed up the crowd before Leigh came out to pick contestants based on answering random trivia based questions.

It was simple questions like name a food that starts with the letter P. Leigh purposely balanced out the teams so that they only had a certain number of women, men, and kids. Each time someone got eliminated, they were given a consolation prize of one of the Hasbro games in travel or deck of card form. The winners each got to pick one of the Monopoly piece cards and then sat in the front row until all the games were played. Then they each came up to put their card in the machine to reveal how much it was worth. Eventually it got down to the last two players and the kid who won looked like he might as well have won a million dollars the way he celebrated all over the stage "dabbing" for the crowd.

We stuck around for the Gender Showdown and they had us move around in the theater so that the ladies were on one side and the men on the other. We moved to the other side of our row to sit on the women's side and ended up next to a poor older woman who seemed extremely pissed at her husband having to move away from her side. It's not like they forced anyone to move but if looks could kill, Leigh would be six feet under that stage right now. The challenges were mostly physical based with a couple Family Feud style question and answer battles. A lot of the questions were adult oriented so it was a little unfair when a young teen girl stepped up to represent the ladies' side and she didn't understand the words used in the question. One of the guys who came up to participate frequently had long flowy hair so Leigh nicknamed him Jesus. He ran with the jokes when this guy actually helped them win a few challenges talking about how Jesus came down to help you in your time of need and how Jesus saved the men. A good portion of the physical challenges were the same ones I'd seen on my RCL cruises so they must use the same playbook. If you've never seen these gender showdown challenges and feel like volunteering, watch out for the balloon popping game. I volunteered on the Grandeur and was picked to be the one in the chair. By the next morning, my arms looked like a road map of bruises.

Who needs a meet & greet to get to know your fellow cruiser? Just get up close and personal with the balloon game!

After the gender showdown game, Joni stepped away to use the bathroom before the Love & Marriage show started. A new bigger crowd came in for this show and a small group asked if the space next to where Joni had been sitting was free and I told them it was except for the exact spot Joni had intended to come back to. All but one of their group sat down in that nearby spot. The one remaining guy was hesitant to join his friends because he rightfully was respecting my telling them that someone was already sitting there. One of the girls however didn't care and insisted he sit down there anyway so he gave in. I scooted over and made sure Joni still had room to sit on the other side of me instead rather than get into it with Mean Girls 2018 edition.

A sweet moment to kick off the Love & Marriage show came when Leigh came out to announce a raffle for couples to win a bottle of champagne. He claimed they'd already given out tickets to cute couples they'd seen around the ship. The ticket number he called belonged to a young woman who came up on stage. Leigh asked where her boyfriend was and she said he'd left her. Leigh offered her the bottle but then asked if she'd like to instead take what's behind the curtain. Thankfully she chose the curtain because when it was pulled back, it was her boyfriend standing behind it. He came out on stage and proposed.

After the show Joni opted not to bother going to Quest after all and we both headed back to the cabin to get ready for our beach day at Half Moon Cay tomorrow.