OA260 wrote:Celebrity Edge went on sale today. Here are just a few images they have released :
As predicted, the wife made an orgasm like noise, then decided to look at booking a cruise in one, to quote her "are they out of their f***ing minds", so I had a look, $5k pp for a 7 day cruise....Yeah, okay it's a 2 story 450sq ft suite, but, it's still on Celebrity, throw another grand at the cost and you can get a 12 day Caribbean cruise on Seabourn. I understand some people will snap these suites up, but I just don't see the value there.
On a different note, we are back from our 14 day tour of the Caribbean on the Carnival Pride :
On the plus side:
The suite was nice, we had one of the aft wraps with the huge balcony which made a great place to view the Panama canal transit from for us and or 18 friends traveling with us.
The service was great....Well let me be honest here, on the first night our group was seated at 2 tables (remember there were 20 of us) next to each other, however, there were 2 different serving teams, or table was done with our meal before the other table had gotten their entrees, we spoke with the assistant Maitre d' who explained that there was nothing they could or would do, this went down like a lead balloon, while of course seating 20 people is a head ache, the fact that there were plenty of open tables in the same area, but after a long day of traveling, I really wasn't in the mood to deal with it, however the wife was, she called our friend who works at Carnival Corporate (we were still in Tampa bay so cellphones worked) and left him a voicemail. We then headed off for drinks as a friend happened to be playing on board for this cruise.
By the time we got back to the suite there were a plate of chocolate covered strawberries (if something goes wrong on a Carnival cruise the first thing they do is send a plate of chocolate covered strawberries) this was followed by a bottle of champagne. The next night we headed to the dining, by this time I was nicely recovered from the travel and ready to have a little conversation with the assistant Maitre D', however, it was not to be, instead the head Maitre D' (Ken) was waiting for us, he apologized for the "miscommunication" and we now had 2 tables reserved for us for the whole cruise (now here is the thing, s**t rolls down hill, but, as I made clear, I was not expecting 2 tables to be held for us for the entire cruise, this inconveniences the staff AND other passengers who may have wanted to sit in a large group), while this did help the mood of the party, Carnival (and Ken) still had a key card to play, enter Vlad, the waiter, how can I put this, the man could make a very good living as a male model, the ladies in our group (and thankfully the wife) were silenced just by Vlad smiling at them, you could literally hear the ovaries in the group going into overdrive, the males, well we were more in shock at the masterful move by Ken. It turns out that Vlad is not only a stunning looking man, but he is a great waiter AND the type of guy I would happily spend time having a beer with, which in fact we did when we ran into him at Eagle Beach on Aruba, where he was of course wearing a speedo and was probably the only guy on the beach who should have been wearing one.
Anyways, dining drama sorted, sort off, there are two thing I have always liked about Carnival, the bed and the food, while the bed was very comfortable, the food, dear lord, a year or so ago Carnival rolled out a series of "enhancements", while they tried to spin it as "what our guests asked for", well frankly, that's bulls**t, there were a couple of dishes that were spectacular, but (for Americans) think of a Denny's interpretation of a meal (for the Brits) think of a Toby carvery instead of your mothers Sunday roast (for the rest, think crap food), the other thing they have done is take away table clothes, because, well passengers asked them to and it had nothing to do with the laundry costs/savings, so now you have 700-800 passengers seated at glass topped tables, that make a nice noise anytime they set something down on them, along with the added game of "in anything less than flat seas you have to chase your food/cutlery/glasses as they slide around the table" a fun game for a day or two, but it got old quickly, though thankfully we had just left the dinning room on the last Saturday when a rather nasty wave rocked the ship pretty well and of course, 800 sets of plates, glasses and cutlery went flying off the tables, it was a mess and I really felt sorry for the crew who had to clean it up and i'm almost certain a couple of the women in our group rushed back in to tend to any injuries Vlad may have suffered, or help him clean off any spills on his uniform.
Okay, that's enough for now, I will continue tomorrow.
