Carribean Cruise May 2011 - What to do when on board

Today I was asked a question with a seemingly obvious answer - what to do when on board of the cruise ship? It is not though so obvious to answer.

It all depends on you and your style. Technically speaking you can spend the whole day

(and even the whole cruise) in a stateroom watching different shows. Well you can do the same thing back at home town, saving few bucks - lay back and watch the TV, don't have to cruise for that, do you?

So let me layout what we did on the board and you then go to the cruise ship line site and select for yourself!

• We watched a "How to Cook Show" (I don't remember real name), but the show was about cooking delicious dishes in a regular cooking environment. The show took place in a "paid" restaurant, where you have to make a reservation to regularly dine. We were late for the start and had to settle in the corner. Alice was all excited and switched for a moment attention to herself. Then we were given samplers - they were (and I am not exaggerating here) really tasty ones. After the show ended up, recipes were handed and everybody made pictures of the food samples.

• We watched a very good evening shows. The shows are of different qualities. Some are very good, some are mediocre. What we liked - comedian shows. Can be compared to best Russian comedians. Did we like dancing and choreography? I am picky about this stuff and I have to admit I was just O.K. Not too bad, but I have seen better. Over all night entertainment was not bad.
• We watched Ice Carving. It is an amazing show, when one of the celebrity cooks on the ship carves a sculpture from a piece of ice. It was very entertaining, almost like a small miracle.
• We attended a Make Your Owns stuffed animal event at Camp Carnival. Alice was too young to attend Camp Carnival, but she enjoyed time making a little stuffed Cheerleader Cat.
• We played a bit of chess. There was a big chessboard with chess located on the Promenade deck and Alice played her first chess game with pleasure :)

• We spent a lot of time in the water. At Carnival - there were 2 small pools on the Lido deck (open of course) and a number of heated whirlpools. The small pools were mostly crowded during the day at sea or in the after hours during the day at shore - after all there were few thousands of people, all of whom wanted to be in the water and just 2 pools to accommodate them all. Alice did not like the pools too much - partly as for some reason her attitude towards water changed since last summer, partly because there was too much splashing going on. However, we still spent sometime there as she seemed to be fine when there were nice children of her age around, whom she could have fun with. There also was a little water park with a few decent water slides. Alice used smallest one of course, but... Olga and myself enjoyed it all :))) I also attended pools in the after hours (around 21:00-22:00) , when they were mostly empty and swam, to get some work for my muscles. Not too much of exercise but helped me not to get too much out of shape.

• We played bingo. It is a paid activity of course - but after all a lot of fun and adrenalin :) We did not win... but it was a nice try :)))
• Every evening before going to bed we walked around the ship and simply watched ocean, all three of us. It was actually very nice and relaxing. Ocean helps family meditation
• Oh yeah, last but not least as you can see we made few pictures of Alice and Olga :)))))

What did we skip and why? Well, why has a simple answer - Alice has her own schedule and we had to follow it. What? A tons of workshops and activities, more night shows, more exercise classes.

So could we have it all in home town, I was asked? Yes likely, yes, except for the ocean is the answer. But not in a concentrated form as it was on the board of Dream, not in so well (except for just 2 pools) organized form as it was there.

Was it worth it? Yes absolutely. Do we do it again? I hope so!

Carribean Cruise May 2011 - Dream Dining

Cruisers need to eat. This is an undeniable and obvious fact. After all activities, no matter if it is wild horse ride at Cosumel or swimming and splashing at the ship, participants want to eat... And there is plenty to eat (sorry spelling mistake -feast!) on cruise.

Let's start that one saves a lot of monies when cruising. How come you would say, you spend money! True. But if you were to attend for a week equivalent restaurants at home city, you would probably spend around $100 for a dinner for 2 + another $40 for a buffet + another $20 for a breakfast... So it makes $160 * 7 = 1120 for 2 for a week... Oh I did not include coffee and tea and sushi and the fact that buffet on board of the cruise is available throughout the whole day and there is also 24 hours service to get some substantial food.. If you add all this up you will see that food alone at cruise pays off... But hold on - how about the quality, enjoyment, is it just purely food?

All cruises we traveled with had an open seating breakfast. What does it mean? You come to a restaurant and being served something close to continental breakfast. Good, very good continental breakfast... including Benedict Eggs... and some other nice stuff, like smoked salmon. It is a good setting for folks who are well organized and don't have young children. Why later? Because serving at the breakfast takes a bit of time and children don't like to wait. Why former - because breakfast lasts just for some time... So what if you have children or not so organized? Where do you eat your breakfast? There are 2 options - one order to a stateroom. You are going to get whatever you ordered into your bed. The only little disadvantage of this option is that it offers a relatively limited choice. For instance no Benedict Eggs. Also eating in a stateroom, in the bed... Hm, we tried once but it was not our style.

Second option is to get to one of the buffets open from the early morning. To be completely precise those buffets don't really close for 24 hours. But at the breakfast, lunch and dinner time they just provide way greater variety of foods. This option seemed to work best for us - either we were at sea or were going to disembark and travel ashore - morning buffet always proved to be a good charging station for the rest of the day.

There are few different buffet types (and this is more or less common for all the cruises). In the morning one gets all kind of omelette's , vegetables, fruits, toasts, pastry. At lunch there is a past bar and mongolian grill. Also there is a barbeque buffet, on the open deck. Just before dinner start - a sushi bar opens. This is not something similar to sushi we used to eat at good sushi place in our home city. Portions are tiny - just 3 pieces of rolls. Yet one can take as many as wanted and they are fairly tasty if you ask me - very good rice and fair composition of fish, vegetables and even cheese. Olga ha

d a bit different opinion on it. And 24 hours a day there is a choice of pizza and burgers/american hot dogs. Pizza is not thin crust, but tasty otherwise... Burgers are just burgers.

Drinks which are included do not include pop and alcohol. Don't get afraid. There is a good choice of healthy tea, coffee, a few juices, milk and cream. If you want to get pop - you have to buy it. Same with alcohol. We did not, except for Olga's dad bought a pop package when we cruised on Carribean Princess. For ourselves - choice of drinks was just more than enough. As per alcohol... You can buy it cheaper ashore in a duty free, but required to surrender it when return to the ship. When you disembark you get it back. Cruise company tries to enforce this way some additional profits from selling cocktails and other boose. Of course some folks get around thi

s ban and do not surrender alcohol, even it is "strictly prohibited". There is also a little fridge with pop, drinks and water bottle in the stateroom. If you use it - you are charged. It is good though to have those drinks handy for occasional use. Fridge also allowed us to store some milk for Alice - if she wanted to eat it in the middle of the night. This drink policy is a major difference from most all inclusive resorts. This worked for Olga and myself - Olga is not a big fun of alcohol. As for myself I am more of a gourmet rather than drinker. If it is vodka it should be "Dostar","Monastryrskaja" or best of Crystall's production, if it is wine it should be of a decent grade (desirable real derivative of Saperavi from Georgia) :)))) It is difficult to get in North America, not speaking of cruise... Ups seems that I got snobbish :))))

Back to our sheeps though... actually not sheeps but lambs and lobsters! As those are some of the dishes served at actual dinner. As this may be known - there are 2 schedules for dinner - early starting around 6pm and late starting around 8 pm. One can choose to be seated alone or in the company of other folks. Company usually stays for the rest of the cruise.

We initially got our time at late dinner, but asked to change to an earlier one. This resulted in transfer of our dinner to another restaurant. We never regretted it. We were dining in the restaurant at the aft of the ship, our table was close to a beautiful ocean view window and we had an amazing company of a family from North Carolina. Lovely folks they were!

There are casual days and formal days for dining. Both imply - no shorts allowed, but at formal people are supposed to dress... well formally. Some cruisers do it. Others break the rules thinking that formal dress includes NB 992 and no need in tie there is. I belonged to the later category. Cruise is for relaxation and not for formal. Olga and Alice though were shining every evening (formal or not) attracting attention from everybody around our table. Best part of humanity my ladies are :)))

Dinner contained 3 courses. Starters/Appetizers, Main Course and Dessert. Important point was that one could order as many dishes as wanted. We used this few times - when there were very interesting appetizers, such as crab cakes. The quality of the food was superb. Steaks, seafood, desserts everything was cooked very well. I would compare dinners at cruise to the higher end of middle level dining in the home city. Keg, Red Lobster,Earls even Red Water Grill or Gaucho can be compared to cruise dining in terms of food quality and cruise has more than an edge. Waiter at the dining are dedicated to 3-4 tables. This somehow gets you more attention than in a good restaurant ashore, which is nice as you don't have to catch a waiter - they are just somehow always there around. Also very nice an cheerful folks.

At Carribean Princess - we were shocked in a good sense by a fellow from South Africa. He apparently was a professional waiter and a piece of actor altogether! He made us feel as if we were sitting not in the cruise ship dining room but somewhere in the Victorian style reception happening somewhere in the 19-th century England, surrounded by a nobility. And all this was done without a hint of joke - just for real!

At Dream as well as at Fascination there was a tradition to make a little show during the dinner -a "Shshshsow time!" It could be just waiters joining to sing, or some 5 minute dancing break or so. Not disturbing and very pleasing event it was.

What else can I say about dining and food in general at cruise? Every ship we traveled had its own nice food features. Carnival - good melting chocolate cake and nice selection of seafood. Princess - amazing goat cheese souffle.

Overall - the only trouble with the food at cruise is that there is too much of it and it is too tasty. So to keep myself feet I was swimming in the pool for about 30 min every evening and then running in the jogging path for a bit. Not considering walking and swimming ashore.

Will try to tell about amenities and entertainment in the next post...

Carribean Cruise May 2011 - Dream

Dream... Every good cruise is like dream... One on the Carnival Dream is especially dream... It is not an advertisement, just opinion of not so experienced cruiser :)

What is the Dream? Read here!

When I heard about Dream I wanted it. No wonder why, newest, biggest in the Carnival flee, this ship definitely deserved checking it out.

How did it all turn out?

While Dream is huge it does not really feel like that. It is easy to get around and it has all the nice amenities one may need. We got a balcony stateroom. Size was 185 sqft + 35 sqft of balcony.

On 3 different cruises we traveled in the inside, ocean view and balcony one... I should mention that while prices differ the experience depends on who you are and what you want.

Olga and myself enjoyed our first cruise on Carnival Fascination in the inside stateroom. We just spent most of our time outside... Specifics of the inside is that you can forget about time unless you set alarm.

On the Carribean Princess we stayed in the oceanview. There is not too much difference between inside and oceanview ones. In later you get just a relatively small window an usually they are on lower decks. Otherwise... same stuff except one can watch the time by the sun movement :)

Balcony stateroom proved to be a different animal. First of it resolved a little a/c problem. We both don't really like much of a/c and in cruise a/c is everywhere. In a stateroom it can be tuned down, but not turned off. With the balcony available passenger eager for a fresh air can open a balcony door, decrease a/c and voile, one breaths in a fresh ocean cleaned air.

Another clear advantage is a separation of compartments. Whether you need to get a baby to sleep or want to read a book slowly sipping Georgian wine and throwing inspired looks at the ocean surface, while the rest of the family peacefully rests lulled by sounds of waves breaking at the boards of the ship, balcony is your ally. It also helps when a little too much of the cloth is wet and needs to be dried.

Is balcony safe, especially for children and toddlers? There are no openings at the bottom of balcony fencing where young ones could squeeze through. However,when the chair or journal table is close to the fence older child (ages 1.5+ I'd say) could climb up. So it is not absolutely safe and an eye should be kept on youngsters, who may not yet realize dangers of climbing balcony fence.

Stateroom of ours had a sofa, which our steward initially tried to adopt for a baby cradle. It did not work - Alice could easily fall from it, so we got a real cradle, where Alice safely spend most of the nights and day naps.

In general stateroom was likable, enough space for 2 adults and baby. I would say that it could have (with pullman bank) accommodate family of 4 without a lot of tension. One interesting innovation I found was in the bathroom. Small, yet convenient it had a water temperature regulator graduated by Celsius. I could have water of exactly the temperature I wanted to have. Features I would not mind to have in our house.

TV set hanging on the wall is a dual purpose. You can watch TV (if you find time) or order different things including breakfast in stateroom and shore excursions using remote. Very convenient and easy to work with.

While on previous cruises our stateroom was at lower decks this time it was high (Veranda deck - 8). The view from balcony was nicer than from lower deck oceanview (and not obstructed as well) and the amenities we used most (buffet, pool, water park, jogging trek) were closer. Some others, such as sushi bar (oh yes, there was a sushi bar!), theater, restaurants and shops took a bit longer time to reach. In any case this is not that significant, unless one wants to use elevators in the rush hour forgetting that legs are designed primarily for walking and running :)

In general Dream met or exceeded our expectations - very nice ship with a lot of fun on board and ashore during the stops. Since after all it is a huge sea going hotel - it seems to be fair to compare it to real hotels. So all our cruises were comparable to 4-4.5 star European hotels. Or 5+ star Carribean/Central American/Mexican one.

More on food, entertainment and stop in following post.

Carribean Cruise May 2011 - Flight there and back

Off to Carribean!!! Vacation!!! Hurrah!!!!

The first thing we did was... we missed a flight!

Unbelievable, yet unfortunately true. When we arrived to AA booth at YYC it was as empty as eaten ouster shell. I thought that we arrived in time, hour or so before the flight, but it looks like that for U.S. customs one has to be there long before that.

It took a quarter of hour to figure that we can't get at our flight. The AA stuff was gone to the gates and there was no one around to help us deal with the woe. The automated check in system did not accept the booking numbers... What to do?! I called AA reservations and one of the agents there kindly rebooked us to another flight. I am describing it as an easy process however at time it was both stressful and time consuming.

So off we went - initially to Toronto, where we stayed overnight. Leo my younger brother - all the credit to him, drove us to parents house where we stayed for a few hours. It was nice to see him, even though now I feel bad about exploiting Leo, got him tired. Pity, my parents left for Europe same night - we

did not see them.

In the morning flight to NY and then connecting to Orlando. We arrived around 03:50 to YYZ this time as the flight was scheduled at 06:25... Interestingly while general AA booths were open, we were sent to (as passengers with a child) to a special one, which opened around 10 minutes after 04:00, time when it was supposed to open. While we waited for booth opening, line for U.S. customs piled up, so after tickets were eventually issued we had to wait for a while in the line. The processing took less time that expected though, U.S. border guys were trying to move passengers as fast as they could stamp passports :)

So we are at the gates. Flight to NY in a small aircraft (don't remember this specific model), then quick connection to Orlando and we are there.

I reserved a transportation from the airport to Port Canaveral and the driver arrived on time. There was a funny situation though when we tried to depart from airport. The cab came in through the automatic gates, but when it tried to get out the transponder did not seem to work. Driver tried few gates, each several times , but it still did not work... Eventually he call dispatcher, then drove towards a little booth, pressed some button and o miracle gates opened letting us out to the wild Florida highways. Fortunately there were no more adventures on the way in.

When flying back we stopped at Dallas. Olga and myself were staying there for connections before, so we navigated without hassles. There is a great deal of shops in Dallas airport, but nothing that we found especially interesting. We mostly spent time playing with Alice in the playground zones and making pictures. And then boarded the plane back to Calgary....

No there was no relieve yet. The plane was delayed for another

hour. Technical difficulties (sounds familiar is it not?) in braking system took almost an hour to fix... Eventually we departed to Calgary...and amazingly safely made it back home.

Few words about AA... we got a negative overall impression on those guys.

• It costs to transport the bags. I suppose that the same story is with most of U.S. based competition and some blaming it on the growing gas prices. With Canadian companies though passenger can check in one bag for free so far. Even though it got spoiled in the last few years. Once upon a time, one could check in 2 bags.
• The airplanes we flew in were bad. First of filthy in my opinion. Secondly they were pretty old and there was not much of entertainment. Most of our planes were those ones http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_MD-80. One from NY to Orlando was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_757. In either, there was not much legroom even though both Olga and myself (not speaking of Alice) are not tall folks. The overhead luggage as well as under seat luggage spaces are tiny. Could barely fit my foto backpack in, when in most other aircrafts it never presented any issue.
• The boarding was weird. Here is the guide explaining how the boarding should have happened: http://www.seatguru.com/articles/boarding_procedures.php. We found it a little bit strange though. Even though we were in Group 4 most of the seats in Group 5 and 6 were already occupied. We were almost the last to board, which was a strange experience. With Canadian airlines (both WestJet and Air Canada) folks with children seem to be in the group with special needs and board either with or before business class. With AA all the folks with children (there were few on each flight besides us) boarded as the common passengers. Disabled folks as I recall fortunately retained privilege of boarding first.
• Subjective, but when comparing experience with WestJet, AirCanada or long gone JetsGo the stuff in Canadian companies seems to be nicer. They smile more and are more responsive as I re-call.
• One good thing about AA was that the flight from Dallas to Calgary had a free on board internet. For some (and for myself at times) it may be a nice feature. After all we all want to be connected all the time- don't we?

Will we fly with AA anymore? Likely we will try to avoid them and choose Canadian companies if possible. Is it firm? Nope, things can change.

To be fair I have to mention that I had discussed it with Olga's parent who flew to Miami and back using AA a month ago. Their experience was very different from ours. Nice clean, plane with a lot of leg room and space for in cabin luggage... Good service... I was not believing we flew same company when discussed it with them.