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Very first thing I want to mention is that the internet has been fantastic, for a cruise ship, all day today! It is much faster than dial-up, maybe even much faster than DSL. I can't claim it is as fast as cable speeds, but it is pretty good and has been very reliable, and we are way out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean half way to Hawaii! My wife and I were on a Hawaii Cruise on this ship, the Carnival Splendor, earlier this year and the internet was extremely poor and non-existent for much of the cruise.
Someone posted that they saw the satellite dish being replaced while we were in Los Angeles (Long Beach) getting ready to depart. I suspect they not only replaced the satellite dish but probably also upgraded other components of the internet equipment at the same time. There is new internet technology available for ships, including cruise ships, that is much faster and reliable than the older technology. I suspect that the Carnival Splendor had the older equipment and that they just upgraded to the newer technology. Someone mentioned that the reason why it took Carnival so long to get everyone processed and boarded yesterday was because they were having problems with the connections between the processing stations on the dock and the ship. That might be why they expedited upgrading the internet on the ship. It may have been the fastest way to get it working. In any case, I'm really happy along with many other passengers that we are having really good internet on this trip so far rather than the terrible internet for which the Carnival Splendor has a reputation.
Someone posted a photo of brown water coming out of the faucet in their cabin on Deck 6. Our cabin is on Deck 6 but we have not seen any brown water. Other passengers mentioned they had brown water too but that it cleared up after letting the water run for a while. I'm not sure what causes that. I wonder if the Carnival Splendor fills up with water at ports or if they make their own water on board by distilling sea water? All the new ships make their own water on board by distilling sea water and then add in minerals to get an optimal composition. This is why the new Carnival Vista Class ships are able to use that consistent water composition to brew their own craft beer on those ships! They would never be able to do that with varying water composition if they loaded up with different composition water from different ports.
My wife and I often have lunch from the Mongolian Wok on our cruises on the Carnival Splendor. At the Mongolian Wok you fill up your own bowl with the ingredients you wish. When you get to the cook station you pick which meats / fish you want and what sauce you want. The meats and fish selection change every day but I think they always have chicken available. The sauce selection ranges from mild to very spicy. We try to eat healthy so we fill our bowls entirely with veggies and skip the noodles. It is very filling and pretty healthy. The only drawback is it takes a while to cook each bowl. The Mongolian Wok has the ability to cook 6 bowls simultaneously but it can still take 20 minutes or more from the time you get in line at the Mongolian Wok until it is your turn to have your bowl cooked.
We put in our request many months ago for "The Chef's Table". We specifically requested October 21st as that is my wife's birthday. Instead they gave us a reservation for October 12th. Does someone have dyslexia? We tried to change it to the 21st or even the 20th but they said both of those days were already totally booked. So we just stuck with the 12th.
Again the food was excellent. On our two prior cruises on the Carnival Splendor the food was good but nothing to write home about. So far on this cruise the food has been excellent, almost as good as the food on our recent Norwegian and Princess cruises.
I was a bit thrown off by the wine list today. Yesterday the wine list they gave to me had a horizontal format. Today the wine list had a vertical format. At first I wasn't sure that they both had the same wines listed. After closer examination I am pretty sure both lists are identical.
We've had a number of wines from Concho Y Toro before, some of which were excellent. This particular wine was good, maybe a little better than good, but it didn't rise to my classification of "Very Good" or "Excellent".
At 10:30 PM the Grand Piano Lounge was mostly empty. I left early but I heard it got a lot more filled up at 11 PM or so. Most of the live music around the ship ends at 11 PM or earlier. Probably a lot of people that like live music headed to the Grand Piano Lounge after the other live music ended. The music in the Grand Piano Lounge usually goes until at least midnight and sometimes later.
The Carnival Splendor has a lot of underutilized areas including the Promenade. There is a huge number of seats along the very long Pomenade most of which are not in range of any live music or anything. It is like sitting in a hallway. I guess it is good for people watching. There is a small section that goes by the casino where they have a stage and live music all day long, but only a small section of the Promenade has a view of the stage and that section doesn't even face the stage!
There are many other venues on the Carnival Splendor that are underutilized where you will seldom ever find many or any passengers. I think this problem will be rectified as part of the refurbishing when the Carnival Splendor goes into dry dock in Singapore at the end of this trip. Most of the Carnival Ships are scheduled to get what is called the Carnival 2.0 upgrades. Carnival has come up with a set of venues, bars, lounges, restaurants, etc., that they believe best serves the needs of their passengers. I'm sure many of the underutilized venues on the Carnival Splendor will be turned into the offerings that Carnival passengers have come to expect on Carnival's newer and 2.0 upgraded ships.
Notice the emphasis of jazz instruments, especially saxophones, in a lot of the artwork. This is true of many cruise ships, especially those built or refurbished in the 1980's and 1990's. My wife and I didn't start cruising frequently until 3 years ago. I suspect that jazz used to be a big thing on cruise ships but that seems to no longer be the emphasis of live music on cruise ships. A number of cruise ships that we've been on have lounges that obviously used to be devoted to live jazz, some of which were specifically named "The Jazz Lounge". There is some jazz, but not a lot, on the cruises we have been on, except the Island Princess. The Island Princess not only has a lot of jazz based decor, but still offers a lot of live jazz on board.
Look at the lower left photo above. That is the answer to the artwork mystery that I commented on yesterday. The item that looks like a mobile phone that the man on the left is holding to his face is not a mobile phone but is a golf score book. The words are right on the book.
Everyone comments about the pink decor of the Carnival Splendor. Many assumed this decor would be changed when the Carnival Splendor goes into dry dock in Singapore. According to Lee Mason, the Cruise Director, the pink will remain! We'll have to see if that is true when passengers starting cruising on this ship when it reaches its new home in Australia in December of this year. Pink and grey and Italian style decor was very popular with interior decorators in the early 1990's. We had our home redecorated in the early 1990's and our Interior Decorator did our entire house in pink and grey and Italian marble and tile, just like the Carnival Splendor! Everyone used to call our house "the pink house" just like they call the Carnival Splendor "the pink ship". We redecorated our house again a few years ago and went with a more traditional dark wood pub style, much like the decor of older cruise ships and the Island Princess.
There are pink circles throughout the entire ship like you see in the above photo. A lot of people say the circles with holes look like cherry or strawberry frosted donuts. I think so too and I think the solid circles look like strawberry or cherry frosted cookies. These are everywhere all over this ship, even on the tops of tables of most of the lounges.
Another decor item that I like on the Carnival Splendor and have never seen on any other cruise ship are the light bulbs that constantly change color. These are everywhere on she ship, especially throughout the atrium. Some are big bulbs and some are little bulbs the size of LED Christmas Tree bulbs. I've seen bulbs that change color but each individual bulb is usually pretty expensive. There are tens of thousands of these bulbs all over the ship. They are even in the Grand Piano Lounge. The only place these color changing bulbs don't work very well is the signage around the ship. They use these color changing bulbs even in the signs to direct you to the various venues. I think this actually makes the signs harder to read, but I love them everywhere else on the ship.
The Carnival Deli is open from 11 AM until 11 PM. It is one of the few food venues that has such long hours along with Pizza Pirate that is open 24 hours. There are always plenty of good hot and cold sandwiches along with sides available from the deli. Sometimes if we miss lunch or dinner we'll stop by the deli and pick up a sandwich.
I was a bit confused when I saw "Off The Grill" getting ready to open up just before 11 PM. "Off The Grill" closes at 6 PM so I didn't understand why they were preparing to open at 11 PM. It turns out that the "Hungry For More?" listed in the Fun Times as open from 11 PM to 12:30 AM and served at the "Lido Restaurant" was actually served at the "Off The Grill". They basically served the standard Hamburgers, Hot Dogs, plus sides and cookies as the "Late Night Snacks". My wife wanted a cookie for a late night snack and that is what I was hunting down on the Lido Deck. I'm not much for sweets but I might have done something worse and ordered a veggie burger. I put all the toppings on it: grilled onions, sauerkraut, etc., and even some chili con carne. I was thinking my wife would share it with me but she just ate the 2 small chocolate chip cookies that I brought to her. Unfortunately I ended up eating the entire veggie burger myself at that late hour. At least I didn't get any fries with it.
The model on the right is of the original Queen Mary ship. I'll have to check what the one on the left is.
Left is the outside aft (rear) pool on the Lido Deck. Right is the covered pool on the Lido Deck. On days with good weather they can open the roof over this pool. On cool or bad weather days they leave the roof closed which keeps the pool useable even on cold or rainy days.
We haven't had any pizza on this cruise yet but we have on prior cruises on the Carnival Splendor. The pizza is quite good. During the day you can often just grab some slices of the freshly made popular pizzas like pepperoni pizza or plain cheese pizza. If they don't have the type of pizza you want already available they will custom make and bake it for you on the spot. You can get it by the slice or by the whole pizza. There is no extra charge for the pizza and it is available 24 hours a day 7 days a week!
I've heard rumors that Carnival is ending the policy of leaving towel animals on the bed in each cabin every night. We've even been on a couple of cruises recently where there were no towel animals on our bed when we returned to our cabin at night. But here is one right on our bed!
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If in this report you see any typos, misspellings, factual errors or other types of errors, please let me know.
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