Carnival Miracle 1/24/2009 Part 4featured

I woke up this morning hot again. I hate waking up hot and I hope on my May cruise, this is fixed. At some point, I looked at the ceiling randomly and noticed a dead wasp above my bed…complete with blood smeared from when it was killed. EWWWW! Obviously, someone killed it and left it there. It remained there for the rest of the cruise because with the lapses in good service from the room stewards (the condition of the room on the first day, we had a dirty towel put up as a clean towel in our bathroom one day, one day we came back and found a used wad of toilet paper on the ground that was not there before we left), I was afraid they’d scrape it off and let it fall and I’d find it in my bed. So it stayed there. I named it Bob and he was there to greet me every time I looked up at the ceiling. I think Carnival might be assigning more rooms to less room stewards to save some money, and it really isn’t working out. Our ship was at capacity, I believe, and for the first time ever, I felt service wasn’t up to standard. Anyways, I watched TV until Stephanie woke up and then we got dressed and headed upstairs to meet Mom and grandma for breakfast.

After we ate, we headed back towards the adults-only pool and it was getting crowded! The weather was super nice, sunny and warm, so it was the perfect day for swimming and relaxing in the hot tub! Over the course of the week, Stephanie and I met so many nice people in the aft whirlpools. I was very pleased to see that the adults-only pool was kept adults-only (only one woman thought her splashing eight-year-old belonged in the adults area with her because it was more convenient for her than letting her daughter splash around in the main pool…great parenting). We spent a few hours swimming, but since I burned the other day, I got out early and went walking around the ship.

I met back up with everyone else and we got changed and went down to the Bacchus dining room for lunch. It wasn’t very good and I ended up going to get a hamburger from the grill afterwards. I had the Chilled Curried Apple Soup (which had a light taste that was very unpleasant and looked like pee), the Oven Fresh Focaccia (which wasn’t very good, either…I think it’s the same one from room service) and the Cinnamon Bread Pudding Chantilly, which was alright. I didn’t really take more than a few bites of anything but the bread pudding. I don’t remember what everyone else had, but Mom had the ribs and thought they were very good. While we were eating, an elderly couple a table over was having some trouble with their food. Jogi (the assistant Maitre’D) came over and helped the woman cut up her ribs, and then cut all of the meat off the bones for her. He went above and beyond this week.

Some pics of the food…

Chilled Curried Apple Soup

Jamaican Red Bean Soup

Spinach and Ricotta Cheese Ravioli

Oven Fresh Focaccia

Barbecued Baby Back Ribs

Cinnamon Bread Pudding Chantilly

Ice Coupe Belle Helene

We went shopping in the Yellow Brick Road shops and spent some time out on the promenade before settling in the lobby for a little bit. I really love the Carnival lobbies. While some of them are loud and ostentatious in decor, there’s just something about them that I love sitting in them. When we were on Princess, the lobby was nice, and it was very elegant, but it wasn’t very inviting. We sat in the lobby for a bit before going up to the photo gallery and looking for our embarkation and dinner pictures. We bought one of our dinner pictures from formal night and then we decided to head down to the Jeeves Lounge early for afternoon tea.

Afternoon tea is one of my favorite at-sea activities. Something about it is so relaxing and classy. They usually hold these on sea days, but there wasn’t one the previous day (then again, we had four sea days and afternoon tea was held on three of them). We arrived about a half-hour early as they were finishing setting up and had our choice of tables. The rest of the tables filled up really quickly and I never saw afternoon tea as crowded as I did during this voyage. Most of the days, there wasn’t enough room to accommodate everyone who wanted to enjoy tea time.

During tea time, if you can find a table or a spot at the bar, someone comes around with a collection of teas and small tea pots, and a cart comes around with various muffins, scones, pastries, sweets, and salmon sandwiches. The servers make the rounds a few times so no one is left wanting for hot water or some extra munchies. They have a few musicians come in to play classical music and it’s a very nice, quiet event. I never saw any kids at afternoon tea, but they wouldn’t really fit with the quiet, relaxing atmosphere. Tea is served at a leisurely pace to allow everyone to chat and enjoy the atmosphere. It began at 3:30 and we left around 4:45.

After tea, we headed back upstairs to start getting ready for dinner. I don’t remember why I ended going back up to the Lido deck (I think I ran up to get Mom a diet coke) and I noticed that they had the ice cream parlor set up (it is set up every sea day). This was something that was not on our last cruise and it was a very nice addition by Carnival. They have a variety of toppings and sauces set up, and they have the soft-serve ice cream or they have servers hand scooping hard ice creams, too. They put out a “menu” list of sundae ideas. I made grandma a sundae to enjoy before her nap with vanilla ice cream, sugared almond slivers, melba sauce, and lady fingers.

We watched the news for a little while while grandma had her sundae (she loved it…I’m such a good sundae chef…everything else, notsomuch) before leaving her to rest and heading to dinner. Dinner was pretty good tonight. I wanted to skip this night to go to the supper club because I didn’t like any of the main entrees, but Stephanie veto’ed it, so we went a different night. I started with the Prosciutto Ruffles, which was very good (but odd with the eggplant and crunchy things…I prefer it just a big plate of prosciutto and melon slices like it used to be served without all of the other “distractions”), and then had the Smoked Chicken Quesadilla (which was pretty good, but not as good as the Southwest Egg Roll that was taken off the menu in 2007). For dinner, I had the always-available Flat Iron steak, which was very good and much better than I thought it would be. It was soft and perfectly cooked. For dessert, I had the Strawberry Cheesecake and truthfully, it was alright but not as good as the one from room service. Stephanie started with fruit and French Onion Soup (she thought it was really good) and then had the Broiled Supreme of Free Range Chicken from the spa menu and later said it was one of the best things she ate all week. It was served with a really good berry sauce (she let me try it…it was really good) and you wouldn’t know it was from the spa menu from the taste of it. Mom started with a Shrimp Cocktail and a Caesar Salad (like she did every night) and then had the Braised Style Short Ribs, which she liked (I had them last year and didn’t like them, but I don’t like the texture of braised ribs). I think they both had the cheesecake, too, because I don’t have pics of anything else.

Prosciutto Ruffles

Smoked Chicken Quesadilla

French Onion Soup

Braised Style Short Ribs

Broiled Supreme of Free Range Chicken

Flat Iron Steak

Strawberry Cheesecake

After dinner, we went with grandma upstairs to Horatios and had coffee while she had dinner. Stephanie went to get changed because I promised her that for one night, she could take me anywhere she wanted and she wanted to go to the piano bar. I think the motion of the boat was affecting grandma the same way it affects me because she was really sleepy on the cruise, especially at night. I was really sleepy for most of the cruise, too, but I’m 23 and with enough coffee, I can keep my eyes open (until bed time, when I slept like a baby). She didn’t want to go out after dinner because she was so tired so she and mom watched movies for a bit in their room.

When I got back to the room, Stephanie ordered orange juice (and a veggie plate for me) from room service and we used Mom’s soda card to get some cranberry juice and we made some drinks with some of the liquor Stephanie brought on with her (in Rum Runner flasks…they really do travel well!). I really wish we had a balcony to enjoy our drinks on, but we had fun anyways. And Stephanie is quite the bartender…one of the many skills she brought home with her from college.

Mom came over because grandma fell asleep and decided she wanted to come with us. So we headed down to the piano bar. It was pretty busy (mostly with the dancers, who took up a corner of the bar, and the female singer…she parties hard) but the piano player (I think it was Lori) was very good and we had a great time. I think on our next cruise, we’ll go earlier in the week because the “regulars” looked like they were having more fun.

After we had our fill of vodka cranberries and singing, we headed to the casino for a little while before heading up to the late-night grill. We had an early morning of shopping planned in St. Maarten, so we took the food back to the room and snacked before showering and heading to bed.

Up next: Sun and Splurges in St. Maarten!