Anyway, the game show itself is going to be a huge hit and if I am honest there is as much chance of me adhering to the script as there is me wearing a pair of pants that shows the crack of my arse like one of the ACD’s here Chicken Squishy or whatever the heck he’s called.

Hasbro, The Game Show promises to be loads of fun with adaptations of the company’s popular games such as Sorry, Operation, Yahtzee, Connect Four and, of course, one that you and I have played many times with our families………and that’s the game with no end……Monopoly.

I am totally confused by Monopoly. The rules explain how you can un-mortgage a property and when you should build hotels on Park Avenue but they don’t say, and they should, that the winner is the last player left alive. You go bankrupt so you borrow money from your Dad who has loads of cash. Then you go bankrupt again. So you borrow more money from the bank. And then, when there is no more money left in the box, you write out an IOU and keep on borrowing by which time it is 4 am, everyone is bankrupt and you have realised that unchecked capitalism doesn’t work whether it comes in the form of a Wall Street banker or in a cardboard box. That’s if you’re lucky. If you’re not, there will be a “bad loser” around the table who will land on your hotel on Madison Avenue and in a hysterical rage will throw the board and the pieces in the air and, in true Wall Street fashion, throw themselves out of the window. I wonder as it I sit here in my underpants at the start of 2012 whether or not kids still play Monopoly because I would think that in their minds anything that doesn’t run on electricity is stupid and boring. So the idea of moving a hat or a roller-skate around a piece of cardboard and not being able to play Modern Warfare Grand Theft Zombie Killer on their Weeweexplaybox would mean teenage tantrums all round. Heidi and I have a Playxboxstation thingy but it’s used about as much as the George Foreman Grill and my Betamax video recorder that I refuse to throw away.

In theory Scrabble is much better and yet it too gets under my skin.  And that’s because I always end up with mostly vowels. So while my opponent is writing “bumfuzzling” across two triple word scores and claiming it’s a game of skill, I’m getting three points for the word “boob.”

The idea of Hasbro, The Game Show, will be to bring audiences and players closer together in an evening of fun and fantastic prizes. However, while board games brought my family together, they also bring out hysteria, accusations and hate. Maybe amongst the Sorry Sliders and Connect Four games we should include something for today’s teens and have a night of playing Death Zombie Warfare Witchcraft Pack Bastard Space Asteroid Killers.

Time for some Q and A……away we go.

Brian O’Keefe Asked:
We loved the comedy shows on the Carnival Freedom and the comedians were so funny. The problem John was the venue which was too small and talking to the people we ate dinner with and other passengers we all felt that the comedy club should be in the big theatre. We all said we would give up the dancer shows for more comedy. Can you send a big shout out to Lotti our cabin stewardess who we attempted to pack and take home with us? Thanks, John.

John Says:
Hello Brian O’Keefe

Thanks for the post and I hope you had fun. Your question caused some great conversation on Facebook and it was certainly worthy of discussion. I think we do have a good balance between comedy, variety and the big production shows. I know that the Punchliner comedy shows are very popular and certainly some are full which is why we repeat them over a space of two nights per each two comedians and we don’t have any plans though of moving them to another lounge. Thanks for the great comment about Lotti and I shall make sure she sees this. I do hope you had fun.

Best wishes.
John

Janet Bettencourt Asked:
Hi John,

My daughter is desperate to be featured in your passenger talent show when she cruises with us on the Elation on July 9. She is eight years old and has already won trophies and came first in the Models of Distinction show in Mississippi. Please secure her a spot and she will bring her music to sing her song which will bring the house down.

Hello Janet Bettencourt
Many congratulations on your daughter’s success and I am sure she has a bright future. I checked the entertainment schedule and in fact we don’t have a talent show that cruise. I am sure you will have a brilliant time and if there is anything else I can do for you, please let me know.

Best wishes to all.
John

Scott Stanley Asked:
My wife and I will be experiencing Carnival for the first time on the Carnival Dream for our third anniversary in March. I thought about surprising her with a marriage vow renewal on the ship. I’d like to know if it is possible to have a small ceremony (no guests) that is more on the informal side.  I don’t mind buying one of the wedding packages, but they seem to be geared towards more guests/formal ceremony types.  Do you think it is possible to schedule/book something more like what we’d like?  Any info you can share would be appreciated.  Thanks

John Says:
Hello Scott Stanley

Thanks so very much for choosing the Carnival Dream for your special celebration and we do indeed have a wedding renewal ceremony on board. It may sound formal but in fact it’s a very intimate ceremony hosted by the captain and in the presence of only the two of you and any guests you choose to invite. Hope that’s OK and I promise it will be a wonderful way to celebrate your lives together. I wish you many more happy years and a brilliant cruise.

Best wishes.
John

Jon Resinki Asked:
I have done five cruises with you guys and never once have I been offered an upgrade cabin. I always read that others have gotten one but I never do. I guess I am the wrong color or not a VIP but I work hard in my community as an educator and deserve an upgrade as much as anyone else.

John Says:
Hello Jon Resinki

The myth of the upgrade and that many guests get one each week is I am afraid wrong. They come along now and then because for the most part our ships sail totally sold out. Now as to who gets an upgrade, well that is also not easy to answer but if I may suggest that you get a travel agent or PVP to book your cruises as they will be able to help when upgrades or special pricing becomes available. I do hope one day you get the upgrade call. Thanks for all you do as a teacher and for spending your valuable vacation time with us.

Best wishes.
John

Steve Kurs Asked:
John you and I have something in common and that’s we are both obese and, as a fellow fatty, I don’t understand why you don’t get bigger sizes in the gift shops. On the Carnival Sensation the largest size they had was XXXL and I am 385 pounds so that’s not going to fit me IS IT? I am sure you understand but if you do then why am I not taken care of like other passengers. We need 5X and bigger! It is pure discrimination that only thin people can find something to wear.

John Says:
Hello Steve Kurs

Thanks for the post and I do understand that it’s hard when you find something that doesn’t fit you, I certainly understand that. I know that the shops on board have guaranteed to sell bigger sizes although not 5X so I will send your thoughts to the folks that run the shops. Thanks again for taking the time to write.

Best wishes.
John

Tracy D Asked:
You were right John we loved the Carnival Legend. Nestor and Doctor K were great pool-side servers; Doctor K could be a little pushy, though. Our steward, Desra, was fantastic! She was always friendly and talked to us every time we crossed paths. After buying the towel folding book, we left her a cobra on our last day, knowing she’d get a kick out of it! We enjoyed all the shows we went to on board. We went to the comedy – G and R rated shows (very funny!), two nights of the magic show (we highly recommend this one!), and a few of the game shows. I think our favorite day was the first day at sea for the Hairy Chest Competition (Go Lou!). Wee Jimmy was a hoot, his jokes were corny but he laughed at himself, which made the corny jokes better. Alex was definitely the best host on the ship, always full of energy and the Minnesota joke NEVER got old! Wed had a blast!

John Says:
Hello Tracy D

What a wonderful review and I am so glad that you had fun. I will be sending this to the ship and those mentioned will be thrilled. I loved the comment about Wee Jimmy and he really is a funny chap and a great CD. Thanks again and I hope we see you again very soon.

Best wishes.
John

Richard Gledhill Asked:
The Carnival Freedom was not good. Our room only had a small chair and a stool for sitting but on RCI we had a suite with a huge comfy sofa. The bed on Freedom was very uncomfortable. The entire staff was rude and unhelpful and nobody cared I was in a scooter and offered me any help and I had to wait in line at buffets on Lido. The food was not as good as other ships we’ve sailed and cheaper cuts of meat were offered. I have written expecting compensation but have had no response!

John Says:
Hello Richard Gledhill

It was a big surprise for me to read this as the Carnival Freedom is often the top ranked ship in our fleet as per the comments made by guests that complete the review card. I am very sorry that you didn’t enjoy the cruise and that you did not find the staff helpful and if you had booked a suite on the ship you would I promise have found our suites also have large comfy sofas and more space. I have sent this to a colleague and you will be hearing from them soon. I hope we will see you again and my apologies that this cruise did not meet or exceed your expectations.

Best wishes.
John

Dave Rowan Asked:
I need help because I am cruising on the Carnival Dream March 31 and want to propose to my girlfriend Cindy. I have no idea how to do this and need your help to get this done please as I am really really nervous. To make matters worse my future in laws Susan and Art Bannacki (in cabin 2351) are with us and they don’t know I am doing this. What’s your suggestion, please can you help. I am sweating just thinking about it but want it to be a memorable proposal. Thanks so much Mr. Heald.

John Says:
Hello Dave Rowan

I can actually feel your nerves oozing out of the post so it’s my job to help you. We can do this two ways, a small private proposal or indeed a proposal on stage in front of other guests……. and your in-laws! So we have a bit of time, let me know what you want to do and with the help of the CD and staff I will do all I can to make this a painless, fun and happy occasion. I am sure all will be well.

Best wishes.
John

Alexandria Dabrini Asked:
John, can you tell me if Carnival has singles only cruises? I don’t like kids and find that they are not well behaved on cruises and on my last trip on Sensation there were hundreds of them running riot and it ruined the cruise. Carnival should have a kid free ship and if there is a ship for breeders there should be one for the thousands who want no kids on their cruise.

John Says:
Hello Alexandria Dabrini

Thanks for the comment and I have to say that Carnival is proud to be a family cruise line and so we won’t ever I think dedicate a ship to having no children on board. I do think that you should maybe look at times of the year when the children count is lower as in school time and then maybe you will not notice them so much. I hope we see you on board soon.

Best wishes.
John

John Dobrescu Asked:
I really enjoy your blog and please don’t worry about those haters who obviously have never met you. I met you in 2006 on Carnival Liberty in Europe and we have so many wonderful memories. On that cruise we met a bar waiter called Anica. She worked at the wine bar and was one of the highlights of the cruise. I wonder if she is still working for Carnival and if so what ship. I ask this because she was from Romania which is where I was born and fled the country with my parents when I was just nine years old. She is from my home town Oradea and I wondered if you had her contact information please. Thank you.

John Says:
Hello John Dobrescu

Thanks for the kind words and for getting in contact with me. I am afraid I don’t show any Anica from Romania working on our ships at the moment. I have checked our records and I am sorry but it looks like she has left. It sounds like she made quite an impression on you and I hope somehow you get to see her again.

Best wishes.
John

That’s all for today.

Over the weekend I posted some beautiful photos of the Serenity area on the Carnival Spirit and while being serene and relaxing with some suntan oil and a good book maybe how some like to spend their days at sea, others prefer excitement. And if thrill seeking is your thing, then we have got your Carnival Spirit cruisers covered.

Designed specifically for Australians whose lives are a thrill a minute especially when they make sure there are no red back spiders hiding in the toilet which while you are reading your copy of the Australian Times will bite you on the arse and kill you dead, the new slide on the Carnival Spirit is quite simply historic.

I can imagine that as you stand at the top of the stairs your stomach turns as you edge towards the green coloured tube that leads you into oblivion. You stand on the edge, the soles of your feet sweating, “Just do it!” your wife says, and you close your eyes and then without any warning you are slipping and sliding through the green tube. Seconds later you are over the ocean and below is Debbie the Dolphin who was swimming along without a care in the world and suddenly looks up to see your flaccid bottom flying down a green tube. You think that maybe you will be able to wave at the people on Lido deck below you but all you can see are the inside of your eye lids and all you can hear are your own screams echoing all the way through the Green Thunder’s tubing. Suddenly you’re spectacularly hurled out into the plunge pool and as you eventually stand you do so with a lingering look up Green Thunder’s tubing hoping that you haven’t given the green a tint of brown.

The simple pleasure of sliding down a chute into water is something I have never understood. Gerry Cahill, our president and CEO, is a huge fan of these things and he made me race him on the Carnival Dream. He cheated and I lost my shorts. Not a good day out for me that but I am in the minority because water parks are so popular and with Green Thunder we have taken them to a new level and I must admit from the photos you will see in a moment, pretty intimidating level. Water parks on ships have come a long way since the simple slides we first had and Green Thunder looks amazing and along with the other water park additions you will see have transformed Carnival Spirit’s Lido Deck.

One thing I always worry about with slides like this is that being fat (thanks for the reminder Steve Kurs) I am concerned that these slides were not designed for big people and that my fear was that I would get stuck half way round. That obviously isn’t the case with Green Thunder because you don’t have to be as thin as the Amish phone book to go down ……. you just have to be totally bonkers and have the most easy going, have fun, no worries kind of thinking…….which is why Green Thunder will be absolutely perfect for Australia.

Here is one of Eric the Beard’s slide show thingies highlighting Green Thunder and the Carnival Spirit’s brilliant water park.

You may have seen the proposal request in today’s Q&A from Dave and you could feel how nervous he was couldn’t you? I get asked to arrange public on stage wedding proposals a lot here and when I am a CD on the ships which I was indeed supposed to be this week on Carnival Magic but because the game show rehearsals are continuing I am unable to do so. Anyway, I am always happy to help with wedding proposals but I have never quite understood why some men feel the need to do this in public. I have proposed three times to women in my life. The first time was via a letter when I wrote to Marcia Brady from the Brady Bunch proclaiming my total love for her and asked her to marry me and that after the ceremony we move to our own Blue Lagoon. She never replied……..looking back though her non-reply may have had something to do with the fact that the letter was written on a pair of my underpants.

The second time I proposed…well……..that was a little more public as both sets of parents were there and I thought that was the chivalrous thing to do. She said “yes” but in the end things didn’t work out and one day she woke up, realized I was an ugly bastard and buggered off. She is now living in New York, happily married to a great guy who doesn’t fart and make her vomit when she sees him naked……..which is never good for a relationship.

As for Heidi…….well……I was so positive that when I asked her to marry me that she would say, “No, Nichtus, Buggernsie Offen Sie” that I decided to ask her alone………just the two of us …… in the cabin on the Carnival Imagination. She was supposed to come back to the cabin from work at 11:30 pm. I had a rose…….lying on a silk sheet……..with the ring lying next to it …. I had her favourite song playing on the CD player…….the lights were dimmed……..I had my best underpants on……nothing else……..just my best underpants…..all was set …… 11:30 pm came and went…and she eventually arrived at 12:45 am having had decided to go to the crew lounge with her friends……the bastard. By the time she got back to the cabin everything was ruined …….and it wasn’t only the rose that had wilted. Anyway, if anyone ever needs help with a proposal please let me know.

So back here in Philadelphia things are going well, slowly, but well and I feel like an old dog having to learn a new trick. But the show is going to be great and it’s been fun to see the CDs again. However, if hosting a show like this has made me feel old then hanging out with CDs Ryan Fitzbutch and Butch Begogerald and Josh Big Texy and Paul Saintly and Brent Boy Band Loyer has made me feel ancient. Their clothes, their underpants, the music they listen to and the words they use make me feel so old and I fit in with this group like Richard Simmons would fit in hosting a cage fighting event.

One thing is extraordinary though, on breaks for rehearsals I call Heidi, call the office or eat a sandwich and take a poo. They don’t. They sit on their eye pads and play a virtual game. They are all — and I mean all — playing it. It’s a virtual world thing where they build a city and buy hotels and have families and I don’t understand what the hell is going on. In My Town, you can buy virtual houses, cars, cappuccinos, computers, lap dances and build a new Carnival HQ. You can dance, undress, giggle, urinate, gamble, crap, smoke a palm tree and spank Judge Judy with a table tennis bat. Currently says Uncle Google about 6.7 million Americans play this game every day. This along with the fact that Ryan Fitzbutch and Butch Begogerald and Josh Big Texy and Paul Saintly and Brent Boy Band Loyer all play this game while I sit Facebooking and blogging to you.

Yes, Hasbro, The Game Show is a new breed of cruise ship entertainment and there is a new breed of cruise directors to host it. They have endless Red Bull-fueled energy, dress like metro sexual pop stars, they kiss other men on the cheek, they use product in their hair, they have teeth sponsored by Colgate and stomachs flatter than a can of Diet Sprite that’s been open for 27 years. They are good looking and confident and at the end of a long day of game show rehearsals while I long for a huge steak and a massive plate of fries they go to the gym to tone up their six packs. They are the future and I am the past and I wish them continuing success………but ……….if one of those metro sexual bastards tries to kiss me again…..they will find it very hard to sit through the next day of the rehearsals with their eyepads sticking out of their manscaped bottoms.

Goodnight.

Your friend,
John

I know friends of mine who are reading this like my old mate Roger Blum and others will tell me I am missing out on an exhilarating experience. Exhilarating my arse. Going somewhere cold for your holiday is as pointless to me as vegetarian burgers and Kim Kardashian. Faced with the two options, either having fun on board a beautiful cruise ship surrounded by sun, entertainment, brilliant service and wonderful food choices or spending laughable amounts of money catching cold and knocking down trees with your face, there is no bloody contest. Smashed bones, stupid clothes, crusty red cheeks and a huge dollop of snot hanging permanently from your nose. You can achieve that effect by being the shopping trolley collector in a Publix parking lot in Alaska …..in January. The only difference is that the Publix trolley collector doesn’t bore everyone senseless with stories of their black slope accomplishments at Aspen.

I went skiing one time and one time only. It was many years ago with my friends Alan and Alison and my girlfriend of the time who was a brilliant dancer, super fit and had two airbags to cushion her should she fall, which she didn’t because she was brilliant at skiing as well. I wasn’t. I was crap. All I remember is the pain and the agony and the cold and the laughter of others as the fat sod tried to get up after falling over……..again. I hated the snobbery and the ridiculously good looking ski instructors whom unless you had breasts the size of the Alps like my girlfriend had bugger all interest in teaching you anything.

The reason I kept falling over though is not just because I have the balance and poise of Heather Mills…… It’s the ski boot! The first thing you must understand is the ski boot is specifically designed to be as heavy as possible and to ensure that if you fall over…. and you will …………. all the time ……..and your leg will break at its most painful point…. just above the ankle. Men …..The only way to prevent this from happening is to look at photos of Megan Fox’s bottom before you ski so you can cushion the fall with well, I don’t need to go there do I? Let’s just say  it’s like having a third ski pole. As you can see I am a fervent anti-skier. This is partly because ski bores are the second worst of the vacation bore genre (just ahead of people who hate Carnival and write on cruise boards about just how much they hate Carnival even though they have never cruised with us) and partly because I cannot think of a single redeeming feature about snow.

Skiing is not a vacation. A vacation is when you go somewhere warm and relax, eat well, have fun and see interesting places like Europe, on the Carnival Breeze for instance. A cruise vacation is where you enjoy that lovely feeling of just putting on shorts every day and changing into some casual wear at night as you head to the dining room, see a show and have a pint of ThirstyFrog Red and maybe catch a 5D movie. It is not mincing around wearing ridiculously expensive ski wear, eating fondue and spending all day gazing at ambulances ferrying people from the slopes across a picture postcard landscape.

For your next vacation, why don’t you take all your money and set it on fire? Then stand in a refrigerator for a week, beating yourself with a baseball bat until your arms and legs break. And then, after you’ve eaten some melted cheese, dislocate your shoulder — it’s the same process as going skiing. Or alternatively…………… you can sail on the Carnival Breeze.

Time for today’s Q and A…..here we go.

Judith Hodges asked:
Hey John.

My fiancé and I were on the Carnival Splendor and were met with a constant barrage of solicitations and advertisements for Carnival products and services. It gets old fast and it never stops. Royal Caribbean never uses the public speakers to advertise anything and you could learn a lot from them. We didn’t pay $600 to listen to some used car salesman tell me to go to the gift shops 20 times a day!

John says:
Hello Judith Hodges

First of all I hope you enjoyed your cruise and I agree that we as cruise directors do use the PA system to advertise revenue areas as well as shows and events and activities. We are currently evaluating the number of announcements but I can tell you that on a typical day CD’s make around four sales-oriented announcements and none are supposed to last more than three minutes. Believe it or not, many people find the announcements helpful as it supplements what’s included in the Fun Times newsletter. We do monitor the style and length of our cruise directors’ announcements and it is something that we will continue to evaluate. I do hope you both had fun and enjoyed your cruise.

Best wishes.

John

Georgie Marino asked:
Hi John.

Thanks so much for responding to my question about if you were going to be the CD on Carnival Breeze’s June 3 inaugural cruise. We are psyched and are booking our cruise this week.  We were on the August 14-26 Magic Mediterranean cruise and loved it. Can’t wait to see you, Calvyn and hopefully Ken Byrne.  Also, we are happy you increased the gratuities – it’s about time!

Love and kisses,

Georgie Marino

John says:
Hello Georgie Marino

It is great to hear from you too and I hope you have been reading more about the Carnival Breeze yesterday here and on Facebook. She is going to be a brilliant ship and I can’t wait to show her to you. Please let me know if you need anything.

Best wishes and see you soon.

John

John Lennon asked:

I just got off the phone with a very nice lady whom was very helpful…. yet the comment came up to ask or receive a specific question, that going through you was the best way … so here it is.

Carnival values the web site Cruise Critic opinion when it comes to cruising, so why is it Carnival does not do an Official Meet & Mingle? Actually offering a little get together for the cruisers which whom they are trying to get as return guests. As earlier said, I spoke with a very nice person whom said they would set us a section aside for an hour at the Ivory Piano Bar on an upcoming cruise but could do no more than that… no refreshments or appetizers?

So the question is why will Carnival do it for a singles meet and mingle? Put out food, have refreshments, drinks, yet not for a group of individuals whom chat about Carnival every day?  I am not just saying for this upcoming cruise we are going on. Guess you could say I am wondering why Carnival does not do it companywide and I realize from cruising on other cruise lines there needs to be a certain amount of people attending. So now what I do know? Carnival has never truly done me wrong, so I have nothing bad so say and as far as John Heald goes, I have nothing bad to say either, some may like/some may dislike. I will see what happens with this post before passing judgment.

John says:
Hello John Lennon

As you know I won’t usually post any mention of the Cruise Critic boards outside of requests for meet and greets. This decision was made by the many genuine people who go there to get good information and who need help and want someone to hold their hand through various aspects of cruising. I can tell you that I am happy to organise meet and greets but please understand that we don’t offer complimentary drinks or food as Cruise Critic readers book as individuals not as a group. We don’t do this for a singles meet or greet either by the way and I had a standard meet and greet set up on every ship but there were problems with different CC groups wanting different times so we thought it best to arrange on request which we continue to do. Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you though and I wish you a brilliant cruise.

Best wishes.

John

Martha Delingpole asked:

Going on the Dream ship booking is ******. I just found your blog and absolutely love it. My husband and I will have been married 58 years and will celebrate our anniversary on the Carnival Dream on 2/4/12 and I have a huge request John. My husband was in the United States Navy for 29 years and he would love a chance to meet and say hello to the head engineer as Ed, my husband, was the chief engineer on a Navy destroyer. Is this something that can be arranged John, if not I understand but thought I would ask as you seem so willing to help people. Thank you and we are so excited to be on our first-ever cruise.

John says:
Hello Martha Delingpole

Thanks so much for taking the time to write. I saw this question yesterday and so I have had the chance to email the chief engineer on the Carnival Dream. His name is Giuseppe Seccia and I have arranged for your husband to meet him on board. Gary, the cruise director, will be making the arrangements and will be in touch while you are on board and you can expect a little something from me and the blog readers to wish you happy anniversary and to thank your husband for his service. I wish you a brilliant time and many more cruises in the future.

Best wishes.

John

Mel Cohen asked:
John –

I am looking at the excursions in Dubrovnik for when we cruise the Carnival Breeze with you and wondered if you can tell me something about the Best of Dubrovnik as far as pax like me with walking challenges. I don’t have to use a wheelchair but my 77-year-old knees don’t allow me the mobility I used to have. Can I do this tour?

John says:
Hello Mel Cohen.

Thanks for getting in touch with me. The Best of Dubrovnik tour is an excellent excursion and our most popular in this beautiful port of call. There is some walking around the old town at the end of the excursion but it is flat and you don’t have to climb the ramparts at all. I have seen many people with walking challenges take this excursion and I have absolutely no problem recommending it to you. I will see you soon and please let me know if you have any other questions.

Best wishes.

John

Lynne Cody asked:
Hi John,

First I would like to say you are a fantastic writer. You are very entertaining and informative. We have sailed with CCL 18 times. Our first sailing with CCL was on the Mardi Gras. What a trip!! There were 20 family members sailing as a group and we still laugh about some of the crazy things that happened on that ship. We will be sailing April 1 on the Carnival Glory. There are six of us sailing in three cabins.  Five of us are Platinum members. This is the first time that I am allowing my 15 year old daughter to take a friend. Her friend is also 15 but has never sailed. I was wondering if I would have a problem taking her friend with us to the past passenger party or any other functions for past guests? Another question (from my mother), this will be “Holy Week,” the week prior to Easter Sunday. Will there be any Easter services held on the ship? Since we disembark on Easter Sunday we were wondering if there would be an Easter Vigil mass Saturday evening. We are very excited to sail in April!

Sincerely,

Lynne C

John says:
Hello Lynne C

Thanks for the kind words and I am so glad you enjoy the blog. First of all let me thank you for your loyalty and I wish you had some photos from your time on the Mardi Gras. How things have changed and I see it was that ship that spurned your amazing loyalty to us and I am very thankful to you for cruising with us so often. You can indeed bring your daughter’s friend, that’s no problem and I will send a note to the ship for you so she can enter the past guest party. The sad news is that I am afraid that we won’t have religious services during Easter as Carnival does not have a religious program at the moment. We will ask the guests if there is someone who wants to hold one and maybe there will be someone on your cruise who will volunteer to lead mass. I wish you all a brilliant time and of course if there is anything I can do to for you please let me know.

Best wishes.

John

Steve Wright asked:

What are the next ships scheduled to get the new 2.0 update and when would the first cruise dates be after those upgrades are completed.

John says:
Hello Steve Wright

Here is the link for you to read when the ships will receive the exciting 2.0 upgrades.

http://www.carnival.com/core/faq.aspx?icid=CC_Header_466#q-1012258

Let me know if you have any questions.

Best wishes.

John

Simon Taylor asked:

I am British like your good self and wondered if Carnival will ever have a ship sail from Southampton or another British port. My wife and I are retired and don’t like to fly these days and so have cruised with Celebrity and three times on the Independence of the Seas. Our friends Norman and Paulette Lawrence who I understand you met on the Carnival Magic said that they had a lovely time and how Carnival was better than other cruises they had been on. We would love to cruise with you so please give me some good news. Thank you John and we enjoy your writing and can see from your humour that you haven’t lost your British roots.

John says:
Hello Simon Taylor

I can understand why you and your wife don’t like to fly. I really wish my parents who are also retired could cruise with me more but the hassle of today’s airports and sometimes long walks to the gate and waiting time means they haven’t cruised with me since the Carnival Splendor sailed out of Dover. I am afraid that I really haven’t heard anything about UK cruises one way or the other but hopefully we will meet one day and enjoy a plate of spotted dick. Please give my best wishes to Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence.

Best wishes to you both.

John

Lynn Adrionous asked:
John,

Very disappointed in your new menu which let’s face it looks as though it was designed by children.  Back to Silversea for us unless you can tell me it’s being changed.

John says:
Hello Lynn Adrionous.

I am sorry to read this and I have to say that while some folks such as yourself don’t appreciate our new menus the vast majority of our guests really like them, particularly given the wide range of different types of food offerd. We are always looking at our menus for guest feedback so your comments are appreciated. It would be wrong of me not to say that comparing the food from Silversea, which advertises itself as a luxury cruise line and charges much more for its cruises, to Carnival’s mass market and brilliantly affordable cruises is like comparing Megan Fox’s bottom with Judge Judy’s or my inner thigh to Johnny Depp’s. But seriously though we are listening to comments both positive and negative and will work hard as always to have choices on our menu that everyone will appreciate.

Best wishes and I truly hope we see you soon.

John

Keith Wilkins asked:
John,

My wife and I will be on the Carnival Magic first cruise out of Galveston. The reason I am writing is I wanted you to know what a fantastic experience that I had with Carnival’s early saver plan. Our fare has been reduced three times and everything went smooth on the first two adjustments and the third not so smooth. And if it ended there it would have been a just OK experience. I want to commend David, Maria and several other ladies who I’m almost sure their names ended in A for their dedication to customer service. Although it took some time to get straightened out, it was more than I expected. Thanks again to a brilliant staff at Carnival.

John says:
Hello Keith Wilkins

This is so brilliant. Thank you for taking the time to write about our customer service teams and what they are doing to help. There has been a huge improvement recently and although we still have hard work ahead there is no doubt that Gerry Cahill’s focus on vastly improving our customer service pre- and post-cruise is paying off. Thanks for writing and I hope you had a wonderful time on the Carnival Magic.

Best wishes.

John

That’s all for today and thanks for your continuing support of the blog thingy.

So in just two weeks time I have to head over to the States again starting with a couple of days in Miami and then back to what I love the most, being a cruise director again and as much as I truly enjoy and am proud to be the brand ambassador, it’s cruise directing that remains the part of the job I love the most. I have some special projects to work on before then including re-writing some of the language as it pertains to the life boat drill or safety briefing as we call it today. It needs tightening up, plus I am going to leave room for the CD’s to add, if they wish, a little bit of humour which in 2012 I think there is a place for. It can’t replace the message of course that safety is the most important aspect of the cruise but there is room I believe for a little bit of mirth.

Compared with what we used to say a couple of years ago the drills of 2012 are a lot different. In addition to important information regarding the actual lifeboat drill, there is information about environmental procedures, taking care when walking around a moving ship and much, much more. It always infuriates me when after making announcements that the drill is mandatory that when I look down from the bridge I always see a few people who somehow evaded the drill and are sitting on their balconies with a Fun Ship special and a couldn’t-care-less attitude. We then send the stateroom steward or in some cases security to inform the guests that they must attend. You have no idea how many give the staff a hard time and are really rude, refusing to attend. Anyway, look out for a few changes in the safety briefing and if you have any suggestions please let me know here on the blog thingy.

OK, it’s off to San Francisco we go and the latest update from Stuart the cruise director of the Carnival Spirit which as you know is in dry dock. Stu………over to you.

Day 2 started with the safety briefing to inform the contractors on board of the emergency procedures, like the guests must do every voyage. There were many meetings amongst the CCL management and the supervisors to the contractors to get acquainted and to discuss the projects underway. Much of the work being carried out at this early stage is existing areas being torn down and so there are rubbish piles everywhere. The place looks like a construction zone however anyone who has done a home renovation can relate. As always safety is priority and everyone is wearing personal safety equipment relevant to their job. What is very interesting to see is the female staff who normally wears the white uniforms, wearing coveralls. Admittedly they are not needed, but they look cute nonetheless. We had some really strong heads winds in excess of 50kts while sailing north to San Francisco so the contractors working on the open decks really had their work cut out for them. The busiest location is certainly the new Serenity project where I counted 35 contractors there at once, all working. Unlike me, who was offering shore excursion advice in San Francisco and drinking a café latte.

 

Day 3 — Just after midnight we were very excited to sail under the Golden Gate Bridge as we entered San Francisco. Many team members who have never seen it before were on deck 9 fwd to watch and take photos.  We arrived into the dock at approximately 3am    and I was awoken by a call from the hotel director at 6:30am. He said to get the camera crew ready as the “Green Thunder” water slide was alongside the ship on a crane barge and they were getting ready for the big lift. When I saw it I realized for the first time actually how high this slide is. I am a pure thrill seeker and I am stoked to have this   on board my ship. The crane team had little room for error as the crane lifted the slide onto the highest deck and at times I am sure I was not the only one who thought the ship was going to be too high for the crane. During the lift the ship was still in the water, and     had not been lifted so the ship could not go any lower. An hour later welders were fixing it to the steel deck. Several more lifts had to be made to piece the entire slide together, and now we have the Green Thunder on board, the steepest and fastest waterslide at sea.

Meanwhile, teams of housekeeping staff were busy tearing up the carpets in all the guests corridors, Technicians were pulling apart slot machines, and work was full speed ahead on the Serenity area. We are a floating construction zone of hundreds of specialist    contractors and Carnival Spirit team members stepping up to assist with whatever they can. Later in the day I got the call to make the announcement from the bridge to inform everyone on board about what dry docks are known for — periods of time with no water, electricity, air conditioning, computers or shipboard cell phones. And maybe no flushing  toilets. Reality kicked in when I found myself walking along corridors in darkness lighted only by the emergency strip lighting on the floor. But she is going to look fantastic when all is done. Time for some vegemite.

Thanks mate, another “bonza” report mate and we look forward to more from you soon.

It’s going to be very interesting to see what the atmosphere is like on the Carnival Spirit once she arrives in Australia. Now you may not know many Australians but I do and of course some of the population is made up of British ex-pats including my friend David who for many years worked on the ships with me. David was the ship’s doctor and we worked on the Carnival Triumph and Carnival Glory together and a few years ago he and his wife Susie immigrated to Melbourne, where he is a family doctor. I spoke to David over Christmas and he told me how he loves living in Australia and the thing he loves most about his adopted country is how down to earth it is. “I can even wear flip-flops to work and nobody cares,” he told me. The local attitude that lets him wear them in his surgery where he sees his patients is an example of a country that is so laid back. I have a feeling that we will have to think twice about how we do elegant night. I mean, will the Aussies want to dress up on their cruise vacation? I may be wrong here but I suspect the vast majority will say “No way mate.”

Australia is a dangerous place to live — and not because of the crocodiles, huge poisonous snakes and spiders the size of Rosanne Barr but because once you have been there and seen their way of life you won’t want to leave. Australians bounce when they walk and smile at strangers and say “g’day” on their way to an after work spot of surfing. Also, they have cookers in their kitchens but choose to cook their prawns in the garden. Those of you who may have seen Aussies on board our ships know how much fun they are and imagine then the atmosphere with 2,200 of them on the Carnival Spirit. I am sure it’s going to take the fun level to an even higher setting.

My only concern is……..will we have enough beer on board? And of course watch out for the famous Australian kiss which the Aussies love to give strangers and if you meet an Aussie on Promenade deck they are likely to want to give you the famous Aussie kiss which is like a French kiss…………..except it’s….. “Down under.”

Good night.

Your friend,

John

Anyway, there wasn’t a computer on my desk. There was an old rotary telephone and my files ……that was it. The one good thing, though, was that we had a laugh. We would play tricks on each other that usually involved superglue or condoms that were placed in people’s sandwiches. There was no political correctness, the job got done and we had a laugh doing it. Then I moved to the city of London and it was the same there, hard work but fun. We had a bloke with red hair. We called him Duracell. We had a lady colleague who in fact was a brilliant broker and was already moving up the ranks. Her last name was Collins and this being the eighties meant that Dynasty was on TV so of course we called her Joan. I mean everyone called each other nick names, it was the one thing.

Even the bosses called us by our nick names. If I had been the size I am now I would have been called Fattie or Billy Bunter (a Brit cartoon character) but as I was skinny and had a bent tooth they called me B.O…….which was short for Bottle Opener………..yep, I spent two years working for Lloyds of London with everyone calling me B.O. Work in an office today and everyone is called by their Christian names, even if they are enormous or a ginger. Nicknames were everywhere. My best mate Alan had a girlfriend called Crater Face. This is because she had a face like the surface of the moon and looked like a withered old gargoyle. I called her that, Alan called her that and eventually her friends called her Crater Face as well. It was life and there were no tofu eating high visibility jacket wearing people to say it wasn’t.

Now move forward to 2011 and working in an office it seems is very different. When Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant wrote The Office TV series, which I know you all have in America as well, it showed life in an office but really from what I have seen its nothing like that. Take for example the conversation I heard when I was in CCL’s offices last week. It centered around the two most annoying things that happen in one particular CCL department.

Now it would have been great to hear that Jennifer in accounts has terrible gas and one day she was sitting in her cubicle and her desk chair had wheels on it and she farted so loudly it propelled her into the next cubicle crushing her colleague Dee’s foot. Or that one of the senior beards goes to the toilet but doesn’t shake his gentlemen’s sausage properly and so takes meetings with a wet patch on his pants. Those would have been worthy of a conversation. But the one I heard wasn’t quite like that. The things this group of Carnival shoreside people complained about the most were “talking too loudly on the phone” and “never making coffee.” It got a little better when someone said that one of the ladies would eat smelly food at her desk but that’s it. No tricks, no jokes, no outrageous nick names just coffee, food and talking loudly…….that’s it.

Come on Carnival shoreside employees you can do better than that! To the lady who eats smelly food at her desk, if you are reading this keep doing it but eat that smelly food with your mouth open, making slapping noises and finish with a huge belch. Then put the stinking food container in someone else’s garbage bin.

Carnival has Dress Down Friday and if I was the vice president of human resources I would also make Friday Carnival Office Annoy The Bugger In The Cubicle/Office next to you day.

• Read e-mails out loud in a silly French accent
• Pick your nose and wipe a huge booger on someone’s computer screen
• Buy a whoopee cushion and put it on the senior vice president’s chair
• Come to work in a Royal Caribbean T-shirt
• Take one wheel off their office chair
• Forward unfunny e-mail “jokes” to the entire office
• Stand behind people, reading over their shoulders
• Take your shoes off, put your feet on the desk and file the dry skin of your feet. It works even better if you do this at someone else’s desk
• Make all your calls on speaker phone so the whole office is disturbed
• Take someone’s yogurt from the refrigerator and eat it and put the empty container back in the refrigerator with a post it note attached that says “mmmmmmm”
• If someone steps away from their desk and has left their computer on send an email from their account to the boss saying “Meet me after work in the store cupboard, I want to show you my spreadsheet.”
• Pick a word, one word that must be included in every sentence you say to each other like “bollocks.” As in “Gaynor, I need the summary of accounts for September from the Carnival Magic please bollocks.” Or you can include even more than one word like “Do you want fries with that?” Even Gerry Cahill should get involved because if the rest of the 3,000 shore side folks are doing it so should he. That would be brilliant. Gerry calls Micky Arison. “Hello Micky, I got the message asking for me to present the budget proposals for 2013. I have it all here and ready to show you and ummmm…………..do you want fries with that?”

So come on Carnival office types, let’s make Fridays Fun Fridays. If you’re not reviled by all and sacked by 5 pm………… you will have failed.

Time for today’s Q and A………..here we go.

Steve O Asked:
Dear John (please respond when you have time)

Just wanted to drop you a note with a review of my August 11 Carnival Triumph trip. Yes it was my third this summer BUT it is only a 3.5-hour drive and I LOVE that ship and CREW.  As always VIP Check-In was super. I met Robert O. for a moment prior to heading up to laugh with Dolores. It was the first day of a new computer program and we had more “fun” than usual. Both Dolores and Robert are efficient and lots of fun to deal with. I was on the ship early, waved at guest services and Isabel waved back and said, “Welcome Mr. Owen”….so formal and so nice.

Up to Lido for some lunch (love those burgers). Ran into several members of the crew while chomping on my burger. Had a chat with Maitre d’ “Miss Virgil” (from South Africa) as she was on duty on Lido. She’s a super person John, very good with guests and crew from my observations.

Off to my little 4A cabin on Deck “Z”…..oops, it was only Deck 1 but all the way forward and just perfect for me.

Dinner at 8:15 pm in the London Dining Room with Maitre d’ “Mustafa” (from Turkey)….I told him I’d been in Turkey a long time ago and ask him to guess when…..he said “perhaps in the 1970’s?”………..I laughed and told him when I was in Istanbul it was still called Constantinople ….. well almost, it was on my very first cruise in 1966. Yikes!!

During the voyage I ran into several of the nicest dining room hostesses Carnival has …. Nicoleta (Romania); Natasha (Serbia); Dewi (Indonesia) and Svetlana (Russia).  It was kind of embarrassing when I first ran into each of them………they hugged me and welcomed me back to Carnival.  That is impressive John.  It makes me wonder what I do that causes them to remember me.  Perhaps I sail too often?

Lots of laughs at Tex’s Welcome Show….as I’ve said before, that guy knows how to make people laugh and have fun (with perhaps a “tiny” bit of stealing from you?).  Also saw ACD Charlie…..I start laughing when I see him…..…..he’s got that “British” sense of humour (spelt correctly according to you) and you know I love it.

When I got to my cabin that evening my door had been decorated by the entertainment staff…..a big banner that said, “Welcome Home Steve.” photos of them and their names on heart shaped colored paper…..it took some time to do that.  Is that sweet or what?  They liked it when I told them I had tears in my eyes as I stood there and looked at it.  I carefully removed all of it and brought it home with me.

Even on the little four-night trip I did The Chef’s Table again…..beautifully done by Chef Allan Gomes (India).  There was a family of eight there with four teenagers and, as usual, everything was perfect.  There were even a few plates broken while we were in the Galley (you know I love that).

A highlight of the trip was sitting with ACD Charlie during the performance of Wonderful World. I had teased him about a part of the show a couple of months before and had sent him a special gift to remind him. John, in the middle of the show he leaned over and said, “Do you see your pink parasols on the stage?” Between he and Tex they had worked my “gifts” into the Asian number.  I was floored. It made me tear up.  WOW.

Met another of your fans, Trudy Crowe and her friend Miss Anna.  We had lunch one day, they are really sweet (and lots of laughs).  My tablemates at dinner were just great too….and I hadn’t even requested anything from you (I’m sure THAT was a surprise).

This is too long, as usual, but I want to mention Maitre d’ Victor (Portugal), he is a great guy and so accommodating…..he has had a LONG career at sea and obviously still enjoys it very much.

I guess that’s about it. Debark was smooth, ship was late due to river traffic…..and I was the first guest off the ship….and I wasn’t even trying to be.  All in all, another TERRIFIC voyage on the beautiful Carnival Triumph…..and yes, I am going one more time before I head to Barcelona for the TA.

See you in Galveston on November 13.  I wonder if “transvestite Barney” will be there?  Oh, that’s right, Kye has him in Essex doesn’t she?

Your OLD mate,
Steve O

John Says:
Hello Steve O

That was the most brilliant of ways to start the Q&A session today and I am thrilled to read your report. I know how passionate you are about your cruises and how wonderfully you treat the crew which I thank you so very much for. I will be passing all this onto the staff and the people in the Miami office as well because this is the kind of review that they love to read. Thanks Steve O and I hope it’s not too long before we see each other again. I loved what Tex did for you ……. fantastic.

Best wishes.
John

Maggie Leake Asked:
I want to inform you Mr Heald of an encounter with your customer service team. I called the 1-800-CARNIVAL number because I was thinking of booking a cruise on the Carnival Splendor over Christmas. I asked three basic questions. Is the ship decorated and will Christmas be celebrated for all passengers as I am not a Christian. Then I asked what cabin temperature was as I have allergies and need a certain controlled temperature and then I if soy milk was available at all meals and she told me no. I later found out it is from another forum. It seems that the customer service people you employee have no idea about your product. I have now found your help page Mr Heald and need you to answer the questions quickly and correctly if Carnival does indeed want my business.

John Says:
Hello Maggie Leake

Let’s start by answering your questions and I see you posted this three weeks ago so please accept my apologies for the lateness of the reply. While the ship does indeed celebrate Christmas, we also offer a menorah lighting service for those of the Jewish faith as well. The standard temperature in the cabin is set at 70 degrees but with the individual controls in the staterooms you can bring that down or up as you require. Soy milk is available at all meals and if you can’t find it on Lido deck just ask a waiter and they will bring it to you. I hope this helps and I hope you are able to book and please let me know if you have any other questions.

Best wishes.
John

John Says:
Chandra

Hello John I would like to know if the Carnival Magic will have a cigar under the stars party during the November 14 cruise which me and my wife will be on with you. I am like you a big cigar smoker.

Thanks John

John Says:
Hello Chandra

There certainly will be a cigars under the stars event and it will be outside on The Lanai. Please keep an eye open for this in the Fun Times and I will look forward to sharing a cigar with you then.

Best wishes and see you soon.
John

Larry Ritchie Asked:
John:

My wife and I are booked on the Carnival Paradise’s Panama Canal cruise Nov 28. I understand why Acapulco port was cancelled and appreciate Carnival keeping both of us safe. Now my question – do you know when Puerto Vallarta, Mexico excursions will be added to the cruise specific excursions under “manage my cruise” for this cruise?

Thank you in advance.

John Says:
Hello Larry Ritchie

I just spoke to the shore excursion department and they told me that some excursions are now on line for PV and the rest should be there by the end of next week. Please let me know if you have any questions and I wish you a wonderful voyage.

Best wishes.
John

Barry W Asked:
My family and I will be cruising on the Dream booking ______ and with me will be my son Jared who is going to be starting his training in the Marine Corps next year. Can you send him a free gift as he will not have the chance to cruise again as a family and will be away from us for the next eight months?

John Says:
Hello Barry W

Please congratulate your son and thank him for the service he is about to give. I will indeed send him something and I wish you all a wonderful cruise this Saturday. I just caught this in time so have fun.

Best wishes to all.
John

Victor Olgen Asked:
Although I do enjoy your blog I wonder if at least once a week you could cut away from the humor and concentrate only on answering questions as I am positive more readers would come your way if they were guaranteed that you would answer their questions. Just a thought.

John Says:
Hello Victor Olgen

Yes you are right, I should try harder with the questions but then I am also worried that there are many readers who enjoy the ship stories more than the Q&A bit in the middle. I answer around 40 a week here but probably 400 a week on Facebook as well so for now I will keep the blog as is. I was actually considering stopping them altogether here. Thanks for saying you enjoy the blog and I hope you will continue to do so.

Best wishes.
John

Margaret King Asked:
Hi, John,

We have a family boat in Barbados that we use for lunch and dinner cruises, and would like talk to cruise lines about adding it as a shore excursion. How do I go about doing that? Please point me in the right direction.

Regards,
Mag

John Says:
Hello Margaret King

Thanks for writing and I have sent this to our shore excursion folks here in Miami and asked them to contact you.

Best wishes
John

Patricia Asked:
We are going to be choosing Carnival for our James J. Ferris High School reunion and will cruise on the Miracle next year. There will be 32 of us and I need to MAKE SURE WE ARE ALL SEATED IN THE SAME SECTION OF THE MAIN DINING HALL. How do I make sure this done??????????? URGENT!!! URGENT!!

John Says:
Hello Patricia Hallstrom

Thanks for booking this wonderful reunion with us and you will all love the Carnival Miracle I am sure. I need to know if you all booked through a travel agent or a PVP or online. If you used an agent or a PVP please collect all the names and cabin numbers together and ask your TA or PVP or call Carnival if you booked on line and simply give them all the names and ask for them to be linked together at dining. They will then do their best to help you and if you write to me here a month before you sail or two weeks before on my Facebook page then I will check with the ship and make sure it’s been done. I wish you all a brilliant time.

Best wishes to you all.
John

Max B Asked:
John,

Does Carnival carry non-alcoholic wines and beer aboard? If so is it a big selection of wine or just one or two brands? BTW, love the blog and Facebook thingies. You make me smile every day! Thanks.

John Says:
Hello Max B

Thanks for the kind words and while we do carry them, it’s not a very wide selection. Thanks again for the nice words and I hope you continue to enjoy the blog thingy.

Best wishes.
John

Valerie A Dunlap Asked:
O.K., odds are that you won’t see this before tonight’s Legends performance, but thought I might “throw it out there”, just in case…  My husband, Keith Dunlap, is playing the “Bruce Springsteen” part tonight… Now, here’s the catch: we just received word yesterday that his father had passed.  Keith wants to do this, partially because he is a local musician, and partially because he knows that his father wanted him to enjoy this vacation, as they talked by phone at every available port moment.  I know that this is totally against the “guy code of ethics and proper conduct,” but he really is a great guy and does deserve an evening of support, love and diversion before we return to the realities of home.  Thank You!

John Says:
Hello Valerie Dunlap

I know this is a month overdue but I just saw this now and I wanted to pass on my sympathies to your husband and all the family. I cannot imagine how difficult it must have been to be on stage singing and having fun under such difficult circumstances. Thanks for writing; I hope you had a great cruise and once again my sympathies for your terrible loss.

Best wishes to all.
John

That’s all for today. Yesterday the blog passed 12 million views with between 14,000 and 20,000 daily views. Thanks so much everyone and I thank you for your continuing readership and your continuing friendship.

It was interesting reading the comment about the guest services team because I have received so many positive comments about them in recent months that to hear a negative one is somewhat surprising. As we are talking about the office a lot today I should also say this. It is very challenging for the ladies and gents who answer the phones for you to know absolutely everything about what we do onboard and how everything works. While their knowledge is excellent and their desire to help you is remarkable unless you have lived and worked on a ship for at least a few weeks it is impossible to know everything. The same is said for me. I get questions about Early Saver and price drops and I know as much about this as Paris Hilton knows about keeping her legs crossed. That’s why both shoreside and myself have started to work much closer together in an attempt to better serve our guests. We have a huge social media program, the best by many a mile in the cruise industry and indeed I would say the travel industry. Look at Carnival’s Facebook page with over 1 million likes…….that’s incredible. I have 19,000 on my Facebook page and as I said, many thousands of daily views here on the blog thingy. Plus we have Funville and all these online areas give you the guest a chance to ask questions. Plus there is the old fashioned way……yes I guess it is old fashioned these days………of picking up a phone and calling someone.

The brilliant team ashore led by Vice President Vicky Rey is determined to make sure we continue to have the best guest services team in the industry and as I said we are now helping each other. I ask them for help and if one of their team get a shipboard question they don’t know, then they ask me. I must highlight one lady called Mischelle who some of you may have spoken to on the World Wide Web thingy. She has been at Carnival for 20 something years and her knowledge is extraordinary. She is our online community manager and I have to publicly thank her for all her sterling work. So bottom line is that we will continue to work hard for you to get your questions answered as quickly as we can. Please let me know if you have any comments on this.

OK, here is Vance with the official press release on what’s happening on November 13 in Galveston.

Carnival Cruise Lines and Maroon 5 To Rock Texas for Carnival Magic’s U.S. Debut

So as you can see we released the news today about the event in Galveston and let me say straight away how brilliant it is that we are doing this. In days gone past the ship would have arrived at Galveston, a few thousand travel agents would have toured the ship and a few hundred would have stayed the night and seen a show and drank a few vats of wine. Now we are holding this concert with this brilliant band called Maroon 5.

OK, I admit that I know only a few of their songs but when I mentioned it to people — particularly women — they either fainted or started singing a song about Mick Jacking moving house or something. Anyway, hopefully I’ll have the honour of introducing them onto the stage and that means it might be time to get my tight leather pants out of the closet.

Now I know a lot of you want to watch the Carnival Magic sail into Galveston and of course you can and I will confirm the time a few days before. However it will be early, somewhere between 5 am and 6 am which means it will be dark. Why so early I hear you cry? Well there are lots of reasons including traffic in the channel and of course the fact that the ship has to disembark 3,800 guests and then go through various inspections, etc. Then in the afternoon we do have travel agents boarding the ship and a few lucky people who have done the trans-Atlantic and who are staying for that cruise on the 14th. So it’s a busy day.

Now you may have also seen the contest that we launched that will award two people an all expenses paid trip to see the incomparable Maroon 5 in concert. If you didn’t, here is the link to enter and here is the video:

So, exciting times and I really hope some of you can come and join me. And indeed some of you will be able to get tickets and here is Eric the Beard to tell you how and with information on how and where we can all meet.

Hello Bloggy People!

So before I get into how this whole ticket giveaway is going to work, let me share some very important information that you need to know before entering.

The only thing we are giving away here on the blog are tickets to the event. You will need to provide your own transportation to and from the event in Galveston, as well as hotel accommodations if you decide to stay overnight. If you do decide to stay in Galveston, I also recommend that you make reservations ASAP, as hotels are selling out very quickly.

Also, please enter only if you truly plan on attending the event. We have a very limited number of tickets and want to make sure that bloggers who really want to go can go.

Now that that’s out of the way, here is what you need in order to enter this giveaway:

The FIRST 50 BLOGGERS (that’s you!) to leave a comment below this post, with the following information, will receive TWO tickets to the Carnival Magic/Maroon 5 event in Galveston, Texas on November 13th:

• First and Last Name
• Mailing Address (No P.O. Boxes)
• Email
• Why you want to attend the event
• The correct answers to the following two questions: 1) Which is John’s favorite car maker? 2) In which department did John start his career off at Carnival?

Note: You MUST provide all of the above, including the two questions, in order for your submission to be considered.

I will keep all of your information private. Only the names of the winners will be posted, so that all of you can see who the first 50 people are. (Update: I realized a lot of you might not want your names posted publicly either so I’ve decided that no entries will be posted. If you are a winner you will receive an email in the next few days.  Thanks – Eric the Beard)

Again, just to be clear, there will be a total of 50 winners and each winner will receive TWO tickets to the event.

All winners will be contacted via email with further details about the prize, as well as the blogger meet-up that will also be happening on November 13th.

So good luck to all, and may the rest of your day be filled with lots of tofu, eye-gadgets and thick, luscious beards!

Cheers,
Eric the Beard

I hope to see some of you there as I have the true honour of introducing this brilliant band and hanging out with the dudes backstage. I wonder if they have any spare groupies for me.

By the way I have to tell you about my flight back from Freeport to Miami and this was witnessed by Peter the Hair, Jay the Recently Married and my assistant Mel. On my American Eagle plane sitting next to me was a man whose relationship with soap and deodorant was the same as my relationship with tofu and the gym. He was talking on his Eyephone as he boarded and he kept talking on it until the flight attendant threatened to remove him from the plane. He was talking loudly about oil as though he was a sodding Ewing. I am sure it was all an act and he was probably on the phone with his wife getting a bollocking because she found out he had been logging onto www.latvianwomeninsuspenders.com

Goodnight.

Your friend,
John

I think I could be a Jerry Bruckheimer and direct a film; I think I could be a door to door salesman, a teacher, a police officer and even a male pole dancer. I even think I could throw a three point shot, write a book and make a crapafrapacino at Starbucks. But I could not be the late great Steve Jobs and design an Eye Phone or fix the port side engine bearings or redistribute the energy from generator 1 to generator 3. And this is why I stand in open mouthed admiration when I meet an engineer — because he can do something that I cannot.

When I build something, it breaks pretty much immediately. I can’t build a fire. Kye gets frustrated because I can’t get any of the toys I buy her out of the tomb they have been packaged in and even when I do, I can’t build them. I can’t hang a picture, and if I use superglue I end up with part of my body fastened to whatever was broken. I have the practical abilities and engineering sense of a stoned hamster………… I am useless.

I still don’t really know how a ship works. I realize that you put oil in the……… ummmm …….. tank. I know that when the captain moves the thruster levers the engines make noise and I know that, somehow, the grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr sound is converted into movement. But that’s it. And seeing the Carnival Liberty out of the water and looking at all those thrusters and huge propellers and all the other bits makes me admire so very much the people that build our ships and maintain them each and every day.

Time for today’s Q and A……here we go.

Jeff Trautner Asked:
John,

Love your blog.  Love the CD directory/schedule.  I was wondering if there was a schedule available for the maitre d’.  Last year we fell in love with Ken Byrne and as we plan our cruise for next year, knowing which ship he’ll be working may influence our decision.

Thanks,
Jeff & Lanett Trautner

John Says:
Hello Jeff Trautner

I will have the new CD schedule up soon and I really should work on the maitre d’ one as well. Ken is a great guy isn’t he and he returns to the Carnival Magic in a few days time and will be there until March. He then goes on vacation and for the rest of the year he will be with me on the Carnival Breeze in Europe. He is one of a kind and I can understand why you would want to cruise with him. I hope you get your wish and if you have any other questions, please let me know.

Best wishes
John

Sarah Oxfurth Asked:
Hi John!

I have sent two or three questions/comments that have not been responded to in the past six months, so I am sending this a little early to give you ample opportunity and time for me to get back with you.    One question I had sent before was asking if Carnival was going to Alaska in 2013 as my husband and I want to do our five-year anniversary there.  But, at this time, I write for something much more important and immediate.  John, my husband has served the United States as a U.S. Navy Corpsman for the past 18 years.  On January 8, 2012, we are cruising on the Carnival Conquest, with four of our six children (blended family!).  My husband does not know how much I love him, as I am very hard to live with, I’m afraid, and he doesn’t know how much I appreciate what he does.  He has stepped up and helps me raise my two boys from a prior marriage, being more of a father than their own, being their Cub Scouts leader, going to Scout camps with them, taking them fishing, going camping with them/us, taking them to ball games, just being a dad that he didn’t have to be.  So, I was hoping that if I could arrange for him to be recognized or just sent a note from a fellow seaman, he would feel special.  Of course, I will be getting something, though I don’t know what yet, from Bon Voyage, but to know that I went an extra step to tell OTHER people how proud I am of him (as he thinks I never do!), will warm his heart.  Please, John, I am not here to ask for “free stuff.” I just want him to know how proud I am of him.  Getting him on stage, or just saying his name at Welcome Aboard, or a note from the captain, yourself, and/or the cruise director at the time (not sure who as 2012 schedule isn’t out yet), anything at all, would just warm his heart to know that I told someone else how proud I am of him. We will be in two cabins, cabin 6355 and 6353.  While my husband, Kenn, is listed as being in Cabin 6353, I’m sure most of his time will be spent with me in our balcony cabin 6355.

Thank you so much for all you have done for me and my family in the past, as well as all you do for all the Carnival loyalists that know and love you and your humour (spelt correctly).    And thanks to Heidi and Kye for the sacrifices they make so that you can do so, and holding down the Home Front.

John Says:
Hello Sarah Oxfurth

I have been enjoying your questions on Facebook and glad to see you here on the blog as well. Thanks for the service you give and you both must be very proud of the time you give. I am sure that deep down your husband also knows how much you love him and I hope that the cruise that you both along with your family will be taking on the Carnival Conquest will rejuvenate you both and allow you some down time, fun and relaxation. Please can I ask that you drop me a line on Facebook a few days before you sail and I will make sure I send your husband a welcome aboard gift. Thanks again for writing and my apologies it has taken so long for me to reply.

Best wishes.
John

Terry Feelan Asked:
I agree with Dave M on the subject of your crew not speaking good enough English. Case in point was on my cruise last March on the Carnival Freedom. I asked our server for a decaf espresso and made sure he understood I needed decaf. His name was Wayan from some Asian country and obviously his English was not good enough because that night I couldn’t sleep and had severe stomach pains. I have not taken any caffeine products for 8 years until then and obviously my illness and insomnia was because of his mistake which was one of many. I realize that the crew you employee come from third world countries but the basic understanding the demands of the customer must surely be paramount to them being hired? The servers and the crew I encountered on the Freedom were unable to understand me most times and compared to other lines I found them uneducated to the guests needs IMHO.

John Says:
Hello Terry Feelan

Thanks for writing and before I start and before I forget, I do hope that despite your problems that you had fun on your cruise. There are very strict rules set by us and by USCG who state that in an emergency, the crew must have the English speaking skills to help save the lives of our guests and their own lives as well. English, therefore, is the official language on board and all our crew have to reach a certain standard to be able to work for us. I am sorry that the waiter made a mistake and brought you a regular espresso and I hope your stomach pain was not too severe and that you are OK now.

While I apologise for this, I also have to speak frankly on this subject. English is my first language, however, I forced myself to learn as much Dutch as I can so I can speak to Heidi’s family and friends, especially her Mum who does not speak English. I’m so out of practice though that it’s often a struggle to convey simple concepts as “coffee” and “are you OK.” When I speak Dutch to anyone, they have a tendency to slap their thighs, laugh out loud and make sound recordings of my attempts for future entertainment of their friends and family. Dutch is a very hard language to learn. You need half a ton of phlegm in your mouth to pronounce most of the words. Don’t ever stand too close to a Dutch person and enter a conversation with him ………………….. you will be washing spit out of your hair for months. My point, Terry, is this. Speaking a second language is something most of us cannot say we can do yet Wayan who, by the way, is from Indonesia, like all our crew speaks a second language. They may not be able to discuss the economic situation or converse with you about whether President Obama will win a second term but we insist as a company that all our service staff pass a proficient English test before they are allowed to serve in guest areas. Oh yes, one more thing, all our crew speak one other language………………the language of fun………………..and I think they speak that………………fluently.

Best wishes.
John

Dale Morrill Asked:
Hey John-

Love your blog thingy, your humor and your Facebook thingy. Keep up the great work. Just got back from what was my 10th Carnival cruise this past Monday and had a splendid time as usual.  However, I’m concerned about the “comment card” or their lack of. I remember seeing a post about this subject this past fall and you were letting the beards know.  Well since that time, since October 2010, I’ve been on four Carnival cruises and have not received one comment card via email. I’ve checked and double checked my junk email several times. I get email solicitations from Carnival to the email address I log with my fun pass check in. My previous sail dates from those four cruises were 10/9/10, 11/15/10, 3/31/10 and now 8/18/11. My next cruise is booked for 11/13/11. Please let the beards know there is still a big issue with cruisers not getting comment cards via email.  I’d think I’d have good odds getting one out of four cruises in less than a year?

Thanks again for all you do!

John Says:
Hello Dale Morrill

I think you speak for many on this subject, Dale. At the moment, only 40% of guests per cruise will receive an online comment review card. Guests must have checked the “receive further communication from Carnival” box on the booking form but even then you are not guaranteed to get one. I know that this can be a little frustrating but I have to tell you that there are no immediate plans to change this. I do offer all guests my services by asking you to send me your reviews and I will pass them on to the right people on board and shoreside whether it be praise or not. I will pass on your comments and if there is anything I can do for you before you cruise again, please let me know.

Best wishes.
John

Julie Schuh Asked:
Good evening John,

I am cruising with my son on the Victory on 12/18/11.  We are so excited we will actually be on the ship for Christmas! My question is, do you know if there will be a jazz band on board for that cruise?  My son is 17 and is an up and coming jazz violinist and loves jazz of any kind.  Will he be able to stay in the jazz club/bar with me to listen? On our last cruise (on another line) he got to play with the band, does Carnival ever allow guests to do something like that?

John Says:
Hello Julie Schuh

How brilliant, a jazz violin player. I used to love listening to a chap called Stefan Grapelli who was an amazing player as I am sure your son is. There isn’t a specific jazz trio on the ship but at least once a cruise the orchestra will play a jazz session. May I suggest that your son takes his violin and once you are on board leave a note at the Guest Services Desk marked to the attention of the cruise director?  Mention my name and that your son would like to play with the orchestra and I am sure that we can arrange something. There may be a talent show as well in which he could perform. Please let me know if you need anything else and I wish your son much success in his musical career and I wish you all a brilliant cruise.

Best wishes.
John

Harley Mann Asked:
I know you get a lot of requests so I hope you get to mine before we cruise! My wife and I will be sailing on the Carnival Dream on 10/22/11. Can you get me a table for two as my wife and I have lots to talk about? My last name is Mann and we are in cabin 1421.

John Says:
Hello Harley Mann

I have asked the maitre d’ on the ship to assist you as best he can with your table request and I wish you both a wonderful cruise and have fun.

Best wishes to you both.
John

Andrea Estes Asked:
Hi John,

I was wondering if you could help me with an issue with my upcoming cruise on the inaugural sailing on the Carnival Magic from Galveston on Nov. 14th.  Several months ago, we originally booked a cabin for four people, my husband, myself and two daughters and were able to get “confirmed” for Your Time Dining.  Last week, we changed from a four person cabin and added a cabin to the booking so that we would just have two people per stateroom.  By doing this, it created a new booking number for the second room (still same amount of people on our booking) so imagine my disappointment when they could not keep that second cabin on “your time dining” because it is now “waitlisted”.  We didn’t add any more people to our reservation; we only added a room to move two people, which created a second booking number.  This is the first cruise for both of my daughters and the customer service w/Carnival is saying there is NOTHING they can do to connect that second booking # to our original # and assign it to “Your Time Dining” even though we already had it confirmed for the four of us. Is there anything that we can do to get both of our booking #’s confirmed for Your Time Dining?  The original booking # is ______, if you can look into this.  Right now as it stands, my husband & 1 daughter have a confirmed standing on your time dining and then myself and my other daughter have been “waitlisted” for Your Time Dining; which in all likelihood means we will be assigned to an early or late dining time.  I could understand this happening if we were ADDING people to our reservation, but since all we did was add a room, still for a reservation of four people (and had to pay Carnival more money in the process), I’m truly disappointed that they could not accommodate our original confirmation of Your Time Dining for the second booking.  Any assistance, recommendations that you can provide is greatly appreciated.  Thanks so much.

John Says:
Hello Andrea Estes

I am going to send this to the maitre d’ so that he has this information on hand and I know he will do all he can to seat you all together if possible. Please don’t worry and just get ready for what will be a brilliant cruise. I will see you there and if you have any other concerns I hope you will let me know.

Best wishes to all.
John

Rachel Dupuch Asked:
Dear John,

I have recently discovered your blog and was reading about the weight issues you have. As someone who has lost 107 pounds in 14 months I can really recommend gastric bypass surgery for people with morbid obesity like you. I had laparoscopic gastric bypass and it has changed my life and you should have it as well. You are obviously important to Carnival Cruise so maybe they will pay for you to have it done. You really should!!

John Says:
Hello Rachel Dupuch

I am so happy for you as losing 107 pounds is simply extraordinary and I wish you health and happiness in the future. I will keep going the old fashioned way by trying not to eat a whole bucket of KFC and walk more. Thanks for thinking of me.

Best wishes.
John

Julie Asked:
Hi John,

My family will be sailing on the Carnival Ecstasy on Jan 30.  We are very much looking forward to this trip but I do have a few concerns and am not sure where to address them to.  So, I am turning to you.  Our son who is 11 has mild autism spectrum disorder.  For all intents and purposes, he generally seems like a typical 11-year-old boy. However there are some situations that he does not have a typical reaction.  My main concern is the muster drill. I am wondering where I can find out just what that will be like. It’s going to be very hard for him to stay in an area with a lot of people crowded together. I have read of some families with special needs children who have been given permission to stay in their cabins during muster, but as he is a very law and order child, there is no way I will be able to convince him that we can do that when he hears the announcements.  We also try very hard to not make his accommodations so obvious.

If you can give me any feedback or advice about this, I would certainly appreciate it.  Our cabin is M165 on the Jan 30th sailing out of Port Canaveral, as I mentioned.

Thanks so much!
Julie

John Says:
Hello Julie

The first thing I don’t want you to do is to worry at all because we can help. I have heard of this concern before from the parents of an autistic child and I helped them as I will help you by arranging a private 10-minute drill with a staff member who will explain and will show you all you need to know on what your family should do in an emergency. As we are a few months away from your cruise, can I ask that you re-post this here on the blog on December 1, or on my Facebook page a week before you sail? Either way, I will be here to help you.

Best wishes.
John

Carlo A Asked:
We wrote a complaint letter to customer service nine days ago and never received any call, any email, anything. We missed the port call of Nassau on our cruise because of a hurricane and never got money back from Carnival but we did on Celebrity when the same thing happened in 2005. No one had the courtesy of writing or talking to us back. I feel that carnival doesn’t need us as customers. Our booking ref is ______

John Says:
Hello Carlo A

I wanted to apologize that following your letter, nobody had contacted you and hopefully by now they have. Obviously, we cannot control the weather and while missing a port is regrettable, it is something that was done for your safety and the safety of the ship. However, I hope that despite the missed port, that you had fun and enjoyed the brilliant service. I will pass on your comments to our shoreside team.

Best wishes.
John

And that’s all for today.

OK, must push on so here is the latest Piano Bar schedule:

Carnival Liberty                      Dry-dock

Carnival Destiny                                 Agustin Villarin                  10/22/11

Carnival Elation                                  Bruce McGhie                   10/22/11

Carnival Triumph                                Ron Pass                              10/24/11

Carnival Magic                                    Jim Morris                           10/28/11

Carnival Splendor                                Mike Smith                         10/30/11

Carnival Paradise                                  Richard Yerkes                  10/31/11

Carnival Imagination                            Angela Johnson                11/04/11

Carnival Fantasy                                   Hrvoje Knezevic               11/28/11

Carnival Inspiration                            Jafar Curry                          12/03/11

Carnival Pride                                     James Quigley                   12/04/11

Carnival Valor                                     Brad Alexander                 12/11/11

Carnival Spirit                                     Keith Turner                       01/06/12

Carnival Miracle                                  Peter Brenner                   01/13/12

Carnival Freedom                               Marty Gast                         01/14/12

Carnival Legend                                 Pollyanna Jones                01/15/12

Carnival Victory                                 Jerry Selix                            01/22/12

Carnival Sensation                              Barry Miller                         01/26/12

Carnival Glory                                    Tom Riccio                           02/26/12

Carnival Dream                                   David Filsinger                   03/03/12

Carnival Conquest                              Larry Maconaghy             03/04/12

Carnival Ecstasy                                 Frank Glenn                       03/22/12

Carnival Fascination                           Milburn Dumas                 03/31/12

As always, my thanks to all those who support these great entertainers and please pass on your comments to me or the President of The Piano Bar Players Fan Club Laura AKA Divetrash as to who rocks and who maybe doesn’t. I hope they all do and, as always, I thank each and every one of the names above for the great entertainment they provide.

I want to say a big hello to all my British blog readers who over the past few years have had a website to check out all things Carnival which was quite simply not very good. But now there is a new and improved version which mirrors the North American website. In fact, I made some introductory videos for Carnival UK and they are also on the site. So my fellow Brits, please have a look at the site and the videos and you can now book your cruises with us using a site that doesn’t make you shout, “Oh, for ***** **** ” or try to use the American site which gets you all the way up to adding your zip code which of course we don’t have in the same format as our friends across the pond. Anyway…..here it is……enjoy.

www.carnivalcruise.co.uk

Bugger me, time flies doesn’t it? It was a year ago that Queen Elizabeth was launched and Her Majesty the Queen christened her namesake. That day was so special for so many people, especially Cunard’s president and our man in London Mr. Peter Shanks. He has written a brilliant blog about the ship’s first year of service and along with a wonderful video gives you a true insight into what has happened during the last 365 days. And, of course, it is written in Peter’s passionate style. So why not go on over to www.wearecunard.com  and join Peter in this very special anniversary celebration.

As I have been saying these past few days, it has been very hot on the Carnival Liberty with what air conditioning there is having the effect as an asthmatic hamster blowing through a straw. So last night, the hotel director Pier decided that we should open the bar on Lido Deck 9 aft which is one of the few areas where no major work is going on. Normally, the crew lounge is down on Deck 0 but as there was a cooler breeze last night, service was moved outside.

So the hard working crew of the Carnival Liberty let their hair down…….well, all except for Pier the HD who as you saw in the photo on the blog yesterday is totally bald and in his white uniform he looks like a roll-on deodorant…. and had a crew party in the disco.

So the music was playing and I decided to go and say hello. As you know, I am not a big fan of parties mainly because of the music and because they make me feel very old. However, last night I decided to do the right thing and make an appearance. So I braved the sounds of Lady Ga Ga and walked the deck shaking hands and saying hello to my fellow crew members.

Many knew me from past new ship deliveries and it was extraordinary how many wanted to have a photo with me…………..I felt very humbled.

I then stood back and watched nature take its course and by that I mean……………….I watched the crew try and form …………ummmmm………….relationships……………..and as they did, I felt so happy that I am out of that game. I was never any good at talking to girls and spent most of my dating years asking girls out and then asking my Mum to wash their vomit off my clothes.

Honestly, the crew is no different to any dance club on a Friday night. Man wants woman …………..woman wants man…………………yet there are two very different ways that they want to be courted………….and there were many different messages coming from the packed aft deck of the Carnival Liberty  last night.

There were a few girls who seemed to be very good at telling the male crew how sexy they are “Check out my bottom in these tight leather jeans. Could be your lucky night.”

Now these female crew members were mostly surrounded by the Italian contractors who are here to build Guy’s Burger Joint and the other new 2.0 areas…

Then there were those male crew who were trying to let the female crew know they could be interested, but were still deciding whether they were worth the effort. These were the ones who kept checking out their hips and trying to squint down their bras…………mostly this was being done again by the ummmm contractors.

But unlike when I was a young stud muffin, it’s not all down to the man to make the first move because these days the ladies seem to have no problem in making the first move. However there is an art form to this and so to all the lady bloggers reading this, here is John Heald’s Guide On How To Pick Up A Man:

First of all, if you are relatively beautiful and he is relatively not, almost any technique will work from a slight smile to the worst chat-up line, “If you were a new burger at Guy’s Burger Joint, you would be McGorgeous.” If you are relatively ugly and he is relatively not, you’re going to have to hope he agrees that personality is more important than looks. And although every man says that’s important, he is actually talking utter bollocks.

However, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to cheat the system. You can rely on alcohol, but I wouldn’t recommend it. While beer goggles can lead to magical nights in strange beds, going home with someone who looks like George Clooney usually has the cold light of day having you waking up next to someone who looks like me…….naked……snoring……and dribbling slightly, dreaming of having gastric bypass surgery.

Anyway, it was great to see the crew have some fun – they certainly deserve it as they are working extra hard to make sure that she is ready for 3,000 guests in just 11 days time.

And finally in this rather hurried blog, I have to mention one more thing. The captain of the Carnival Liberty is Claudio Cupisti who I have not seen since the Carnival Splendor fire. When we reached San Diego after those three long days and nights at sea we were immediately joined by hoards of beards and inspectors and in the hours that followed we never really got to say goodbye and the next day………….I flew home. So seeing Captain Cupisti these past few days on the Carnival Liberty has been very special. We haven’t spoken much about what happened except that both of us said how still, even today, nearly one year after the incident, how everybody wants to still ask questions about it when they see us. I don’t talk about it much, I think I got all my feelings out in the ridiculously long blogs I wrote. But seeing Claudio again after all this time has brought the memories back again and so I want to finish this blog today by thanking him for all he did. He really was a brilliant Master of the Vessel even under the most trying and testing conditions a carnival ship has ever faced. If there is one Captain who deserves to be on the first Ship that has the new Fun Ship 2.0 upgrades………………it’s Captain Claudio Cupisti.

Time for my American Eagle flight.

Gastric Bypass my arse.

Goodnight.

Your friend,
John

Guest: Mrs. ________ Ref: 941285541A
Cabin: —— Booking#: _______ Added-Changed: 09/05/11 – 09/05/11

      SHOW TOO LOUD
Mrs.______ came to the GSD to say that her husband and she had left the show tonight because it was too loud. Guest was very upset and said that she wanted to meet with the cruise director as she wants the volume lowered for all the shows.

Now the show she was unhappy about was my show, the Welcome Aboard Show, which apart from an overture from Jimmy Boore and the Showtime Orchestra members, is just me, talking on a microphone. And if Mr. and Mrs. Turnitdown were going to complain about a tub of lard with a microphone, what would they have to say about the high-energy Destination Unknown magic show tonight?

Here on the ships, we have become very conscious about the levels of sound in all our lounges and in the main theatre especially. Levels have been set that fall in accordance with bearded guidelines and are closely monitored by our Apple-loving, nostril-pierced technicians. Now, we do get a few comments about the levels of sound in the main show room especially during our big production shows but compare these comments to those of say five years ago, they are few and far between which is due to said beards with names like Erik, James, Geoff and Joe (sounds like a boy band) who have really made sure we don’t go over the guidelines they have set.

So, baring this in mind and before preparing Mr. and Mrs. Turnitdown a basket of apples and plums experience told me that I needed to check where they had been sitting during the show and to find out a little bit about them and discovered they were in their late seventies. I met them this morning during excursion departures for Marseilles and asked them to show me exactly where they were sitting during the show and they were right under one of the main speakers and both were wearing hearing aids which I guess amplified the sound even more.

I had asked Rebecca the sound technician to report on what DB (decibel level) she had run the show at and she told me it was around 90 DB. Now consider that a normal person talks at 60 DB and rock concert by someone like Guns & Roses, Limp Cookie, AC/DC or Celine Dion runs around 150 DB, you can see that the Welcome Aboard show had run within proper parameters. But as I said to Mr. and Mrs. Turnitdown if they sit directly under a speaker and you have sensitive ears and a hearing aid ……it’s going to be loud. I then led them to the center of the Showtime theatre and gave them some suggestions on where it might be the most comfortable to sit. I have to say though that as I often see here on the blog as well it appears that Mr. and Mrs. Turnitdown were not familiar with the words “please” and “thank you” and more on that in a moment.

I know that there were many bad things about living in the past such as the plague, crapping in a hole in the ground and no Megan Fox’s bottom to search for on the internet but there was one marvelous thing our ancestors had that we’ve lost ………….a nice bit of peace and quiet.

If you were a peasant wandering through the forest, you might have terrible teeth and absolutely no sense that the Earth was round, but at least there wasn’t much noise. No cell phones ringing, no thruster noise as you dock at a port, no flight paths, dishwasher beep or elevator Muzak, no tss-tss-tss Eye Pods or those bloody annoying cruise directors and their long-arsed announcements trying to sell you gold by the inch from the gift shops. No screaming Russian guests, just some birds tweeting and the occasional chomping noise as a caveman had his head bitten off by a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Not anymore.

The soundtrack to modern life is getting louder and more persistent. Even here on the ship the refrigerator in my cabin beeps at me if I leave it open for more than three seconds and the computers chirp and chime every time an email comes in and the phone rings and and and….

And when was the last time you could honestly say you sat down and read a book without some great, bellowing noise ruining your concentration? That’s why we must always have some areas on our shops with no music, no nothing, just the sound of the sea. Guests can also read and relax in the peace and quiet of their cabin where the announcements from that fat cruise director are never heard and where the phone never rings and where the only sound is the couple in the cabin next door having a massive session of rumpy pumpy……….the lucky bastards. But as I sit here this Tuesday morning in my underpants there is peace and quiet. It’s 6:45 am and the phone won’t ring and the raspberry won’t beep for at least another two hours and the only sounds in my cabin are the click, click, click of the keyboard and the gentle “wooommmpppphhh” of my arse.

Oh by the way, please don’t think of me as cruel but when I was talking to Mrs. Turnitdown she obviously had her hearing aid turned down a bit and I had to repeat myself once or twice so she could hear. Mrs. Turnitdown did all the talking while her husband said nothing, I wouldn’t mind betting he had been saying nothing for many years.

Anyway, I was explaining about the speakers and the volume and was in the middle of a sentence when Mrs. Turnitdown interrupted me to give me a lecture on how we at Carnival could learn from the theatre at their retirement community in Boca Raton, Florida. And it was as I stood in the Showtime theatre at 8:45am being shouted at by a lady who kept adjusting her hearing aid that I couldn’t help but think of Mrs. Richards. Who is Mrs. Richards……well let’s meet her shall we?

Time for some Q and A………..let’s go.

Linda Parsons Asked:
Hello John,

I am booked on the Carnival Dream the first week in December. My first and my other half’s ninth. It’s also our “honeymoon” trip. I was wondering about the weather around that time, mild or cool? Also wondered if there was some sort of water aerobics, or zumba/exercise done aboard ship? Thanks for looking at my question.

Linda Parsons

John Says:
Hello Linda Parsons

I am sure you are getting excited about your honeymoon cruise on your Carnival Dream and you will be happy to know that there will be Pilates, yoga and spin classes available at the Cloud 9 Spa on the ship. If you have any questions about these classes then please let me know as obviously I take them every day, seeing me in the down facing dog thingy is a treat let me tell you. The weather will be fine, certainly not cool but not as humid as the summer although it will be sun bathing and swimming weather for sure. All in all you will have a brilliant cruise and the perfect start to what I hope will be many happy years together.

Best wishes.
John

Michelle Fortson Asked:
We had a nice time on our Pride cruise but I was really surprised that there was nothing provided by Carnival and not one staff member came to our Meet & Greet. There were probably about 50 people who said they were coming and at least 40 showed up. Not a cookie or a glass of water was provided and not one person from the ship’s staff showed up. I have been to quite a few Meet and Greets (mostly on RCCL and NCL) and refreshments are always provided, usually some sort of souvenir and usually lots of people from the entertainment staff and the officers come and greet us and say a few words. We had the captain, cruise director and the heads of all the departments all saying something and telling us to contact them directly if we had any problems. They treat us Cruise Critic members like gold. (The power of the pen). I just think that that is poor customer relations on Carnival’s part.

John Says:
Hello Michelle Fortson

I am very glad to know that you had a great cruise on the Carnival Pride. Obviously I cannot comment about other lines but although we appreciate and respect that Cruise Critic is an important site for cruisers to discuss the pros and cons of cruising and to assist fellow readers with advice and assistance, we only provide a room when asked to arrange a meet and greet. I know the cruise director or a member of the entertainment staff will always try to attend if they can although it is rare that our captains will do so. I will continue to assist in arranging a room for these events and have the time and place mentioned in the Fun Times. I hope despite not having a cookie and a free souvenir that you had fun meeting your on-line friends.

Best wishes
John

Theresa Fecik Asked:
We are going on our third cruise on the Carnival Pride on April 8, 2012. This time, we are bringing our kids for the first time. I was wondering if they do anything special for Easter on the ship for the kids (and for the adults). I know this is a religious holiday so I am not expecting the Easter Bunny or anything. A choice of ham at dinner would be nice though.

Thanks,
Theresa

John Says:
Hello Theresa Fecik

Yes indeed there will be. Camp Carnival will organise a very special Easter egg hunt around the ship and there will be a superb Easter dinner as well in the dining room. I cannot promise religious services though but I can promise you will have a brilliant family cruise vacation.

Best wishes.
John

Glenda Asked:
My DH of 12 years and I will be joining the Spirit on Nov 4 for her 9 day cruise and want to reserve a table for two by the window. Our booking number is ******. John, we are both professional bridge instructors having done stellar work in this capacity for Holland America and also Crystal. Who do I need to talk to at Carnival to arrange complimentary cruises in return for professional bridge instruction and tournament organization? We run the Bridge Deck Club in Naples, Florida and your passengers would appreciate our services so please by return send me confirmation of our table for two requests and the contact information.

John Says:
Hello Glenda

We certainly do have bridge players on specific voyages such as Panama Canal and trans-Atlantic crossings, although it isn’t as popular as it is on Holland America and other lines. Thanks so much for offering your services but we actually use an agency for this already if and when we require bridge instructors. I have asked the maitre d on the Carnival Spirit to do his best to get you your table for two and I wish you both a brilliant time on the Carnival Spirit.

Best wishes.
John

Tracy Asked:
Dear John, (Please respond)

I have been a blog reader for well over a year, and first wanted to say that I love your blog and think its bloody brilliant! My fiancé and I just booked ourselves for Bloggers Cruise 5 on the Carnival Magic, and are very excited.  We are so looking forward to meeting you, and also are looking forward to Ron Pass (we just love him, too). We’ve cruised many times on several lines, but love the value and fun of Carnival. Since this is our first Bloggers Cruise, I was wondering if you can tell me when more information will be available on the bloggers events.  Specifically, I understand that there is a special bloggers excursion that is offered.  I usually plan all our excursions well in advance, but we would like to know what the bloggers option is before confirming everything else. And will you be participating in this excursion?  Any information you have would be appreciated. Thanks for everything you do to make most guests have a wonderful vacation (I know there are always some people who are never happy and can’t be pleased) don’t let the few get to you!

Thank you.
Tracy (Looking forward to March!!)

BTW – you mentioned Alaska cruises a few weeks ago – we went to Alaska this spring and it really was a trip of a lifetime – as much as I love the sun of the Caribbean, this was by far the best trip I’ve ever taken!

John Says:
Hello Tracy

I was thrilled to read that you have booked Bloggers Cruise 5 and both Ron and I will do all we can to make sure it is the best cruise ever. I will be working on the events in October but I can tell you there will be morning get togethers, tea times, private shows and much more. Then there will be a private excursion in Cozumel which although not confirmed just yet will probably be a beach event similar to the one we had on BC3 or was it BC2? Anyway, I will release details as soon as I can as I realise that many guests like to book in advance. I can tell you that it will be a brilliant cruise especially as we are holding it here on the Carnival Magic, a ship you will truly love. Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Best wishes to you both and see you soon.
John

Patricia Halverson Asked:

Hello John.

We are three women traveling on the Magic Oct 28 out of Barcelona. Could you tell me when can we take our suitcases to the port or how early can we take them the ship does not leave until 5 but if we have to be out of the hotel we would like to sightsee and do not know what we are going to do with our luggage. Thank you for all the good stories. Love Carnival — my 11th trip.

Pat

John Says:
Hello Patricia Halverson

It won’t be too long before you are here on the Carnival Magic. Unfortunately there is no checked luggage at the terminal, so you have two choices. First of all, you can come straight to the ship and check in as early as 10:30am. You can hand your luggage to the porters and then turn around and get a taxi to Las Ramblas and explore. You will still need to have your carry-ons with you though as there is nowhere to put them as the state rooms are not ready until 1:30pm. The other choice is to maybe pre-book a minivan taxi online and arrange them to collect you and your luggage from your hotel and then after touring bring you to the ship. Please remember the final check in time is 4 pm. Whatever you decide to do, I wish you a wonderful time and thanks for your loyalty to Carnival.

Best wishes.
John

Benedict Ashley Montgomery Asked:
Hi John,

How would you advise me to go about one of my career ambitions to become a cruise director? I attended a theatre school full time for seven years so have experience in entertainment. Keep up the fantastic blog as I said it does brighten up my day as I had a rough few years with people at school (thank God I’ve now taken my GCSEs) and now a brand new start.

Best wishes.

John Says:
Hello Benedict Ashley Montgomery

Thanks so much for the kind words about the blog and to get you started may I suggest you have a look at www.carnivalentertainment.com which has all the information about the job and how to apply for the position of entertainment staff. I hope your dreams come true and if there is anything else you think I can help you with, please let me know.

Best wishes.
John

Deena Goodman Asked:
John,

I’m cruising on the Spirit Oct 21 2011, The roll call on the CC site and myself have planned a door decorating contest and would like to run this over with the CD of the Spirit……..We have trophies and medals and honorable mention ribbons..And first prize ………bar coupon book …….. 2^nd……..photo coupon and 3rd soda coupon book… Was needing the CD’s assistance in getting the ballots out. Or do I just go to various venues on board and hand them out to the PAX? Please let me know the best way to handle this. Our medals are engraved with the ship’s name and date and will be given with a trophy and prize stated above.

Thank you.
Deena

John Says:
Hello Deena Goodman

Sounds like a fun event and I have sent this to the Carnival Spirit cruise director who will be in touch with you when you board. I am sure we can add a few prizes as well. Do you have a meet and greet arranged or would you like me to do this for you. Please let me know here or if possible through my Facebook page so I can get started on helping you. I hope you all have a wonderful time.

Best wishes.
John

That’s all for today and I will be back tomorrow with more.

OK, please join me in congratulating the winners of August’s employees of the month here on the Carnival Magic.

And as promised here are the new dessert menu rotations for the three- and four-day cruises.

So with the office closed yesterday for Labor Day, I haven’t had a chance to tell you who is sailing with us today so here is that information.

GUESTS                                 3721

FRENCH CANADIAN         411

RUSSIAN                              289

BRITISH                                328

SPANISH                               101

DUTCH                                  46

GERMAN                              44

So 411 French Canadians all of which will have their Fun Times translated into French…..by me. And as mentioned we only have 91 children. Now at this point I usually show you where we are going but today it’s a little different as you will see from this copy of the letter that every guest received when they boarded the ship.

 

September 4, 2011

Welcome fun seekers!

We’re excited to have you sailing with us aboard the beautiful Carnival Magic. We can’t wait to show you all the fun activities we have in store for you!  In the meantime, we just need a moment of your time to give you an update on our itinerary. 

Earlier this week, we sent you an email to make you aware of a potential general strike in Italy that could affect our scheduled itinerary. The strike will impact all Italian ports, and since major demonstrations are planned in the center of Rome, many streets will be closed off to traffic and all local transportation will be halted.

At this point, it appears that the strike will proceed as scheduled and in order for us to secure tours and berthing facilities; we have confirmed the alternate itinerary previously communicated.  

We will now visit the beautiful port of Marseilles, France on Tuesday, Civitavecchia on Wednesday, and Livorno on Thursday.  Although this means we are forced to cancel our scheduled call to Naples, these changes will enable us to avoid the anticipated disruptions this coming Tuesday in Rome.  Additionally, we will be able to provide you with a new port of call and still visit Rome and Livorno (where you can tour Pisa, Florence and Tuscany), which are two of the highlights for this cruise.   Below is our revised itinerary:

 

Day    Port of Call                        Arrive           Depart

Sun    Barcelona, Spain                                     5:00 PM                                  

Mon    Monaco                              9:00 AM          8:00 PM                         

Tue    Marseilles, France                  7:00 AM          4:00 PM 

Wed    Rome (Civitavecchia), Italy         9:00 AM      10:00 PM

Thu    Livorno, (Florence/Pisa), Italy     7:00 AM          6:30 PM                     

Fri Fun Day @ Sea 

Sat    Dubrovnik, Croatia                 10:00 AM         7:00 PM

Sun    Venice, Italy                       2:00 PM      Overnight                                                

Mon    Venice, Italy                      Overnight        7:00 PM

Tue    Fun Day @ Sea

Wed   Messina (Sicily), Italy             7:00 AM          4:00 PM

Thu    Fun Day @ Sea

Fri    Barcelona, Spain                    5:00 AM          

 

You’re going to love Marseilles, known for its stunning Mediterranean coastline and beautiful architecture. Enjoy the city’s natural beauty when you stroll along Marseille’s main street La Canabiere lined with cafes and attractive hotels. Be sure to visit the famous Notre Dame de la Garde Basilica, situated at the highest natural point in Marseilles. No matter what you do in this old city, you’ll be sure to leave with lots of beautiful memories as souvenirs. Reserve your fun tours for Marseilles, from the comfort of your stateroom through the interactive television or visit our shore excursions desk located on Lobby, deck 3 – forward.

Just one more thing…all pre-purchased shore excursions for Civitavecchia and Livorno will be automatically adjusted to the new day and time and tours purchased for Naples will be refunded to your on board Sail & Sign account.

We apologize for this change in plans and thank you for your understanding.  My officers, staff and crew are committed to providing you a FUN and magical cruise vacation.

See you on board soon!

Captain Salvatore Rassello
Carnival Magic

So, a general strike in Italy means that today we are in Marseilles instead of Rome. What they are striking about I am not sure. It could be money, conditions of work or that Italian men should have the right to slap any woman’s bottom they want to without fear of prosecution, who knows. What I do know is that many thousands of demonstrators will be in Rome today and therefore we canceled the port. So, we will be in Rome tomorrow where unlike today the major attractions will be open and the trains and buses will be operating as normal. Unfortunately this has meant we have had to sacrifice one of the ports and that port is Naples. If it wasn’t Naples it would have been Dubrovnik or indeed Rome itself but after much discussion we decided it should be Naples. At my welcome aboard orientation talk I explained that we could return to Naples on the sea days as we would be much further north and overall everyone seems to have accepted the change. However, as normal there are exceptions and here are two for you to read now.

Guest: Mrs ————-Ref: 871098227A
Cabin: **** Booking#: ******Added-Changed: 09/04/11 – 09/04/11
Guest called the GSD to say how upset she was that we were canceling the port of call of Naples. Mrs_______ states that the only reason she booked this cruise was to go to Naples. Guest is asking for compensation.

Guest: Mrs ————-Ref: 8912541274A
Cabin: **** Booking#: ******Added-Changed: 09/03/11 – 09/03/11

Mr and Mrs______approached the desk to explain that they had arranged to visit their cousins in Naples who they had not seen in 18 years. Guest wants Carnival to arrange free transfer to Naples from Livorno.

So, overall we only had a dozen or so comments, although there was disappointment that we had canceled Naples. However, let’s look again at the two above starting with the first one and here let’s play a game. I will type out a sentence and you fill in the blank. If the only reason you took this cruise was to go to Naples then why didn’t you __________. And demanding compensation for this is a load of_____________.

See, you didn’t need me did you?

One has to have a degree of sympathy though for couple number two who was looking forward to seeing their family whom they have not seen for 18 years. We won’t be providing free transportation although we have allowed them free phone calls to their family in Naples which because the couple are from Pennsylvania and speak no Italian and the family from Naples speak no English, Fredarica our Italian GSA did the talking.

So we will be in Rome tomorrow and today we are in Marseilles where the weather is lovely as it was yesterday in Monaco.

As you know I refer to the Carnival shoreside management as “beards.” Actually, the beards come in two categories. There are the senior beards led by Chief Executive Beard Gerry Cahill and then there are the techy beards who also eat tofu three times a day and worship at the altar of Apple. The beards are the men and women who will be shaping the future of your favourite cruise line. Many of them actually have facial hair and not just the men, but that’s a story for another day. And now I think I just may grow one too.

Shipboard crew is not allowed beards but I may say bollocks to the rules and turn my back on corporate rules and grow one. Johnny Depp did and everyone said he looked like a stud muffin, so then can I?  But there is another reason why I am going to let hair spring forth from my face. And that’s the price of sodding razor blades! Bloody hell, it’s pure robbery and is so expensive it would have Donald Trump saying “how much” to the shop assistant at Walgreens.

And while it’s expensive in the states, try buying them in Barcelona. I asked my assistant Mel to get me some Gillette Mach 3 Turbo blades for me and she came back saying I owed her 28 Euros, for four blades.  Four…….not 40……..but a lonely four. I could not believe it. So can someone explain to me then why razor blades probably cost about 50 cents each to make, but are so expensive to buy? Maybe they are so expensive as Gillette has to pay David Beckham millions of dollars to stand at a mirror shaving with a cucumber shoved down his underpants.

There are other things that cost so much to buy that I wonder why they can get away with such baffling sums of money. Batteries, sun lotion oh and bottled water that has been “flowing through the Swiss mountains for hundreds of years” yet costs ridiculous amounts and comes with a sodding sell by date!  But I can’t grow a beard because shaving is a manly thing. It is something that shows we are the stronger race that we are indeed………..men.

Or at least that’s what I thought until I discussed the outrageous price of Gillette razors with Calvyn. He told me that he uses the complimentary six packs of Venus disposable lady razors we place in the cabins. “They will do everything” he said. “Legs, armpits, they even tidy my downstairs shrubbery.”

Yep……….time to grow a beard.

Goodnight.

Your friend,
John

Now Bob is a great guy but he is no Ketut and he actually frowned when he came out of my bathroom yesterday and looked at me as though I had taken a huge number two and forgotten to flush the toilet — which, as it turns out, is exactly what I had done. And while this never used to bother Ketut, it bothers Bob obviously because as I sit here in my underpants he hasn’t been to clean my cabin yet. I guess I can manage without Ketut or Bob for a few days although actually it probably isn’t a good idea. The last time I led a bachelor lifestyle was way before Heidi when I rented my first ever flat (apartment) and it was always piled high with KFC buckets, discarded Diet Coke cans and scattered naughty Latvian magazines. I also had a toilet that was constantly blocked thanks to Colonel Saunders.  So it’s best then that Bob comes back.

Ketut also used to bring me breakfast when I asked for it and would go to Lido to get it for me and would return with eggs, bacon and sausage English-style which thanks to the large number of British guests on board we serve daily. Loads of grease in the morning…..mmmm. Bob refuses to do this for me and I had to ask Calvyn this morning to get me breakfast. It sounds lazy, and yes it is, but if I go and stand in line for breakfast on Lido I will still be there at lunch time answering questions. Yes, that’s my job and I do it when I can but with FB and blogs to write, the early mornings are valuable to me.

So I asked my co-morning show host and entertainment staff member Calvyn to get me breakfast as he was going to Lido anyway. And 45 minutes, later there was a knock at the cabin door. I was expecting Calvyn with my fry up and I could taste the grease on the bacon and the thick, slightly crispy sausages that dipped in my fried eggs would take my taste buds to heaven and back — except I couldn’t taste it because that’s not what was on the plate. You see Calvyn had decided not to bring me this but instead the total bastard had brought me yogurt, muesli, rye bread with seeds and other crap in it and a bowl of fruit.

I looked at him and said, “What’s this?” and Calvyn said, “It’s what I eat for breakfast” and we sat down to eat.  In Calvyn’s mind we were two cowboys sharing breakfast………..oh God, we recreating a scene from his favourite movie…………and it wasn’t Blazing Saddles.

Time for today’s Q and A……..off we go.

Brian Asked:
Hi John,

Could you please tell me what Carnival puts in the water/air/food or pillows that makes cruising so addicting? After three perfect cruises in the past two years and two more cruises booked for this winter, cruising is all I can think about on a daily basis. I know there must be something addicting on the ships because I need my fix within hours of disembarking and am usually looking for the next cruise before a week’s end. My coworkers have to listen to me talk endlessly about Carnival cruises and now they’re booking their own! Therefore, while I have never had the slightest complaint about anything or anyone on the ships I must tell you…and I’m sure many on the blog thingy will agree, my only complaint if I were a complainer, well two complaints actually, one is that the cruises are too short because I’d love to stay on board forever and be catered to like a king, and two, Carnival has made me an addict and I need to seek help……..or another cruise to relax (!!!)…….and John, you are enabling my addiction by posting on Facebook and keeping me informed. This is mostly your fault!!!  Thank you so much for what you do.  I am not a Facebook subscriber but I do read your blog daily. Please send a huge thank you to every crew member on every ship for all of their hard work.

John Says:
Hello Brian

Yesterday on Facebook I had a bit of a rant about a negative and cruel comment I had received which include a link to Cruise Critic that had some other comments of the same. I had a mate contact me called Steve who is a Cruise Critic reader and we discussed that there are times when I shouldn’t post links here that are just simply poisonous. And while I will always post most questions, in this case he was right and so I didn’t post it today. I tell you this because having just read that awful and vindictive post about Carnival and more importantly about some of the crew it was a true joy to read your post. I want to say therefore a huge thank you to you for the great words and I promise that we will continue to do our best to bring you the most affordable and most fun on the seven seas.

Best wishes and I hope we cruise together soon.
John

Leslie Asked:
John,

We were just on our fourth Carnival cruise on the Carnival Triumph and found the embarkation people in Louisiana to be curt and downright rude. New Orleans looked like it still had a long way to go before being close to recovery from Katrina and the streets were dirty as was the airport, as well. While we enjoyed the cruise our New Orleans experience was awful and Carnival needs to rethink moving the ships away from the slums of New Orleans and back to Mobile where a southern smile and courteous friendship is assured and promised.

John Says:
Hello Leslie

I was very surprised to read your comments about the embarkation experience in New Orleans and I certainly apologise that our staff did not meet your expectations and I will make sure the right people see your thoughts. As I said, I was surprised as it’s the first time I have read such a comment. New Orleans is one of our most popular ports – in fact, we’re adding a second ship there this fall and returning our capacity to pre-Katrina levels, something that we’re very excited about. Nevertheless, it seems that we have to improve and I will make sure that I pass along your comments to the appropriate people here at Carnival. I hope you had a wonderful cruise.

Best wishes.
John

Martha Dorries Asked:
I’m going to be sailing on the Carnival Glory in September and I have a special request. My daughter is a classically trained pianist and is attending Julliard. She needs to practice three hours every day even during our family cruise so she will need a grand piano and a private room in which to do so. Our cruise takes us on the Carnival Glory on September 10 and our suite number is 2377. I look forward to your immediate reply

John Says:
Hello Martha Dorries.

I have to admit that I had to ask Uncle Google what Julliard was all about and it seems that it is a very special school for very talented musicians so you must be very proud of your daughter. I see that you are sailing very soon so I have sent a request to the ship for your daughter to use one of the pianos on board. Now while this won’t be a problem she may have to be flexible with the times she can play and the piano is actually a baby grand not a full grand piano. I am sure we can work something out and I have asked the cruise director Josh to be in touch with you when you board. I hope you have a brilliant cruise.

Best wishes to you both
John

Doug Asked:
Hi John,

First, I love the blog thingy. Very funny and informative. I do have a question for you though, (BTW I’m pretty new to the blog so if you’ve already talked about this previously I apologize) you mentioned your family came to visit you while on the Magic recently.  My son and I were wondering……..how does it work when the family of the crew wants to visit their loved ones?  Do they stay in the crew member’s cabin? Does Carnival have special quarters available in the crew area?  Are they given one of the regular passenger cabins?  Do they have to pay for their trip?  For all the hard work you all do and all the time you spend away from your families, I hope Carnival goes out of their way to make a family visit very special.  Just curious.

Thanks!

John Says:
Hello Doug

Thanks for the kind words about the blog thingy and I hope that it continues to bring you some fun and some good information. Each crew member has the ability to bring family on the ship and depending on their time with the company and their position on board they can do so multiple times per year. But each crew member regardless of their position can, at least once, bring family on board. We all have to pay something but obviously it’s a reduced rate and is a great benefit for the crew. They have two ways of doing this. They can buy a category 1A inside cabin or if they have single quarters the family can stay with them. However, many crew won’t use this option simply because even though family may be on board, that crew member still has a job to do and doing that job and having family on board as well can be very tiring indeed. But the benefit is there and it’s an excellent one of many that Carnival offers our crew.

Best wishes.
John

Philip B Asked:
John,

There is a discussion on Cruise Critic (your nemesis) that is very interesting and it’s all about why we should tip the maitre d’s on the ships. I have sailed this year with NCL twice and with Carnival as well on the Carnival Pride. It’s only on Carnival that the pressure is on to tip the maitre d as it was mentioned in the cruise director’s video. This didn’t happen on NCL. The question is why should we tip the maitre d then? Do they not get paid a salary by Carnival?

John Says:
Hello Philip B

There was a similar question about this in the blog on Wednesday I seem to remember so let me recap what I said then. Every single Carnival employee is paid a salary by Carnival and some employees also receive tips. I think we have a brilliant group of maitre d’s and many make a difference to your time in the dining room. I mentioned some by name yesterday who I have worked with recently and there are others like Yusuf, Drasko, Claudio, Fernando, Jogi, Suresh, Shane, Ricardo, Mersin and others spring to mind. There are many other excellent ones whose names for now escape me and many guests have their favourites. Some are funny, some are crazy and full of energy and some sing and one or two even dance. But it’s far more than that. They provide the ambience in the dining room and they set the tone. They should also, whenever possible visit as many of the tables as they can although as the ships get ever bigger that is not always possible. Tipping the maitre d is standard in the cruise industry and it’s no different to any other tipping position and that is simple. If you have enjoyed them and they have made a difference then yes, please tip. However, from what I have seen in recent years, most of you do.

Best wishes.
John

Jay Farrow Asked:
Your weight loss or lack of it as the case may be seems to be a subject that is open for discussion and so I thought as I am cruising with you on September 4 on Carnival Magic that I would hope you would allow me to sit with you and talk about my experiences. One year ago I weighed 430 pounds and today one year and three weeks later, I weigh 290 and by this time next year I will weigh 150 pounds which is my target weight. John, your life will change and I can help you change it. Please allow me some time with you next cruise and I will help you turn from an obese man with no self esteem to a man proud to walk out on your stage looking good and feeling fantastic. I am sailing with my partner and we would like a table for two. Our cabin number is 6232 but we are hoping to get upgraded. Please give me the time John, an hour or more with me could prolong your life by many years.

John Says:
Hello Jay Farrow

Many congratulations on your amazing weight loss and how your life must have changed because of it. My current weight is 50 pounds more that I would like but slowly, slowly I am losing the weight. I look forward to meeting you and although I can promise you a set time I look forward to shaking your hand and telling you congratulations in person and wishing you a brilliant cruise. I have asked the maitre d for a table for two.

Best wishes.
John

Kat Walker Asked:
Hey John

I’m writing for your expert advice. The Med is on my bucket list and Carnival Breeze has been added as well.  What is the best month to visit for weather? We are from Florida so don’t wanna do hot and sticky. Also flying is a stickler for hubby — how long is the flight from Miami or Lauderdale and what airline could you suggest?? We are going on our 20th cruise September 18 out of Tampa on the Carnival Legend and cannot wait to be sailing again!!!! Thank you for putting a smile on my face daily and some laughter in my heart when I read your blogs…

John Says:
Hello Kat Walker

I think cruising the Med should be on everyone’s bucket list and I am excited to see it on yours. Temperatures in July and August are similar to Florida although for the most part it is less humid. My favourite months here are June and September and those will be warm in the day with temperatures around 70 degrees and around 65 at night…..perfect. The flight to Barcelona is around nine hours and many of the U.S.-based carriers have direct flights. I would recommend if you can to arrive one or two days before so you can see some of beautiful Barcelona. I wish you the most wonderful time on the Carnival Legend and if you have any other questions please let me know and I truly hope to see you on the Carnival Breeze next year.

Best wishes.
John

Gillian Asked:
The cruise on the Carnival Fascination was good. It was our first and we got the table for four that we asked you to get. The food was good and the shows were too but the problem was that the shower cubicle was too small and I didn’t fit in M114 shower. There should be larger showers for big people. I was also surprised by the lack of entertainment for African Americans and that there was nobody trained to do my hair in the salon. We are looking to book on the Carnival Fantasy next as we are from North Carolina.

John Says:
Hello Gillian

I know that the showers can be a bit of a tight squeeze for extra medium people like me so my apologies if it was a bit of a squeeze. I am not sure what voyage you were on so I can’t look at who the comedians were when you sailed but I would hope that the shows had something for every guest despite their ethnic background. I will certainly pass on your comments to the spa team and my apologies that this happened. I am though very happy to see that the table I helped arrange was reserved for you and most of all that you had fun and you will be returning again soon. You will love the Carnival Fantasy and the fact that it is close to home. Please let me know if you have any other questions before you cruise again.

Best wishes.
John

Estelle Asked:
Hi John,

First let me say I love reading your blog. We will be sailing on the Carnival Dream May 12, 2012 and this will be our sixth cruise with Carnival. We are booked in a cove balcony. I have been reading the reviews for the Carnival Dream and I would like to know if you can tell me how much the ship rocks. From what I am reading it appears to be a lot. We love Carnival. If you can let the right person know we book with Charlene in the Miami office every time we cruise and she is wonderful. Well keep up the good work.

Thanks,
Estelle

John Says:
Hello Estelle

I have seen this comment before and I wonder where it comes from because I spent two months on the Carnival Dream and don’t remember her moving anymore than any other ship. Please don’t worry and I can promise you that you will truly love your cove balcony and that the month of May should assure you great cruising weather. Enjoy the close to the water view and if you have any other concerns please let me help you. Thanks so much for those kind words about the blog.

Best wishes.
John

Lawrence Asked:
Carnival should have singles cruises. I went on the Carnival Freedom and it was full of old people that ruined my cruise because they were all boring and old and there was nobody in the nighclub. Do you do singles cruises?

John Says:
Hello Lawrence

While we have singles groups sail with us we don’t have a ship or a specific cruise dedicated to single guests. Carnival carries the most varied cross section of people than any other cruise line and I am sorry that the nightclub was not busy during your cruise. I don’t know how old you are but I would mention that spring break on certain ships will be busy with many younger single singles people you may enjoy sailing at that time.

Best wishes.
John

That’s all for today.

Every now and then I am asked for a recipe over on Facebook and the latest request is for one of our wonderful pasta dishes that I remember the lady who asked for it said was a dish her kids raved about and wanted Mum to cook at home. So thanks to Executive Chef Peter…….you can. Here it is:

OK, time for a special guest blog from Carnival’s 359th best comedian Mr. Al Er……..oh hold on. I have just been told we have hired a new comedy show where a lady with a terrible gas problem farts Abba songs on stage while her service dog tap dances alongside her………so here then is a special blog from Carnival’s 360th best comedian………..Mr Al Ernst.

The E Man’s Top Nine Comics! David Letterman does a top ten list, there are lists everywhere.

 

After 21 years in the business, I thought I would give you my top nine comedians or funniest entertainers.  Why? Because it is different than the standard list of 10, and my favorite sport is baseball, so I thought I would do them by position. The most asked question by others:  Who makes you laugh? I have never done a list, but I thought in honor of this anniversary maybe I did have a few favorites. To be honest, I hardly ever watch Comedy.  It is my passion, but I really think that you cannot be your best unless it comes from you. But there are some people I have seen, come across, or worked with that have genuinely made me laugh. I am sure I am forgetting someone, and it is a flexible list, but here we go.

 

Right Field: Louis CK  Just caught him on a channel flipping night on Conan. Clearly the funniest comic working at present.

 

Left Field: Billy Crystal  Enjoyed him more in movies than stand-up. Watch the movie titled Mr. Saturday Night, he wrote, directed, and produced. This is as close to a real life career comedian that has ever been done.

 

Center Field: John Heald  Yes, it may seem like I am kissing up here but there is not an entertainer on this planet that has the sense of stage and comic timing.  When I write for him, his material is pretty good too. Most of you know John is the top cruise director for Carnival. I have watched, and shared a stage with him.  He is a real talent.

 

First Base: Jay Leno  I worked with Jay on a number of shows in the 1990s when he was hot on Letterman.  I am not about the politics or the interview skills, but a pure stand up and a writer, and a guy who can deliver a perfect joke……well, he is the best.

 

Second Base: Bill Cosby  He is a storyteller.  He is able to take the hardest audience, and does the thing that is most important in the business…bring the crowd to him, and not pander to them.

 

Short Stop: George Carlin  He got a little bitter late in his career, but he is a guy who wrote all his own stuff, and had a unique style that worked for him.

 

Third Base: Johnny Carson  Showing my age here, but those of you who remember him, knows that he made funny out of saying nothing.  He could take the hokiest material and make it funny by the audience NOT laughing.

 

Catcher: Richard Pryor  Probably goes without saying; many people were offended and laughing at the same time. No one gives him the credit he deserves for doing stories and not just jokes.

 

Pitcher: Steve Martin  This man has forgot more talent than any 100 comics will ever have.  He walked away from actual stand up, because he said all he could. He wrote movies, stories, books, musical talent.  It is just amazing.

 

Yes, I know, if you are reading this, you have come up with at least 20 others. I probably would have a different list tomorrow. The only southern comic that I would list as honorable mention is Ron White. I also stayed with celebrities. One day I will give you a list of the funniest comics you never heard of.  Of course, I did not include myself on the list, because I am one of a kind!

Make sure you continue to laugh…and send me any well wishes or presents you might like to honor the fact that I have stayed out of jail, out of debt, and away from a day job for 21 years.

 

Al Ernst

Thanks Al and I think you know that you are the people’s choice and continue to be one of most requested and laugh-out-loud funniest comedians and I am truly humbled by your kind words. Hope you get to see Al perform soon…..you will recognise him as he will have a small brown patch on his nose.

This cruise has been excellent and it’s hard to believe that the next time I write a blog, it will mark the start of my last cruise for a while as CD of this Carnival Magic. There will be plenty of time to reminisce I am sure and next cruise we have the potential strike in Italy which should make it interesting and I, of course, will be reporting about it live on my blog and on Facebook.

During these hectic days on the Carnival Magic when most days I am working 15 to 17 hours a day I often pause and look forward to the time when life is simply my big leather recliner, a cigar, a plasma TV, a nap and a rumpy pumpy dream about Megan Fox’s you know what. Right now, though, I spend most of my time on this bloody computer. It’s one big blur…….200 e-mails here, a need a bigger thingy there, Facebook, check Mr. Arison’s twit, a Viagra sale, check the headlines, check the e-mail again, log off, log on……..when will it end?

Well never……not even as we get older. That’s because it appears that even Holland America is giving the greatest generation a chance to become computer savvy. They have teamed up with Microsoft to provide Texpert classes and I have a guest here on the Carnival Magic who was telling me that he recently sailed on a HAL ship and who thought these classes were amazing. He tells me he can now use the internet and send e-mails and log onto www.latvianwomenlookingforsugardaddies.com and he was disappointed we didn’t have similar lessons here. By the way, the guest was in his late 70′s which I found fascinating.

This being Friday’s blog, I will try and stay away from the heavier subjects of seat saving and hurricanes and concentrate more on ………well me. Now because Ketut is in bed with a man cold or underpantitus or whatever he has I have pretty much had to fend for myself and last night I discovered my refrigerator was bare and I was out of bottled water. And so I traveled down to deck 0 to the crew lounge. This is where the hard working men and women unwind after cleaning the cabins, serving and cooking the food and the rest of the crew go to relax. There is a large bar, a huge giant TV, foosball, darts and more. There is also a table tennis table. Now as I may have mentioned before I have the sporting skills of a drunken penguin but I do love a game of ping pong. And as I entered the crew lounge I saw that the table was empty and there were very few crew members around and so I asked Calvyn who was with me if he wanted a game.

Now, I admit here and now that I asked Calvyn for a game because…..well……..because I thought I could beat him. And I admit that I thought I could beat him because he is …… ummmm ……… well extra medium like me and that in my mind I expected him to have the athleticism of Rosanne Barr. And so we played.

And before I knew it the score was 2 to 9 and I was losing big time. How was this possible? It’s my job to be better than him as I am his boss and the athletic equivalent of Richard Simmons was kicking my arse.

Then it was 2–10 and then soon 3–11. I stopped the game and pointed to my suit and work shoes and the fact that my opponent on the other side of the table had casual clothes and something called TOMS which he wears with everything and I mean everything and he wears them all day everyday and sniff one and you will either think you’re in Paris or you will faint.

Anyway, I was at a disadvantage and so I told Calvyn to wait and I am ashamed to say I was now taking this game so seriously that I went back to my cabin, changed into a T-shirt, sweat pants and my Michael Jordans. Then I went outside on deck 5, took some deep breaths and came back a new man. I may have even been growling a bit shouting “Come on you fat tub of lard, come on, don’t let Lurch beat you.” I returned to the crew bar to find that there were now many more crew in there and all were waiting for me to finish my game so they could play and they were all waiting to see who would win.

It was my serve and using my special sliced double action deep back spin serve I sent it right into his chest and it spun away of the edge of his bat. “Yes!!!” I shouted, punching the air, my face contorted as though in the process of pushing out last night’s stubborn dinner. And the game continued and I smashed the ball at one point so hard it hit Calvyn in the head and this gave me great pleasure and I danced around the table like a man possessed. It was now 19 to 20 with Calvyn leading…..first to 21 wins.

My life hung in the balance. If I messed up, I would have lost to my assistant and I would have lost to my friend and I would have lost to someone who listens to Cher. I focused. I coughed and snorted the sludge from my nose onto the crew lounge floor trying to get as much oxygen into my lungs as I could. Tension was everywhere, the entire crew lounge was watching. I gripped my bat more tightly. Calvyn served. The ball came, I sent it back, and then Calvyn returned it to me with some height. This was my chance. I concentrated on the white ball as it came toward me; my whole world was focused on smashing back as hard as I could to take the game to a tie. I arched my body like a coiled tiger ready to spring and then “BANG” I smashed the ball back to Calvyn’s side. And it missed the table completely and instead flew past, hitting Patel the soup cook in the side of the head.

It was over. I had lost. The crew applauded, some laughed. I had been beaten by the man with ridiculously long arms and posture that would make Quasimodo look straight. There are many days when I feel old but last night was the worst. I ache this morning and I have had to endure Calvyn’s taunts as he reminds me that he beat me. Even crew who were not there are pointing and laughing that the senior cruise director and brand ambassador was beaten at table tennis by someone who looks like Barbara Streisand. That’s why while the ship was in Palma De Majorca today I demanded a lunchtime rematch. And he beat me again. Bugger.

Goodnight

Your friend
John

One such incident involves Michael Jackson and a joke made by one of the comedians that upset a guest so much that she walked out of the Spotlight Lounge on Promenade Deck aft and went all the way forward and down to deck 3 and at 11:45pm she made a complaint that the joke had been racist. And so this morning I had to talk to the guest who was African American as indeed was the comedian who had told it during his uncensored show which means the comedians often make some outrageous jokes. The fact that it is an uncensored show is well documented and announced clearly by the show’s emcee so there was no doubt that the guest was attending a show that would be R-rated with adult material.

The comedian involved is one of our very funniest and one who gets more rave reviews than most. His show includes jokes and observations on rumpy pumpy, getting old, all the bodily functions and political humor as well as this one particular Michael Jackson joke. I know many of you are asking “What was the joke, John”……well this is one that can only be told in a comedy club environment and not here on the blog. So I spoke to the lady in the lobby this morning and appropriately we are in Naples and Mount Vesuvius was in the background because this lady was erupting her anger all over me. I explained that the show was uncensored but she didn’t want to know and told me that it was wrong to make fun of the dead and that the joke was racist. Anyway, long story short. She’s mad, I said sorry, she walked away still mad, she gets fruit. The end.

By the way, one footnote to this. As you know we have a new Carnival Legends show here on Carnival Magic and it is brilliant and I hope it gets around to the rest of the fleet as soon as possible. The new characters and the new dancing with the cast section have breathed new life into a show that was (is) getting a bit tired. However, while we have multiple signups for Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner, Shania Twain, Neil Diamond etc…….we have on the three occasions we have done the show only had one person sign up for Michael Jackson and each time they have been…..ummmm………well, let’s just say they were sponsored by ThirstyFrog Red and have provided a certain comedy element to the show. I wonder why we have no one sign up to sing Billie Jean. My guess is that MJ is virtually impossible to impersonate because of his incredible dancing and singing ability, not to mention that his voice was truly one of a kind and unless you trap your thingy in the fly of your pants, you are never going to sound like he did. And now — it’s laundry time.

Miss_____Ref: 84810775231A Owner: (——————
Cabin: ———– Booking#: ****** Added-Changed: 08/28/11 – 08/28/11

THEFT FROM LAUNDRY

Miss ——–reported that three pairs of under garments and one blouse had been stolen from the guest laundry. Guest had put in her washing and came back 40 minutes later to find her clothes had been taken out and other clothes of another guests were in the machine. Security has been tasked.

Now, let’s examine this shall we? First of all it is unbelievable that another guest would come into the laundry, stop the machine, make sure no other guest is watching, take out the laundry and walk off with it. Surely this is a mistake right? Maybe they went to the wrong deck and thought they were at the place where their laundry is. Or of course we have 800 kids on board ……… a juvenile prank maybe. Oh hold on, I just had a thought. We also have 140 French on board and they are ladies underwear that is missing……maybe Pierre is in his cabin standing in front of the mirror saying “Sacre blue – mon derriere looks formidable in these oha oha oha.”

I should put a pair of my underpants in the guest laundry and see if any sod takes them. I think we all know the answer to that. And if they did steal them they would find their way back to me ……I have homing underpants. We will solve the case of the missing silk underwear and have called in the help of the Italian Police, Interpol, the CIA, the FBI ……..and of course Calvyn.

Time for today’s Q and A…………here we go.

Denise from Ft. Lauderdale Asked:
Hi John!

We are sailing on October 30, 2011 on the Carnival Valor, which is our ninth Carnival cruise. We are excited about celebrating Halloween on the ship.  We have our costumes ready. It appears that on Halloween, October 31 is also formal night.  My question is, do we wear our costumes for dinner?  I say yes, thinking the wait staff will be wearing costumes, but my husband says no, we should put our costumes on after dinner.  Can you help us answer this question?

A HUGE Carnival fan,
Denise

John Says:
Hello Denise from Ft. Lauderdale

I am glad to see that you are a “HUGE Carnival fan” and that is great news indeed. Halloween has become a big celebration for us over the past few years and it will be the same again this year. The elegant night is indeed on the 31st and I doubt (although I am not 100% certain) that the ship will change that so as in previous years yes, you and many other guests will wear their costumes to dinner. I will be posting the Halloween schedule for the entire fleet as soon as I have it. Have a great time.

Best wishes.
John

Bernard Berry Asked:
Hi John.

Don’t really have a question, just wanted to say my June 24 cruise was my best cruise ever.  Thank you and your staff for allowing my wife and I to experience for a week what it feels like to be famous. It was a first for us and it was awesome.  What a fun concept. We are still enjoying the perks we received. We have another cruise scheduled out of Port Canaveral September 17 on Carnival Dream and we know that it won’t top our Carnival Magic cruise. We still are looking forward to it and will continue to choose Carnival for all our future cruises. Keep the new ships coming. You are the best. Thanks again!

Bernard and Carolyn Berry

John Says:
Hello Bernard

How brilliant that you wrote and brilliant describes your performance in the WIN show. Thanks so much for spreading your joy and cheer to the other guests and it was an honour to share the stage with you. I wish you a brilliant time again on the Carnival Dream and I hope that we will get to be together in future cruises as well. I will send my colleague Butch a note for you when you board.

Best wishes to you both.
John

Robert Chadband Asked:
We are sailing on the Magic on September 25 and need you to help us. We are celebrating our 41st Anniversary with our daughter and son-in-law. Would you get us a table for 4 and a window table for our special cruise? We have sailed on five Carnival cruises before but have never had a window table!!!! Also one of your special anniversary gifts would be nice!!!!!!!!! Here are the details.

Robert and Melissa Chadband in state room 1399

Anthony and Rebbeca Rosetti in state room 1407

We cruised with you on the triumph and thought you were fun.

John Says:
Hello Robert Chadband

It is always nice to see families cruising together and I will certainly ask Ken the maitre d’ to do his best to assist you with your table. I am sure we can get you a table for four but although he will try I can’t promise that it will be right next to a window. I will send you something for your anniversary and wish you all a wonderful time here on the Carnival Magic.

Best wishes.
John

Suzann L Asked:
I didn’t get a comment card for some reason so I would like to say that the waiter I had on my July 7 cruise on the Carnival Inspiration was the best I have ever experienced in my 18 cruises, seven of which have been with Carnival. His name is Manni and his smile and welcoming nature made our cruise so wonderful. My daughter has special needs and not comfortable around strangers but she took to Manni immediately and still talks about him every day. Carnival has in Manni someone who should be recognized as being the difference between a good cruise and one that will never be forgotten. John I would be thankful if you would pass this to Manni and show his line manager as well.

John Says:
Hello Suzann L

What a brilliant post and one that warms the heart when read. It is indeed crew like Manni who can make such a difference and you cannot imagine how proud he will be when he sees this. I will as requested make sure the shipboard and shoreside managers see these words of praise which I thank you sincerely for taking the time to write.

My best wishes to you and the family.
John

Christiane Gagnon Asked:
Hello John,

I am booked on the Carnival Magic Sept 4. We are really looking forward to this trip. I read on your blog about the itinerary change on the Carnival Magic this week. We have done 15 cruises and I work in logistics planning. Would it not have been better for everyone to just miss a port rather than change all ports around? I know that this had to be a lot of work for Carnival to re-schedule tours. And I appreciate the work Carnival did for passengers on private tours (you did not have to do it, but I am sure it was appreciated. However, in the future, I think skipping the one port is a better decision. Looking forward to meeting you in six weeks.

CGinMTL

John Says:
Hello Christiane Gagon

It’s an interesting question indeed. We discussed this in depth and decided that giving everyone the ports they had flown many miles to experience was the best option by far even though as you mentioned it created a lot of work for us on board. The fact that the ports are for many as important as the ship when booking the cruise was also taken into consideration as this is defiantly destination cruising. The concerns in Italy especially are always there. The feedback we received from the guests when we did the port change was positive even though as you know from the complicated work you do, logistically, it was difficult indeed. I look forward to seeing you soon.

Best wishes and get ready for a great cruise.
John

Michael Chaffin Asked:
John I have noticed over the last few years all staterooms are warmer especially in the middle of the night. Is this a cost savings measure or is my luck of the draw of rooms just bad? I have had maintenance check and they will say the temperature falls in the acceptable range, any idea what that might be.  Thanks can’t wait to sail with you again.

John Says:
Hello Michael Chaffin

Good question. Certainly we don’t turn the air up in the night as a cost saving measure that I can assure you. However there is no doubt that some ships are colder than others and certainly some individual cabins are, as well. Take the ship I am on now, the Carnival Magic. We have certain logs that we keep on board and last cruise we had eight air conditioning complaints about 1,845 cabins and five were that it was too hot and three that it was too cold so go figure. Yet, it’s the same AC system that controls them all and guests have the same thermostat control that allows them to adjust the temperature accordingly. So I guess the answer is I don’t know, maybe it is just personal preference as to how you like the temperature in your cabin. I hope this answers your question and I hope we cruise together again soon.

Best wishes
John

EPH Asked:
Mr. Heald.

It is unlikely in the extreme that I ever again take a Carnival (and maybe any other) cruise. I have written to Cruise Critic and placed my full review there as I think it is important that others know about me experiences and so I have added this to Cruise Critic. I trust Carnival knowing this will act accordingly. While the personnel were cordial, respectful and hard-working, many were improperly informed and inadequately trained. For one shore excursion (Belize) I was twice sent to improper departure assembly points on the ship. Finally, after some aggressive inquiry, I did find the correct place in time, but it was an unnecessary and unpleasant experience. A planned (and paid) excursion on Grand Cayman was missed when I used my telephone for a waking alarm as I often have. The phone time was correct with ship time when I went to sleep but was changed to later when I was awakened, and I missed the trip. Unknown to me, the time was reset by connection to a cell tower on shore when the ship approached port. Had I been advised of this possibility, I would have been on time for the excursion and the tour company refused to refund my money which is Carnival’s fault……. This was also the first time, in my many overseas travels, when postcards I mailed did not arrive in the US. They were mailed with stamps purchased on the ship and were left in a mail drop which was to be mailed from our current port. Overall the crew was pleasant, but apparently not capable of being very helpful.

John Says:
Hello EPH

Thank you for taking the time to write and I am so sorry that the cruise experience was not what you had hoped for. I know that these days cell phones can and will reset automatically to local time if that function is not turned off and obviously that is what happened with your phone and why you missed the tour. I also have to say that while I understand your frustration in missing the excursion, yours is the first such comment I have ever seen. I am not sure why your postcards did not reach their destination. The cards are given from the guest services desk to our port agent (we have one in each port that looks after us) and they then post it from the local post office. I am sorry that yours did not make it home. I am glad you found the crew “pleasant” and I wish I knew what ship you had been on as it could have been one of two that goes to the ports mentioned. I hope that you will look back at the value for money the cruise provided and the fun you hopefully had and that we will see you again.

Best wishes.
John

Larry W Asked:
Hi John

Please can you tell me when the new CD schedule will come out. I don’t want to be mean but I am really wanting to book a cruise in January on the Carnival Legend but need to make sure a certain cruise director is not there as if I hear her voice over the PA I think I will go mad.

Thanks.

John Says:
Hello Larry W

I will have the new schedule out in three weeks and will post it here on the blog thingy. I am sure you will be happy. Hope you book that cruise and let me know if you have any other questions

Best wishes.
John

William D. Starks Asked:
On our last cruise I was impressed on how the Platinum guest was treated.  We really didn’t expect to be treated so great. We thought it was just something in print.  Sorry to say that our next cruise in 2012 will be with RCL.  I have no choice in this matter but we will be back to Carnival after that.  We love Carnival.  So don’t hold it against us for going with RCL in 2012.

Your friend William

John Says:
Hello William D. Starks

Absolutely not. I wish you a wonderful vacation and we will be here to say welcome home the next time you return to carnival. Thanks for the kind words and for your loyalty………..mostly

Seriously, have a great vacation and hope to see you soon.

John

That’s all for today.

So, tradition has it that when our ships have been built a coin is placed into a glass box and welded somewhere on the ship. Many of you have had fun finding these coins and have had photos taken with them If that someone is you then you better have a look at this:

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=226691564050079

So send in those photos of you and the coins and if you are cruising soon then have hunt for the coin and send us your photos.

OK, I know there are certain subjects that probably have some of you going, “Oh no, here goes the fat idiot again.” Dress code is one and so is tipping and of course my dislike for anything French. There is another one though that I need to talk about again because I am getting frustrated and in fact I know you are too. Yep, it’s time to wheel out the seat-saving/chair- hogging subject once again.

These past two cruises we have had 4,500 plus guests on board including many families and for the first time this European season, we have had multiple sea days. And with stunning Mediterranean weather, suffice to say we have had some issues with deck chair saving. There is good news though and that is the pilot system we have started here on our adult only Serenity deck and I can tell you that it works absolutely perfectly. We haven’t re-invented the wheel here. What we are doing is simply enforcing the 30-minute rule wherein if any chair is left for more than 30 minutes, the item is removed by the deck stewards and kept safely until the guests return.

It looks like this system for the Serenity area is working because we have signs there plus it is well advertised in the Capers and …..bugger……..the Fun Times and guests understand and comply. Honestly, we don’t have a problem there and have received no complaints at all. The system works.

Now it works though because it’s a smaller area and we have the crew to monitor and enforce the 30-minute rule. But the vastness of the open decks on 10 and 11 and all around the Lanai on deck 5 that equal hundreds upon hundreds of chairs……..well simply and honestly we can’t do it. We just can’t. And after much discussion with the hotel director, guest services manager and the housekeeping manager we have decided we cannot make promises that we cannot keep. And so while we say in writing and in a scrolling message on the Seaside Theatre Big Screen and in my announcements that seat saving is not allowed, the 30 minute rule has been removed because it is something that we are not able to do. We just don’t have the numbers of staff working on deck. You may think of that as an excuse but it’s not. It’s the truth. The end.

There are, though, other points to mention here and one of those is the blatant disregard by guests who ignore what we ask and plonk towels, books, shoes, children and goats on the chairs as early as 7 am. Take yesterday for example. Normally on the first day of a nine-day cruise we are in Monaco but this cruise as there is no pier available we had a day at sea. So at 8:10am I walked across deck 10 to Lido to get some breakfast and at least 80 percent if not more of the chairs had towels on them, etc. Then at 8:30am after my delicious bowl of All-Bran and some scrambled eggs, I walked down to Deck 5 on The Lanai and at least 50 percent of those had towels and shows and stuff on them as well.

And so I made another announcement on the PA system late that morning and on the Morning Show but I know already that it will make bugger all difference. What has made it even more difficult here on Carnival Magic is the large number of Europeans we have on board and for the Germans, Dutch and British, getting to the chairs first is surely a few years away from being an Olympic sport. But the towel wars have a new champion here on the ship………the Russians. It looks like they have found a way to outsmart everyone by laying their towels in the early hours of the morning after apparently returning from the Vibe dance club and then heading to bed at 5 am.

So what’s the answer? Well I didn’t know the answer to this the last time I wrote about it and I doubt I will have any idea when I write about it again. There may be those who will say that RNL or NCR cruise lines don’t have this problem but that’s bollocks because they do. Any cruise ship and indeed any hotel that has 3,000 people staying there has this problem and until guests stop reserving chairs and realise it is not good manners to do so I expect it will remain a problem for many years to come.

On a lighter note, my first job was working in an office. It was a summer job, I was 16. I filed bits of paper and if I looked out of the window in the morning I had bugger all else to do in the afternoon. Going to work was a simple business. I would arrive through something called a “door,” punch-in something called a “card” through a “clock” and settle down for 10 or 12 hours of total boredom, breaking off only to eat my cheese and tomato sandwiches my Mum had made or to be beaten about the head by my merciless boss, a dragon lady called Peggy. She had a mole on her face from which sprang four long grey hairs that begged to be cut, trimmed or simply burnt off. So there I sat, at my desk. I had a chair, some files and ………well, that was it.

Indeed when I first started as a cruise director on the Carnivale, my desk looked pretty much the same. There was a chair that because the previous Cruise Director Brett Allen’s was a magician and therefore had the obligatory magician’s parrot, was covered in green dollops of bird crap. And indeed so was most of the cabin. On my desk there were only two things. A telephone which had been there since 1953 when the Carnivale was called the Empress of Something and was so heavy that you had to be an Olympic weightlifter to pick it up. The only other thing on my desk back in 1990, was a typewriter.

You see that’s how we used to do the Carnival Capers. Yep, we did them on a typewriter. I would type out what was happening such as:

2 pm……..Massive Huge Jackpot Bingo with a Prize of $25……….Mardi Gras Lounge

3 pm…….The Sexy Beer Drinking Wet T-Shirt Pillow Fighting Contest……Lido Deck. 

Then I would have to type out the meal choices as:

Lunch on Lido Deck. Hamburgers, Hot Dogs With Or Without Cheese………….Lido Deck.

Then, when I had typed these things out I would take a pair of scissors, cut the bit out, coat the back of it with some glue and, pausing only to squash another cockroach with my shoe, I would stick the paper on a legal size piece of blank white paper. To do this for a whole day’s worth of Capers would take me two hours at least and considering I had never used a typewriter in my life before I can honestly say my Capers were dreadful. Really, really dreadful.

But life was much simpler back then. I had my typewriter, the antique phone and a squashed cockroach on my desk. But today as I look at my desk here on the Carnival Magic I can’t believe how things have changed. Here’s what’s on my desk now.

So that’s:

• One desk top computer and hard drive and speakers.
• A Huge PA system in the wall
• A Walkie Talkie
• A Lap Top
• An Eye Pad – more on that later
• A Calculator
• A ship’s internal cell phone
• A Raspberry
• A Flip Video camera
• Various Crap

Look at this desk and you would think it belongs to an accountant or someone who works for the CI sodding A. But some people with beards will say, “Stop moaning you fat tub of lard. It’s called progress.” Well they may be right but talk to CDs like Steve Cassel and they will tell you how he would spend maybe two hours a day in the office and the rest walking the ship and hosting events. These days all cruise directors (myself very much included) get comments that say, “We didn’t see the CD anywhere except on stage.” Well that’s because the job has changed so so much. But that’s life and that is indeed progress.

Things have gotten so much more complicated over the years. Take computers and the requirement for usernames and passwords. This used to be manageable, requiring as it did little more than typing in a pass code or a phrase based on your love of Megan Fox’s bottom (ilovemegansbottom) or your random phrase (gerrycahillisastudmuffin).

However thanks to various tofu-eating bastards with beards the process of logging in to work is now as bloody difficult as trying to escape from Alcatraz. The last few days have been very busy for me what with a ship to run and trying to keep up with all the hurricane changes so I can keep you all updated over on Facebook. Therefore the last thing I needed was Mr. And Mrs. IT Beard informing me that password policy was changing and that our office and cabin computer passwords must now be eight characters long, contain a letter in upper case, a letter in lower case, a number, and character thingy ………e.g. ?, *, %, $. Oh FFS!

Meaning that “Bollockstothefrench or “servicedogmyarse” are no longer permissible and that even “Latvianwomen%4me*” will work only for a while as I am apparently required to change my password more often than I change my underpants.

So, there you go. Things were different and so much easier back then and while I miss those days I obviously appreciate email and communication devices that allow me to stay in touch with the girls. Would I swap anything now? Well, it’s nice not to sit in a chair covered in bird crap and I hated that typewriter but apart from that…….no……..I probably don’t. Oh, except one thing ………. the word Capers…………..I really miss calling them Capers.

Goodnight

Your friend
John

Melanie Russell Asked:
I love your sense of humor, and your blogs. Just one thing, the word poop means to have a bowel movement, and pop means to go somewhere. For example, I am going to pop downstairs, which means you are going downstairs. If it is intentional, disregard this.  I just didn’t know if you were aware of the word. Carry on, regardless!

John Says:
Hello Melanie Russell

I guess I should explain because I really don’t want to offend anyone. I had been writing on my Facebook page that I would “pop downstairs (to the bottom of the page) and answer questions. Then one day and quite by accident I added an extra “o” so it became poop downstairs. Well, obviously everyone laughed and wrote and told me about my mistake and so I kept it in. I hope it doesn’t offend you or any of the readers but it has sort of become standard now on Facebook. Thanks for allowing me the chance to explain and thank you also for those very very kind words.

Best wishes.
John

Rhonda Brookshire Asked:
Hi John,

I am fairly new to cruising, have only been on one cruise in 2008 (just my son and myself) and am about to board my second cruise on the Carnival Valor on October 2.  I love Carnival and have researched several choices and come to the conclusion I can’t imagine choosing another cruise line. Anyway, I have just recently discovered your blog and Facebook page. I think you’re hilarious!!! I was wondering if you ever sail on any of the ships that dock out of California.  I am in Arizona and Florida departures are a stretch for me (thus, the three years between cruises). I plan on many more cruises, but out of California, and I would love to have the experience of you as the director. Thank you for your time.

Rhonda

John Says:
Hello Rhonda Brookshire

Thank you so very much for those kind words and how brilliant that you have found Carnival and that it is for you love at the first cruise. Thanks a lot for finding the blog and I hope it continues to give you much enjoyment. Last year I had some wonderful months on the Carnival Splendor which sails out of Long Beach and I hope to return there one day. I have no specific dates for this but I really loved the West Coast. I know you have a long way to travel to get to the Carnival Valor and I hope that you have the best of times and loads of fun and that we sail together one day soon.

Best wishes.
John

JoAnne Asked:
We just came off a cruise to Alaska and I have to tell you of our disappointments. The dining room was really the worst. Not once was the table set correctly. On each occasion we were missing assorted silverware, bread plates or glasses. Even when we asked for the situation to be remedied, it was never quite right. For example, two bread plates and three butter knives missing ……… remedied with the arrival of one bread plate and two butter knives…although we had to ask twice for actual butter………and the bread basket contained four rolls, at a table set for six people.

This may seem petty, but it is a matter of training and attention to detail. Along the same lines …….waiters filling water glasses……..then reaching across to fill the next diner’s glass, dripping water and ice into my meal……..this happened several times. At our one breakfast visit I asked for grapefruit juice and another lady seated with us ordered orange juice. The waiter brought two glasses, placed them in front of us and we both took sips. We instantly realized that the glasses were the wrong way around and pointed this out to the waiter……..who calmly picked up both glasses………and switched them! He then seemed confused when we suggested that perhaps he could get us fresh juice as neither one of us wished to drink from a stranger’s glass. The waiters also seemed incapable of keeping track of orders and so stood at the table holding dishes until someone claimed them. This was especially bizarre when there were only four people at the table! What is there to say about a buffet that runs out of oatmeal at 9 in the morning on an “at sea” day? It also ran out of grapefruit although my husband managed to convince the “juice man” that perhaps he could let him have one. The coffee machines were constantly breaking down. The iced tea dispensers rarely worked and green tea was almost impossible to come by. We never met our steward! Our cabin was well tended in an unobtrusive and professional manner. There was a problem with a non-functioning toilet on our first full day at sea but this was quickly dealt with. Our “beach” towels were not replaced but this was not really an issue. We called housekeeping on our first night and asked for robes so that we could visit the hot tub and they were delivered to our cabin within 10 minutes. We had “towel animals” on 3 nights and enjoyed them very much. The beds are wonderful!!!! Very comfortable and we enjoyed having duvets as opposed to blankets. Lots of nice pillows as well. Overall a very disappointing cruise.

John Says:
Hello JoAnne

Thank you for this very frank and honest opinion of your cruise on the Carnival Spirit. I was though so very surprised about the dining room comments as this is a rare complaint but one that when I forward to the ship’s senior management they will take very seriously. One thing did confuse me was the comment about the bread as we don’t actually place bread baskets on the table but it is in fact a pass round service. Regardless it seems like we have some improving to do and I will make sure that the right people see this. I am glad you enjoyed the Carnival Comfort Bed though and I hope that you will accept my apology for what happened and my assurances that steps will be taken to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

Best wishes.
John

Gene Londergan Asked:
Hi John

This should be an easy one to answer……..how do you pronounce your last name?  I need to know so I say it right when I tell people about your great blog!! Is Heald as in “I held my tongue when the amazingly rude passenger asked another stupid question” or Heald as in “In my mind when I read the blog, it’s funnier if you imagine John with a very well-heeled British accent.” Just wondering….

John Says:
Hello Gene Londergan

Thanks for the great question. I sometimes get called John Head, John Herald or Fat Bastard. The name is actually pronounced Heald as in heeled or his injuries have healed. Thanks for asking and I hope we meet one day very soon. Best wishes.

John

Naomi Willet Asked:
John,

Didn’t get an acknowledgement of my earlier posting so trying AGAIN! My family will be cruising with carnival and on the Pride 11/21/11 and I have some questions and a request. One of the ports is Canaveral and I have seen that you have tours to the theme parks. Why doesn’t Carnival have free transportation to Disney and Universal like RCCL and Disney cruise lines have? I will be with my wife and three kids and it becomes too expensive and is cheaper for me to actually rent a car and drive there then take tours. I also want to make sure that we have a private table for 5 as we have very strict rules at supper time that are nobody else’s business so can you make sure that we have a private table. This is our booking number ******!

John Says:
Hello Naomi Willet

I am very sorry that I missed this the first time you posted it and I am glad I got to see it now. Thank you for booking the Carnival Pride and I know you will love the ship and her crew. We do indeed offer excellent excursions to the theme parks but you’re correct that we do not offer free transportation. I haven’t done a price comparison with excursions that include park admission and car hire but I would point out that the car needs to be collected and returned and that takes time of course. The benefit of our excursions is that you get on, go, enjoy and come back without any hassle. I realize that with five people it can get expensive but we hope you enjoy your time aboard the Carnival Pride and your excursions to the theme park or anywhere else for that matter. I will certainly ask the maitre d to assist you with your table request and I am sure he will be able to help you. Best wishes to you all and have a great cruise.

John

Cassie R Asked:
John,

We will be sailing with you on the Carnival Breeze next year and wondered if the ship will have a RedFrog Pub like magic. My husband is originally from Trinidad and is very excited to see that you have a Caribbean pub. Can’t wait to see you and the ship.

Regards,
Cassie

John Says:
Hello Cassie R

The good news is that yes indeed, just like her sister ship the Carnival Magic our new ship Carnival Breeze will have the massively popular RedFrog Pub in which your husband can enjoy the Caribbean vibes that I am sure he misses. I really look forward to seeing you next year.

Best wishes to you both.
John

4×4 Cruiser Asked:
John.

Tom and Cheryl are well known on Cruise Critic and your blog today was most unfair to them. They are respected members of the Cruise Critic community and if they say they had a bad experience at The Chef’s Table then trust me, mister, they did. I am sure some will have canceled their Chef’s Table reservation based on their review and rather than ridicule them you should have been professional and apologized and refunded their money.

John Says:
Hello 4 x 4 Cruiser

I understand that you are referring to an answer I gave some weeks ago about The Chef’s Table experience as encountered by Cruise Critic members Tom and Cheryl. I remember this well but what I don’t remember is that I ridiculed them in any way and if that’s how it came across then I truly apologise. The Chef’s Table remains very popular and in fact I just sent 108 reservations made this week here on the blog to the fleet. Once again I apologise to them for the experience which if I remember was a negative one not because of the food or the service but because of the guests they shared the table with.

Best wishes.
John

Doug Saunders Asked:
John,

We are celebrating our 10-year wedding anniversary on the Carnival Liberty’s November 19, 2011 sailing and was hoping you could surprise my wife with a small gift. We are big fans of yours and it will be our fifth Carnival cruise.

John Says:
Hello Doug Saunders

I will be happy to do this so please can you remind me here in a month’s time or one week before on Facebook. Either way I will do my best to help and wish you a brilliant anniversary cruise.

Best wishes.
John

John G Asked:
My son was so upset that he wasn’t allowed to go down the big slides on the Carnival Dream. He was told he was too small and I offered to sign a waiver but was told that this would not be possible. This meant I had a crying 4 year old for seven days.

Thanks, Carnival.

John Says:
Hello John G

I am so sorry that your son was upset, I really am but I am sure you can understand that we have very strict rules which are designed only to protect those who use the water park. Regardless of if you signed a waiver or not the fact that he is smaller than the designated height could mean that he could have injured himself. I do hope that despite this you had fun together.

Best wishes.
John

Lynda Grantham Asked:
Is there any chance that I could ask you for a very big personal favor? I am legally blind in my right eye and have limited vision in my left eye. I will be cruising again with Carnival this time on the Freedom going to Panama and Costa Rica departing on September the 24 in cabin 7298. I need to have seats reserved for the shows that go on as I cannot see anything unless I am on the front row. I am being joined on the cruise by my husband and another couple Jason and Ruth Green in cabin 6355. Please reserve seating for me and they will join me as well. How will I know when this is done?

John Says:
Hello Lynda Grantham

I am glad you were able to contact me and of course we are more than happy to help you. I am going to have our special needs team contact you and they will just need to see medical proof which I am sure you have that states your condition. They will then ask if there is anything else we can do to make you more comfortable during your time onboard. They will then contact the ship and the staff will reserve two seats accordingly so that you can enjoy the shows in the company of your husband. I will though unfortunately not be able to reserve seats for the Greens. Thank you then for getting in touch and someone will be in contact soon. Best wishes and have a brilliant time.

John

That’s all for today.

Well I hope you are OK. And of course I am speaking to those readers in the Caribbean and in the United States who may have been affected by Hurricane Bastard…..I refuse to call her Irene ………..I had a Great Aunt Irene. She used to give me money to buy candy and a new football (sacccceer) boots and even though I spent the money on magazines called Penthouse and Big Jugs she was a very sweet lady unlike the bastard that ripped through so many places these past 24 hours.

In a way, we have felt a bit disconnected from everything that has happened as in The Med we have been blessed with sunshine and mostly calm seas. I made sure the TV’s had the news on and certainly guests from the areas affected gathered together to watch Andersen Blister and his CNN colleagues describe what was happening. It was I am sure a very stressful time for those who were in the storm’s path and I know many of the thousands of blog readers are from areas that Hurricane Bastard passed through and I hope that you, your families and your property are all OK.

It has of course been a challenging time for some of the ships in the Carnival fleet and over the past 48 hours I did my best to keep everyone updated on Facebook. Let’s stop by and visit a few of the ships and hear what their cruise directors have to say. We will start with Butch on the Carnival Dream.

Hey John,

Before I tell you about the seas last night, I have to say that the Carnival Dream was truly blessed with an amazing voyage despite the crazy tropical weather out there. We started the week not knowing if our itinerary would be OK due to Tropical Strom Harvey, and not sure of our path home due to Hurricane Irene. We didn’t have a drop of rain, barely a cloud in the sky and had smooth sailing all cruise until about 8 pm last night…….we had a pretty bumpy ride home with swells well over 20 feet, what really made the situation interesting is the direction they were coming and the path of the ship. It was a perfect mix to make direct contact causing some huge sea sprays. In almost eight years of cruising I can say that it really wasn’t that bad, mediocre at best, we still were able to do the shows and the only guest service that was compromised is that we had to close the pools early for safety reasons and to avoid deck flooding…..I have been in much worse during the Caribbean winters when the wind causes huge swells. I have vivid memories of Hurricane Jeanne (2004) on the Carnival Glory……….and the cruise director on that ship ….. none other than the great John Heald! I remember the hurricane was headed toward Florida and we were coming from the Eastern Caribbean behind it……it took a turn to go out to sea and all looked good until she decided to take another U-turn and head right toward the coast of Florida……we turned back around and got the hell out of dodge, but not before being caught in crazy 50 mph wind and 40-foot swells……our seven-day voyage turned into a nine-day cruise as we waited it out….in eight years it’s the only time I have ever been sea sick!

Kind Regards,

Butch Begovich

Now we go to Risa Barnes and the Carnival Fantasy. Remember she was supposed to go to Bermuda and probably had the most dramatic of the itinerary changes. This report was received from Risa at 2:15pm on Sunday, Aug. 28

Hey John,

Here’s the update:

Around 5pm on the first sea day the seas calmed and we had a lovely evening of elegance with shows, music and fun. The next sea day Saturday was absolutely BEAUTIFUL…smooth sailing and sunshine all day! Today we are in Cozumel and unfortunately the previous forecast for sunshine was taken away from us and we have had overcast skies and slight drizzle all day, but still the guests are able to get off and explore the shore! So far all is well I will know better what the mood is at 5pm when we have our past guest reception with 1,437 repeat guests onboard!

Risa

And here is Malcolm in the Middle on Carnival Miracle which was sent on Saturday, August 27, at 9 am EST.

Hey John,

We have just heard from the captain. Half Moon Cay has sustained some minor damage due to the storm, and will not be ready for our guests in two days. There are no other ports for us to go to. I would imagine many ships have switched itineraries and taking what’s available before we get there. We now have an additional day at sea. The sea swells have kicked up a bit, so we are experiencing some good rocking right now, with considerable splashing along side. We are currently east of the storm now heading south to Grand Turk.

Love You
xxoo J (two more cruises till vacation, Woo Hoo!)

And here is the view from Malcolm’s balcony……..yes, senior officers have balconies on Spirit class ships.

And now we go off to Brent, the CD of the Carnival Pride. This was sent on Sunday August 28, at 1:30pm EST, after the ship debarked its guests and was waiting for the storm to pass before taking on more guests on Monday.

Hey John,

Made it!! Well it’s been a long 24hrs mostly for the captain and his officers as he’s been living on the bridge during all this with an espresso being his best friend I imagine. We made it to our anchor point yesterday about 4 pm (with only the crew on board – no guests) and shortly after the weather really came in. The area we’re in is in Chesapeake Bay and about 2 miles from land where it’s only about 25 meters deep which helped cut down on any large waves or swells. We got the full force of it this morning at about 1:30am. Being night time I really couldn’t get any pictures but I can assure you it was seriously windy!! Walking around today everything looks to be in good shape and no damage. Today the wind is still strong but only a few clouds and SUN! Have to really commend Captain Giacalone for keeping us all safe as going through this can’t be easy for any captain!! Not to mention today is also his birthday………poor guy. Here are a few photos of when it just started to hit us (trust me it doesn’t do it justice) and also of Lido where we pulled everything inside and one I took just now showing how close we are to land and how nice it is outside!

Brent

And finally the Carnival Glory and her Cruise Director Josh aka “Big Sexy.” Here is his honest report which I received at 2:45pm Sunday, Aug. 28.

Hey John –

I know you’ve been at sea for a long time, but in my seven and a half years with this company and 17 different ships, this is probably some of the worst sea conditions I’ve encountered.  As of right now, the ship is experiencing large swells which basically feels like you’re in a constant roller coaster while sporting a nasty hangover from cheap tequila… It sure takes me back to my old college days….

Yesterday was an adventure in itself too. First off, New York City was eerily calm as the Glory sat at Pier 88 in lower west side Manhattan. There was a mandatory citywide evacuation and all mass transit was shut down by 12 noon (the city felt like something out of the Will Smith flick, “I Am Legend”). Last night’s Welcome Show was also quite interesting, to say the least as it needed to be done without the dancer section given the rough seas.  So, I walked out on stage with an awkward feeling of nausea, jacked up on three Dramamine and feeling like I was kicked in the head by a mule about 139 times, and proceeded (along with the Glory Show band, E-Staff Team and comedian Lenny Marcus) to give a solid 35-minute performance to a crowd who was so drugged up and comatose that a Phish concert would be jealous….

On another note, the New Yorkers sure are tough and seem to be in relatively good spirits (those that are actually out of their cabins), and my Fun Ashore presentation this morning was quite busy (I’m assuming due to wanting to find out more about the weather and our revised itinerary).  The guests are a slowly getting their sea legs but ultimately they are all OK.

 

Thanks to all my colleagues for sending me updates and more importantly for their continuing hard work and dedication in turning a difficult situation into the most fun possible. Well done to them and of course to the captain and crew of all the ships that have been affected by big old Hurricane Bastard.

While many of the 24-hour news channels played their Armageddon is coming pieces over and over again, there was one area that many thought would not survive and that indeed it would be a catastrophe and that place was paradise or as it is also called……….Half Moon Cay.

And here to tell us how what is for many Carnival and Holland America guests their favourite Caribbean destination. What follows is an interview with Matt Sams, a gentleman whom I have had the honour of knowing for many years. We worked together for some years and I can honestly say that he was and continues to be a great ambassador for cruising. He joined Carnival Cruise Lines in 1985 as an operations supervisor and eventually was named director of port operations before heading over to Holland America.

During his time at CCL, Matt was in charge of all port operations, interior dry dock repairs, major refurbishments and interior designs of existing vessels, shore excursion operations, new buildings of Jubilee, Celebration, and on board revenue. He joined Holland America Line in May 1997, as vice president of Caribbean relations. And he truly is Half Moon Cay. He has nurtured and developed the island and who better than to tell us about what happened. So I sent him a few questions and he responded immediately. Here is what he had to say:

Matt, what preparations on the island were made for the hurricane’s arrival?
Due to an itinerary change, courtesy of Irene, Carnival Miracle called at Half Moon Cay on Aug 23. During the same day, the storm rapidly grew in and became a major hurricane. The staff did a great job installing hurricane shutters, storing lounge chairs, furniture, decorations, etc. The electrical and water plants required shutter protection and shut down. The smaller boats were taken out of the marina and filled with water for weight to avoid them from hitting other vessels or the sides of the marina. The larger boats were roped off in the middle of the Marina so they were free of other vessels and the floating docks. The Half Moon Clipper and the three large passenger tenders were taken to Davis Harbor in Eleuthera as it is much larger than Half Moon Cay and is better protected. The entire crew worked very hard to accomplish all of these tasks. The crew departed at 9 pm. Some of the employees did not get home until after midnight.

Having put so much personal dedication into HMC yourself; you must have been so concerned about what Irene would do. What were your biggest fears?
My biggest fear was the potential damage to the storm was a strong category 3. We were obviously concerned that the storm could close the island for an extended period and also that the marina would be obstructed due to heavy boulders falling into the water. If this were to happen, the Half Moon Clipper and the tenders would not be able to enter the marina to disembark employees, guests, and supplies. Major damage to the floating docks, would also not allow safe passage of passengers and supplies. All of the major mechanical areas were in good shape. If the water plant or electrical generator plant would have been seriously damaged, the delay in reopening the island would have been seriously affected.

So, now you have seen the island what can you tell us about the damage?
As inspections continue, it becomes more and more obvious that we dodged a huge bullet. The south east beach (which is not used) has eroded to bed rock which means approximately nine feet vertically by 40-foot from the shore line by over a mile in length. We are finding isolated electrical shorts due to distribution panels being flooded. There are several small water leaks that are also being dealt with. There is evidence that the island experienced at least one tornado. The ocean is still very rough and erosion is continuing. A beach refurbishment contractor will be here tomorrow (he has rebuilt this beach seven times over the years). Employee housing will need a lot of work. Doors are swollen, a lot of roof leaks, ceiling tile damage.  Half Moon Cay marina is clear and Davis Harbor is being inspected today for some damage to the floating docks. A large water main break also occurred by the Welcome Center. The Marina at Davis Harbor has been inspected and found to be clear of obstructions. We will be dispatching a boat with 23 more staff, bringing the staffing level to 32.

And as you know many were concerned about the horses. Can you confirm they are OK?
All 47 horses were found in great shape.

I know at this early stage it’s probably difficult to estimate but when do you see HMC being ready to welcome Carnival Corp guests?
The island will reopen on September 4.

As I mentioned, the number of people who asked me about HMC on the blog and on Facebook was extraordinary and shows just how much Holland America and Carnival guests love the island. Why is Half Moon Cay loved by so many?
Half Moon Cay is exactly what passengers think of when they think of the Caribbean. Our beautiful beaches, friendly staff, and unique excursions only add to this experience.

And finally, what does the future hold for this slice of paradise?
We get a lot of requests for additional shopping venues. We are looking into this. We are also in the final stages of opening a state-of-the-art spa complex that will be done with an island theme. Stay tuned for further details

Thanks Matt for that personal look at what could have happened, what did happen and for telling us that paradise re-opens on September 4. We are all very grateful.

Let’s change the subject and talk about my daughter for a moment, if we can. Kye was crying yesterday. She wanted her Dadda and kept saying “Dadda gone, Dadda gone” and Heidi sent me an email asking me to call and console her. So I did and said that I would be home with her very, very soon. But actually its 22 days until I am home so therefore I lied to her. Yes, she stopped crying and yes I made her laugh but in order for this to happen I had lied to my 2-year-old daughter. I guess though it’s not the only lie I will be telling her and when she is old she will realise that Mama and Dadda talk total bollocks.

There is no tooth fairy; that strange, obese bloke with a beard does not creep into your house under the cloak of darkness to leave you gifts once a year because he does not exist and, furthermore, his image, as we know it, was entirely created by a corporate fat cat as a means to sell more toys. The fat bastard she may have caught a glimpse of on December 25 was in fact her Dad pooping down to the refrigerator at 2 am for something to munch on.

Also, Kye will eventually learn that she was not delivered into this world by a kindly stork who delivered her to our house. You will not be marrying a prince. The cat that she liked to play with in the garden did not get taken to live on a farm (in the sky) he was sent away for continuing to drop fresh turds on my doorstep and is buried behind the garden shed. As sure as I know that Kye will one day realise these to be not true I also know that anti-aging face creams don’t really do what they say they do yet my wife spends ages putting these creams on and I won’t mention that each pot costs the same as caviar. I also know that despite how strongly I wish for it that there will always be at least one negative comment on the list of 10 questions I answer here on the blog. I also know that I will never own an Aston Martin or ever get to drive one, that Megan Fox’s bottom will never be something I will see up close and personal.

I also know, as now do many thousands of people, that all cruise lines are not created equal …….. especially if your ships sailed and you are left behind in San Juan.

Goodnight.

Your friend,
John

P.S. Here are today’s Fun Times, from your Carnival Miracle.

From: TRIUMPH CRUISE DIRECTOR
Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2011 1:05 PM
To: TRIUMPH ASSISTANT CRUISE DIRECTOR; TRIUMPH DANCE CAPTAIN; TRIUMPH ENTERTAINMENT TECHNICAL MANAGER; TRIUMPH MUSICAL DIRECTOR
Subject: Talent Show

Hey Gang-

Tomorrow night, Old Man Wiggle will be celebrating his 100^th birthday. He’ll sign up for the Talent Show (he always does) and we need to put him last. When he’s finished with the act we’re going to sing Happy Birthday and present him with a cake. I would like to fire the green, gold and purple confetti when we finish the song. Same as we do for Big Easy.  If anyone has any questions, let me know.

Thanks,
Tex
Cruise Director, Carnival Triumph

Well first of all many thanks to Tex for organising this special event. I know Old Man Wiggle as I expect many of you do too and for those who don’t, I will be providing photos of the above celebration in a few days. He is a brilliant character and always takes part in the talent show and stands on stage, sings a song and…..well…..wiggles. He is full of spirit and life and how lucky we will all be if we get to be 100 and get to celebrate it on a Carnival ship surrounded by friends and family. He still lives with his family as well and that is so important. I hope if I live to be very old that Kye and her family will look after me. I have always promised myself that I would never do that to my parents and I intend to live out that promise. Funny isn’t it….they look after you ….. then you look after them.

Seeing Old Man Wiggle reach a hundred not out (that’s a cricket term, by the way) has made me think about my own old age and if Kye can’t look after Heidi and I, what will happen?  I hope I poop off before Heidi because without her or Ketut, there is no way I could look after myself. I don’t know how to cook, clean, operate a washing machine, change a spark plug or where the new roll of toilet paper comes from.

I also don’t want to go to the type of retirement home where you’re left to marinate in your own urine, while the “helpers” stand around texting their boyfriends, waiting for you to die but preferably not on their shift.  I am sure everyone here dreads ending their days in a stinky home for the nearly dead wearing someone else’s false teeth. If I am lucky enough to reach say……80 years of age I think I may hasten my departure.  Because if Kye says “Dada, we have found you a nice spot at The Sunshine Retirement Home,” I will start drinking again, smoking 20 cigars a day and eating nothing but animal fat and lard. Maybe we should have a have a happy hour for only those over age 75 where with pints of ThirstyFrog for $1 and let them smoke and have an hour of Frank Sinatra karaoke. You may spend the rest of the cruise in bed but that’s better than ending your days wasting away on a wipe down chair wearing a diaper. Anyway, congratulations to Old Man Wiggle and photos of his special day will follow.

Time for some Q and A………….here we go.

 Kris Brummett Asked:
John

We had a fabulous cruise on the Carnival Victory 6/26-7/3!   This was my third cruise with Carnival and I want to say for the first time I realized how hard the assistant cruise directors work. We had a fabulous CD in Karl with a K, but the assistant CD, Matt was phenomenal.  I won’t forget either of them. I also wanted to thank you for the kind gift sent to our room and thank Carnival for another wonderful cruising experience!

Kris

John Says:
Hello Kris Brummett

This is very important to mention Kris because you are absolutely correct when you say how hard the ACD’s work. I could never do my job without a strong ACD to help me. I will make sure both Karl and Matt get to see this and I am so glad you had fun. Thanks for taking the time to write.

Best wishes.
John

Lassiter Asked:
John,

It seems to me and I am by the way someone who has been cruising for 18 years and have many with Carnival that your company is looking to be the bottom feeder in the industry. There is a big conversation on Cruise Critic about how Mr. Cahill is dumbing down Carnival and as I know how much you despise us Cruise Critic readers, I won’t waste my time putting the link on your blog. Hundreds of subscribers feel that with all the huge cuts that he is making that he is obviously turning the company into one that only wants blue collar workers and those who may not have high expectations. I am writing to you as the company’s ambassador which I understand is your title so I hope you will give me the respect of an honest answer and no some corporate clap trap and hot air.

John Says:
Hello Lassiter.

I will simply say this — what huge cuts? And the people we are trying to attract are people who want fun at the most affordable price in the vacation industry regardless of what colour their collar is. And for the last time let me be as clear as a polished piece of glass when I say I do not despise Cruise Critic but I am starting to despise the few that give a band name to the many. I hope that you will reply listing the cuts that you are talking about so we can discuss them. Please tell me what you are concerned with and I will help answer it, as honestly and as best I can.

Best wishes.
John

Brycen Edwards Asked:
In January I went on a cruise with my Dad’s office. Dad got sick and had to be disembarked. Well we paid around $2,500 before leaving the boat in medical expenses. I found out last week that the rest of our office was held on ship till they coughed up another $1,400 that the medical department forgot to charge us. While in this case it is hugely funny, if I had been traveling with friends I would be very upset to hear that it had happened. I think Carnival is going too far with their marine law in this case. The whole mess was a bit too far with marine law. Normally when you do this it is called kidnapping. However it was my Dad’s boss so I call it you should have kept the bloke and put him to work.  I think Carnival should reconsider their policy in this situation. Not everyone is related to the rest of their travel party. It has needless to say left a sour taste in my mouth. I may reconsider traveling with Carnival in the future once my September cruise is done.

John Says:
Hello Brycen Edwards

I was very sorry to read about your father’s illness during the cruise and I hope that he is well now. Obviously I have no idea as to the circumstances and what insurance you had or did not have. However, I thank you for your email me and I will make sure that someone who will be in contact with you very soon. Once again I hope your father is doing better now.

Best wishes to all.
John

Linda Forshee Asked:
Hi John,

Just a quick question. We are going on the Carnival Ecstasy on the Oct 31 what night will they have the Halloween costume party. We were on it last year and it was a blast. See you Nov.14th in Galveston

John Says:
Hello Linda

Halloween has become a huge event at Carnival over the past few years and it will be again this year across the fleet. There will be the parade and all the usual events on the Carnival Ecstasy on the 31st and it will be literally……a scream. I wish you a brilliant time and hope to see you in Texas.

Best wishes.
John

James Keesler Asked:
We are taking our 17th Carnival cruise October 7 on Carnival Magic. We will be celebrating 30 years of marriage and also a birthday (78th) on this cruise.  We want it to be a cruise to remember. How about arranging something nice for us? Just to let us know that Carnival does indeed care about their loyal patrons. Guess you will not be the CD on this cruise. We were looking forward to sailing with you. Oh well, James should be fine. Oh we will be in cabin 1279.

John Says:
Hello James Keesler

We really do care about all our customers and I will be happy to send you something to celebrate. James will do a brilliant job and I am sorry I cannot be with you. Please leave a note at the guest service desk when you get onboard and there will be something delivered to your cabin. Have a brilliant time.

Best wishes.
John

Pixie56 Asked:
Like you, I am obese but I think I have grown to accept this and I think you should as well and you should stop putting yourself down and making fat jokes about yourself and just accept that you are what you are and that is obese. I think you will be much happier. I do have some questions John. I am worried about wanting to go down the slides on the Carnival Dream. Will I be able to and will I be able to keep a T-shirt on because I don’t have a bathing suit. I also need a table for two and chairs at dinner that has no arms, my DH also as we are both 350 pounds plus. My other question is that I heard that Carnival now delivers pizza to the cabins and I wanted to know if there was charge for this. We are so excited to be going on the cruise. It’s our first and the honeymoon we never had three years ago when we were married because of financial problems. Our cabin number for the cruise on Dream on 08/20/11 is 8341.

Thank you John

John Says:
Hello Pixie56

Let me start by saying thanks so much for your concern. I realise that my current weight is too much and I am on a diet and losing weight slowly and feeling good about myself that I am, thanks again for taking the time to think of me. I have asked the maitre d to request a table for two for you and we will have the chairs without arms. We do not deliver pizza to the cabins but it is available 24 hours on Lido deck 10. I think I already answered this question a few weeks ago now I come to think of it but if not I am glad I got to it before you cruise. I wish you both a brilliant time.

Best wishes.
John

Willis O. Asked:
Hey John,

Why is there only two cruise dates for the Panama Canal, and why can’t Carnival have a ship with balconies to sail through?

John Says:
Hello Willis O

There is no doubt that the Panama Canal cruises are really popular and every time we reposition a vessel from coast to coast, we try to do this. On this occasion it’s the Fantasy-class ships that are able to do this and they do indeed have limited balconies. We have also had the Spirit-class ships do the voyage and they of course have more balconies. The other ships are too big for the canal. Thanks Willis and I hope you get to experience the Panama Canal voyage soon.

Best wishes.
John

Karen Williams Asked:
Hello John,

I am booked to take the European 12 day cruise for October 2011. Since we are going to so many amazing locations, I wanted to have my passport stamped as a great way to have memories of the trip. How can I do that?

John Says:
Hello Karen Williams

The sad thing is that as we are going to mostly European Union countries they no longer have borders so there will be no need to show passports and therefore you can’t get it stamped. The only exception to this is if your cruise includes Dubrovnik, Croatia, which is not part of the EU and therefore they need to see everyone’s passport as you leave the ship and if you ask them they will for the most part, stamp it for you. I promise you a wonderful time.

Best wishes.
John

Rocca Asked:
John,

Coming up on our seven Carnival cruise and have never had a table for two always with other passengers some nice some morons so now I think we deserve our table for two for the Carnival Imagination September 2, cabin E71.

John Says:
Hello Rocca

I have asked the maitre d on the Carnival Imagination to help you with this request and I hope you have a brilliant time on your seventh Carnival cruise. Best wishes to you both.

John

Wally Cronin Asked:
My family and I sailed on the Carnival Magic last week. Please thank the entire crew for the incredible trip we had. The ability to see the Coliseum, the Vatican, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Pompeii, Monte Carlo and so much more while enjoying most of what the ship has to offer was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Especially worth mentioning were the cabin stewards for 10264, who did a wonderful job of keeping our room fresh and keeping us up to date on what was going on onboard. Our headwaiter Freddie and his staff were always there to serve and assist. Their food and wine suggestions were always on the mark. Alexandra did a fantastic job of making our kids feel special during the past guest’s reception. As for the ship’s amenities: The sky course was my 12-year-old son’s favorite. My daughter loved the poolside movies. My wife loved the general level of pampering she received. It’s a tossup between the RedFrog Pub and the cabin’s balcony for me. The RedFrog has a great atmosphere but there’s nothing quite like sipping a cold drink in the moonlight and watching the stars on the water. We had a marvelous time. Thank you again to the entire Magic crew for making it happens.

Wally Cronin

John Says:
Hello Wally Cronin

This is a great review and I thank you so much for taking the time to write to me. I promise to make sure everyone you mentioned gets to see this and I know they will be thrilled. I have no fears in saying that I think Carnival Magic is simply…….our best ship yet. My best wishes to you and your family.

John

That’s all for today.

Well just for a change it’s time to talk about food………oh FFS!

Let’s start with a request for the fantastic recipe we use here at the Cucina del Capitano for the spaghetti carbonara. Here it is.

 After all the concern and worry about the new menus it seems that for the most part they have been met with much praise and if not praise then understanding and an acceptance not to judge until tasted which is, of course, the sensible approach. But there has been a lot of praise as I said and some questions. One of those questions is about what menu is served on the Carnival Freedom and other ships that have eight-day cruises. So to answer that, here is the eight-day menu from the new rotation:

Now, let’s stop talking about food shall we and move onto what happened to me yesterday……. and it’s not very nice.

I had a terrible nightmare last night. I was in the hospital waiting room. The wind was gusting outside throwing heavy rain against the window. A gorgeous Latvian nurse had just left the room having told me that Doctor Longfinger was just checking a few things. She had done her best to look like nothing was wrong but I could tell something was. A large brass clock on the wall ticked away the seconds and the minutes.

Then suddenly the Doctor Longfinger appeared.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr Heald,” said with an accent that was pure New York. He was carrying a large brown file with my name written on it and he didn’t look happy at all to see me.

His expression was a gloomy as the weather outside and I hoped that was because he was worried about the economy or if his wife would find out that he was having rumpy pumpy with the Latvian nurse. He was a large man himself, not fat like me but tall and wide and, well a little chubby and he had a sort of hunch………bloody hell, he looked like Calvyn.

He coughed nervously, never a good sign. “I just wanted to make sure I was seeing this correctly,” and as he said this he took a seat next to me.”I wish I had better news for you.”

I turned back to look at the rain thrashing against the window. “Mr. Heald, are you still with me?” asked Doc Longfinger.

I just didn’t know what to say so I turned to him and said the first thing I could think of, “Am I buggered, doc?”

With that Doctor Longfinger opened the brown file and pulled out an X-ray and pointing to a large object he said “It’s Pandalus Borealis Anus.” And with treatment it can be made bearable and with surgery there is a small possibility of survival. If you don’t have surgery…… then you will die.  It was hard to believe that this was it, the end of the road. I always imagined it would be something a bit bigger like a climbing wall landing on my head, or an angry Cruise Critic member having me whacked. But it wasn’t, it was Pandalus Borealis Anus.

I looked at Doctor Longfinger and trying to hold back the tears, I simply said, “What is Pandalus Borealis Anus?”

The doctor ran his fingers through his hair, removed his glasses, looked me in the eyes and said. “You’ve got a shrimp cocktail lodged up your arse.”

And that’s when I woke up……………..screaming.

Goodnight

Your friend
John

There were 1,000 guests in the room and my announcement about Barcelona had been met with mixed emotions. My Q&A’s are done with staff members in the lounge with microphones so that the rest of the guests can hear what others are saying and therefore here my answers as well. This saves me having the guests stand in line and me getting the same old questions over and over again. All I ask is that the guests tell us their name and where they are from.

My first question came from a lady from New York who surprisingly asked: “My name is Gwen from New York. Where can I get perfume?”

Now, she obviously meant in Marseilles, France, the following day but I needed the session to have a relaxed feel about it as possible before the Barcelona questions commenced so I answered: “Macys – it’s on 5th avenue, on the 3rd floor I think.” Now many of the audience laughed but unfortunately she didn’t and told me and the guests so by saying: “That’s not funny……..be serious.” That’s a quote………..that’s what she said exactly. Oh joy.

But what happened next was even more surprising. I took two more questions about why we weren’t going to Cannes or Monte Carlo or Greece and then the fourth question of the afternoon really was a shock. Why is there no woman captain or senior officers? This lady really let me have it and would not give up the microphone. I explained that we did have a female guest services manager on board (and many others throughout the fleet, as well as several female hotel directors over the years) and that one of the Italian senior officers liked to dress up in women’s clothing at weekends but that didn’t please her at all and she then referred…….on the microphone ………to Carnival Cruise Lines………..as sexist.

Blog friends, I have to tell you that this question summed up this past cruise and I will lament on this more in a moment but first, let’s think about this shall we? Hold on, before I answer I need to pause the DVD I am watching which is called Latvian Women Go Naked In A Swimming Pool Filled With Jell-O. Of course we are not sexist. OK, we have no female captains and no female chief engineers but there are lots of high-ranking female personnel here aboard ship and at the Miami offices. Besides if I was really sexist I would say that if we did allow female captains, the Promenade Deck would be furnished with lots of scatter cushions and the smoke stack pink.

Anyway, after I apologised to the lady who asked the question the subject moved back to Barcelona and normal service was resumed and next up was a man representing a group of people from……..well I had better not say because if I do I will be accused of being anti ……….. never mind but I am not, I know that but bugger me……….this group were so rude and I have a good mind to send them my dry cleaning bill as I took them to one side after the Q and A and all of them shouted at once……….and covered my blazer in spit.

I will finish this part of the blog by saying simply this. Most of the guests were happy and had a brilliant time but I can tell you on behalf of the guest services desk, the maitre d’s and most of the crew that quite honestly, that this was one of the toughest cruises ever. Never mind missing Palma ……..it just seemed that there was a collection of guests who were just plain miserable and in some cases just plain rude. The brand ambassador side of me hopes that they will be back so we can win them around and try again. The other side, the human side of me hopes that they all suddenly get a fetish for climbing walls or rodents with big ears. Actually, no I don’t because no crew, whatever line they work for deserve to have guests like that on board. So instead let me say I hope they never set foot on a ship again…….and I hope they all get an itch that can never be scratched. Be mad at me, be mad at Carnival. Shout at me, shout at Ken or the guest services manager.

Two hundred cabins also removed all their gratuities. They were mostly Americans although British and Israeli guests also removed them and while some tipped in cash many did not. I have no idea if they did this because tipping is not in their culture or if they did it because we missed a port……either way it’s a real shame. This is a very rare thing and despite the fact that the crew provided the same service and fun as the previous cruise and less than 30 cabins removed gratuities, this cruise for whatever reason it went up to 200. Carnival Magic though remains at number one in the fleet as per the reviews and scores from the online card.

It was one of the hardest cruises I have done in a long time and probably in hindsight it wasn’t the best idea to do an overnight in Barcelona which added a bit of fuel to the fire. In hindsight I think we (I) should have planned a day at sea but we (I) thought we were doing the best thing for the guests. There were some very difficult guests on board and the lady who complained about no female senior officers……scared the crap out of me. I think given the chance she would have gladly cut off my gentlemen’s sausage with a pair of blunt nail scissors…….and thrown into one of the Mongolian woks!

Time for another Q and A.

Bob asked:
John,

What is the current status of the Mexican ports? Specifically Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta.

Thank You

Bob

John says:
Hello Bob,

First of all my apologies to you and all the people I am answering today as I am a month behind in doing so. We continue to monitor the situation in Mexico and we continue to hope that one day we will return to Mazatlan as it is a great port but we’re not sailing there at the moment. Puerto Vallarta is also a great port and Carnival continues to send the Carnival Splendor and Carnival Spirit there. As I said it is a fluid situation and I’ll keep you posted here on the blog on what transpires. \

Best wishes.

John

William Johnson asked:
Hello John,

Hope you had a good break. Question from UK regarding booking on carnival.com. We have sailed twice with Carnival and booked through a travel agent having researched on carnival.com. You mentioned on the bloggy thing some months ago that the beards were looking to promote Carnival to the UK travelers more. The UK web site carnival.co.uk has very limited range of cruises, e.g. currently up to April 2012- I am looking at June 2012 so I tried via carnival.com- no luck; computer says no as it needs me to insert a US zip code. So my question is twofold, can a UK resident book via Carnival.com and secondly is there any move to keep the UK website up to date with the US one? Thanks and if we can sort this may see you on Carnival Breeze next year.

John says:
Hello William Johnson,

It’s applicable that you should ask this because this cruise, as I will be writing about in a moment, we have the largest amount of British guests we have ever had on the Carnival Magic. There is no doubt that the UK website is antiquated compared to the North American one and that’s why on October 1, a new website will be launched for the UK which will parallel carnival.com. I will be posting more about this closer to the time but I promise you will be very happy indeed and this whole zip code thing that UK cruisers find so frustrating will not be a concern anymore. Thanks so much and I hope I get to see you next year on the Carnival Breeze.

Best wishes

John

Tasha M asked:
John,

I agree with what David F said today that the servers and cabin people should speak better English. My cabin boy on the Carnival Sensation did not understand anything. I told him I wanted the bed moved against the wall so my 3 year old son would not fall out off the bed but it took three times me telling him before it was done. The waiter did not understand that I wanted a baked potato well done and crispy and I had to send it back twice on a four-day cruise trip. The crew did not speak English and I know you hire them because they are cheap labor but you should hire Americans for crew who serve the passengers.

John says:
Hello Tasha M,

First of all I hope you had a fun cruise and my apologies for the concerns you had with the crew. I would point out that all of our service crew all has to speak a certain level of English as per United States Coast Guard regulations so I am surprised that the waiter and stateroom steward did not understand your requests. It is very rare on any cruise line to find large numbers of American service staff but I will pass your comments onto the ship and my apologies again for the problems you encountered.

Best wishes.

John

Sunbeam Cruiser asked:
John,

If you are going to have homosexual and lesbian meetings each day as you said in your blog today why then don’t you have bible study or prayer meetings every day. I cannot believe that you and Carnival openly support homosexuality and lesbianism but not prayer and the opportunity to worship.

Oh and John I am a PLATINUM guest and will be sailing on the Carnival Dream for cruise number 14 on the Carnival Valor on September 3 and my husband and I would like a table for 2. This time we have a beautiful cabin 7363 and anything you can do for us would be appreciated. Please consider what I said. If you are going to have places for these kind of people to meet then surely you should have a place where believers in Christ can meet and worship together.

John says:
Hello Sunbeam Cruiser,

Many thanks for your loyalty and congratulations on cruise number 14 and a big thank you for your loyalty. I think you are referring to a blog I wrote in which I mentioned or indeed answered a question about the Friends of Dorothy meetings which does allow our gay and lesbian guests to meet in one of the ship’s lounges. And certainly when asked we are always happy to provide a lounge for guests who want to use it for bible study and prayer groups, etc. Unfortunately we rarely have a priest onboard to conduct services but if asked we will make sure we arrange meeting times and if you need this for the cruise on the Carnival Valor please let me know or just ask your Cruise Director Goose and he will arrange it for you. Have a brilliant time.

Best wishes.

John

Dennis Hanovich asked:
Hi John,

We’re booked on the 9/16 Carnival Magic sailing. When we return to Barcelona on the 25th our flight back to Houston does not leave till 8:40PM. We’ll be schlepping luggage so what do you suggest we do as far as excursions, etc?

Thanks.

John says:
Hello Dennis Hannovich,

It will not be long until you are here and please don’t worry about that late flight. I would really suggest the Montserrat excursion. The peace and tranquility of the monastery and the views from atop the mountain will be the perfect end to what I hope will be a brilliant time. The excursion will take you and your luggage there and return you to the Barcelona airport at approximately 4 pm. Please do let me know if you have any other questions and see you soon.

Best wishes

John

Kevin Potash asked:
Hi John,

Just returned from Carnival Magic and mostly it was a fun time. John, I had heard so much about you but honestly I have to say I don’t like your humor. I found you crass and immature and I would have preferred you be more informative and classy rather than try to be funny all the time. My favorite director is Ken Rush from RCI who could teach you a think of two about how to be a professional entertainer, host and performer. There is an ongoing vote on Cruise Critic about who is the best cruise director but there is no doubt that you will not get my vote which still goes to the one and only Ken Rush followed closely by Sinan on NCL. These are the best in the cruise industry John and they “look” like cruise directors where as you don’t John. I won’t say anymore than that as I don’t want to be cruel but I think you know what I mean.

I will say that the food was just as good as RCI and the steakhouse was very good value for money. Our waitress Martina was one of the best we have ever had and Ken Byrne was an excellent singer and dining room host. The only other comment I have is that the Carnival bed is not as comfortable as RCI and you need to get their coffee machines put on your Lido. RCI uses Starbucks coffee as their free coffee at breakfast etc but the coffee on Lido deck was undrinkable. Overall we enjoyed our cruise on Carnival Magic.

John says:
Hello Kevin Potash,

Ever since I started as a cruise director with Carnival I knew that not everybody would find my humour funny and I am still very much aware of this today. I am very sorry that you did not enjoy me and I can understand why you enjoy Ken Rush. I have never met him personally but his reputation of being one of the very best in the industry is well known and I know he introduces all of their new ships. I would love to see him work as I am sure I could learn a few things from him. I don’t know Sinan as this is the first time I have heard his…….or ummmm ……. is it a her……name. I am though thrilled that you had Martina as your waitress, she is one of our very best and I am not surprised that you thought she was so good. I also had no idea that RCI served free Starbucks on their Lido deck. I know they have a Starbucks on their ships but assumed you paid for that. We get comments from time to time about our Lido coffee but certainly I would not describe it as undrinkable. I do hope you had fun and thanks for your fair and honest review and I truly hope we see you again.

Best wishes,

John

D. Pettit asked:
John,

I need to make copies of professional pictures taken on my cruise. I was told that I need a release from Carnival Cruise lines in order to make copies at CVS. Where can I get a photo release form?

John says:
Hello D.Petit,

I have not heard of this before so let me check and if that’s the case (which I honestly don’t think it is) I will ask someone to provide you with what you need. Let me see what I can find out and I will let you and everyone know. And here is the answer from a beard in Miami “Guest Care can provide a release letter, all the guest needs to do is call and request it.” So there you go, please call into Carnival and we will take care of this for you. I learned something today.

Best wishes.

John

Lynn Myers asked:
Hello John,

I read on Cruise Critic today that Carnival is going to start charging for bringing bags on the ship like the airlines and that the evening room service where the bed is made will be canceled as well. Does Carnival really not want my business anymore?

John says:
Hello Lynn Myers,

I think the author of that particular Cruise Critic thread had been smoking a pair of my underpants before they wrote it as both are absolutely rubbish. I am sorry they wasted your time and got you all flustered for nothing. I am also thankful that by telling me you allowed me to tell anyone else that may have read this that it’s total and utter bollocks. I hope we see you again on one of our ships where your bags will be freely brought onboard and where your stateroom steward will make your bed twice a day every day……even if you haven’t slept in it.

Best wishes.

John

CrimsonTide 101 asked:
John,

Me and my buddies are going on the Carnival Triumph in March 2012 and we wanted to make sure that the March Madness games will be shown on your giant screen. You will have lots of spring breakers who will be very angry if not.

John says:
Hello CrimsonTide 101,

OK, I have to admit I had to ask Uncle Google what “March Madness” was as I didn’t have a clue. I hope I am right in saying you mean college basketball games and if that’s the case, I can tell you that some of the games will be shown if they are shown on the major networks or ESPN. What I can’t promise is that they will all be shown on the big screen on Lido as we have a full movie and concert schedule there but they will be shown in the sports bar. I hope you have fun and I see by your screen name that you love Crimson Tide as well. It’s a great movie although not as good as The Hunt For Red October. I hope you and your buddies have fun.

Best wishes.

John

Steve O asked:
Dear John (please respond, when you have time)

I wanted to give you a little rundown on my latest Carnival Triumph cruise that departed on June 25. As you know, our mutual friends, Carolyn & Don were also onboard. It was SO much fun. As I’ve told you previously I really love that ship and its crew. Embarkation was easy. Carolyn & Don are, of course, Milestone and I’m but a lowly Platinum ……we breezed right through VIP Check In. Linda Powell’s buddy Robert checked me in and he and Dolores who work there are so friendly. Embark was good, I love that uphill walk on the boarding ramp.….I actually tried to catch a ride with Carolyn on the back of her scooter but she didn’t seem too thrilled with that idea. Stopped to say “hi” to Farid at Guest Services….I refer to him as “Mr. Personality.” Then we went right up to Lido for some lunch. Immediately I began to see crew that I recognized from the April trip. That is so fun. A couple of my favorite dining room hostesses were working up there, Llianna and Nicoletta. Then ran into one of the Senior Team Waiters Gede…..we first met him when we did BC3 in May 2010 with you and Sexy Craig. Gede is such a super guy.

I ran (well, waddled really) down to “see” the maitre d’ at 1 pm. Wanted to see what table he’d assigned me. Of course it was the delightful Jean Pierre (tell Ken to look out, he can really sing too). He almost fainted when I told him I had a German salami (on ice) in my carry-on. Even without that gift he had already seated me at a perfect round table….actually the very same one I had in April. What a guy. I went down to deck zero, I mean deck 2, and found my cabin and guess what? I had the same cabin steward, Maynor from Costa Rica, that I had in April. He actually called my name when he was so far down the hall that I couldn’t tell who it was. He is not only a great steward he is SUPER friendly and fun to visit with. He had already loaded my cabin full of goodies from you and Tex….you guys went OVERBOARD but I was thrilled, thank you. I always send myself flowers and the medium fruit basket so NEVER had there been a little inside cabin with that many gifts in it.

Off to late dinner and perfect table mates. A couple from Olive Branch, MS and a family of five from Albuquerque. We had so much fun. I even talked some of them in to doing The Chef’s Table. That event was done THREE times on that five-night cruise. Our waiter was Alphonso and he’s VERY friendly and very efficient. By the way, the couple from Mississippi had never been on a cruise, it was cruise #1 (and they loved it).

After dinner we caught the Welcome Show and waved at Tex. He’s a smoothie and really gets the crowd going. Of course we ran into ACD Charlie…….he so nice and so many laughs. Carolyn, Don and I hope that CCL will be looking to get him up to the “big chair” one of these days. He’s really a treasure John.

Speaking of The Chef’s Table it was THE BEST (so far). The executive chef now is Allan Gomes and he really does a fantastic job with this. Of course you already know that the galley tour during dinner service is worth the entire $75 to me. I was instantly recognized by three of the young chefs…..poor things hadn’t been able to forget me in the two months since I appeared there in April. On the Carnival Triumph they serve the dinner in the library, and to me, it is the perfect venue. The only thing that disappointed me was that NOTHING broke in the galley while we were there. Darn, I told them I like to hear a few broken plates like all the other times. The F&B Manager, Mario, said, “Just stay a few more minutes, IT WILL happen tonight.”

Wow, this is way too long BUT I wanted you to know how much fun I had. Oh, Tex & Charlie invited the three of us to have lunch with them on the final sea day. THAT was so great….a super honour (spelt correctly according to you). Rather like being invited to dine with her Majesty Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip or YOU actually

As I said earlier, I love the Carnival Triumph and her crew. They haven’t seen the last of me this year, the poor sods. I intend to surprise them a couple more times. I hope they’re ready for that.

Your OLD mate,

Steve O

Johns says:
Hello Steve O,

Another brilliant review and I shall pass this immediately to the ship and let them see just what an impression they made on you. All those you mentioned are one of the reasons why Carnival stays at the top in what is a very competitive industry. I loved the fact that you referred to dining with Tex and the staff as like dining with the Queen and I am sure they enjoyed it just as much as you did. Thanks so very much for taking the time to write and by doing so you will encourage others I am sure to cruise on the Carnival Triumph and will have those you mentioned smiling from ear to ear.

Best wishes and see you soon.

John

That’s all for today.

Well I am not going to talk anymore about last cruise and concentrate on the now. So far it is going well but, this is a different cruise as well as you will see now when I show you who is sailing.

Total Guests – 4,643 – which by the way is our largest count so far

FRENCH 162

DUTCH 86

RUSSIAN 293

PORTUGUESE 62

ITALIAN 46

GERMAN 81

ISRAELI – 284

SPANISH 418

CANADIAN 718

BRITISH 1,038

USA – 1,347

OTHER – 392

So where do we start here? Well certainly there is only one place and that’s with the French count of 162 which I have never seen before which has meant the translation of Fun Times into French and has had the housekeeping manager running around trying to order more air freshener. Then we have 293 Russians and all I can say to that is “Oh joy” and lots of other nationalities, as well. The other thing that stands out is that there are 1,038 British on board. This week is traditionally the busiest get away week in the UK and it’s great to see that Carnival is finally attracting big numbers of UK guests as I think the product we have truly suits them. More on this in the week here on the blog.

Let’s look at the kid count.

Now this cruise is also a little different so let’s have a look at where we are going and who is entertaining them along the way.

A bit different with a call to Savona instead of Livorno which means we run tours to some beautiful places.

Here are the most popular:

Portofino Pleasures
• Explore the beautiful and picturesque resort of Portofino
• Enjoy the boat ride from Santa Margherita to the bay of Portofino; marvel at the green vegetation; the wild rocks and little inlets
• Visit the famous Piazzetta where you can browse through elegant boutiques and small, colorful streets (on August 16th some stores might be closed – national holiday in Italy)

Santa Margherita, Portofino & Camogli
• Visit 3 wonders of the 2 gulf in this wonderful full day excursion
• Enjoy the boat ride from Santa Margherita to the picturesque bay of Portofino
• Explore famous Piazzetta and free time
• Sail back to Santa Margherita where you will have free time to explore this small town
• Travel to colorful village of Camogli, famous for its brightly painted houses and a network of alleys and covered passageways

And look at that, three sea days at the end of the cruise which means wonderful Med cruising. So overall we look like we are in for a great cruise and my only concern is that so many of the guests won’t understand me or some of the shows.

Time to talk about two Mickys. Did you know that our Micky Arison is on Twitter now?…….Yep, I was talking to a beard and they were telling me again that I should be twittering and then said that our chairman was and would be using it to talk about the industry we all love so much.

So follow him or twit with him or whatever you call it at Twitter – @MickyArison

I have feeling that for those of us who love cruising, the insights of the chairman of the world’s most successful cruise company should be pretty fascinating.

I said I wasn’t going to talk about last cruise again but that’s not strictly true because I have to refer to the little walk Heidi and I had on Saturday while the ship was in Barcelona. With Kye having fun at Camp Carnival, we decided to take a walk along the pier rather than around the ship as I didn’t want to get shouted at or covered in spittle. So off we went along the pier and to look at the Disney ship that was docked with us bow to bow. Before I continue let me say I have nothing but respect for Disney. I know bugger all about their shipboard operations but I do know that their land parks are incomparable and provide amazing entertainment to millions of people. I say this because yesterday I lost two friends from my Facebook thingy because I made a joke about the old Micky Mouse song……you know……

M…. I …… C ….. K ……. E …… Y ……. M …….. O …. U … S….E……………and yesterday I spelt the last word incorrectly and instead of saying

M….I……C…..K…….E……Y…….M……..O….U…S….E…………….I said ……… M …. I …… C ….. K ……. E…… Y…….O……..U….S…O….B

Well, that was a mistake because I got a massive bollocking from some of the readers and two de-friended me as quickly as a Frenchman de-friends a stick of roll-on deodorant. It seems you can make fun of the French and say Judge Judy is a lap dancer and talk about my underpants but saying anything wrong about the mouse and you are the devil.

So then , before I continue let me say once again that I think Disney are an amazing company and yet I also have to comment on what I saw yesterday because as we walked down the pier I could not believe what I was seeing. The Disney ship was on turnaround (embarkation day) and one would expect it to be full of kids screaming in delight when they see Mickey is standing by the gangway to meet them. Well the kids were there all right, hundreds of them getting out of the buses and the taxis to go through the terminal but they were not alone. Until you have watched cruising adults regressing so far back into childhood they could practically be wearing diapers you cannot know the true meaning of a behavior that could only be described as …… ummm ………….dare I say “strange?” I hadn’t realised that there are adults in this world who subject themselves to the ordeal of Disney without children. Honestly, I had no idea. There were women in their sixties wearing Minnie Mouse ears. Grown men wearing Micky Mouse shirts and Goofy shirts and Donald shirts. I have seen some people get excited when their bus or car or cab draws up to a Carnival ship but bloody hell you should have seen it yesterday in Barcelona.

Couples in orgasmic spasms of ecstasy because they’ve seen the Disney ship and caught a glimpse of Donald Duck hanging off the side of the smokestack…………And, no, not a child or grandchild in sight. These people probably don’t drink or smoke or use the ship’s casino (if there was one), but they would trample a seven-year-old underfoot to beat them to a photo opportunity by the lido pool with a giant rodent.

Maybe I just don’t understand well enough the thing that is Disney. It can bring out the spectacular best in children but from what I saw on Saturday it can make adults go absolutely bonkers. I have been to Disney in Florida and no doubt as Kye gets older I will have to go again although personally I would rather have rectal surgery. But if we do go I won’t be one of those parents who shove their offspring into the path of any passing Disney character, Eye Phones capturing the moment but ignoring the fact that they’ve just shoved someone else’s crying toddler to the floor. Yep, as I said, I am sure Disney Cruise Line’s operation is as brilliant as their-land based theme parks but after what I saw yesterday…………give me a sixty year old guest in a Carnival funnel hat any day.

Goodnight

Your friend,

John