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Welcome to NOLA, Carnival Triumph!

April 29, 2016 by Amy Leave a Comment

Disclosure: Carnival Cruise Lines invited my husband and I to this event as no cost to us. All opinions are 100% my own.

Image Source: Carnival Cruise Line

Earlier this month, my husband and I had the opportunity to check out the Carnival Triumph and watch the traditional maritime plaque exchange in New Orleans. The Carnival Triumph replaced the Carnival Elation, and offers 4-5 day cruises to Cozumel and Progreso, Mexico. The Triumph has great restaurants/bars like Guy’s Burger Joint, Blue Iguana Cantina, and the Alchemy Bar (to name a handful). In the past, we’ve gone on 7 day cruises, but after visiting this ship, we’re tempted to go on a shorter cruise!

When we were walking on the platform to get on the ship, I couldn’t help but think of our last cruise. We had such a wonderful time, and while we didn’t go on a cruise last year (since we were in the house-building process), we absolutely can’t wait for our next one! In fact, we totally booked one to take later this year. 🙂 Time to dust off the luggage!

Now, as you may know, Carnival is known for being a fun ship. It was pretty awesome to have drinks in hand once we took our seats for the plaque exchange. We immediately asked each other if we really had to leave the ship after this haha!

Before the traditional maritime plaque exchange, it was really neat to listen to the CEO and Board of Directors from the Port of New Orleans talk about how much cruise tourism is growing in the area, which is why Carnival brought the Triumph here. In fact, the Triumph is a 34% increase in capacity vs. the Elation. New Orleans is booming, y’all!

Image Source: Carnival Cruise Line

I couldn’t get a really good picture of this, but here’s the Port of New Orleans’s CEO and Board of Directors participating in the traditional maritime plaque exchange with the captain of the Carnival Triumph.

After the plaque exchange, Carnival invited four representatives from different local music charities to play a few funny games for a total of $35,000 in donations to their charities. I love that Carnival is all about helping out local organizations, especially music-related ones (being New Orleans).

After the games were over, we were invited to a fantastic lunch in the London dining room.

Dear Carnival, please give me that bacon vinaigrette recipe?

Actually, I’ll take all of the recipes…everything was delicious! (Well, I don’t need the flourless chocolate cake…I already have that recipe. :-P)

Side note: While I didn’t have any of this, check out this tray. I just had to take a picture of it! So much attention to detail here.

One of the things that I love the most about cruising is the restaurant experience. We always feel spoiled after having a meal on a cruise ship…the wait staff are the friendliest and the food is just SO good. I could end every meal with warm chocolate melting cake…no joke.

We seriously didn’t want to leave the ship after this lovely event.

Until next time, Carnival (we can’t wait)! 🙂

Carnival Dream’s Dr. Seuss Book Reading and Brunch

September 11, 2015 by Amy Leave a Comment

Disclosure: Carnival Cruise Lines invited us to this event at no cost to us. All opinions in this post are 100% my own.

Last month, my husband and I were invited to a Seuss-themed event aboard the Carnival Dream, celebrating the release of Dr. Seuss’s latest book, “What Pet Should I Get?”. It’s crazy to think that the last book by Dr. Seuss was published 25 years ago…I grew up reading Dr. Seuss books, so it’s wonderful that this generation has a new book to read, especially one celebrating pets. 🙂 To celebrate the event, Carnival Cruise had dogs up for adoption and also generously donated $10,000 to the Louisiana SPCA.

The event included a celebrity book reading, a Seuss parade and a Seuss-themed brunch. 🙂 We brought our nephew with us to enjoy the event, and he had a blast!

It was so wonderful to be back on the ship for the first time since last December. It felt like our last cruise was just a couple of weeks ago, and I have to admit, I was pretty darn jealous of those who were on the ship for the actual cruise! We can’t wait to go back! 🙂

Once we got on the ship, we were guided to the celebrity book reading. We were told it was going to be a local celebrity, and when I found out it was Angela Hill, I have to admit that I was a bit star-struck (like a dork..). While I no longer live in the New Orleans area, I grew up watching Angela Hill on the news. She did a great job (of course), and it was so fun to watch her, along with the Carnival Dream staff, make this a wonderful experience for the children who were there!

After the book reading, we went to the dining room for a fun brunch!

Our table decor was absolutely adorable! The dining rooms usually have all white tablecloths/napkins/etc., so to see everything transformed was so awesome! You could tell that the kids really loved it!

Here’s a close-up of the table setting. I love how they made the napkin look like the Cat in the Hat’s tie. 🙂

The menu items ranged from stacked mini pancakes to look like the Cat in the Hat’s hat, to of course, Green Eggs and Ham. I couldn’t resist!

Also, during the brunch, some of Dr. Seuss’s famous characters came around to visit the children at the brunch, including Thing 1 and Thing 2, Sam I Am, and of course, The Cat in the Hat. It was such a cute, fun brunch. 🙂 I’m so glad we got to bring our nephew along.

A huge thanks to Carnival for also gifting all of the children in attendance with a copy of Dr. Seuss’s latest book, along with some other fun Carnival and Dr. Seuss goodies. I think our nephew was the most excited about his fun Dr. Seuss pencil and eraser, since the school year was about to start haha!

I know when we have kids someday, if they still have this around on Carnival’s cruise ships, I’ll definitely bring our kid to Seuss at Sea. I love that Carnival offers so much for families…while we don’t have kids yet, it’s really great to know that there’s so many kid-friendly activities on the ship, like Seuss at Sea. 🙂

Our Carnival Dream Adventure – Part 3

January 14, 2015 by Amy 1 Comment

Disclosure: Carnival Cruise Lines sent us (my husband and I) on a 7 day cruise aboard the Carnival Dream at no cost to us. (We did pay for all of the excursions on our own.) All opinions in this post are 100% my own.

After talking about the food, the only logical thing left is to talk about all of the fun we had on our trip! What I love most about Carnival is that you don’t have to stress about your vacation planning once you’re on the cruise ship.

Every night, your room steward will leave a newsletter on your bed, which shows every single activity that’s available for you to participate in on the boat. There’s several types of activities on the ship. My favorites are the comedy shows, karaoke (watching it…no one should be subjected to my vocal “talents”), the evening shows (which were different themes every night) and mini golf. To name some of the amenities, on our ship there were also a few pools, hot tubs, an adult only deck, water slides, a full-on spa, gym, a casino, a few shops and art gallery.

In addition to ship activities, there are also excursions you can book for when you’re in port (You can do this either online or once you’re on the ship…just keep in mind that some excursions can fill up and they’re first come, first serve.). Our big excursion this year was the dolphin swim/snorkel in Roatan, Honduras. A bit of a background…I have ALWAYS wanted to do this. Always. I love dolphins. So, this year, I think I annoyed my husband with enough “pretty please”s, because he was totally game for it this cruise. Our particular excursion included a dolphin encounter, where you watch them do tricks, you get to pet them, and of course, you get the famous dolphin kiss.

(Images taken by a staff member at St. Anthony’s Key Resort…we purchased the rights to use and print these photos.)

For our excursion, we were put in small groups with a trainer, and the trainer had a dolphin with him. This dolphin’s name is Bailey, and she was the sweetest. Here’s a picture of when she would slowly swim past the group for us to pet her. 🙂

After we all took our pictures with the dolphins, the trainers treated us to a few tricks involving multiple dolphins. I’m so in awe of how beautiful these animals are when they’re jumping, skipping, etc.

After the encounter, we were allowed to go into deeper waters and snorkel with them. It was so neat to hear them communicate under water…I absolutely loved it! The trainers showed us a trick with waving sea grass…it would attract the calves to play with the grass! So adorable…their mannerisms reminded me so much of puppies.

Another excursion we did was the Behind the Fun tour. This is an excursion that is on the ship, where you learn about the inner workings of a cruise ship. It’s held on the last sea day of the cruise, and my husband read about this on the cruising forums. You can’t book this online before your cruise, but once you get on the ship, you can go to the shore excursions desk and book it then.

While I have no pictures to share of the tour (they aren’t allowed), I will say that the tour was worth it to us. It lasted a good 3 hours, and just to make you aware, it does require quite a bit of walking and stair climbing. We toured everything from the kitchen, to the storage areas for food, laundry areas and a few crew only areas, to name a few places. I was never bored, and our tour guide made it fun for us. The time really flew by, and when we got back to our room, this nice surprise was waiting for us! 🙂

I have to say, this was probably the best cruise we’ve been on. Between the excursions, the ship, the crew and of course, this being the first cruise we’ve been on with family, we had a wonderful time. I feel that this is one of the few vacations where you truly feel like you are relaxed afterwards and had a good mental vacation. I know some people aren’t really into cruises (we thought we were those people, by the way), but I’m so glad that we tried a cruise for the first time three years ago, because we are just hooked.

Thank you again, Carnival Cruise Lines for the amazing trip. We had such a wonderful, relaxing time, and we’re already starting to plan our next one!

(I’ll just leave this little sunset picture here….)

Our Carnival Dream Adventure – Part 2

January 12, 2015 by Amy 1 Comment

Disclosure: Carnival Cruise Lines sent us (my husband and I) on a 7 day cruise aboard the Carnival Dream at no cost to us. They also comped our steakhouse visit. (We did pay for the excursions on our own.) All opinions in this post are 100% my own.

When my husband and I went on our very first cruise, we had no idea what to expect. We knew that the food was included in the cost of the cruise, so our hopes weren’t very high (because where else do you get the food included with your vacation?!). However, we were blown away with the food and the service that was included. Because of that, we never really considered booking any of the premium meal offerings, until this year.

While our steakhouse dinner was generously comped by Carnival, we actually made a reservation with the steakhouse before we found that out. We had heard so many wonderful things on cruising forums, so we figured on our third cruise…why not give it a try? We very rarely go out to eat at fancy restaurants, so we considered this to be an extra special treat.

We were beyond blown away. My husband and I agree that the steakhouse is a MUST for every cruise from now on. 🙂

Our waiter first brought out an amuse bouche for us to enjoy after we placed our order. My husband got the most adorable little slider I’ve ever seen, and I had a small tomato soup.

At the steakhouse, you get your choice of a starter, salad, entree and dessert. My husband isn’t much of a salad person, so they mentioned that he could have two starters instead.

Both my husband and I had their baked onion soup. I’m a sucker for onion soup, and this one was seriously the BEST onion soup I’ve ever had. It was rich, full of flavor, cheesy…all of the things an onion soup needs to be. My husband agreed…we loved it so much! I wish I knew how to make this soup at home. For my salad, I had a classic caesar salad, and my husband opted for the crab cake starter instead of the salad. Both were also delicious!

The entrees…whoa. These steaks were fantastic! I ordered the broiled filet mignon and my husband ordered the spice-rubbed prime ribeye steak. I tried a piece of my husband’s, and both steaks were perfectly cooked and delicious. My filet was so tender…I barely needed my knife to cut through it! For the sides, we both got wasabi horseradish potatoes and I had the sautéed mushrooms as well. They also offer sauces for the steaks, and we got a sampler of all three. We both said the wild mushroom was our favorite, although the bearnaise offered a wonderful richness and the three peppercorn was a nice, flavorful sauce as well.

Neither of us really had room for dessert, but um….who are we to refuse dessert? My husband ordered the cheesecake, and I ordered the chocolate sampler. When our waitress brought out the desserts, I had no idea how we were going to finish them. The cheesecake was insanely tall…I have no idea if they even use normal sized springform pans to make theirs…haha! I wish I held something in the picture next to the cheesecake to give you an idea of scale. Let’s just say it was a really tall cheesecake! The chocolate sampler that I had was just perfection. It’s a sampler of four desserts, each topped with ice cream or sorbet. One of the desserts was a banana pannacotta, which was perfect to have a bite of when dessert got to be a little too rich.

I can’t even begin to explain how wonderful this dinner was. It was probably the best dinner of my life, and I was thankful our room was on the same side of the boat as the restaurant, because we seriously went straight to our room and fell asleep. We were so blissfully full, and then swore we would never eat that much for a meal again on the rest of the cruise. (That ended up being a straight-up lie.)

We are absolutely making the steakhouse dinner a tradition for every cruise we go on from now on. We were completely blown away by the food and the impeccable service. Completely.

We actually went on the cruise with some of my husband’s family, and we decided to pay for his parents to dine in the steakhouse a few nights later as a gift to them. That’s how much we loved it…we just had to share the experience with someone, and they were equally impressed!

After the first night, we ended up eating dinner at the main dining room for the rest of the cruise. Since we were with some of his family, we liked using dinnertime as a time to catch-up and talk about how the cruise was going. We had the most unbelievable wait staff in the main dining room (A huge shout-out to our head server Zubin and his staff…they were probably the best main dining room staff we’ve ever had between all of the cruises we’ve been on!). And of course, the food was delicious. I pictured some of my favorites from the cruise below.

CarnivalFoodFaves

Left: Formal night lobster. Oh man…not only do you get lobster, but they also include jumbo tiger shrimp. It’s such a good, classic entree.

Top right: On the second day of the cruise, the steakhouse offered a cooking demonstration where they cooked and gave us recipes to make a few of the steakhouse favorites. We also got to sample whatever they cooked. Pictured is the mushroom cappuccino, which is what they serve on the first formal night of the cruise. We asked if it was served the night we went to the steakhouse (we remembered it from the last cruise’s cooking demonstration…it’s THAT good), but our server said it’s only on formal nights. So good!

Center right: Champagne sorbet. It’s not the easiest to photograph, but this is another steakhouse favorite offered on formal nights. Our maitre d’ mentioned it to us one night, and since we missed out on that too for our steakhouse dinner, she surprised us with some on the second formal night at our table! I loved it so much…I need to make this myself. 🙂 Wouldn’t that be fun for a celebration?

Bottom right: Warm Melting Chocolate Cake. Another classic…it’s the most popular dessert in the main dining room and for good reason. You just can’t beat the warm melting chocolate cake. I have a copycat recipe on the blog, which is crazy easy to make!

The wonderful staff on the cruise ship surprised us with a few treats during the cruise! We ended up meeting Allan, the Chef de Cuisine of the entire ship. I was shocked that he took a few minutes to talk to me and my husband’s family at dinner one night. He was such a friendly man (I would be so stressed in his shoes, but he seemed so calm and collected!), and we saw him once again on the Behind the Fun tour (which I’ll talk about in the next post). Throughout the cruise, he generously sent some treats to our room, which we shared with my husband’s family. 🙂 We enjoyed so much food on this cruise!

Also, if that’s not enough, we did take advantage of the included room service a few times. I loved enjoying coffee and some fruit (you know, to balance things out haha) while sitting out on our balcony. It was the perfect way to start the day. 🙂

All in all, the food on the Carnival Dream was just amazing. I won’t mention how much weight we gained after the cruise (even though we walked a ton), but it was SO worth it. Stay tuned for the next post, where I share some of the excursions and other fun we had on our Carnival cruise.

Our Carnival Dream Adventure – Part 1

January 7, 2015 by Amy 1 Comment

Disclosure: Carnival Cruise Lines sent us (my husband and I) on a 7 day cruise aboard the Carnival Dream at no cost to us. (We did pay for the excursions on our own.) All opinions in this post are 100% my own.

My husband and I started cruising a couple of years ago. Since New Orleans is a popular port city for cruise lines and is only a short drive away for us, we’ve started to make a Carnival cruise a yearly get-away for us.

We’ve cruised with Carnival twice before (on our own dime), and we’ve always been impressed with them. I find that a cruise is one of the rare vacations where you feel like you really take a good, long break away from everything. Once I’m on the boat, most of my stress melts away. I can turn off my phone for a week, not have to worry about cleaning anything, nap whenever I want (yes, I sleep a LOT on vacation…ask my husband), take in all of the beautiful views of the Caribbean Sea, enjoy some excursions in port, and of course, try all sorts of delicious food without having to step foot in a grocery store!

To me, that’s a vacation!

One of the best views of the trip, in my opinion, is the great sunset view of New Orleans. The city just looks so calm and serene. It’s the perfect backdrop for the start of our vacation.

Since we’ve cruised twice before, we decided to make this trip full of firsts. I can’t wait to share those with y’all, but here’s one of our biggest firsts: swimming with dolphins. What an experience!

(Images taken by a staff member at St. Anthony’s Key Resort…we purchased the rights to use and print these photos.)

::sigh:: These Caribbean sunsets never get old. One of my favorite things is to just sit on the balcony with a cup of coffee and just stare at this. I also really, really enjoy taking pictures of the sunsets. The pictures never do them justice, though.

I also love the little touches that Carnival provides to every cruiser. Every single night, they’d place chocolates and a towel animal on our bed. We had a new animal every night, which was so fun! Since I love them so much, I would carefully move them to our sofa in the room so they could stay intact throughout the cruise. After a couple of nights of doing this, our room steward took notice and left them for us to enjoy. We had a nice little collection at the end of the cruise!

Don’t judge me… 😛

And of course, there was plenty of delicious food. Plenty….here’s a sneak peek of some of the desserts we got to enjoy! I can’t wait to share with y’all some of the amazing food that we got to enjoy on this cruise! Stay tuned!

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