Carnival Pride - Day 6 - Freeport (Part 2)

Back to the cabin to change for dinner as tonight was our second and final formal night. Some people assume that formal nights are only on sea days but oftentimes, especially when the later sea day is the last night of the cruise, the other formal night will actually be on your shortest port day. Despite being a super long line again, we made it in without a pager. I have a feeling though that since the hostess who was walking the line checking cabin numbers and party sizes stopped at our spot in line and walked back to the front with us, that we were one of the last groups tonight to avoid a pager.

We ended up being seated back in the same section as the other night with Selvin as our waiter and the slow service. The wait staff remembered that I ordered soda at dinner and brought me another can and cup of ice versus the fountain soda. Unfortunately, the slow service was also the same and we sat for a long time in between courses to get our food and/or have our plates cleared. I believe at one point they even brought out our next course and were shocked when they couldn't find room to put it down because our table still had the plates from the previous course.

I was so excited to see Stuffed Mushrooms listed as an appetizer tonight hoping that it was the same bread crumb and seasoning stuffed button mushrooms with melted cheese baked over everything I'd enjoyed on my previous cruise. Alas, it seems the budget cuts trickled all the way down to the cheese as this dish was swimming in something resembling tomato sauce. I'm pretty sure I have some Italian relatives that are hanging their heads at this dish. Joni went with the Chesapeake Crab Cake.

For an entrée Joni chose the Duo of Filet Mignon and Short Rib along with the Teriyaki Salmon Fillet. She was glad that she ordered both because hated the salmon from the first bite. I went with the Grilled Jumbo Shrimp and the Fusilli Mushroom Cream. For some reason whenever shrimp is the main part of an entrée, the dish barely has anything to it so it wasn't a big stretch to eat both that and the pasta. Joni even sampled some of the pasta and said she wished she'd ordered that instead.

 

Tonight was another round of dancing wait staff and something that was even more worth the wait - it was Joni's turn to get sung to! She was the first one to spot Selvin coming around the corner with the same little birthday cake and cringed. He backed up out of sight again and she thought she was in the clear. No such luck my friend, as a minute later he brings the cake over to Joni's seat and proclaims that I was making them sing to her.

I tried to get it on video to post on Facebook but alas, it didn't start recording until I was already bringing my phone back down to sit on the table. I showed Joni the video and she asked why I got a picture of just her boobs. All you can see in the short clip is her pissed off look and threatening to throw the now blown out candle at me while commenting "I can't believe you did this!" Well that and how they didn't bother to bring her any utensils for which to eat the cake. Thanks for the blame Selvin. 

The Grand Marnier Souffle she ordered with tableside sauce pouring made her happy again. I had to try the tip I'd read online about ordering some peanut butter to go with your Carnival Melting Cake so that once mixed together, it was like eating a warm gooey Reeses cup. The way people recommend it, I thought the wait staff would have been used to the request but instead I got a very confused reaction. "You want what? Peanut Butter? Like a little cup? What?" I can now say, the cruisers online are right! It's not quite like a Reeses cup consistency wise but more like a chocolate peanut butter cake or one of those brownie sundaes.

A lot of people were chatting today about the addition of gratuities added to everyone's account summaries. Ours came to around $90 so I can see why people were a bit taken aback at such a large single entry added to their bills. I used the kiosk to check my account statement as well this day to confirm that the credits and refunds were being applied to my overall total. The app summary would show the credits but not adjust the balance total. If you'd rather not waste the paper, just look it up on the kiosk screen and then exit out. Just don't wait until the last day. Not only is it a rush to get something wrong fixed but you're also stuck in the long lines waiting at guest services. I heard some tempers flare the last day at the kiosk even because some thought others were taking too long at their turn.

I loved how Carnival tries to put a good spin on the old "out of order" sign in the public bathrooms:

Despite the slow dinner we made it to the Punchliner comedy club (aka Butterflies Lounge) in time to get the last few available seats for the family friendly comedy shows of Jim Brick & Damon Sumner. I like how both Oasis and Pride offered a comedy show that featured two comedians. The best part was when Damon leaned back on the projected picture of a brick wall and nearly fell off the stage.

We noticed that in addition to unique drinks you can order during the comedy shows, you can now also get pitchers to share. On my last Carnival cruise, it was the usual bar menu on the tables with a couple Punchliner themed drinks at the bottom. Now you can get pitchers and buckets in your own little checklist:

Note that the starred options for pitchers, four shots, and buckets are not eligible for Cheers:

Unlike previous comedy shows on the Pride where they made us all leave and line back up to give everyone a new chance to get a seat, they didn't bother to empty the venue this time in between shows. We stuck around and watched Jim Brick's first adults only show where he spent 95% of the time mocking the family in the front row. We opted out of staying for Damon's one only adult show. There was also a late evening second adults only show with Jim Brick after that but we didn't feel like going back down after getting comfortable in the cabin. Back in the room was papers about disembarkation and picking our own luggage tags in the morning. I suppose this was close enough to the last day when I think disembarkation info should appear. I've been on cruises where it shows up in your cabin day 2. Welcome aboard, now think about getting out!

Carnival Pride - Day 6 - Freeport (Part 1)

All cruise long even the crew and fun squad referred to Freeport as the port of nothing. I think the only time I've gotten off in all my visits here was to take a Carnival excursion to the UNESCO center for a dolphin encounter. Even now that I can say I've gotten in the water with stingrays, I would still rather do another dolphin encounter. I've heard there's one excursion with sea lions now, future goals? This was also our shortest port day from 7:15AM to 1PM so we were just planning to play it by ear.

While I had decided the soda package was worth it for me, Joni ended up drinking so many coffees from the Piazza Café that she made quite the impression on the woman working the counter. The first time during the cruise, Joni ordered a chai latte and the crew member says "No you don't want that, it's just hot milk." Two other ladies waiting at the counter mentioned getting hazelnut lattes. Joni agreed to try one too and liked it. Joni went back to get another hazelnut latte the next day and the same woman says "No, I'll make you a caramel latte." Joni tells her that she doesn't like caramel flavoring so she offers to make Joni a vanilla hazelnut latte instead. Really reminded us of the old character from Seinfeld - no chai latte for you!

We'd gotten up unnecessarily early this morning and had the perfect view from our balcony. Look to the right and you could see the latest ship in drydock. I spent a lot of time searching the internet but I finally figured out that the ship we saw there was from the Pullmantur line. A look to the left let us watch the Costa Grand Classica docking.

A cruise tip for any new or experienced cruisers who may not know - in addition to being able to put cash on your account at guest services to cover your onboard charges, you can also exchange any cash you have for smaller bills. For instance, in case you forgot to grab some $1 bills for tipping or in my case you only wanted to bring small bills on shore for shopping. I had used up a good portion of my smaller non $1 bills shopping in Nassau and didn't want to be having to hand a large bill to some craft booth owner who "didn't" have change.

A visit up to the buffet where I tried the eggs benedict - slowly becoming a tradition for me to try on every ship. In case you're wondering, Princess and Celebrity so far are leading the pack but both of those were breakfast in suite restaurants and not mass produced for the buffet. The things you talk about when you've been friends for over 20 years and are together 24/7 this week - the amount of milk to the amount of cereal ratio in my breakfast bowl. I learned that Joni only likes a splash of milk in her cereal bowl so when my tiny cereal box contents looked like pebbles in the sea of milk from one milk carton, I was told I needed to put more cereal in that bowl because the sight of all that milk was bothering her. Apparently we've progressed from current events, to the weather, to family life, to discussing the travesty of having too much milk in my bowl.

Soon after breakfast, we headed on shore. Last time I'd bothered to browse the shops right at the port, it was 90% individual stands of people's handiwork. Now we only saw about 30% of these small pop up shops and the most was full souvenir stores in their own buildings. Senor Frogs and Fat Tuesday were there 10 steps from the port gates so all you drinkers can rejoice without having to stumble very far to come back to the ship. We did find that a lot of the employees in the shops we checked out were, let's call it "attentive." Joni was still browsing to try and finish her gift selection for every friend and relative and each thing I picked up to show her someone was there to quiz me about my interest. When I returned some snow globes Joni vetoed to the shelf, I got quizzed on why I didn't want them.

Which beach excursion would you take?

After a while I decided it was simpler to hang back outside and get some pictures while Joni shopped. We were so close to the ship that I could hear another Alpha (medical) call and hoped that it was only a drill this time. I was waiting for a chance to take a picture of some male and female pirate themed statues outside a shop and got to observe a couple taking pictures of their young teen son standing between them. The son posed very nicely standing between the two statues facing the camera but Mom decided she'd rather have a more unique picture and grabbed the female pirate statue's breasts while telling her son that he should also "grab the boobs!" for the next picture. That poor young man looked so mortified but mom was laughing and kept repeating it like the punchline of a hilarious joke when she noticed I was standing there. "I told him to grab the boobs! Haha haha!"

Our towel animal today looked about as happy as we were that the cruise was almost over.

Once back on board, Joni wanted to go sunbathe so I attended Outrageous Laws trivia on my own. Next time you're thinking of dangling your bed out the window, you'd best think twice if you want to stay out of jail. With time to kill before I'd agreed to meet back up with Joni at the general knowledge trivia, I headed to the top deck in hopes of getting clearer photos of the ship in drydock. In the past I've been able to get some great angles of the ships in photos as they are raised up but today's perspective wasn't the best. As I walked along the open deck however, I was treated to a cool surprise. The Carnival Elation had just arrived and in order to back their way into a slot perpendicular to us, they did a complete 360 turn in the open water before backing up past us. As a photographer, being on one cruise ship up high while a ship is far enough to see the whole thing yet close enough to have clear features is the holy grail of perspectives for a cruise ship nerd like myself. I call scenic photographic gems like this as postcard shots. I love those instances when you come home showing off your pictures and your family questions why you bought postcards.

After reuniting for trivia, Joni and I headed back up to Lido deck to try the Blue Iguana taco bowls for lunch. The buffet was super busy so by the time we got our food and could find a place to sit and eat it, we missed the next couple trivia themed games. I highly recommend though getting a hodgepodge of all 3 meat choices (chicken, steak, and shrimp) as the base of your taco bowl. A smattering of diced tomato, cheese, sour cream and guacamole was my concoction of choice. If I could have found a taco sauce that didn't depict someone's mouth on fire running for the hills on the bottle, it would have been even better.

After mixing everything together

With unexpected time to kill, we decided to grab our birthday spa gift cards as they were to expire today and see what they could be used on. I think the spa staff might have gotten used to people deciding not to use their gift cards because the guy we talked to lost all his enthusiasm when we explained why we were inquiring. As in most things in life, there's always a catch. Unlike the Pixels gift card Joni got which was simple and straightforward as to what it covered, we were handed this 2 sided list of procedures that they offer only to be told that our gift card only allowed us to choose from the few items marked with the "tts" (time to spa) fine print next to them. The cheapest of which was an $85 60 minute session for Individualized Personal Training. Our other choices were: Skindulgent Facials: a $189 50 minute La Therapie Hydra-Therapie Skin Nutritive Facial or the $145 50 minute Elemis Pro-Collagen Age Defy Facial; Acupuncture: $169 50 minute Single session; Detox Treatments: $159 Ionithermie Cellulite Reduction Program, all the massages and salt glow sessions ranging from $160-$418, teeth whitening, a gent's grooming package (what no ladies' grooming package?), a hair blowout or the classic Fire & Ice manicure and pedicure. We also asked about using it on products instead but there was a limitation on how we could only purchase certain products and all of them ranged from $75-$300. What did we decide you ask? That our unused gift cards would make a nice souvenir from the trip!

Instead we opted to spend the money that would have covered the rest of a spa service/product on the onboard shops and Cherry on Top candy store. Yes, even us 38 year old folks visit the candy store. Turns out we're both suckers for the sour gummies and Joni even helped me finish off the bag I bought in addition to the small bag she made up for herself. I still had my jelly beans left over from the first trip but Joni felt compelled to go back and restock her gummy supply. She threw in a few of those gummy funnels in the name of her kids but I have a feeling I know who ate the bulk of that bag. :)

Back to the Piazza Café for Cartoon trivia. Not a topic I'd normally bother to go for but we figured why not? Did respectably but a lot of the questions were geared more toward more recent primetime animated shows (hint: both the Oasis (in TV trivia) and the Pride included a question asking the name of the Simpsons dog. Not many people remember his name is Santa's Little Helper. You're welcome!) and I usually don't watch those. I barely watched the morning cartoons as a kid but at least knew things like The Flintstones were from Bedrock and the Jetsons son was named Elroy. What 80's kid doesn't automatically hear "his boy Elroy" in their head when they think of the Jetsons theme song?

Joni went over to get another coffee and the crew member behind the counter commented on how often she's been coming for coffee. She asked if Joni had been getting her points but Joni didn't know what she was talking about. She offered to give Joni credit for the past coffees she's gotten and promised to "bring her over something nice" while we sat in the café to play Rock & Roll trivia. Unfortunately, the coffee bar soon got slammed so she never got the chance to break away and bring whatever it was over. The Rock & Roll trivia caused a bit of confusion because it was listed in the Hub App schedule but not in the Fun Times. People were showing up questioning whether it was really going to be held until fun squad member Bradley showed up ready to host it. Just before it started, he announced the next Clue suspect who didn't do it. I won't give away any spoilers but this was the first time Ms. White did NOT give out the clue.

Unfortunately I missed out on attending the official scheduled Cruise Critic Meet n Mingle I'd signed us up for as we were attending the Clue reveal and the Guesses game right after. Since we usually attend the activities on board frequently, we get to know the entertainment staff as well as your kids might get to know the youth staff. A couple times we've encountered the same staff on future cruises so it's like seeing an old friend. 

The only negative thing I'd comment on when it comes to my experience with Bradley on this trip is his reaction to my being the only one in the crowd of trivia players who'd traveled to the places in Europe he asked about. Earlier in the cruise he asked who had been to Norway and I was the only one to raise my hand thanks to last year's Baltic cruise. This time, he had a question in the game about the Eiffel tower in Paris. He polled the group asking if this was anyone's first cruise. Tons of hands shot up. Then he asks who has been to Paris and I was the sole hand raiser again. Bradley's tone turns snarky as he remarks "Oh wow, you're well traveled." It left me feeling like I should somehow be apologizing for my lucky opportunities in life.