Day 2 onboard a very packed Carnival Celebration and it’s a sea day as we head towards Carnival’s port of Amber Cove in the Dominican Republic. A quick spin around the ship first thing this morning saw me taking in the VERY long and chaotic lines at the breakfast buffet. While there’s plenty of seating in the buffet, food stations on the Excel class ships (Mardi Gras, Celebration, and Jubilee) are small, so pack your patience if you’re one who enjoys breakfast at the buffet.
Side note, in an effort to cut down on food waste and combat an apparent “bacon shortage” after the COVID relaunch, Carnival now only offers bacon on the breakfast buffet every other day. However, it is served daily in the main dining room. Strange, yes… but I have witnessed many a passenger on all the lines I cruise on make miles-high piles of these tasty slices of porcine pleasure only to let them go to waste.
With it being a sea day, many were up early to secure their lounge chairs by the ship’s various pools. Another advantage of the Excel class ships is the extensive amount of deck space for lounging. Even with this sailing being above double-occupancy capacity, there are still plenty of loungers available in non-pool areas including the adults-only Serenity deck. So unless you’re dead set on having a chair right by the pool, there’s no need to get up early and stake your claim.
There is, however, a 40-minute rule for unattended chairs. Even if you have your stuff on it, if you’re butt hasn’t hit the cushion in over 40 minutes a pool attendant will remove your belongings and free up that space for someone else to enjoy. Whether it’s actually enforced or not is another story, but the policy is in place to combat the “chair hogs.”
For those not wanting to stand in line for breakfast, lunch is served in various locations around the ship including a Sea Day Brunch in the main dining room, burgers at Guy’s Burger Joint, chicken sandwiches and tenders at Shaq’s Big Chicken, fresh cooked seafood and lobster rolls at Seafood Shack, steamed Asian small bites, loaded fries, and kebabs at Street Eats on the Lido, tacos and burritos at Blue Iguana Cantina, sandwiches at Deco Deli, and of course the ever popular and overrated pizza that’s served till 4 am.
Since it was a sea day, the casino was open all day for those looking to gamble and there was definitely no shortage of people wanting to do just that. Oh, and don’t forget bingo… Be sure to scroll down to the end for a look at the day’s Fun Times to see all the activities going on around the ship.
Let’s talk about the Serenity Deck for a moment. If you want to get away from the (tons of) kids and chill out in one of the many loungers, clamshells, or even the small pool or hot tubs, this is your spot. It’s never really crowded, and has great views of both port, starboard, and straight ahead since it’s on the top deck of the ship all the way forward. With a bar and a small food outlet that serves salads at lunchtime it’s the perfect place to get away from all the chaos of the Lido pool yet not be too far away from the action. I spent most of the afternoon working from a comfortable lounger in a nice quiet area in the shade.
Tonight while I was walking around the ship, the number of people on board was palpable. It was around 7:15 pm when I ventured down to the hub of the ship’s activities on decks 6, 7, and 8 and between people standing around watching the show in Celebration Central and those lined up literally half the length of the ship to get into the main dining room, it was a huddled mass of people on decks 6 and 7 going nowhere.
Since it was elegant night, many were dressed up and lined up for various photo ops in the same walkways, which only added to the congestion. Again, this is where you really need to pack your patience on a full sailing like this.
I grabbed an ice cream and retreated outside to catch a magnificent sunset while figuring out where to go for dinner.
Eventually, I ended up in Fahrenheit 555, the ship’s steakhouse. I didn’t have a reservation, but the restaurant manager remembered me from my previous sailing and took me right to a table even though the restaurant was quite full. A far departure from my experience trying to get a table at the same restaurant on Mardi Gras two weeks ago.
For dinner, I started out with a standard shrimp cocktail, followed by crab risotto. The risotto was cooked well, however, was barely luke-warm. Temperature aside, the risoto was flavored well and had a few (not many) pieces of lumb crab in it.
For the main entree, I went with lamb chops cooked medium rare. Three double-cut chops were presented and were cooked and seasoned perfectly without the need for the sauce that accompanied the meat. Lamb for me can be hit or miss as I’m pretty picky when it comes to mutton, but these chops were a hit.
Dessert was an average apple tarte with a small scoop of ice cream. There was nothing that made it special, yet nothing that made it unenjoyable. So average was the best way to describe it. My biggest critique would be the lack of flavor, in fact, the only flavor the dessert had came from the vanilla ice cream. I was expecting to have a bit of “apple spice” that makes apple pie a hit, but there just wasn’t any.
Service was excellent with two servers taking care of each table making sure my water glass was never more than half empty.
For $48 per person, I maintain that the best value for speciality dining on the ship is at Bonsai Teppanyaki where the food was a step up on the flavor and quality level and the price was only $38 per person.
I couldn’t let the night end without stopping by the casino, where once again, it felt like my bank was connected to one of the ship’s vacuum toilets and by pressing the “spin” button it just got sucked away in a half-second.
However, someone did win $5,600 while I was there.
That someone was not me.
I ended the night enjoying a cigar on the open deck staring into the pitch black sky counting the number of shooting stars. I’m going to continue believing they were shooting starts, not hot ash coming from the ship’s funnel. Regardless, being out in the middle of the ocean in pretty much complete darkness is the perfect opportunity to just stare into the vastness of space and stargaze and wonder if we’re really alone.
I also pondered the thought the moon landings were indeed fake, given the fact that with all the technology available to us in 2023 we still can’t get a rocket built to take us to the moon, but we (apparently) did so back in the 60’s with rudimentary technology.
But that’s a WHOLE other subject.
Before I wrap it up… a few thoughts about my room. My interior stateroom, 9364, is located midship just above Celebration Central where the evenings shows are presented. You do tend to hear some “boom boom” from the show (not the room next door) below, but those are generally over by bedtime. It’s not often I hear noise coming from the rooms that surround me, but there were a few times where I was woken up by loud stomping coming from upstairs.
With my interior stateroom on the Mardi Gras last month, the room was in complete darkness once the lights were off with the only glimmer of light coming from the dim light inside the mini bar. On Carnival Celebration, when you turn the bathroom lights off, one remains dimly lit as a nightlight. This did not happen on Mardi Gras, so you do get some light that shines through the bottom of the bathroom door to give the room some light at night which is a help.
There are light switches located on the headboard should you want to go full-on bright lights when you need to empty your bladder at 2 am.
That’s it for Day 2, tomorrow will be our first port-of-call, Amber Cay… so stay tuned for reports from the Dominican Republic.
FunTimes for June 5, 2023:
The FunTimes for June 4, 2023, is also available as a PDF.