Since we couldn't stay for the show, we ended up walking outside on the open deck admiring the sunset.
The door we chose to come back inside through ended up being right next to a table set up with all the specialty restaurant menus and some little postcards about the various dining packages as well as celebration packages and brunch offerings. One card included an offer of 15% off all dining packages purchased on embarkation day. The package choices if booked onboard are:
- "Chops Grille +1" $59/person which gives you a meal at Chops Grille plus either one other specialty dining venue or a culinary experience which I think refers to the cupcake decorating class and sushi making class that are an extra cost, usually around $30 on their own.
- "3 Dining Experiences" $79/person which says the same as above except that you can pick whichever 3 you want. No requirement to visit Chops if you don't want to.
- "Ultimate Dining Package" $24/person/day. Note the difference - the first two are a single per person charge. This one is like your drink packages, per person and per day. That can trip up a lot of new cruisers who think hey $24/person great deal. Hmm, why was I charged $288? This package is the only one that also includes lunches in these specialty restaurants on sea days. Plus a 20% discount on Chef's Table and any of the culinary experiences.
All of the packages have a footnote about including wine discounts of 40% off bottles under $100 and 20% off bottles over $100. We're not wine drinkers so I never noticed until now how it's more off for the cheaper bottles. I'd think it would be more sensible to entice the customer to buy the more expensive bottle by offering the bigger discount? Also the back of this postcard lists that if you dine in any specialty restaurant this first night, you get a complimentary bottle of wine. Pretty good deals if you like wine with dinner. Always look out for these little promotions.
Another postcard offers a "Festive Celebration Package" where for $99 for 2 people, you get Chops Grille dinner for two, Giovanni's lunch for two, bottle of sparkling wine, a romantic breakfast in your room, and a celebration cake. Encourages one to "elevate your anniversary, birthday, or any other special occasion with this package." Not sure I'd want a romantic breakfast in my room if it was just a birthday celebrating and we're not traveling as a couple but still a great deal for the restaurant meals.
The last postcard advertised a Chops Grille Brunch described as a "Decadent Brunch with a side of contemporary flare with Broiled Lobster Tail and unlimited Sparkling Wine." This was to be held at 10:30AM on a sea day with a $40 per person fee. We were able to use our dining package on the Giovanni's brunch we only noticed advertised via a sign outside the restaurant so I'd guess you could also apply it to this Chops Grille brunch.
While we sat plotting our 12 day gastronomy drooling over the menus, Carlington wandered by and assured us that he'd made our next 2 dinner reservations. We asked about which restaurants would be open for lunch during these first three sea days and he was sure that none of the restaurants opened for lunch. We explained about our dining package specifically mentioning sea day lunches and he was unaware lunches were even available. Once back in the cabin, we found the next day's Compass and in it listed Chops & Izumi being open for lunch tomorrow. We would point this out to Carlington the next day and he called the restaurants to confirm that they were truly open. Another day we happened to be chatting with Carlington and he told us that Giovanni's manager had chosen to cancel all their lunch reservations because not enough people signed up. Some days the restaurants listed as open for lunch would vary but for the most part, they were barely in use so if you go to one and find it closed, walk across the ship to the other one and you'll be able to get a table. The only time we made a lunch reservation ahead of time was for Giovanni's brunch since that was a one time event.
One tip I always use is to ask your steward for two copies of the Compass to be left in your room each night. This time Moses finished my sentence for me so I guess that's become a popular request. This way you have a clean copy to bring home as a souvenir (or to scan for the blog in my case) and one that we would spend a few minutes before bed circling our chosen activities to determine when to get up in the morning. Then Dad would cart around the folded up marked up version throughout that next day so we could refer to it as needed. Unfortunately, the Grandeur is not one of the ships supported by the RCL app yet. They do however have the interactive touch screens by the elevator banks where you can use the map to find how to get from your current location to any other place or at least check the schedule. I referred to these a couple times when we'd split up to do separate activities and he kept the paper with him.
After checking out the Finish the Lyric game show, we popped up to the Park Café just in time for some fresh pizza to be brought out. Stopped back on deck 6 to use the Freestyle machine nestled between the photo gallery and Café Latitudes and found that it was one of the worst functioning machines on board. You'd push a little bit on the lever for ice and a ton of ice would come flying out. Dad overfilled his cup because he didn't give the carbonation time to settle and it spilled out. Thankfully an officer was nearby and handed us napkins before sending a crew member off to get a mop. That machine routinely had wet floor signs and flattened cardboard in front of it because of spillage. We debated all cruise long with other soda drinkers about whether these machines required a light touch, a beat the devil out of you touch, or a prolonged hold down your choice touch as one method would work at first only to stop working the next time.
Not having received any invitation in our cabin to the Cruise Critic Meet & Mingle, we stopped at Guest Services on the way back to our cabin. The person we talked to told us that it was scheduled for 10AM the next morning. The way he answered told me that he'd probably been asked this same question several times already. Unfortunately, it was the same time as the first Progressive Trivia was scheduled and I'm one of the rare people who make the commitment of attending and sticking with all of the Progressive Trivia sessions since that's a cumulative effort. If it had been any other trivia, I would have been fine with skipping it to attend the Meet & Mingle.
Not having received any invitation in our cabin to the Cruise Critic Meet & Mingle, we stopped at Guest Services on the way back to our cabin. The person we talked to told us that it was scheduled for 10AM the next morning. The way he answered told me that he'd probably been asked this same question several times already. Unfortunately, it was the same time as the first Progressive Trivia was scheduled and I'm one of the rare people who make the commitment of attending and sticking with all of the Progressive Trivia sessions since that's a cumulative effort. If it had been any other trivia, I would have been fine with skipping it to attend the Meet & Mingle.
One change I did enjoy about the cabins is the addition of a magnet for your door that said it was okay to make up our room on one side and do not disturb on the other side. Carnival still has full size doorknob hangers and Princess uses a piece of cardstock that you slip into the horizontal slot you otherwise slip your cruise card in to unlock your cabin. Newer ships on Princess have taken to using what they call the Medallion similar to RCL's Wow bands that let you open your cabin by running your personal sensor over the electronic door lock as do most hotels these days with electronic key cards. I thought it was funny how our anniversary celebrating neighbors would always stick their do not disturb magnet over their peephole on the outside of the door.
With an alarm set on my phone for enough time to have breakfast in the morning before our first chosen activity, we headed into our separate bedrooms and finally called it a night.
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