But as I sit here this morning, in my underpants, at the Marriottintercontinentalhyatt hotel, I realise that if there is one small mercy about the girls not coming it’s that I don’t have to go to the beach. I had booked The Loews Hotel because it was on beautiful Miami Beach and there is no doubt that Heidi and Kye would have loved it. For me, it would have been sodding purgatory.

I have never ever understood people’s fascination with the beach. Yes, places like Half Moon Cay, Seven Mile Beach in Grand Cayman (build a sodding pier) and other Caribbean beaches are gorgeous to look at but at the end of the day……..to me, it’s sand…….loads of ……. ummmm …….. sand. Just think of all the things it is used for, the manufacture of bricks, and as a housekeeping manager once told me it’s used to make abrasive polishing fluids and cleaning fluids. Is that really the best substance to sit on for days at a time? It always used to surprise me that guests would come to see me on the Carnival Magic and ask where the best beaches are in Venice, Messina and Naples. To come all that way and ignore the obvious historical stunning sites to lay on a beach surrounded by Italian men in Speedos? Each to their own I guess.

I understand, of course, that the beach isn’t the point, unless you’re Kye and want to build sandcastles – nope, it’s the sunbathing. I also understand that the sunbathing isn’t the point either because if we are honest it’s coming back to people saying how tanned you look. But surely if God had wanted people to sunbathe he wouldn’t have invented air conditioning. Nope, I hate beaches and I think many adults feel the same. Whether it’s from the sun, or the wind whipping sand into my orifices simultaneously I just don’t like it. How can anything involving sand equal a “fabulous time?” Even toddlers, on discovering that making upside down castles with plastic buckets is boring and so after a few hours hate it too.

Now obviously there is the fact that in Miami everyone is beautiful and on Miami Beach they are even more so and my beach ball stomach would have looked totally out of place against the back drop of toned bodies, six packs and buttocks that could crack open a coconut. I guess my hatred comes from the last time Heidi and I had a beach holiday in Portugal’s beautiful Algarve. Except we didn’t see the beautiful Algarve because Heidi wanted to be on the beach the entire two weeks. My patience ended with beaches after this holiday when I found I’d been lying for two hours on a partially buried human turd. In reality, couples can’t swim in the turquoise water together, gently groping each other under water in a frisky prelude to some rumpy pumpy back at the hotel as the advertising suggests because someone’s got to sit guarding the camera, money and Eyepods. The beach? There is nowhere I would rather go less for a vacation. Except Paris, obviously.

Let’s crack on with some Q and A.

Donna Shower asked:
Hi John,

I saw that on the blog from the 13th you were talking about the new way to purchase photos on board. I was recently on the Dream and they have these machines on board as well. I have a question for you regarding the extent of this technology. Would it be possible to have an option on the menu on the stateroom TV where you could view and purchase pictures from your stateroom? It would be great if every picture you had taken on the ship could go straight to the stateroom TV so passengers could browse through and order them at their convenience. One thing that was challenging was that the photo gallery always seemed to be open when something else fun was going on the ship and then it closed at 11 PM. And the machines were only operational when the gallery was open. So how convenient it would be if we could look at and order pics 24/7 from our cabins. Just a though anyway. Had a WONDERFUL time on the Carnival Dream. Could not have asked for anything better. And a special shout-out to Francisco and Jason in the dining room. Great service!!!

Thanks for all you do, John.

Donna S.

John says:
Hello Donna Shower,

For those who do not know, Donna is referring to the facial technology we now have on the Carnival Dream and Carnival Magic. This uses the photo embedded in your Sail & Sign card to recognize the photos you have taken. You swipe the card through a machine and those photos are displayed there. I am told by the beards that this is just the start to what this technology can do and I am sure we will see things like the photos displayed on your cabin TV and much more. I will say this though, the old fashioned way of guests browsing the stands looking for their photos seems to get guests excited to buy the photos. But we do need to find other ways as well and we will, I am so glad you had a great time and thanks so much for taking the time to write.

Best wishes.

John

Lisa and David asked:

We are platinum cruisers and during cruise number 14 on the Carnival Ecstasy we were told that the behind the scenes tour to the bridge was sold out. Platinum passengers should get preferential treatment on this as we were very upset that we could not go. Our next cruise number 15 will be on the Carnival Valor 1/8/12 so I need you to reserve two places for Lisa and David – BKG ******. My travel agent told me about your blog and that you take care of requests like this. I think we cruised with you on the Carnival Glory back in 2004 when we had to have an extra day at sea because of the Hurricane.

John says:
Hello Lisa and David,

I do indeed remember that cruise very well and our extra day at sea before returning to Port Canaveral. Thank you so much for your loyalty and while your travel agent is correct in the fact that I do try and help many people here with requests, I cannot reserve you both a spot on the Behind the Fun tour. We value our Platinum guests greatly however in this case we need to have this available to all our guests. May I suggest that you book the tour the day you board as that way I am positive you will be able to get spaces as it is very rarely sold out that early in the cruise? Thanks again for your loyalty and if there is anything else I can do for you please let me know.

Best wishes to you both.

John

Michole asked:
Hi John,

We returned home yesterday from My Carnival Inspiration. What an experience!!!! I had previously written before our cruise, and we had ended up with some wonderful chocolate covered strawberries in our cabin and the cabin our daughters were in. Thank you so much this meant a lot to everyone and enhanced our total experience! We had an awesome time, for four of the six of us traveling together, it was our first cruise, and first Carnival cruise for one. We are already planning out our next cruise together! I would like to say that the CD Stephanie and ACD Michelle were great. We all enjoyed the shows and the entertainment staff was great! I especially want to give a shout out to our cabin stewards Iryl and Joe, and our dining room waiters Jose and Asta. They were also a great enhancement to our whole experience, so kind and whatever we needed they were right there. Thank you again for all you do, I will continue to enjoy your blog, and thanks for the goodies in the cabins.

Michole

John says:
Hello Michole,

I had to look twice to make sure I had spelt your name correctly, Michole, I think that’s the first time I have seen that name and it’s a very pretty one. Thanks so very much for this great review which I have just sent to the ship and they will be thrilled to see that you have taken the time to write about them. I hope you all will return to Carnival for your next family vacation and if there is anything I can do for you please let me know.

Best wishes.

John

Sasha Grey asked:
Hello John,

I love your blog, you are a wonderful writer and I hope I get to cruise on a ship with you one day. I live in California and want to take my family and friends on a cruise on the Carnival Splendor in March. My parents love cruising. There will be nine of us and we have a lot to celebrate with my parent’s 40th wedding anniversary, my brother’s 30th birthday and I have some personal career achievements to celebrate as well. My question Sir John is that saying all of this we are a very private family and would like to be guaranteed a private table at dinner. This may sound extremely pretentious but for reasons I cannot explain it is vital that we do this. I researched this and found your blog and saw that you help people so I am asking your advice as this will determine if we cruise or not. We are all in LA and I would love for my family to experience a cruise but the table situation at dinner is a deal breaker. I hope to hear from you very soon.

Sasha

John says:
Hello Sasha Grey,

How kind of you to consider bringing your family and friends on the Carnival Splendor next year. You will really love the ship and she is a perfect place for you to celebrate your parent’s anniversary and your brother’s birthday and your own career achievements. I will say that while I cannot 100% guarantee a private table I think I can say that 95% I will be able to help you so please, book the cruise and enjoy seven fabulous days on the Carnival Splendor with your family. Please let me know if there is anything else I can do for you.

Best wishes.

John

Jerry Cole asked:

I will be on the 1/29/2012 cruise on the Magic with my wife. This is our fifth cruise. I understand that you will be our CD and we are looking forward to seeing you. Will Mutzie be on this cruise as well? Saw him on the last cruise and think he is the best. On our last cruise for our anniversary I ordered the banner for our cabin and they put up the honeymoon one by mistake. Not funny at the time but being 58 on a honeymoon would be interesting. Otherwise have enjoyed the five previous cruises immensely. I’m not happy with the further smoking restrictions but this is happening everywhere and I’ll deal with it.

Thanks.

Jerry Cole

John says:
Hello Jerry Cole,

I will indeed see you on the Carnival Magic and she is a brilliant ship which I know will give you a brilliant vacation. The comedians schedule for January has not yet been completed so I can’t tell you if Mutzie will be there or not. I do know that I am looking forward to seeing him next week, this will be the first time I have done so and I hear from many other guests that he is very funny indeed so I am looking forward to seeing him perform. As a cigar smoker I realise that the world is changing and the new restrictions are tough, there is no doubt about that. However, you still have locations where you can smoke on the Carnival Magic including the Lanai where you can do so listening to the sounds of the sea. I will see you soon and get ready for a wonderful week.

Best wishes.

John

Sally Rydell asked:

How can I find the previous posts on Smoke On the Water? My friends and I were on that cruise. I wanted to print all of the notes for us to enjoy together before we sail again on the Magic on January 22, 2012. We are hoping that you will be there with us. Because of your wonderful personality we came home from the Carnival Splendor and told everyone how much fun we had even with all that went wrong. You are an exceptional person and we want to meet you in person. And yes my email address is correct so I expect another exciting trip with you.

Sally, DJ, Jennifer, Sharyl, Brenda and Michael from Sacramento, California

John says:
Hello Sally Rydell,

It will of course be the anniversary of the Splendor incident. I wasn’t actually going to mention that but how ironic that your question should appear today, it is quite uncanny that it has. I wonder if the beards held back on this until today……mmmmmmmm. Anyway, I wish I could be with you all on the 22nd but I don’t join the Carnival Magic until the 29th, I am so sorry. I want to thank you for your understanding and good nature during those very difficult days on the Carnival Splendor. It was three days of mixed emotion that I tried to sum up in my Smoke On The Water Blogs. There were five parts and you can find them all here.

I hope your cruise on the Carnival magic is one full of only fun and sun and if there is anything else I can do for you please let me know.

Best wishes to all.

John

Eddie Peabody asked:

I am trying to find a cruise out of Ft. Lauderdale in November 2012 and the only ship I can find is the Carnival Freedom which I have been on several times. Please tell me if another Carnival ship will be sailing out of Ft. Lauderdale next November? Thank you

John says:
Hello Eddie Peabody,

We don’t have any other ships outside of the Carnival Freedom sailing out of Port Everglades next year I am afraid as the Carnival Miracle will be sailing year-round from New York. Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Best wishes,

John

Philip Callan asked:
Hi John,

Love the site, we were on the Carnival Magic in August and had a fantastic time, love the Breakfast Show with yourself and Calvyn. My wife and I have just booked on the Carnival Breeze for June 27, 2012 and were wondering if you will be the cruise director for the ship when she enters service. It would be great to see you and Calvyn again.

Regards

Philip

John says:
Hello Philip Callan,

Hosting the morning show with Calvyn was one of my favourite things to do and I am so glad you enjoyed it. The good news is that we will all be together again on the Carnival Breeze and I promise that you will enjoy her so much and that there will be new spaces on her that we are very excited about. See you soon Philip and thanks for the kind words.

Best wishes.

John

Allan Medin asked:

Hello John! I just booked a cruise on the Carnival Breeze for 12/2/2012 (cabin# 11268) and was wondering if you will be aboard as cruise director? You are hilarious and I enjoy both your blog and Facebook. This will be my third cruise with Carnival and I hope to meet you sometime. Keep up the good work.

Sincerely,

Allan

John says:
Hello Allan Medin,

Thanks for those kind words and my aim is to stay on the Carnival Breeze for that cruise and leave mid December. Now hopefully my plans will not change as they have this year and that will mean we can sail together. I certainly hope that is the case. Thanks for the kind words mate and I hope to see you next year.

Best wishes.

John

That’s all for today.

Here then is the latest piano bar entertainment schedule which I thank bearded Rob from our entertainment department for sending me.

• Carnival Fantasy Hrvoje Knezevic 11/28/11
• Carnival Inspiration Jafar Curry 12/03/11
• Carnival Magic Ron Pass 12/04/11
• Carnival Pride James Quigley 12/04/11
• Carnival Valor Brad Alexander 12/11/11
• Carnival Paradise Richard Yerkes 12/12/11
• Carnival Spirit Keith Turner 01/06/12
• Carnival Miracle Peter Brenner 01/13/12
• Carnival Freedom Marty Gast 01/14/12
• Carnival Splendor Jim Morris 01/15/12
• Carnival Legend Pollyanna Jones 01/15/12
• Carnival Victory Jerry Selix 01/22/12
• Carnival Sensation Barry Miller 01/26/12
• Carnival Destiny Robert Crucilla 02/20/12
• Carnival Triumph Lorraine Ingle 02/23/12
• Carnival Liberty Robert Berhalter 02/25/12
• 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
• Carnival Imagination Dana Honey 04/02/12
• Carnival Elation Tom Grable 05/05/12

The dates next to the names are the day they leave and I see a few new names there as well. I am sure the President of the Piano Bar Entertainers Association Laura AKA “Divetrash” will be able to tell me who the current favourites are and of course I thank all the piano bar players for their fantastic entertainment. If you have cruised with any of them recently and you have a comment to make please do so as your feedback is invaluable.

I was really hoping to post the new CD schedule today but as they say “The best laid plans of mice and men.” Or where I come from we say “Bugger, not another sodding delay.” Ummmm ………yes. This is because of a few factors. We have had to swap some people around because of situations that I can’t mention here as they are personal to the cruise directors involved. It does involve three ships and hopefully by the end of today Chris P who has done about 37 rewrites of the schedule will be able to send it to the CD’s and I can then post it to you. I can tell you that Kirk Benning had to leave the Carnival Dream on Saturday for personal reasons, nothing serious but I wish him well. He was due to go on vacation in two weeks time anyway and for the next two weeks his wonderful assistant Jaime will take over as CD and she will I am sure do a brilliant job as she has on other ships recently. Then on the 19th Gary Brierly will take over as CD on the Carnival Dream and he as you know is another rising star. So with many apologies to those who are waiting for the CD schedule, I hope to have it ready for you soon.

So, tomorrow my fat arse will be wedged inside a seat on an American Pringle Tube flight to Freeport. Yep, I have to fly and I am doing it three times in the next three days. There and back to Freeport and then on Friday to Houston. And as I hate flying in the same way I want to wait for Maroon 5’s lead singer Adam Levine to walk off the Galveston stage and lick his back clean. God I hate that American Eagle plane. There isn’t enough room for anyone with shoulders or legs, the seat belt would be tight on Kate sodding Moss’ waist and both times I have flown to Freeport the plane has been as bouncy as a small dog at dinner time.

However, I have to go, I need to go. I let so many people down by not being on the trans-Atlantic that it is absolutely the right thing to do.

Here is the letter the guests got heralding my arrival and trumpeting two other wonderful additions.

November 7, 2011

Greetings folks!

We hope you are enjoying your transatlantic cruise aboard the magical Carnival Magic.
I just need a moment of your time to provide you with some information regarding the next few days.

So, we thought we’d kick things up a notch on Wednesday and Thursday and treat you to the following:

• Complimentary round trip shuttle service to Port Lucaya Market Place
o 10:00AM to 5:00PM on Wednesday
o 9:00AM to 3:00PM on Thursday

• Hat Trick Casino will be open while in port on Wednesday from 7:00PM to 3:00AM

• The Fun Shops on board will be open for business

• Our Chef de Cuisine is preparing a special lobster dinner for you that will be served on Wednesday evening in the dining room

But wait! That’s not all. Drum roll please….our very own beloved Senior Cruise Director John Heald is flying in from Miami just to be with you. He will be hosting Wednesday evening’s shows in the Showtime Theater.

We hope you enjoy these extras just for you. Most importantly, we thank you for being part of this historical crossing of the Carnival Magic.

Sincerely,
Captain Giovanni Cutugno

So the guests get free transportation to downtown which considering the fee is usually $10 per person I think that is a great add on for the guests. Indeed the ship has stores being transferred from another Carnival ship in Freeport tomorrow (Carnival Sensation I think) including lobster for everyone, a second time this voyage. Yep, Carnival is really trying to put its best foot forward ………..apart from my fat arse coach on American Sparrow obviously.

I wonder if the guests will be pleased to see me. James the CD has told me that there are a few who are a little grumpy. One group has been arguing amongst themselves in front of the captain who had attended their function and one lady I am told has said she will be “waiting for me on the gangway” as she has a list of comments she wants to give me. Oh joy. Regardless of all of this I hope most will enjoy seeing me as much as I am looking forward to seeing and for a while on stage entertaining them as well.

Talking of entertainment I have to tell you something that I am embarrassed to mention. But, we are all friends here and I think I can tell you anything, right?…..I hope so because I am really worried about what I have to tell you. So much so that it gave me a sleepless night and this morning I am seriously considering going to see a doctor……..I feel sick, I can’t eat and I have explosive diarrhea……….again. I am sure once I tell you this many will cancel their subscription here on the blog and by the end of the day I will have zero friends on Facebook. So I come before you with a heavy heart and a runny bottom to tell you that yesterday……..I …… please, please don’t hate me……………………….because I am here to admit that yesterday……..I watched………. Live: With Regis and Kelly.

It was an accident, honest it was. I was sitting in my hotel room, in my underpants and had the TV on. The news channels which I normally watch were going on about someone called Herman something who apparently is a Republican and has asked loads of women for rumpy pumpy and not as it is alleged in a very nice way.

Anyway, as Fox and CNN rattled on about this I flicked down a channel or 20 and suddenly saw my mate Regis and he was on with Robert De Niro who for some reason was kissing him and giving him flowers. As I wrote the blog and listened to what was happening my mind went back to 1996 and the Carnival Destiny and my one of two occasions where I met Mr Philbin.
Now as many but probably not all of you know, back in the 90′s Carnival’s spokesperson was the wonderful Kathie Lee Gifford. I met her on many occasions during new ship launches and I always found her to be warm and kind and even though she didn’t see me for many months between new vessels she always remembered my name……………I thought she was brilliant.
Then there was Regis. Now unfortunately my two memories of Regis were not so warm and wonderful. The first came when Kathie Lee Gifford was hosting a charity event on board the then world’s largest cruise ship the Carnival Destiny during her inaugural season in New York.

The evening started with a lavish dinner which the rich and tanned paid hundreds of dollars for with all proceeds going to Kathie’s charity for underprivileged and sick children. After dinner it was Showtime and Kathie was to perform along with Marvin Hamlisch, Clint Black and others. The evening started with me going out on stage and welcoming everyone and then introducing Kathie Lee and Regis who were going to sing the old classic “You say Potato……Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off.”

A few lines into the song we started to have a few ………….. ummmmmmmmmmm …………. technical issues with Regis’s microphone which started feeding back when he sang and high pitched whining noises started coming from the speaker that sounded like two cats having rumpy pumpy against an electric fence. It was pretty bad. It didn’t last very long, maybe a few lines of the song and while Kathie continued to smile and sing Regis stood on stage with a face that looked like someone had pissed in his cornflakes. Yep, he certainly did not hide his emotions, he was angry and Mr Arison, Donald Trump (yep the wigged one was there as well) and the rest of New York’s socialites knew he was bloody furious.

Well, being well heeled, the audience applauded and cheered at the end of the song and Kathie stayed on stage to continue the show. Unfortunately Mr. Philbin was not so forthcoming and as soon as he entered the backstage area he said a few words that rhymed with luck and hit and then in a final act of rage………..he threw his microphone at me. Luckily his aim was not good and the microphone just missed my head and crashed to the floor behind me ……………and that was that………he demanded to be shown off the ship and we didn’t see him again that night.
This had not been the first problem Mr. Philbin had encountered on board one of our ships. The first was on board the Carnival Sensation.

He was sailing with his wife and of course staying in the penthouse. Well, formal night (as we used to call it) came around and about 6:30 pm the Chief Purser Ron Ness was asked to go to the penthouse to see Mr.Philbin.

Arriving there Ron was asked by Mr. Philbin to help him on with his tuxedo which had just returned from the ship’s laundry. Ron thought this to be a rather strange request but as he was a huge celebrity and a guest of the company Ron had to comply. Mr. Philbin pointed toward his expensive designer tuxedo which was hanging in the closet, thinking that maybe he may have a bad back or something which is why he couldn’t put it on himself. Ron started to take the jacket off the coat hanger………..and there inlay the problem………he couldn’t ………. because unfortunately the laundry had pressed the jacket with the wire coat hanger still inside and had welded the thing onto it. I don’t think you need me to say what happened next.

By the way, the day after the microphone throwing feedback disaster, Regis went on his show and apologised to the millions of viewers about the state of his voice which was due to “the worst sound he had ever experienced and that the sound man must have been deaf.” Now that sound engineer was a young man called Adam who during the crossing had been given the nickname Creamy Head. Poor Creamy was devastated and a few months later he resigned. It wasn’t just because of the Regis thing, of course it wasn’t but it hadn’t helped.

I later saw that Regis went on to host “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.” Thinking about it now as a 46 year old man I think I would have done things a little differently. When he threw the microphone at me I was a young and inexperienced cruise director who thought it was OK to be treated that way. But now when I look back I wish I had been brave enough to ask him to apologise. And I think if he had done that to me today, the ex host of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” may have to phone a friend……to pull the microphone which would have been sticking out of his bottom.

Anyway, as these thoughts came rushing back to me but as I watched Bobby De Niro, Joan Rivers and Matt Damon all pay homage to him on his retirement from the show, I realised that I was watching a man still entertaining, still making people laugh and still be loved by the public and doing so at the age of 80…………….I should be so lucky. Enjoy your retirement Regis.

Goodnight.

Your friend,

John

Now there was one other thing that I spoke to James about and that was the washing of hands. I told him this because of course myself and 700 guests went through that awful outbreak of norothingy during the Carnival Liberty’s crossing from Italy to Fort Lauderdale. The entire deck 0, the deck where you disembark in port, had many sick guests and crew. It didn’t smell very nice as you can imagine so it should be no surprise that after a while deck 0 was simply known ………as Paris.

The germs were probably brought from ashore and even though I joke about it, that was a very nasty situation and I never want to go through that again which is why we have fleetwide reminders about washing hands with warm water and soap and to use the hand sanitizers as much as possible. And if you look back over the last few years our efforts appear to have been working and James is encouraging these healthy habits on Carnival Magic.

But while the washing of hands thing is being listened to on board I can say that unfortunately it isn’t on land. Recently I encountered someone in a public toilet………no not a George Michael kind of encounter…….it was an encounter with someone at Carnival’s offices in Miami. He did his business, zipped up and walked out of the bathroom without even looking at the sink let alone washing his hands. As he left I remember thinking, “You dirty bastard,” I washed my hands and left to find the chap outside the toilets in the corridor scrubbing his hands like a surgeon using his own hand sanitizer gel. I obviously didn’t say anything but as I walked past him I realised that he must have been worried about washing his hands and then touching the exit door which is why he washed them afterwards. Now being a bit thick I thought to myself that this made sense and was OK. But it took a few moments before I realised that hold on, it wasn’t OK because I had washed my hands and then opened the door, the door he had pulled open without washing his hands. And while he had scrubbed his hands clean I was about to eat my lunchtime chicken salad sandwich with his germs all over my hands. If you think about it, its men like this chap who while protecting himself from your germs doesn’t give a bugger about spreading his own germs onto you.

I remember talking to our fleet senior physician, Dr. John Bradberry, during a discussion about norovirus. He said that the simple washing of hands with warm water and soap can stop the spread of gastro illness but I wonder how many people actually do after having a number one or a number two. Yes of course, I know you do and so do I.  But it’s the other bastards who are the problem. Can you imagine, Bob from accounting goes to the toilet, points Percy at the porcelain and then leaves without washing his hands? He then walks straight to a meeting and shakes hands with some people or worse goes to the office coffee pot and pours a cup of coffee.

On the ships there is a small paper towel dispenser so that you can open the door with a towel and then throw the towel away in the garbage can placed outside. I can tell you that very few guests do this. Yes they wash their hands but don’t know to use the paper towels to open the door with. If bathrooms on land or at sea don’t have these, I open the doors with my sleeve or call Calvyn to come in and open the doors for me. I know a cruise director who never flushes a public toilet because he’s paranoid about touching the handle. The fact that some other unfortunate sod walks in and sees a huge Richard the Third (rhyming slang) sitting there does not bother him at all.

More and more I see people using their own hand sanitizer and wipes. A new one for me was when I was in Publix last week with my assistant Mel and as we walked in she instinctively took a wet wipe out of her purse and wiped down the handle of the trolley. Apparently that’s normal in California where she is from and it makes sense. Who wants to push a shopping trolley around that was last pushed around by someone who had just sneezed into their hand. Yes a bit of dirt on the handle of a shopping trolley won’t hurt, but imagine if that bit of dirt has come from someone who has not washed their hands before heading to Publix and pushing the same trolley around that you will a few hours later.

But there is one more situation that I worry about and one I was never really aware of until Kye came into my life. I have seen kids play on the ships and we can wash our hands all we like but it will be the children that will be our undoing. They’re constantly putting their hands in their mouths, sucking on toys that another child has sucked minutes before. We have regimented and strict cleaning procedures at Camp Carnival but kids are kids and the will still scratch their bottoms and pick their noses before holding hands with other kids as they walk to Lido for some chicken nuggets. So basically unless we stop breeding and unless we employ toilet marshals who have the right to shoot anyone who doesn’t wash their hands………we’re doomed.
Time for today’s Q and A………..here we go.

Sara Pardew asked:
Hi, John.

Please can you tell me what the entertainment will be on the cruise on the Magic on the 14th of November. Me and my husband are both ER nurses for Fort Worth and have saved hard to pay for this cruise of a lifetime. We cruised once before and the shows were fantastic and I am sure they will be even better on Carnivals new boat. Thanks John and we can’t wait to meet you in person. You are a riot!

John says:
Hello Sara Pardew.

It’s only a few days now until you cruise and I know that you work so hard and both deserve this brilliant vacation. Here is a list of the shows you will see which I absolutely know you will love.

• Mon, Nov, 14 Galveston Welcome Aboard Show dep @ 4pm
• Tue, Nov, 15 at sea Grooveline Mutzie/John Wesley Austin
• Wed, Nov, 16 at sea Marcus Monroe
• Thu, Nov, 17 Costa Maya Destination Unknown/ Jason Byrne 8am-5pm
• Fri, Nov, 18 Cozumel WIN plus Marcus Anthony Mutzie/JohnWesley Austin 8am-5pm
• Sat, Nov, 19 at sea Carnival Legends

So Marcus Monroe is a brilliant juggler and acrobatic comedian. Marcus Anthony has the most brilliant Motown shows. You have two comedians performing a total of 16 comedy shows including uncensored comedy performances. Then you have three shows featuring the cast of dancers and singers. Win, an interactive game show, Destination Unknown featuring top magician and illusionist Jason Byrne and of course Grooveline, a trip back to the music of the 1970s. So get ready for a wonderful week of entertainment and I look forward to seeing you both on board.

Best wishes.

John

David Henrick asked:

I suggest John that you start to prioritize the questions you answer. I submitted my request for a table for two 21 days before the actual cruise but it was ignored by you and went unanswered and my wife and me were forced to sit with people we had nothing in common with for the entire five days. If you offer customer service then you need to make sure that you live up to those promises which as far as our sailing was concerned you DID NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

John says:
Hello David Henrick

I know that there are some whose questions come to me after their cruise is over as it was with yours for which I sincerely apologise. Please though let me explain how it works. The beards in the Miami office send me 10 questions each day. These questions are pulled from the Ask John section of my blog and are sent to me in the order they were posted there. Now because I am so far behind there are some that I receive where people have asked me for things and whose cruise is already over. I do the best I can and at the moment I have over 500 questions in my in box. I wish I had the time or that the people in the office who help me with the blog had the time to go through each one and see the date of the cruise, but we don’t. I do suggest to everyone that they post their question here two months before sailing or if they want a quicker response to ask me on my Facebook page where I answer 200 -300 questions a week. I do hope that you had a great cruise and my apologies again that I was unable to assist you with your table request.

Best wishes.

John

Rebecca Howell asked:

Will you be the cruise director on the Jan 19 cruise from Galveston on the Magic? We enjoyed you so much in May (Med cruise) and hopefully, you will be on the Galveston cruise as well. Have a great day!

John says:
Hello Rebecca Howell

I am so sorry but I won’t be there Rebecca. I don’t get to the ship until January 29 but please don’t let that worry you. Carnival Magic is a wonderful vessel and as you have already experienced in Europe and she will be ready again to give you a brilliant time. Please let me know if you need anything.

Best wishes.

John

Michelle Hazelwood asked:
Dear John, (or whoever is in your stead while you enjoy family time).

I thoroughly enjoy your blog and delight in reading them. I wanted to thank you for what you’ve written re: 9-11 tributes and silent moments. Your style and wit, compassion and honesty are so personable I believe I have made a mistake in over posting responses, perhaps as a way to pass the time easier until my 10-17 cruises on the Carnival Destiny. I noticed my response to your 9-12 blog, and I believe a reply in the one directly before it was moderated out. I used no profanity, I was not threatening, I did think about flirting with you but appreciate Heidi’s huge contribution to your contentment! I may have been a wee bit inflammatory, however no more so than hundreds of others who comment. I’m at a loss as to what to correct in how I write postings so now am afraid to do so for fear of offending you. I do apologize profusely for whatever it may have been that prevented anything I have written to be omitted. It is never my intent to disrespect you, blog response policies, or Carnival’s. I admire you too much.

Sincerely,

Michelle Hazelwood

John says:
Hello Michele Hazelwood

Oh my goodness, please don’t be upset at yourself. I read all the comments posted on my blog thingy and I certainly saw nothing that was written by you or anyone that would have upset me in anyway. Opinions are most welcome here and even though we may all never agree it is opinion that makes the world an interesting place to live and makes this blog so popular with the thousands of weekly readers. I remain here for you and thank you for this wonderful post which I truly appreciated.

Best wishes.

John

Lassiter asked:

Heald you said today that you won’t discuss how much your salary is but it’s not difficult to find out thanks to the good old internet. The salary for a cruise director ranges from $3,800 – $7,000 per month depending on the cruise line “So I am sure with your over inflated visibility and brand ambassador duties that Carnival must be paying you the top end of that scale or more. So don’t patronize us and when you asked a question and say you won’t reply remember that the internet allows us to know more about you than you can imagine. I am now ready for your servants to flame me but I don’t care. I stand by my opinion as do others.

John says:
Hello Lassiter

I always look forward to your comments in the same way I look forward to finding a small black curly hair in my Caesar’s salad. I won’t discuss my pay and if at any time you have a question about ….oh I don’t know…….cruising……….or if you genuinely need my help I will be here for you.

Best wishes.

John

Jacqueline Gonzalez asked:
John,

I just got off the Carnival Liberty this Saturday and let me tell you I am completely disappointed. This was my fifth cruise with Carnival and I have never had such a bad experience. Can you please provide me with an e-mail address of someone with high rankings that will actually read my book long e-mail that I submitted earlier today to my travel agent and her Carnival sales rep.? Like I said this was my fifth cruise and not once before have I had any complaints but this time my list just goes on and on. I really enjoy your blog and you FB page. Enjoy your time off and enjoy your girls. Thank you for all the info that you provide us all.

John says:
Hello Jacqueline Gonzalez.

I am so sorry that you were not happy with your cruise and please forgive the lateness of my reply as I see this was posted on September 24. I will send this immediately to someone who will be in touch very soon. My apologies once again.

Best wishes.

John

Nancy Nadal asked:

My cruise on the Sensation last week was somewhat spoiled because so many passengers were allowed in the dining room in non formal wear. My DH and I were at a table for two and the family at the table next to us was a family and not one of the men had a tie on and the women were dressed as though they were having dinner at Denny’s. Why does Carnival not enforce these rules and make passengers dress formally. IMHO you will lose so many passengers to Royal Caribbean if this continues.

John says:
Hello Nancy Nadal

First of all, please excuse me deleting the rest of your post Nancy as it contained a link to a site that I am not promoting anymore for reasons that have been well explained here. Also well known are my feelings on dress code and how I have a complete lack of understanding as to what that family were wearing would affect the enjoyment of your meal and the quality time with your husband. We don’t require any guest to have to wear a tie and respectfully Nancy if we did, I have a feeling we would lose a lot of guests to other lines. I hope you had a wonderful cruise though and thanks for taking the time to post your thoughts.

Best wishes to you both.

John

Ian Dey asked:
Hello

Reading through your blog I see more and more people saying how great their cabin steward was and so I felt bad that I had not mentioned the amazing Mr. Danilo. Our cruise on the Triumph was full of bad weather and a missed port but the crew was fantastic and nobody more so than Mr Danilo whose smile and gracious hospitality were something that my family and I will never forget. I wonder if you would let the “beards” know please Mr. Heald. Thank you.

John says:
Hello Ian Dey

Thank you so very much for a wonderfully written post that in just a few sentences sums up all we hope our crew will be. I will make sure that the management team on board and ashore will see these words of praise and I hope that despite the bad weather that you all had a brilliant time. Mr. Danilo will be thrilled when he reads this.

Best wishes.

John

Scooter Cruiser asked:

Me and seven others successfully smuggled our rum runners onto the Destiny today. Take that fat boy. Ha Ha Ha.

John says:
Hello Scooter Cruiser

Many congratulations. My concern though is are you old enough to drink alcohol as your post comes across like it was written by someone who is 12?

Best wishes.

John

Jim Lazell asked:
John,

Fantastic time was had by all on the Carnival Freedom and a big thanks to you for the table arrangement. My Father’s 80th birthday was something he will never forget and thank you for the gifts you sent him. Everything on the ship was perfect and Perlita who looked after our cabin and Savio and Hilaria our dining room servers were the best we have had in our eight cruises. A special shout out must go to Piet the bartender at the wine bar who invited us to visit him should we ever go to South Africa. He is very funny and we all thought he should be a cruise director John. It was a great time and thank you Carnival and thank you John for making this cruise so special for me and the family and especially my Father.

John says:
Hello Jim Lazell

Thanks so very much for those wonderful words of praise and I am so glad that you all had this great time together to celebrate your Father’s birthday. I will make sure that everyone sees their names have been mentioned and that the senior management knows what an impact these people had on your cruise. Thanks for taking the time to write and I hope we see you all again on another cruise soon.

Best wishes to all.

John

That’s all for today and thanks so very much for all the comments and questions.

Let’s go back to the Carnival Magic and her journey to Texas. On Wednesday she will be in Freeport and I am still trying to see if the beards will allow me to go and visit the ship. It’s something I really want to do as I know I let some guests down by not being there so even a quick visit will allow me to shake some hands and also maybe some time on stage to say hello.
Let’s see what happens.

James the CD is doing a brilliant job and I have had some wonderful comments from people sailing on the trans-Atlantic that they posted on Facebook. I am communicating with James a lot and trying to help as much as I can.

Over the weekend he got a little frustrated I think because he had started to receive a few grumbles from guests including two men that were quite vicious because the ship didn’t show a college football game. James’s calm explanation that the ship was in the middle of the Atlantic and that there was no satellite coverage of anything at all was met with some hateful words and even one of the men breaking down in tears. I have said it before and I will say it again, I just don’t understand why it is expected that on a cruise, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean that the ship will show some random college football game and that when we say we won’t be showing it the guests throw abuse at the CD. I find this extraordinary.

Anyway, one of James’ other concerns was that the indoor areas on the ship were very busy indeed with not too many guests outside as the weather wasn’t yet conducive to sun worshiping and so I suggested some matinee movies on the Seaside Theatre Big Screen. And here as seen through the camera lens of Mr Radu is the result.

Can you tell what the movie was?

Talking of Mr Radu, here he is, in his own words.

Dear John,

I just finished my last seminar, this time it was held it in the Spotlight Lounge, and the lounge was full as well. I didn’t expect it will have so much interest. Today I gave our guests tips for taking good photos, information about filters, “the rule of the thirds,” and the most important thing in composition, complete with sample photos from this cruise. Now they will enter their photos in the photo contest, and I told them that the winners will be posted in your Facebook. Here is one of the images taken this morning, middle of the Atlantic, showing the effect of polarizer filter.

Have a great day

Radu Ursu
Senior Photographer

I will show you who won the photo contest by posting the winning entries right here on the blog thingy and my thanks to Radu for doing this, I am sure the guests learned a lot from this brilliant master of the camera.

And now here is someone who makes Richard Simmons look like Arnold Schwarzenegger …………..it’s Calvyn.

Hello John:

Well here we are half way through the daunting six day sea days and I have to say that it is going great. The Fun Times are chalk full of fun stuff. From water fit classes to Melissa’s and mine spelling bee. Not to mention activities from the spa and art department. Most of the guests are happy and are friendly: The Steins from Nebraska, Angie and Richard, Mary and Jed, Perry and Gretchen, Nicole and Patrick and Steve O, just to name a few.

However that being said there are a few who are a little grumpy. Now it is a different story if someone has a legitimate concern such as “Why isn’t there any two step dancing on the ship?” alright that is a legitimate idea/concern and in turn, James put three sessions in the atrium lobby and it was a huge success, but for someone to make a formal complaint that they signed up first in karaoke; however they were put on second instead of first is outrageous. Alright that was my fault, however I am not going to open up a karaoke session with Debbie Boone’s “You Light Up My Life” I mean really, pass the Prozac.

John, don’t let this rant allow you to think this cruise in any way is going badly, in fact it is going swimmingly, and the teams are all in high spirits and are having a lot of fun with the guests…

The rain is coming down hard over the Indian Ocean and all the lounges are being utilized and the shops are buzzing with activity. Make up seminars are going on and the ringing in the casino makes me wonder how much money they are giving away!

Now I leave you with the most pressing question: Are you coming to Freeport!?

Till I see you next John. Know that I am sleeping with your Blue Tweed Blazer on as it still has your scent.

Scent my arse……….let’s see the activities that the guests enjoyed:

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2011

MORNING
7:00am Sunrise Stretch…………………………Cloud 9 Spa, 12 Fwd
7:30am Fab Abs…………………………………Cloud 9 Spa, 12 Fwd
8:30am James’ Walking Club………………….SportSquare, 12 Mid
8:45am Daily Puzzles………………………………….Plaza Café, 5 Mid
9:00am Ultimate Mind Game Trivia…….Ocean Plaza, 5 Mid

• Putt-Putt Challenge…………………..Turf on Surf, 12 Mid
• Bridge for Beginners Series….Northern Lights, 3 Fwd
• Yoga…………………………………Cloud 9 Spa, 12 Fwd
• Library Time……………………..Books & Games, 4 Fwd

9:30am General Knowledge Trivia….Spotlight Lounge, 5 Aft
10:00am Super Trivia (Round 4)……..Spotlight Lounge, 5 Aft

• Bean Bag Challenge………………Magic Lobby, 3 Fwd
• AquaFun………………………………….Beach Pool, 10 Mid
• Intermediate Bridge Lessons….Northern Lights, 3 Fwd
• Arts & Crafts…………………….Conference Center, 4 Mid
• Indoor Cycling………………………..Cloud 9 Spa, 12 Fwd
• Puffy Eyes Seminar…………………..Ocean Plaza, 5 Mid

11:00am Future Cruise & Travel Talk………Spotlight Lounge, 5 Aft

• Connect 4 Challenge………………..Ocean Plaza, 5 Mid
• Dance Class………………….Spotlight Lounge, 5 Aft
• Dodgeball . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .SkyCourt, 12 Aft
• Introduction to Acupuncture…….Cloud 9 Spa, 12 Fwd
• Texas Hold ‘Em Players Meet……..Hat Trick Casino, 5 Mid

11:30am Cooking Demonstration………Prime Steakhouse, 5 Aft
11:45am Cellulite Solutions……………………Cloud 9 Spa, 12 Fwd

AFTERNOON
12:00pm Scrapbookers Meet………………..Ocean Plaza, 5 Mid
12:30pm Under $500 Art Auction & Preview..Spotlight Lounge, 5 Aft

• Slot Tournament………………………Hat Trick Casino, 5 Mid
• Cribbage Players Meet (Unsupervised)…Conference, 4 Mid

1:00pm Outdoor Photography Seminar……..Spotlight Lounge, 5 Aft

• Bridge Play (Duplicate & Social)….Northern Lights, 3 Fwd

1:15pm Beary Cuddly………………Camp Carnival, 11 Mid
2:00pm A Magical World Cruise………………..Ocean Plaza, 5 Mid

• Basketball Tournament………………..SkyCourt, 12 Mid
• Arts & Crafts…………………….Conference Center, 4 Mid
• Library Time……………………..Books & Games, 4 Fwd
• Friends of Bill W. & Jimmy K………..Escape Bar, 4 Fwd

2:15pm Murder Mystery………………….Showtime Theatre, 3 Fwd
3:00pm 7 Game Bingo……………….Showtime Theatre, 3 Fwd

• Bean Bag Challenge………………Magic Lobby, 3 Fwd
• Tea Time……………………………………Southern Lights, 4 Aft

3:15pm Slot Tournament Finals………Hat Trick Casino, 5 Mid
3:30pm Movie Matinee: Casablanca….Seaside Theatre, 10 Mid
3:45pm Dancing with the Cast……………Showtime Theatre, 3 Fwd
4:00pm Afternoon Karaoke……………………Ocean Plaza, 5 Mid

• Meditation…………………………Cloud 9 Spa, 12 Fwd

Evening
5:00pm Afternoon Live TV Trivia………………………Channel 16

• Guess That Song: Musicals…………Ocean Plaza, 5 Mid
• Texas Hold ‘Em Players Meet……..Hat Trick Casino, 5 Mid

5:30pm Carnivalaire……………………………Ocean Plaza, 5 Mid
7:00pm Guess the Price of the Painting……….Promenade, 5 Mid

• Library Time……………………..Books & Games, 4 Fwd

7:15pm An Evening with Peter Max…Gallery on the Way, 4 Mid
7:30pm Superstar Live…………………..Spotlight Lounge, 5 Aft

• Austin Powers Dance Class……Showtime Theatre, 3 Fwd
• History of Pop Art Seminar…Gallery on the Way, 4 Mid

7:45pm Decades Trivia: 1960’s…………….Vibe Nightclub, 5 Aft
8:00pm Cash Craze Bingo………………..Showtime Theatre, 3 Fwd

• Texas Hold ‘Em Players Meet……..Hat Trick Casino, 5 Mid

8:30pm Showtime (Early Seating)……………Showtime Theatre, 3 Fwd

• Superstar Live…………………..Spotlight Lounge, 5 Aft

8:45pm Dance Hits & Mixes……………..Vibe Nightclub, 5 Aft
9:30pm Karaoke Party…………………..Spotlight Lounge, 5 Aft

• An Evening with Peter Max…Gallery on the Way, 4 MId
• Twilight Golf…………………….Turf on Surf, 12 Mid

10:00pm Cash Craze Bingo……………….Showtime Theatre, 3 Fwd

• Texas Hold ‘Em Players Meet……..Hat Trick Casino, 5 Mid
• Motown Hour……………………Vibe Nightclub, 5 Aft
• Friends of Dorothy GLBT Meet………..Play It Again, 5 Aft

10:30pm Showtime (Late Seating)……………Showtime Theatre, 3 Fwd

• Carnival Legends Auditions……Spotlight Lounge, 5 Mid

10:45pm Up-Close Magic…………………..Escape Bar, 4 Fwd

Last week I was a grumpy bastard. Harsh but true. I was grumpy to the beards, I was grumpy to my assistant Mel, I was grumpy to my mate Roger and I was grumpy to all of you both here and on Facebook. My grumpiness came because I was supposed to have my wife and daughter with me but her Mum’s slippery bathroom floor put pay to that and Heidi and Kye quite rightly are looking after her at her house in Clogland……….sorry……..Holland. It’s been seven weeks now since I last saw them and I miss them more than this “fat boy” can put into words. By the way, I forgot to ask earlier. Where does the term Rum Runner come from? Is it a pirate thing?

Anyway, back to the family. I call them every day and Heidi will let Kye speak on the phone to me. She is two and half years old now and can string three of four words together. Now I don’t enjoy the weekends much here at the Marriottintercontinentalhaytt. The week days are fine and busy but it’s pretty lonely at the weekends and this past weekend I was feeling pretty awful. Anyway, I spoke to Kye and she said “I love you, Dada.” Well actually she didn’t say that because she is two and a half years old so she said “I low you, Dada.” And then, when I put the phone down……….I cried. What the bloody hell is that all about. I am not a girl, I don’t like college football and I am not Calvyn…………so what’s wrong with me?

Women are OK with crying, it’s in their genes but us men……..well it’s just that we don’t particularly enjoy it. Every now and again, like once every 100 years, a good old cry clears the air, but it is something your average chap wants to do on a regular basis, because it’s bloody well exhausting. Women, on the other hand, can’t seem to get enough of it. Heidi insists on going to see these awful chick flick lovey dovey films where you spend the whole time feeling like your dog’s just died. I remember when Heidi rented the movie Ghost. By the time the credits were rolling, I was ready to kill someone. When I looked over at Heidi, she was crying like a baby and then she says, “Oooh, wasn’t that brilliant, John?” It’s at moments like that when I think that men and women might as well be from different planets. I would rather roast my own bollocks over an open fire than ever have to watch that movie ever again and any man who is found crying at the end of a those kind of movies has no more right to call himself “manly” than Calvyn’s underwear drawer. And now we have “Date Night “as one of the theme nights at the Seaside Theatre. Oh FFS!

I guess there are exceptions when it is OK for a man to cry. Catching your gentlemen’s sausage in the zipper of your pants……tears of pain can be cried here……….telling a joke as a young cruise director on the Carnivale and hearing nothing but silence….. tears of humiliation ………. and John Cleese doing the “German Walk “……..tears of laughter…………and tears of despair when you realise that Megan Fox’s bottom will never ever be yours.

And it’s OK to sit in a darkened hotel room and sob like an Oscar winner when your daughter says ” I lowe you Dada ”

You know there has been a lot of talk this week about the crew and gratuities and while I won’t have seen my family for two months but that’s nothing because most of the crew will not have seen their sons, daughters, wives and husbands or their parents and family for many more months than that. They are missing their families terribly and are using the salary Carnival pays them and the gratuities that that you graciously reward them with to provide those left at home with a better way of life. So thank you……..thank you on behalf of all the crew, who I promise will continue to provide you with the brilliantly fun service you expect and that they truly appreciate everything you do for them.

Goodnight.

Your friend,

John

These comments are all brilliant examples of a lost art form………the compliment that really isn’t one and is in fact the complete opposite.

Disguising an insult through flattery requires skill and expertise. Usually they are time release criticisms, as well. You think they have given you a huge compliment but a minute later the sudden realisation that it wasn’t explodes inside you and leaves you pissed off for days. Often a guest will say to me, “You look well John,” but I have learnt to understand that this actually means: “You’re a fat sod.” “You look tired,” spoken similarly means: “By God, you’re old and look like you are a few steps away from the pearly gates.”

But this is child’s play. To be a proper bastard, you need to be really clever. I was in the entertainment offices last week where one lady who I can’t name but used to be a dancer when I was the CD on the Carnival Ecstasy back in 1788 said to her colleague who was eating McDonald’s at her desk. “It’s amazing,” that you eat so much junk food and still stay relatively slim”………a round of applause for that one. She should teach a master class in the backhanded compliment. Other comments I have heard her use include the wonderful “You look thinner than usual today.”

I realised when I did those few weeks as CD on the Carnival Fantasy last year that some Southerners have a marvelous way of giving someone a compliment that really isn’t one. People from the south it seems can get away with the most awful kind of insult just as long as it’s prefaced with the words “Bless her heart” or “Bless his heart.” My experience of this was usually from two Southern ladies chatting to each others in, “Look at the size of that woman. Her legs could hold up an oil rig………..bless her heart” Or, “Hey Mary Lou……..look at that cruise director. He’s so fat he was baptised at Sea World…………..bless his heart.”

But the best one ever said to me was by a beautiful girl I was trying to date. It was back on the Carnival Imagination in 1995 and I will never ever forget what she said to me. Her name was Sam, another dancer in fact ……….yes, yes I had a thing for dancers. Anyway, I remember trying everything, flowers, meals, gifts and eventually I got her to my cabin. We sat on the sofa in the CD cabin. I poured her a glass of wine and looked into her beautiful blue eyes. Those eyes looked back at me and just when I was ready to move forward she started talking about her ex-boyfriend and she said these immortal words. “Good looks are a curse. You should count yourself lucky John.”

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

Wendi Barlaam asked:
John,

I will be taking my grandson on his first ever cruise this Thanksgiving. He has overcome dyslexia to do well at school and deserves a reward. He will be with me and my husband on the Splendor 11/30 in suite 2282 and a visit to the bridge with the captain is something he deserves and would make his cruise very special.

Thank you!

John says:
Hello Wendy Barlaam,

Congratulations to your grandson, you must be very proud of him. While I can’t get him to the bridge I will certainly send him something from me to say well done. I hope you all have a brilliant time together Wendy.

Best wishes to all.

John

Caroline Kaiser asked:
John,

I need to ask why Carnival does very little to help those with special dietary needs like other cruise lines do. I have been a strict vegan for 11 years now and I know you like to make fun of us but I wonder John we are roughly the same age I think and I think I know who is the healthiest. This last two months I have cruised with Celebrity and on Carnival and the difference is that Celebrity cares. At their lunch buffet we had so many options including aborigine burger, vegan wraps, Mediterranean vegetables, Mexican style tomato & bean chili with vegan cheese. They also serve vegan ice cream, vegan cakes, flapjacks, toast with soya margarine & strawberry jam/marmalade and soya milk. A very vegan friendly cruise line and Carnival is going to need to step up if it wants Vegan cruisers to consider them, the choice on the Carnival Dream was pitiful.

John says:
Hello Caroline Kaiser,

First of all please allow me to apologise if I offended you in anyway. I do have a bit of fun with vegatableists as I do with my own weight. If you think another cruise line is providing more choice than we are then we need to do something about it and I have sent your list of examples to Sanjay, the executive chef. Can I mention we have three different vegetarian options and the new BlueIguana Cantina including a vegan burrito. Thanks for taking the time to write and I hope your cruise on the Carnival Dream was a fun one.

Best wishes.

John

Glenn E Conklin asked:
Good Day John!

I trust all is well with you and the Carnival Magic today over in the Med. I just posted a similar message on your Facebook wall and wanted to send it here as well to make sure you receive the feedback. I want to firstly say THANKS to you and ALL the crew on the Magic for making our recent vacation so AMAZING. My partner Jason and I just returned home to Washington, DC after sailing with you on the 8/26 nine-day sailing from Barcelona, and we had an excellent time! Everyone on the ship was a delight to be around, and you and your staff do an excellent job of making things fun for everyone. I want to especially thank John (Beyonce), Calvyn, Christian, Ryan, Melody, Nebojsa (shore excursion), and Maja (photo) for leaving such a positive impression of Carnival with us after we have arrived home. We are still laughing and talking about “Single Ladies” days after. We really appreciated all the hard work you and your staff put forth to make it a true vacation for everyone.

My partner Jason was a first time cruiser and before we left on the trip I wasn’t totally sure how he would react to the Carnival experience – as you stated in previous blogs, sailing with Carnival isn’t for everyone, and that’s OK – this was my fifth cruise with Carnival (sixth booked for 2/2012 on the Carnival Destiny) so I knew exactly what to expect, but wasn’t sure if Jason would find the experience as amusing and light-hearted as I do. Well, the team on the Carnival Magic really knocked it out of the park with Jason – not only are we both booked on the Carnival Destiny in February, but we are now trying to scrape the funds together to sail with you on the inaugural voyage of the Carnival Breeze next June 3 from Venice! I can’t say enough thanks to you and the crew for truly letting me go on vacation these past nine days. Keep up the good work and take good care of the Magic – she is truly a beauty in the Carnival fleet. CHEERS!

John says:
Hello Glenn E Conklin,

That is a brilliant post and one I am very grateful to you for writing. My time on the Carnival Magic seems so long ago and as I sit here now on the Carnival Liberty in my underpants those wonderful memories have come flooding back thanks to your post. She is a great ship and I worked with one of the best groups of crew members that I have ever worked alongside and they made an already fantastic ship even better. Thanks to you and Jason and I look forward to seeing you both next year.

Best wishes to you both.

John

Lora Haddon asked:

We have just returned from a cruise on the Carnival Triumph. This was our eighth cruise so I know what cruising is all about and this cruise in no way measured up to Carnival’s standards. I have never been on a more disorganized cruise. From the beginning our luggage was loaded into the ship in the rain – uncovered. When the luggage arrived at our stateroom water was pouring out of it and everything inside was soaked. Lots of luggage had gotten so wet that the luggage tags had washed off so they didn’t even know where it belonged. There has got to be a better way! Then we were late getting into Cozumel and it took over an hour in line to get off the ship. Once off the ship it was a beautiful sunny day and we enjoyed our time at the beach. After arriving at the mouth of the Mississippi we were forced to anchor and wait for the river to reopen. We then arrived in New Orleans and the announcement was made for people in wheelchairs and early flights to exit. Everyone seemed to be exiting at that time no matter what. None of the Carnival employees did anything to even try to correct this. Perhaps an announcement could have been made stating “be prepared to show your boarding passes” to try to stop this. After waiting almost two hours to exit the ship we too decided that since everyone seemed to be debarking we would too. We had a four-hour drive ahead of us and had small children that had school the next day and couldn’t wait any longer. John, I have cruised in bad weather before. We were on the Carnival Conquest when Hurricane Katrina/Rita first moved us to Galveston then turned our seven-day cruise into a 10-day cruise. Even on that cruise we NEVER experienced delays and incompetence like we experienced on the Carnival Triumph. It just seemed to me that the situation wasn’t handled properly by Carnival. The entire situation was disorganized and seemed like chaos with nobody trying to sort it out. With all that said, we had a great time onboard. Our waiter Ragu and assistant waiter Jeffrey John were marvelous. The food was good although not as good as I’ve had on other ships. We were disappointed that we didn’t’ get a soufflé or Bitter and Blanc on this cruise. We were looking forward to this on formal night. Several of the trivia games and other activities were scheduled to take place at the World Bar which is basically the walkway outside the casino. There was never anywhere to sit and it was always far too crowded. I couldn’t figure out why these activities didn’t take place in one of the bars or lounges. I am really not meaning to complain too much. I love cruising and will definitely cruise with Carnival again. I am looking forward to becoming Platinum soon. I am just frustrated with the way this situation was handled. Thanks again for all that you do and I look forward to cruising with Carnival in the future.

John says:
Hello Lora Haddon,

This kind of post is as important as those that praise us. Let me start by saying how sorry I am that you had these obvious concerns, especially with your luggage getting wet like that. When your luggage is dropped off at the pier it is in the hands of the local stevedores who load it onto the ship. There is no cover between the pier and the ship and obviously the luggage got soaked. I wish there was a better way as you mentioned and that way would be to wait until the rain stops. This is fine but this could result in the late departure of the ship. I need to ask you Lora, when you discovered the suitcase was wet and your clothes were soaked was complimentary laundry offered to you? Please would you let me know as it absolutely should have been. Obviously having to wait until the river was safe for the ship to enter was not a good scenario for anyone but when the Mississippi port authorities close the port and order us to wait, there is little we can do. I know about this cruise and have had similar comments about the debarkation process and while everyone praised the ship and her crew for handling a difficult cruise many thought as you did that the debarkation process was not handled well. There is the excuse that guests did not listen to what the CD was saying but that is just an excuse as regardless it is our responsibility and I promise that your remarks will be read by the right people and once again I sincerely apologise for the very obvious inconvenience you suffered. But on a lighter note I also want to thank you for all those great comments and I hope that the crew and the fun will be the overriding memory you have of your time on the Carnival Triumph.

Best wishes.

John

Celia Alonso asked:

I need to tell you about the life boat drill on the Carnival Destiny because to get to my life boat I had to walk with my two children through a group of crew who were all smoking. It was disgusting but nothing was done. I told someone in a white uniform but she told me that it was a crew smoking area and just walked away. It was not a good start to the cruise John.

Thank you

John says:
Hello Celia Alonso,

Thanks so much for writing and I had seen a similar comment about this recently and I apologise that this happened. It should not have and I am sorry for any discomfort this may have caused you and your family. I can tell you that the crew smoking area will be closed 30 minutes before the drill starts and that this situation will not be repeated. I do hope you had a great cruise.

Best wishes.

John

John & Patty asked:
Hello John,

It has been three months, since our wonderful cruise on the Carnival Magic, and we just came off a four-day cruise out of NYC on the Carnival Glory to Canada. It was an amazing cruise. We have been on the Carnival Glory many times prior to this cruise and the ship stills looks great! It nice driving to the ship, instead of flying! We were on the ship by 11:30 am and saw some familiar faces, and had a nice lunch on lido. And everything just fell in line to having a brilliant cruise, our state room as well appointed and “roomy” our cabin steward took great pride in his work. Went to the early seating in MDR Kavian was the maitre d’ and was just a wonderful person as was Yosuf from the platinum DR! They kept the flow working very well as well as their very personal touch! Perhaps people will understand that the MD make thing happen, which makes our dining so much enjoyable! They normally do this w/o fanfare we appreciate a good MD, the new menus were in place and were nice, we also noticed ThirstyFrog Red beer on tap, which is a plus!

Entertainment was great, the highlight was the CD Josh and Pepper, the ACD. Josh is a brilliant CD, and Pepper will make a great CD (he has the charm and nice personality that is needed). Just as a matter of interest they both had glowing nice word about you and what a great mentor you are to them. I still say that a good CD can really enhance your experience on the cruise! Also they set the tone for the cruise. The port of Saint John, was surprisingly wonderful with many places to explore Reverse Fall, Bay of Fundy rocks as well as great lobster, we were impressed! When the cruise was finished the process of leaving the ship was well organized, and easy, overall the staff at all levels that we came in contact with were very warm and friendly and always for the most part called us by name. We will visit the Carnival Glory again, thank you john, for a stage (blog, FB to tell our thoughts).

Best wishes to you.

John and Patty

John says:
Hello John and Patty,

I am glad I have found this as I know we have been talking about where your post went to over on Facebook. I have fond memories of our time together on the Carnival Magic and our chats at the Ocean Plaza and I am glad that you had such a wonderful time and repeated that on the Carnival Glory. I am a big admirer of Josh as a CD and it sounds like he and the staff gave you loads of fun and that the dining staff did the same. I shall make sure that I pass this along to the ship. Thanks for the kind words and I hope we will get to sail together again very soon.

Best wishes to you both.

John

David R asked:

I am a platinum passenger with Carnival and on cruise number 15 next week on the Carnival Elation. As a platinum passenger I feel that my luggage should be delivered to my suite first but it isn’t and non VIPs get their luggage sometimes before mine. Has Carnival any plans to change this?

John says:
Hello David R,

Thanks for your loyalty and there will be anew loyalty program introduced at the start of next year which will include new benefits and while luggage delivery is not one of them I am sure you will appreciate what we will be doing for you. More details on that soon.

Best wishes

John

Nadine Hertzog asked:
John,

Hubby and I will be sailing on Magic on her first cruise and we would like private time that a table for two brings. This is our fifth Carnival sailing and we hope to have many more so I hope you can fix this table for two for us.

John says:
Hello Nadine Hertzog,

I am sure that the Carnival Magic will be your best cruise yet and I have asked the maitre d to do his best to assist you with your table request.

Best wishes to you both.

John

Kristy Varunan asked:
Hello John,

I just wanted to say thank you for helping to arrange a Tamil-speaking waiter on my recent cruise on the Carnival Pride. Ajeesh was the only waiter on the ship who spoke Tamil and we were given him as our waiter. He did a wonderful job as our waiter and even helped to arrange special meals, including for lunch. We saw him many times around the ship and he always greeted us with a smile. Also, thank you for the gifts in our cabin, I really appreciated it. You are very thoughtful!! Even though our cruise was cut short due to Hurricane Bastard we still had a great time and I can’t wait for our next cruise.

John says:
Hello Kristy Varunan,

It was a pleasure to help you and I am glad despite the challenges the storm brought that you had a great time. I hope to see you soon.

Best wishes.

John

That’s all for today.

Over the last few days I have highlighted the new areas that Fun Ship 2.0 has created and they are of course brilliant additions that simply make our guests smile. But as always it is the crew that has breathed life and fun into them and they are all thrilled to be the first team to work these new spaces. And to complement the Fun Ship 2.0 upgrades those crew have been given new uniforms to wear and I can tell you having spoken to these crew…….that they love these new uniforms, I mean absolutely love them. So well done to the beards for dressing our crew in uniforms that go completely with the product and I thought you might like to see some of those crew and what they will be wearing when they serve you.

Let’s start with the RedFrog Rum Bar and Mr. Winston from Montego Bay, Jamaica.

And now it’s time to see the uniform for the BlueIguana Tequila Bar as modeled by Grimaldo from Panama.

Probably the coolest new uniforms are those worn by the bartenders in Hot & Cool nightclub. They love them and so do the guests as you will see now as we present from left to right: Maria from Belaruse, Levgen from Ukraine and Trayana from Bulgaria.

And finally we have the Alchemy Bar and the lovely Adri from South Africa.

You can expect to see new uniforms for all the ships with or without Fun Ship 2.0 upgrades. Last month Gerry and the beards were treated to a fashion show on the Carnival Imagination where the crew modeled new uniforms from the waiters, housekeeping, security and other departments and may I say “thank goodness” because we have needed to freshen this up for many years. And at last our entertainment staff won’t look like they are about to deliver you a sodding pizza.

Next week you will see all the videos we have made and a huge thanks must go to Peter the Hair and Jay the Recently Married of whom I will talk more in a moment for all their hard work and, of course, my assistant Mel who has been her calm organised self and I hope you enjoy the footage you will see next week.

So how do I recap what the Fun Ship 2.0 upgrades have meant to the Carnival Liberty? I can honestly say I have had nothing but brilliant reviews from the guests and nearly as important is the fact that her crew is thrilled and excited about the new features here. Carnival Liberty is not the newest ship in our fleet. She’s not the biggest either but with all these brilliant new spaces ……… there is no doubt in my mind that she is the coolest. Come see for yourself.

So let’s talk about me for a bit shall we. Good, glad that’s OK then. First of all I am a little sad today. You see I haven’t mentioned this before but next week Heidi and Kye were due to join me. They had planned to fly into Miami on the 29th, stay with me in a family friendly hotel with a pool and beach and bouncy castles and then join me on the Carnival Magic before all flying home together in early December. But that has now changed………bugger. Heidi will now be going to Holland to look after her Mum for a while as she has to have some immediate surgery that Heidi wants to be there for. So that’s that then and obviously I am really disappointed but of course Heidi must be with her Mum who will be fine but will be a bit immobile for a few days.

And indeed I have had to change my plans ……….again. I will fly to Galveston as planned and host the concert and events and sail on that first cruise but then on the 20th I will fly to Miami so this means that I won’t be on for the three cruises as planned. This is because of two reasons. First I am going to be meeting with Carnival’s new VP of entertainment Adrian Fischer. I am honoured to be asked to discuss with him about our current entertainment program and the role of the cruise director. Adrian has a marvelous resume and we are all excited to see where he will lead us and I will be there to assist him as and when needed. I will of course be interviewing him for the blog very soon. The second reason I am coming back to Miami is that I have an appointment on the 22nd of November with a specialist regarding my carpool tunnel thingy which continues to play me merry hell.

Now I don’t like doctors because whenever I go and see them about whether it’s my arm or my nose or my little toe it always involves me dropping my underpants and Dr Longfinger giving me the business with latex. But I have to get this arm thing sorted out so I know I have to go. My only experience of American hospitals was pre-blog. Heidi and I rented a villa in Orlando and she trapped her finger in the sliding doors that led out to the pool. After I had called her a clumsy sod I noticed that her finger looked like Tom’s after Jerry had given him the good news by dropping an iron on it. And so we went off to see if George Clooney was working at the Orlando ER.

Well to cut a long story short Heidi was denied treatment at the hospital because our insurance didn’t extend to the U.S. Even though I had a wallet full of credit cards, she was prepared to let Heidi’s finger explode all over her desk because we didn’t have the necessary insurance. I was very upset as you can imagine and had to use all my charm and the promise of a free cruise and a fruit basket to get her to let me see a doctor. We finally got in and the doctor told Heidi she had broken her finger, gave her some pain killers and put a peg thingy on her finger, smiled and gave me a bill for $475 …..I kid you not….$475. After telling Heidi she could forget seeing Disney World that week and writing my address as 25 Bollocks Street on the hospital payment form and shortly thereafter I got a new insurance plan that included worldwide coverage.

Of course us Brits have a National Health system that is brilliant and it is also bloody awful. When Heidi had Kye I could not fault them in anyway and our Mrs. Doubtfire nurse or midwife as we call them was a true angel from heaven. She held her hand, cleaned up things that had dripped from Heidi and agreed while Heidi was “pushing” that I was a complete bastard with no more right to live on God’s green Earth than a dung beetle.

And of course there are negative sides to it as well. The government has found it hard to pay for this health for all care and thus standards have slipped and continue to do. There are long wait lists and ask any Brit and they will tell you their own stories.

My sister Suedrip recently bought a horse. Ever since she was young she has always dreamt of owning a horse and now she does. She has worked hard for this and I am always so proud of how successful she has been in the bastard world of banking. Anyway, back in September she bought a horse and along with her two dogs and the farmhouse she lives in on two acres on I now call her Laura Ingles. Anyway, my sister is an experienced rider and yet as she tried to mount her new steed the sodding four-legged glue stick bucked and she fell off and her hurt her ankle and couldn’t walk. Her husband was out and because it hurt so much she decided to call for help.

Things started well. The ambulance arrived promptly, the ankle was strapped and off she went in a big, exciting white thing with big blue flashing lights. Now, we are all used to a bit of a wait at the hospital in a room full of people with swords in their eyes, bowling balls lodged in their bottoms and their feet on back to front. But nothing can prepare you for the yawning chasm of time that passes in a British ER room (or A & E – accident and emergency as we call it) before the healthcare system actually does any healthcare and she had a four-hour wait before she was seen. And when she was she then had another two-hour wait for an X-ray and another hour wait after that before Dr Ramitin could see her. So it was a total of seven hours…..for a badly sprained ankle. But it was free. So, there is good and there is bad to both. But I have to get this taken care of because after a day at the computer writing this and my Facebook page it hurts, honestly it does. So I will have tests etc done in Miami and then they will send the reports etc to a specialist in London whom I will see when I am home.

Talking of home I will be going home on November 23 until January 20. This will be nearly two months vacation and I really need that. It has been a long six months of Carnival Magic delivery and a European season plus of course these last two months of traveling so seven weeks off will be just what me and more importantly my family need. I will of course be with you here and on Facebook throughout that time and hopefully will be writing with a less painful arm. On January 20 I will be in Philadelphia for a few days to meet with the Hasbro folks and then I will be back on Carnival Magic on January 29 for a few weeks as CD and then of course ready for the bloggers cruise which Heidi and Kye will be sailing on.

You know, people tend to tell me their problems. I think this is because they see that being fat and ugly that I have problems of my own and that maybe I will understand theirs. This has always been so and over the years I have had guests and crew tell me about their relationship problems and troubles and cares about life in general and I always try and listen and give them the best advice I can.

Many years ago I had a singer from our shows knock on my door late at night on the Carnival Fantasy. He was married to a dancer and told me that he had realised that he preferred men and that his marriage was a sham. I spent the next few hours listening to him and then the following day sitting with him and his soon to be ex-wife as he explained to her that their relationship was over. She left the ship immediately and it was a traumatic time for them and I hoped I was a good listener as he described his situation.

I tell you this because of something that happened last night. I have been working here on the Carnival Liberty with Peter the Hair and Jay The Recently Married. These two chaps have taken our video coverage of everything we do at Carnival to a new level and they have I promise, only just begun.

So last night we spent hours filming and they then spent even more hours editing the footage you will see very soon including me bartending at the Alchemy Bar! Anyway, it had been a long day and later we met for a wrap up session in the EA SPORTS bar. I arrived and Jay was there on his own, sitting have a ThirstyFrog Red. Jay is so talented and great fun to be with and as I have mentioned he has just gotten married to a lovely lady called Heather.

So anyway, I sat next to him, ordered my Diet Coke and saw that Jay looked very serious and this is what happened and will explain why I had a flashback to the story I mentioned that happened many years ago on the Carnival Fantasy. Jay sipped on his beer and looked so so serious. He was quiet, withdrawn even and certainly not his chatty self. And then suddenly, he looked up and with purpose in his eyes he said something that I had not been expecting.

“John, I have to tell you………………I really like guys.”

There was no emotion in his voice – it was just a statement that he needed to tell me. My brain quickly analyzed this and I was drawn back to the singer on the Fantasy who had told me the same thing.

“Oh,” I replied and not sure what to say I followed on with “Have you told your wife?”

Jay’s demeanor suddenly changed and from showing no emotion his face turned as red as his hair and he started to laugh really loud, so loud that everyone in the EA SPORTS bar started to stare back at us.

What? What was he laughing about? I was about to find out because when he composed himself he said and I quote, “Not guys, you f*****g idiot, I like Guy’s………….Guy’s Burgers.”

And the laughter continued. Still, I gave Jay Calvyn’s number……….just in case.

Goodnight

Your friend

John

I wish I spoke Japanese and could write beautifully using all that beautiful calligraphy and how to bow to who and when to stop bowing. I had a group on the Carnival Magic who would bow when they met the captain and I and trying to respect that tradition I would bow back and then they would bow again and then I felt compelled to bow again and I spent the next 15 minutes on Promenade Deck bowing like some demented woodpecker.

And of course if I was Japanese maybe I would understand the fascination with sushi. You see, even with all the new features here on the Carnival Liberty, the sushi bar still attracts dozens of guests between 5pm and 8pm and I have to say I just don’t get it. Yes, I hear you saying that it’s the “ultimate healthy fast food.” But it’s just not for me. My wife loves sushi and she wishes I would love it too, bless her little Dutch clogs. She doesn’t want me to die or to get fatter, so when I am home she keeps me on a diet of mashed vegetables, muesli and grilled sodding chicken. It is kind and loving of her to do so, but sometimes I look at our refrigerator shelves full of Greek yogurt and falafel and skimmed milk and olive spread, and I feel like crying. And after being here on the Carnival Liberty for three days I know that when I am home I will crave a Guy Fieri burger with melted cheese, a crispy onion ring, lashings of bacon bits and even his very own special mayonnaise.

This is what I was brought up on and Mrs. Heald, my wonderful Mum, prepared dinners that matched the brown and dark green colour scheme of our house. Her two hungry kids and hard working husband ate shepherd’s pie and peas, pork chops, steak and kidney puddings, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding with jam rolly poly and lashings spotted dick and custard for dessert.

I love man food. It’s why I have a beach ball for a stomach and it’s why I hate the girliness of sushi. Yep, to me sushi is a girl’s food. The end.

Let’s do some Q and A shall we…………….off we go.

Kim Risley asked:

Dear John,

We are planning on booking a cruise for the 22nd for a three-day cruise out of Port Canaveral. This will be my husband’s 10th cruise and my eight. We are looking forward to “experiencing” VIP. Just wanted to say thanks for the blog. I read your blog from time to time. But wanted to say we have always enjoyed Carnival. We have been on other cruise lines, but have decided that I think we will stick with Carnival whenever we can. We are looking forward to our Inspiration Cruise in a few weeks.

Kim

John says:

Hello Kim Risley

As I am about a month behind with questions being answered here on the blog thingy I am sure by now you have been on your cruise which was a special one for you being your Platinum cruise. I apologise for being late with my reply and I wanted to also say that I hope you enjoyed the cruise and especially all the Platinum benefits. Thank you so much for your loyalty and I hope we get to sail together one day.

Best wishes to you both.

John

Jim Munkittrick asked:

Suggestion:

When Conquest experiences a weather delay in Galveston. The embarking passengers line up “for miles”…….not really that far……..outside. Security at the door lets folks in only single file. If you had a second door (which is already there) you could move suite passengers and your most loyal guests in quickly………shortening the exterior lines. Seems once you spend two hours in the line to get through the door, you can breeze through check-in, so why not move those folks out of the long line, get them checked-in, reduce the outside line, those standing the rain or the fog or the heat……..and make far more passengers………in all categories happier? Sometimes the “beards” do not have a clue how the locals enforce policies….locals tend to make it up as they go along. Enjoy your ability as a wordsmith!!!!!

John says:

Hello Jim Munkittrick

Yes indeed, when we have fog delays in Galveston we are definitely aware of the concerns it causes. While the guests on board are happy and content and still being served and looked after by the crew, those waiting to join the ship are not doing so in the most comfortable surroundings. I hope that the new facilities at the Port of Galveston are going to help with this and until then I will send this to our director of embarkation for her attention. I am sure that she is aware and I am sure there are reasons such as manning and or safety that come into play here but I will for sure show her your comments which I thank you for posting. I hope you had a wonderful time on the Carnival Conquest.

Best wishes.

John

Jerry asked:

I need a Cruise Critic meet and greet for the Carnival Liberty sailing of December 10. I expect a large turnout of 100 plus so a bar/lounge/room at 2 pm on the first sea day would be appropriate and also a listing in the daily Fun Times should be made so our group knows where to go. On a personal note this will be our 11th cruise with Carnival and this time we have ocean suite, cabin 7258!

John says:

Hello Jerry

Thanks for letting me know and I will ask Butch the CD here to arrange a lounge for you and we will add it to the Fun Times as you requested. I hope you all have a brilliant time and I promise you will love this beautiful ship and all her exciting upgrades.

Best wishes.

John

Judy asked:

John-

We’re just now traveling home from a wonderful cruise aboard the Magic. Enjoyed it more than I could have hoped for. The ship is beautiful, the staff wonderfully accommodating, and although I didn’t have a chance to meet you, I laughed at yours and Calvyn’s antics. Food was great, shore excursions lovely and even debarkation went very smoothly (not our experience on a past Caribbean cruise). We’ll be singing Carnival’s praises for a long while! Thank you all.

John says:

Hello Judy

It feels so long ago that I was on the Carnival Magic and thanks so much for those wonderful words. Hosting the Morning Show with Calvyn was always a highlight and I hope that you are going to come and see us again very soon, maybe on the Carnival Breeze. Debarkation is so easy in Europe especially as we are given quite a bit of leeway in terms of our processes. Thanks again for writing and I am so glad you had fun.

Best wishes.

John

Amy Beth Baker asked:

Hi John,

We have just returned from a seven-day cruise on the Splendor and we had a blast. Loved the spa cabin. Everyone was great – Ron, our room steward and the staff in the Black Pearl stood out: Mario, Christopher and Luci were all exceptional. They were professional and friendly. They were awesome and because of our experience with the 4 of them we will book on Carnival again! Thank you for the birthday wishes for our daughter Sheila, she enjoyed the strawberries and was thrilled that you remembered her. Todd gave her a ship on a stick which is now sitting next to her cheer trophies, thank you Todd! My two teens really enjoyed the club programs and made tons of friends. I promised that I would pass on a suggestion; they both suggested that the teens should have one dinner service together in the main dining room. I hope that you can pass on our thanks and kudos to Ron, Mario, Christopher and Luci.

Thanks.

Amy Loren Jonny & Sheila

John says:

Hello Amy Beth Baker

It’s no secret that the Carnival Splendor is one of my favourite ships and from your review I can see she still is doing very well and keeping that high level of service and fun. I will pass on your congratulations and your suggestion although seating all the teens at dinner one night is very difficult as we don’t have empty tables for that amount of people. I am so glad all was good and I hope we will see you and the family again soon.

Best wishes.

John

Dana Macmillan asked:

Hey John!

You should tell people that skateboards cannot be brought on the ship. It’s not on your list on the web page and when my son got his skateboard out on the Lido deck it was confiscated by your security people and my son was devastated. He has entered the MegaRamp championship in California and has a very good chance of winning and needed to be on the board as much as he could be. It would have not disturbed anyone but it was taken from him and only given back the day we got off the Carnival Paradise. Can you explain why?

John says:

Hello Dana MacMillan

Thank you for writing and I apologise that skateboards are not part of the prohibited list that we publish on carnival.com but I will ask our team to add it because obviously it is not allowed. Now I will say that had your son not tried to use it on board but had taken it ashore we would not have had any problems with that and as long as the local people didn’t mind then I am sure that would have been OK. However, it was taken from him because to skateboard on a moving ship could be dangerous and should an unexpected movement of the vessel happen and your son was on the skateboard then it could have injured him or a guest that was passing by. I should also mention that our open decks are not designed for skateboards and I am sure that it would have at some point disturbed the other guests as well. So I hope that explains why this happened and I also wish your son all the best and hope he wins.

Best wishes.

John

Michelle Simmons asked:

Hi John,

Just found your blog and I love it! Do you have any experiences of claustrophobic customers to share with us? We are first-time cruisers, sailing on the Ecstasy on Nov. 26. The thing is…….my husband is claustrophobic and I booked an inside cabin for him, my nine-year-old son and me. We are on a tight budget for vacation, and it was the most affordable option so I jumped on it. Now I’m wondering if I made the wrong choice booking it. Can you allay our fears or did we make a bad decision?

John says:

Hello Michelle Simmons

That is a very interesting question indeed and it’s not one that I have been asked before but I think you have very little to worry about. Carnival’s staterooms are among the most spacious in the industry and I think leaving the bathroom light on at night so that your husband can see where he is at all times will help. The fact is that you will not spend too much time in there and of course the rest of the ship is bright, open and will give you the best vacation ever. Please don’t worry, relax and all will be well. If you have any other questions please let me know.

Best wishes to you both.

John

Jeremy T asked:

Mr Heald,

We just returned from our 9/13/2011 for a cruise to Alaska. It was our third cruise on Carnival. We cruised to three Alaska cities on the inward passage. We were disappointed with the food served in the dining room and in the regular restaurant. The food was cold and not much of a selection in either place. We felt it was much too expensive to spend $30 per person to eat in the fancier restaurants. Another problem was the service in the dining room. It was very poor and the waiters seemed to be on their own agenda. We had opted for early dining and they seemed to be in a hurry to get you served and out of the dining room. Cabin service was good. We also didn’t like the fact that our cruise ended in Vancouver where the people were rude and unfriendly. Then we were bussed back to Seattle to the airport where we spent 10 hours before our flight home.

John says:

Hello Jeremy T

I am very sorry to read that there were aspects of the cruise that you did not enjoy and my concerns are mostly regarding the service and food in the dining room. I will make sure these are passed on and improvements are made. If you could help me by sending me your last name and or cabin number so the ship can see exactly which waiter you had and therefore we can make sure your server is given the right help he or she needs to improve. I am glad you enjoyed the service from your state room steward and that overall you had a good cruise and enjoyed beautiful Alaska. I must say though I have never heard anyone mention that the people in Vancouver were “rude and unfriendly” as usually it’s the opposite. Thanks again for taking the time to write.

Best wishes.

John

Derek T asked:

John,

I use a motor scooter and need a table close to the entrance of the dining room.

11/05/11 table x 2 early sitting bkg number ******

John says:

Hello Derek T

Thanks for letting me know about this and I have asked the maitre d to assist you as best he can. Have a great time.

Best wishes.

John

Patricia Kilcoyne asked:

Hi John,

My husband and I took CCL’s Bermuda cruise out of Charleston in May. Are they abandoning that trip? We enjoyed it immensely, except for the weekend in Bermuda. The island literally closes down at 5pm on Saturday, and does not re-open until Monday. Will they ever do this route again? Maybe consider adding an extra day – stay until Monday? We love sailing out of Charleston – short drive to the port – and the Carnival Fantasy is such a nice little ship. Comfy! We would really like something ot do other than Nassau and Freeport, and Bermuda was a great change.

John says:

Hello Patricia Kilcoyne

I am so glad you enjoyed Bermuda and sailing to there from Charleston. I haven’t heard of any plans to return there next year but I hope we will see more sailings to Bermuda in the future as they are exceedingly popular with our guests. I am so glad you also loved the Carnival Fantasy and I hope we see you again very soon. Thanks so much for writing.

Best wishes.

John

That’s all for today and as always a big thank you for all your comments. It’s not a very pleasant day here today with Hurricane Bastardirna causing six of our ships to have to alternate their schedules, including the Carnival Liberty which is heading now to Ocho Rios. We have canceled Grand Cayman and replaced that with beautiful Grand Turk. Today though is murky and grey and the seas are a little choppy and while most guests have accepted the itinerary change, as usual there are one or two who have proclaimed that the only reason they booked this cruise was to go to Grand Cayman. They’re frustrated and that’s understandable. However, one has to feel sorry for the two couples who were due to get married in Grand Cayman and for whom the ships staff with shoreside help are desperately trying to arrange the ceremony in Jamaica instead. Hopefully the sun will come out tomorrow for them and for all the guests as today looks as grey as an elephant’s dangly bits.

So as expected the Lido Deck has become a destination with guests staying out far later on deck 9 than ever before and that’s because we have made some changes that have complemented the two new bars. Let’s start with those, the RedFrog Rum Bar and the BlueIguana Tequila Bar. Both have become instant hits and it’s been interesting to see loyalties develop between these two competing bars. Later in the cruise I will ask guests why they have chosen one over the other but I think already that they chose which one they will sit at based on a couple of reasons. Obviously the choices of drinks are important and ThirstyFrog Red is proving as popular here as it was at Carnival Magic’s RedFrog Pub. Over at the BlueIguana the Mexican imported beers are proving a huge hit as are the margaritas and other frozen specialties. So, drink choice is important but I also think there is another reason as well and that’s the personalities of the bartenders who work there. I often find that our guests will frequent bars based on the personality behind that bar and certainly at the RedFrog Rum Bar and the BlueIguana Tequila Bar we have some sparkling crew who work hard and work hard with passion and fun which the guests love. Each bar also has their own guitar/singer soloist and I see that our guests are starting to draw allegiance to either Tim at the RedFrog or Eric at the BlueIguana and both are doing a brilliant job.

So which bar is winning at the moment? Well last night we had the RedFrog’s Caribbean Beach Party and guests were very happy. They were very happy first of all because the ship stayed in Cozumel until 10 pm and some were sponsored by Carlos and Frogs or whatever those bars are called. Now this is a new deck party and will be on every ship that gets the Fun Ship 2.0 upgrades. The DJ stated things off and then Butch and his staff went into a series of new dances for all the guests to enjoy and enjoy they certainly did with hundreds line dancing moving from left to right and doing strange things with their bottoms. During the party the staff handed out glow sticks and beads and RedFrog gifts……..it was one of the best deck parties I have seen in a long time. And I should say that this is a huge step forward because our deck parties certainly needed new life breathed into them and having free stuff to throw out and great music and of course these two new bars have given the Carnival Liberty surely the best deck party in the fleet. Actually, that may not be true because on Wednesday night there will be another deck party. This will be the BlueIguana’s Mexican Fiesta……..I wonder why we didn’t hold this one while we were actually in Mexico? Anyway, this one will feature gifts and prizes from the BlueIguana and of course the cantina will be open serving Mexican food and there will be an upgraded Mexican buffet served inside the Lido Restaurant as well. I am sure this will be a huge hit.

On a normal sea day the Lido would start to empty around 5 pm-ish and by 6 pm the housekeeping guys would be stacking chairs and cleaning the deck. It certainly isn’t like that here and here is why. First of all there is the music. This ship does not have a Calypso duo. Now I know this will immediately raise the hackles of a few but hold on, before you get your Calvin Klein’s in a twist, let me explain what we are doing instead. First of all we have two DJ’s on this ship, both trained by the master, DJ Irie who is one of the new breed of superstar DJ’s and he has done a brilliant job training DJ Alex and DJ Paul here on the Carnival Liberty although I think they need better names. So they play their music which starts at 11 am to 1 pm. Then at 1 pm we go to pool games and fun with the staff. Then the first of the live musicians takes over and then back to the DJ and then the next live musician and then back to the DJ. So last night we had music from 11 am to 9 pm and which time we started our Chick Flick Movie Night where 150 people sat and watched 50 First Dates and Notting Vomit…..I mean Notting Hill.

As I mentioned there may be a few who lament the fact that we don’t have a calypso duo here and that we won’t on the ships that get these upgrades. We have replaced the duo with two guitar soloists whose mix of popular songs have been as I mentioned earlier, loved by the guests. But the DJ’s …….well let me just say that when I walked on Lido yesterday at 3 pm there was an amazing atmosphere and I have not seen so many guests dancing at that time of the day on Lido since …….well, ever. DJ Irie has taught our DJ’s what music to play and don’t worry, you’re not going to be subjected to hours of crap, I mean rap but instead a mixture of the 70′s, 80′s and today’s music. There are no breaks, music is constant and so is the fun and the guests love it, they really do. I haven’t had one single comment of “Where is the duo?” but we have had many comments that say “We love Lido.” That’s not spin, that’s the simple truth.

So we really have made Lido a destination and with the pools staying open until late which compliments all I have mentioned above and the themed movie nights, we have created in essence a brand new Lido Deck experience and the guests have shown through their participation, their comments and the packed bars that they obviously think it’s absolutely brilliant.

One last thing…………….which bar is the most popular? The answer so far is by a small margin, the RedFrog Rum Bar. I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that we allow something we don’t allow at the BlueIguana………..smoking!

We have recently had some great contests on Carnival’s Facebook page and there will be more soon with really great prizes. Did you see the videos that people made showing us their groovy moves in order to win tickets to see Maroon 5 in Galveston? If not, here is a link for you to see some brilliant and quite unique dancing

I rarely enter contests because I am as thick as a ton of bricks and I never ever win bugger all. However, if I did I wonder what prize I would most like to win. Certainly I would like to be win Megan Fox’s bottom for the day. I’d also love to drive an Aston Martin and I would like to win the prize of mummifying Simon Cowell in duct tape. However, what I would really like to do is win a seat on a Virgin……..no not a Latvian Virgin but the Virgin Spacecraft. You see Richard Branson the multi zillionaire owner of Virgin and other things confirmed that he will have a contest to give tickets away for his spacecraft plane thingy for a trip around Planet Earth and back. How brilliant is that? The company is called Virgin Galactic and passengers like rock stars Lay Z, U2′s Boner will pay $200,000 for a three-hour tour. Oh how I would love to win that contest.

I guess I should explain at this point that I’m a space nut. When I see photographs of other planets the hairs on my arse stand on end. It’s William Shatner’s fault you know. Ever since I was a wee lad I would watch Jim Kirk and wonder if anyone could possibly overact more than he and if his acting style was a result of permanent constipation. Seriously though I watched Star Trek and I believed. I truly felt that we were not alone.

Yes I know there are dangers but Virgin has never had a cras………well I am not going to tempt fate here by writing what I was going to write but I will say that despite one or two high profile disasters space travel seems relatively safe. Take Apollo 13 where astronauts Hanks, Paxton and Bacon were marooned in space with not even enough power to run an electric toothbrush but they still got back okay.

Yep, I would love to be on that Virgin space ship. I wouldn’t care if my space suit made me look like the Michelin man and I wouldn’t care that farting in a space suit is not recommended. And if I won I would represent all of you by killing two birds with one stone. I would get to achieve my goal to be an astronaut and while I was up there I would launch Carnival Corporation’s own satellite which would replace the current system which has the same band width as a supermodel’s waist. Yep, we would launch the new, super high speed Carnival satellite and send the other one all the way to Uranus.

Goodnight.

Your friend,

John

Take my two stupid decisions I made today. First of all, I hit the snooze button on my raspberry alarm clock even though I knew that I had so much to do today that if I didn’t get my lily white arse out of bed then I wouldn’t be finished until midnight and that would incur the wrath of Peter the Hair and Jay the Recently Married. But I ignored myself, pressed snooze and sure enough I was late for our first film shoot. This made Peter’s Hair droop and Jay’s wart itch. Then this morning I went to the coffee shop on Promenade Deck and had a double espresso, which I know will make my teeth even more yellow.

And then after filming instead of going to Facebook and catching up on some questions there, I went to sit with Captain Cupisiti in his office and drink more coffee and chat with my friend even though I knew that I should be working.

And I look at the pair of expensive sunglasses I bought recently. It’s a waste of money. I shall wear them a few times and then lose them like I do my cigar lighters and cutters. I know this yet I still spent $200 on them but because I am mad………I bought them anyway. But then again if you were to come home with me you would see that most of the things I buy are things that I should never have spent money on. I look at all the things on my desk and I wonder what the sodding heck was going on in my head when I chose them? The universal remote control that doesn’t work, the cat sound thing that is supposed to keep them from crapping on my doorstep, the Aston Martin cufflinks, and something called a Sony Dream Machine, which so far as I can tell is specifically designed to do absolutely bugger all.

I must have said to someone in a shop, “What does this do?” and he must have said, “Absolutely bugger all” and then I must have said, “Brilliant. Here’s my credit card.” How stupid is that?

And after wasting the last few minutes of your life with my silly musings on life I finally come to my point. A couple just walked past me. They are in their late 50′s I would guess. Both are on the large side like myself and indeed the man is probably a good 30 or 50 pounds heavier than me. So at some point this chap must have thought it was a brilliant idea to go to a shop and buy a pair of Speedos. Yep……Speedos. A proper pair of tight dark blue bullock huggers. He strutted across Lido Deck oblivious to the fact that everyone and I mean everyone was watching, some were vomiting.

So at some point this 300 pound 50 something chap must have thought that he would look good in Speedos and so went to a shop and bought some. Seriously, my dishwasher has a bigger brain.

And his wife…….well I have to say what she was wearing was even worse. She was only a few pounds lighter than her husband but she had a very, very skimpy bikini on and it was not hiding anything. Her bottom was eating the bikini bottoms and as she walked across the deck it slowly disappeared up her chocolate starfish. Look I am fat. I know I am and if you ever see me wearing Speedos please, set me on fire. It’s OK to wear Speedos if you are a professional swimmer or Adam Levine. And it’s OK to wear a skimpy bikini if you are Megan Fox but it’s not OK to wear a skimpy bikini if you were to go topless and leave nipple drag marks all the way down Lido Deck.

Lots to do today so let’s crack on with some Q and A………….away we go.

Kathy C asked:
Hi John,

I just wanted to write and tell you how much I enjoy your blog and also how much I enjoy Carnival. I recently went on my first NCL Cruise to Alaska and although the trip itself was good the ship and staff could have been better. I guess I have been spoiled by Carnival. So many differences between the two…For one they have Freestyle Dining which would be good except for the menus are the same just different days and I seem to enjoy the same waiter for each service. They also use two-liter bottles for drinks instead of cans or even fountains which would have been okay except that several drinks I got were flat and also they are skippy on their ice for drinks LOL…I have to admit though they do treat their Cruise Critic guests nice. There was a small group of us (maybe a total of 15-20) that held a meet and greet and at the meeting there was the captain, hotel director, chef, cruise director and even a security officer and was also given a bridge tour which I found to be very nice. Overall I guess I am spoiled though by Carnival and have to say that Carnival is my choice of cruise lines. I do want to thank you for your blog and a way to express my opinions about Carnival.

John says:
Hello Kathy C,

Thanks for those wonderful words. I know NCL has worked hard in recent years and has turned their product around and from some serious trouble they have found their feet for sure and I know they have many fans. I am though truly happy to hear that you missed Carnival and that makes me very proud indeed. I hope it won’t be long until we see you again very soon on one of our ships and despite the concerns I do hope that you had a great time on your last cruise as well. Thanks also for the kind words about the blog and I am so happy it is something you enjoy.

Best wishes.

John

Sami Kearney asked:

Got off from my Carnival Freedom cruise I was horrified to see that Carnival had charged me $344 for using my cell phone on a six-day cruise. I called your customer care line but they said nothing can be done. I have had to ask my parents for help to pay this as Carnival won’t do anything. You should tell passengers that you charge so much for texting and calls and I am telling all my friends about this and not to cruise with Carnival.

John says:
Hello Sami Kearney,

I can understand your shock at getting such a high bill but I promise you it’s nothing to do with Carnival, as the rates are set by the satellite provider and your own cell phone carrier. I should point out that this is clearly advertised on board. I am sorry that you are upset and I hope you will also tell your friends that you had fun while you were on the cruise. Thank goodness for Mum and Dad.

Best wishes.

John

Margo Legge asked:
John,

I have to write and tell you about a young man called Matt who was the cruise director during our recent cruise on the Carnival Victory. If Matt had not told us that it was his second cruise ever as a cruise director we would never have known. He is funny and smart and spent lots of one on one time with the passengers and sat and played chess with my son as well. Watch out for this one John as I think he is going to be one of your best. Thanks.

John says:
Hello Margo Legge,

I am so thrilled to have read this. I have never met Matt but have heard so many great reviews about him and here is another brilliant one from you. He of course will be thrilled to read this and I will make sure I will copy Chris the director beard in the office as well. Thanks so very much, Matt is all we look for in a CD. I hope you had a brilliant cruise.

Best wishes.

John

Lois asked:
Hi John,

Will Carnival replace the Carnival Spirit in Alaska in 2013 or is that the end of Carnival in Alaska. We want to cruise there for our 50th wedding anniversary which is June 14 2013 but can’t find any list of a ship that is going there. I then read on your blog that the Carnival Spirit is leaving for Australia. Please can you tell me what’s happening?

John says:
Hello Lois,

While I don’t know what ship it will be just yet I can assure you that you will be able to book your cruise to Alaska to celebrate that brilliant milestone on a Carnival ship. I hope to let you know in the weeks ahead what ship that will be and when we can start taking reservations.

Best wishes to you both.

John

Dean Malikyan asked:
John,

I would like to see if you can get me a pin from the Celebration. I have all the ships up to and including the Carnival Dream and will be on Carnival Magic in December. But no Celebration and nobody at Carnival wants to help me. Can you get me a pin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

John says:
Hello Dean Malikyan,

I guess I should start by saying a huge thank you. I know you Dean of course and know you cruise a lot and I remember the conversation we had about this when I saw you on the Carnival Dream inaugural from New York. I am sorry but I still don’t have any pins from the Celebration and we have none at our offices in Miami. I did read on my Facebook page recently that someone had found a pin from the Holiday on eBay so may I kindly suggest you look there. I wish you luck and have a brilliant time on the Carnival Magic and let me know if you need help with your motor scooter and table reservation as usual.

Best wishes.

John

Sarah Baker asked:
Hi John,

Just a quick question about what to expect on our first cruise ever. We are sailing the Carnival Pride out of Baltimore on October 30. With the time change (falling back) we are excited to have more dark hours to be able to sit back and just look up at the stars on our cruise (backyard amateur astronomers, maybe) but were wondering what deck would be the best, the darker the better! Also this is our first family cruise for us (there are 10 total going) and was wondering if you could do something special for us! It never hurts to ask I guess. Our rooms are 4102, 4104 and 5215 (for now, we are hoping for an upgrade closer to our cruising date!) The kids would love it and the adults would greatly appreciate anything. Thank you for all that you do, your blogs and Facebook make my day and keep me super excited about our upcoming trip!!!

Thanks.

Sarah Baker

John says:
Hello Sarah Baker,

I am glad I saw this in time as you are sailing in a week and of course I will send you something. I hope you got that upgrade and while I can’t arrange that I will send you something for sure. I wish you all a great time and enjoy the beautiful Caribbean stars. Have fun.

Best wishes.

John

Nimmy M asked:

I am a not a Carnival cruise fan as I have never cruised on your line but I am a John Heald fan and love, love, love your humor and the fact that you take so much time to make your passengers happy. I cruise with Holland America and my latest on Eurodam will be number 44 with them. My question John is can you drop a hint to someone at Holland America to suggest that they find someone who can write a blog. They won’t find one like you but maybe someone who can tell us what’s happening and more importantly respond to the needs of passengers. I am 67 years of age and too old to change habits now but I would have loved to have cruised with you John. Keep making us laugh.

John says:
Hello Nimmy M,

I think it is so wonderful that you have shown so much allegiance to Holland America and having sampled their service recently I can totally see why. I will indeed pass this onto a friend of mine who is a senior vice president at HAL and let him see your request. Holland America has a brilliant official blog which shows highlights of all the ships, where they are and the stories from on board.

There is another blog as well. It is written by someone who works for HAL ashore in their offices and it’s not an official blog but is written by some great people who I met recently on a Carnival ship. They have a true passion for their company and the ships and I thought you might like to see it. I will pass on your thoughts though and I am sure they have someone who can write and respond far better than I. Here are those links.

http://www.hollandamericablog.com/
http://www.dutchbyassociation.com

I wish you happy cruising.

Best wishes,

John

Barbara Callis asked:

I think you need to come up with a better system for arranging tables and promises John. I asked you for a table for eight by the window and a surprise for my daughter’s graduation. We had a table for eight but it was far away from the window and my daughter received NOTHING! Cabin 2358/September 3. You dissapointed us.

John says:
Hello Barbara Callis,

I am very sorry to read this. I do always say that I will do my best to arrange the table requests I am asked but I never guarantee as in the end it’s up to the maitre d on each ship. I see he did arrange a table for eight for you and I am sorry it was not by the window. As for the gift, well that is disappointing and I did ask someone to send it but I guess they let me down for which I apologise. I do hope you had a great time despite these disappointments and I will do all I can to make up for it the next time you cruise.

Best wishes.

John

That’s all for today.

Before I talk about some of the specifics, let’s welcome the Carnival Liberty with the official press release written by our mate Vance:

So off we go with 3,391 guests including 110 from Mexico, 101 French Canadian and 60 Germans, 67 Italian and 1 guest from Belgium.

So yesterday, our day at sea, I was on a mission and that mission was to count how many people had saved chairs by 9 am. Now obviously I couldn’t count all the chairs on the open deck but instead I concentrated on a row of 8 on the port side close to the pool and the BlueIguana Bar. When I checked at 9 am all of them, every single one had towels on them. Some also had books and bags and one had a pair of kids swim band floaty things on it. And so I took a seat at the corner of the BlueIguana Bar and watched. While I was doing so I noticed that while the man with the huge ugly hair feet and many of his fellow guests had opted for eggs and bacon and grits for breakfast there were two ladies at the bar who preferred a more liquid start to the day and were drinking margaritas.

Anyway, I sat and I watched to see how long it would be before these guests came back. While I did so I noticed just how many people were up early and having eaten were determined to get that tan. Both young and old, male and female were worshipping the golden ball in the sky. Now, I’m long past the age when I give two shiny you know whats about a tan. When I was a young CD I’d stake myself out on the topless deck (yes, we used to have those) and lie there blinking the sweat out of my eyes and rubbing baby oil into my secret gentleman’s areas. This would make me look rich when I got home. But by the age of 30 something I’d realised that most of my tan would be left in a series of unpleasant flakes on the airplane seat and that was the end of my sun worshipping.

Nowadays, anytime my wife insists we sit in the sun I spend my time under a hat, a tree and a roof. Anyway, I digress. We advertise that 30 minutes is the maximum time that seat saving is allowed and so I wanted to see how many guests listened to that. It was advertised in the Fun Times and there was a scrolling message on the Seaside Theatre, which by the way has been upgraded here as you know and looks totally brilliant.

Anyway, 30 minutes later seven of the chairs were occupied and three were not including the one with the kids swimming thingies on it. So where were these people? Had they gotten up at 7 am to reserve the chairs and gone back to bed or were they at breakfast? I looked around at the staff. Two were handing out towels, one was watching the pool as he should do and one was helping a guest with something. So, it is so hard for the crew if not impossible at the present manning quotas to check every chair and what time the guests come and what time they are due back. But the reserving of chairs happens, of that there is no doubt and after my spying mission I grabbed by raspberry and sent a message telling the beards what was going on. I think many guests listen and adhere to the rules but some definitely do not and while it would be nice to think that all guests would respect the rules they don’t and so we have to see what we can do to enforce it better. Oh by the way, the new Serenity area looks fantastic and there we have the ability to make sure the 30 minute rule is obeyed and it is. I think anyone found saving a seat for more than 30 minutes has to use a pair of my underpants as a hammock.

Now talking of Serenity here are some photos for you of what a wonderful job they have done here with the Carnival Liberty’s adults only deck.

I have to tell you that our President and CEO Gerry Cahill and his band of beards were here on Saturday and they had smiles on their faces as wide as a Guy Fieri burger. And so they should because what they have done here is quiet simply miraculous, especially in two weeks and those two weeks that were spent working in torrential rain and high winds. I know it’s early on in the cruise but let me say that the ship is a huge hit and the Lido deck is exactly what we thought it would be………a destination. Both the RedFrog Rum Bar and the BlueIguana Tequila Bar are hugely popular. Which one is the most popular so far I hear you ask?

Well, that’s a tough one but I asked the Bar Manager and he said that revenue wise the RedFrog is slightly in the lead and that I am sure is due to the ThirstyFrog Red beer. On the first night of the cruise we stopped the music at 10 pm and there were still 200-plus on Lido Deck and that number stayed that high for the first movie “Paranormal Activity” which featured in our horror night. It looks amazing on the new big screen and from the screams I heard when I walked through the Lido deck it looks bloody scary as well. We are handing out popcorn and Depends.

So how about Guy’s Burger Joint? Well we all thought it would be popular and we were all correct. How correct? Well on embarkation day between noon and 6:30 pm Chef Sanjay told me we had served 1,000 burgers. I also have to tell you that throughout the day many guests asked the same question………how much? Yep, many guests who haven’t been on the various social media sights had no idea that they were free and so when the staff told them how much they were …….. they were both thrilled and shocked. I wonder if these guests were shocked because other cruise lines charge for their burger? Whatever the reason, they obviously love the fact that they are free and love the fact they are probably the best burgers…….in the world. I will talk more about each individual area in later blogs and there will be loads of video too but so far each and every guest has said how they love what we have done. Well done Gerry and team………you got it absolutely bang on.

The Punchliner Comedy Club is as popular as ever here on the Carnival Liberty. I hadn’t seen the two comedians who performed last night and both I have to say were funny although one who I won’t name, really intrigued me. He is in his early thirties and yet he spent his entire 30 minutes on stage doing jokes and gags on one subject. Old people. This got me thinking. Why is it that a comedian can get away with that these days? It is inappropriate to make fun of someone’s race, gender or disability…..but an old person….. well……….go right ahead. I may do it myself now and then during a Marriage Show but I like to think that I do it in a respectful way. I hope the same applied to what I write on the blog. I’ll also admit to ageist moments in everyday life, such as when I’m in the line for the ATM machine or waiting in line for the bathroom and desperate for a pee. But to spend 30 minutes of comedy doing it…….well to me it just doesn’t seem right, it isn’t funny to mock the aged.

Except though that it seems nobody cares. During my time as a CD I have received complaints from guests if a comedian dares to make a joke about religion, colour or being fat, unless the comedian is overweight themselves of course, then it’s OK. But the guests at the comedy club loved it, even the old ones. It seems that all this comedian needed to do was to mention old people and add a dash of Viagra, hearing aids, dentures and driving…….and he had a guaranteed laugh. I guess I wasn’t laughing because my Dad is 76 and every joke this comedian made on the show last night made me think of him………..apart from the Viagra obviously.

One day we shall all be old and maybe then I will feel different about this subject. Maybe older people like hearing jokes about themselves………if that’s the case then they won’t mind me saying that the only thing I am looking forward to about being old is being able to fart in public and having those around me who heard and smelt it simply go…………”ahhhhhh.”
It’s time to go film but first let me say that I have enjoyed being in the office and living on land but I have to tell you that it’s great to be back on a ship. I love seeing the guests have fun and although I am already frustrated about not having the microphone it is brilliant to be back. I am also lucky that for the first time I have a balcony cabin. I wasn’t supposed to have one but one of the very senior beards who was supposed to sail had to cancel his sailing so I got his cabin. Hopefully he won’t discover it was me that called the Miami Dade Police and told them that he had a body buried under his rose bushes. Anyway, I have his cabin and that means I can sit on my balcony and enjoy the sea. I love the sea, always have even before my life with Carnival. I was brought up in Southend On Sea in Essex which as the name suggests is by the sea and for all those people who wonder if the extra cost of a stateroom with a balcony is worth it…….well let me tell you that yes, it absolutely is.

So it starts here on the Carnival Liberty. The Fun Ship 2.0 upgrades were designed to make our guests say “wow.” Which from what I have seen here……they do. You know life is desperately short and no matter how much you do, there’s always a dollop of regret that you didn’t do more. No matter how much you see, you always think that if only you’d gone a little bit further and over one more horizon, you’d have seen something else. I bet when Tiger Woods is summoned by the grim reaper, he’ll think of a lady that he could have rumpy pumpy with but didn’t, and that will make him a bit sad.

So book a Carnival Liberty cruise. Go on, book one. And if you do I promise you something for sure. When all is said and done, you’ll remember those seven days sipping a ThirstyFrog Red, eating a free Guy Fieri burger followed by a taco from the BlueIguana Cantina for dessert and enjoy each and every one of the Fun Ship 2.0 upgrades. Do that and I promise you’ll go through the Pearly Gates with a huge smile on your face.

What a brilliant ship this is.

Goodnight.

Your friend,

John

I am so bloody ill. For the last week I have had a runny nose, a sore throat, a nasty hacking cough and every few minutes my eyes fill with water — all the ingredients you need to make a convincing Nyquil commercial for the television. Yep, I have a cold. I was so pissed off because instead of playing with Kye in the park and taking my wife for a romantic dinner and sitting with my feet up watching my plasma TV, I spent a day in bed and three days feeling bloody awful and feeling like a total bastard because I gave it to Kye and seeing her little red face and runny nose was just awful. How come we’ve been to the moon, invented the Eyepad, built the Carnival Magic and created ways to watch Latvian women remove their clothing very slowly, on the World Wide Web thingy but still no one with a beard knows how to simply cure the cold?

And on Wednesday…….and you won’t believe this, even though it was my vacation, my one week off, Heidi decided to be selfish and get the cold, as well. Yep, that was me then looking after Kye and fetching and carrying chicken soup and throwing away her snotty tissues even though I was on my holiday and that I wasn’t feeling great myself. Unbelievable isn’t it? Anyway, this whole cold thing is not to ask you to post loads of sympathetic comments below (OK, maybe a bit) but to lead you into this next subject, which is entitled The Worst TV Program Ever Made. I came across this while Kye was having a nap and while Heidi lay on the sofa wrapped in a blanket blowing bits of Shrek out of her nostrils every five minutes. My suggestion that we should watch a whole day of Sopranos reruns was ignored. She was ill, I had made her ill and thus she would watch “her programs.” Those words alone have my old mate Horatio flaring up because in the past that has meant I have had to endure Sex and the City, The Bold and the Bollocks and various British soap operas. But nothing prepared me for that afternoon where I was forced as a loving dutiful husband who had not seen his wife for two months and had given her a cold upon doing so…….to watch back to back to back to bloody back episodes of something called Real Housewives of New York. I had no idea this program ever existed and as the opening voiceover told us we would be watching “wealth, glamour and New York style.” Style my arse. If you fed 50 cows on nothing but laxative chocolate for a week they would still not be able to produce as much s**t as the people who commissioned this show have.

Have you seen this? If you haven’t let me just say well done and tell you that all you missed were bullies in dresses happily parading their Cartier-filled lives in the reality television equivalent of a freak show. I don’t get it. Why does my wife like this, why does she record every episode and record the other shows like Real Housewives of New Jersey? Nothing happens. The women bitch and they moan and they bitch some more and then they get some Botox and then they get drunk and then they and their fake breasts go to bed. OH FFS!

I watched the first episode and then was told there were three more to go. I sat in my chair silently wishing my cold would rapidly turn into Bird Flu and I could slip silently into a coma. But I didn’t and episode 2 arrived. This featured some woman with mad looking eyes and another woman who was married to an Australian man who epitomizes the term Metrosexual.

This episode they were renovating a house and at the start of the show Heidi said that the woman would get “screwed” by the builders. Great, finally something worth watching. She would show some serious interest in his tool box and we would get some rumpy pumpy action…but we didn’t. She got screwed by the builders because the wine cooler was built into the wrong area of the kitchen. Oh joy. I am sure there are many of you reading this who love this show but honestly I would rather develop a genital wart then ever have to sit through this bollocks ever again. Fire the lot of them and bring the cameras to the ship and film Real Stateroom Stewards of Carnival Cruise Lines. Watching Ketut use a crow bar to get my underpants off the bathroom floor is far more exciting than watching a bunch of plastic women drink skinny margaritas. Countess my arse!

Time for some Q and A. Off we go.

Martin Ramsden asked:
John,

I need help with an excursion question before our cruise on the Carnival Freedom. I want to book the Chukka Cove horse back riding trip in Ocho Rios but need to make sure that my weight is not going to be a problem. I can definitely not as large as you but am definitely on the heavy side. The web site says 250 pounds and I am 260. I don’t want to get there and have them weigh me and tell me that I can’t ride. I called Carnival twice and got two different answers sums up Carnival’s customer service department recently which has been less then good and is always talked about on Cruise Critic. What do you advise I do, book or not? We cruise in January 2012 so let me know as quickly as you can so I can get my plans made.

John says:
Hello Martin Ramsden,

I checked with the tour operator and they are bringing in a special horse for you. His name is “Easy Rider.” He’s not any bigger than the others but he will have drunk 10 margaritas before you get on him and he won’t care how big you are. Seriously, I did check with the tour operator and you can indeed go on the tour so book away. It’s a wonderful trip and one I know you will enjoy in beautiful Jamaica. Have a great cruise.

Best wishes.

John

Kelli H asked:
John,

We’ll be sailing the Carnival Pride for the 7th time this October. Please be sure to convey to “The Beards” how happy we are that the Bermuda itinerary has become available. Carnival Pride feels like our home away from home, but I have to admit, the Bahamas/Port Canaveral itinerary has become a little stale. My husband and I are so looking forward to the change up. I would love to see some new and exciting routes added, maybe offering nine-day cruises, or trying to work Half Moon Cay in a little more often. We love Carnival (This is my 12th, husband’s 10th), and we love sailing from Baltimore………so please!!! Let’s see if somebody can get creative in Miami. We’ll be purchasing our FCC either way.

John says:
Hello Kelli H,

I am very glad to know that you enjoy the Carnival Pride and the addition of some Bermuda cruises. We love Baltimore and signing an extension with the port shows our commitment and I am sure that in the years ahead there will be more itineraries and longer cruises as well. The beards read the blog every day and will see this for sure. Thank you so much for your support and I wish you a wonderful time on your forthcoming cruise.

Thanks for your loyalty and my best wishes to you both.

John

Chris Holloway asked:
John,

I am a long-time cruiser but relatively new to the Carnival line of cruises. My first Carnival cruise was last year. I just wanted to write you and let you know how upset I am about the recent changes in policy regarding smoking and cigar lounges in particular. Some of my fondest memories of the cruises I have taken are of sitting in the cigar lounge with a good scotch in one hand, a fine cigar in the other and surrounded by good, friendly people who were total strangers 30 minutes prior. Not having somewhere to sit back, relax and enjoy the finer things in life will take a lot of the fun out of cruising for me. Is there any chance that these policies will be changed? Are people pushing back on the changes or is it even worth doing so? I had planned on booking a cruise on the Carnival Magic for March of 2012 but now I may have to look elsewhere with more friendly policies toward cigar smokers.

John says:
Hello Chris Holloway,

I am not sure if you are aware but I am a cigar smoker too and have been for the past 15 years or so. I too spent many wonderful nights sitting with guests and sharing stories and conversations with other cigar smokers about the joys that a fine cigar always brings. So I know exactly how you feel when you lament at the passing of these beautiful lounges that were created especially for cigar smoking. But times change and while many places on land have completely banned smoking Carnival has a at least allowed for smokers still to have options and they include smoking cigars on the cabin balconies and in various lounges depending on the class of the ship. Carnival Magic is a ship I have just returned from and there we have some wonderful outdoor areas on deck 5 portside and while you will miss the big leather chairs of the cigar bars, smoking a great cigar under the stars is the next best thing. I wish you many wonderful cigar moments some of which I hope will be on the brilliant Carnival Magic.

Best wishes.

John

Rachael Ragsdale asked:
John,

I’m a new reader to your blog so I apologize if you’ve answered this before. I’m sailing with 11 people on the Carnival Magic on Jan 8, 2012 out of Galveston. We’ve cruised a lot, but never on a big new ship. Our family is so excited! I have two questions. First, I’ve heard rumors that the public areas, like the pool, slides, buffet, and comedy club get really crowded because there are just so many more people on this huge ship (compared to the older smaller ships). Is that true? I just want to be prepared. We are so excited, and I don’t want to be let down. Second, we have the Bahamas itinerary, and I’m a little worried about Freeport. There’s just so much more to do in Nassau than Freeport. My cousins and I (all between 21-28) will enjoy snorkeling and the beach, but our parents (ages 52-62) choose not to be seen in a swimsuit any more. Do you have any suggestions for excursions for the older adults in Freeport? Thanks for your help and I look forward to being a dedicated follower of your blog.

John says:
Hello Rachael Ragsdale,

Welcome to the blog and I hope it brings you some smiles and some good information. The Carnival Magic is our best ship yet. Yep, she really is that good and despite the fact that there are anywhere from 3,700 – 4,500 guests on board I can assure you that the way she is designed means you will never think that there is. Now there will be some lines at lunchtime, saying there isn’t would be ridiculous but they move quickly and with all the new lunchtime options including the barbecue, the new dining room lunch menu and the food served on Serenity I promise you will never grow hungry. We carried some large numbers while in Europe and even with 4,500 plus on board there were few, if any, comments about lines. Now Freeport has some good excursions and I would recommend the Freeport Island Tour and the botanical gardens for your parents and you can find out more about that at carnival.com. You will love the ship, you really will and I hope you will let me know if you have any other questions before you sail. Once again, welcome to the blog thingy and have a brilliant cruise.

Best wishes.

John

Lea J. asked:
Hi John,

I just wanted to tell you what a wonderful time my grandson and I had on our cruise. We just got off the Carnival Glory yesterday from a four-day cruise. I wanted to take him on a short cruise just to spend some time with him before school started back up. He’s 10, and this was his second cruise. His first cruise was on the Carnival Victory about three years ago, and he still remembers it. I have to tell you his favorite memory will always be the comedy shows we went to. We attended all four of the family shows. Al Ernst and Tommy Drake were our comedians and they had us laughing the entire time. The last sea day during Tommy Drake’s show, he chose my grandson to come up on stage to help him with a rope trick. I don’t think I have ever seen that child grin that big or for that length of time, consecutively! Tommy gave him the rope that was used and he says he is keeping it “forever.” I wish I could have taken a picture because it made the whole trip worth it to see the joy on his face at that moment in time. We had a few issues and frustrating moments during this trip, however nothing that was worth getting our panties in a bunch over! We ate ice cream for breakfast and room service for dinner at 11 o’clock on our last night. We sat in the drizzling rain, wrapped in a blanket, and watched a movie on the Lido deck. He finally got his warm chocolate melting cake for dessert. And BTW, he says that the chicken nuggets on the kids menu in the dining room are the absolute best he has ever eaten in his whole life! His words, not mine. Like I said, I just wanted to let you know what a nice time we had. They will be memories we will always be able to cherish, just between us! Carnival Rocks!!

John says:
Hello Lea J,

This is something that made me smile from ear to ear and I wanted to thank you for sharing this with us all. Both Al and Tommy are such wonderful people and always go that extra mile to help and entertain our guests and I wish I could have seen your grandson’s face while he was on stage. I will make sure both Tommy and Al get to see this and I know they too will be smiling when they do. Thanks again for taking the time to write and I hope you both get to spend some valuable time together soon. And I had better try the chicken nuggets I think.

Best wishes.

John

Juli Gilbert asked:
John,

My husband and I are cruising on the Carnival Liberty on Dec 10, we will be in room 8455, our first balcony (and an aft wrap at that) It will be our 20th anniversary. We are wondering if it is possible to have a nice dinner delivered out on the balcony one evening. Might as well get some use out of it, other than just excessive sun exposure. We think this would be a great way to dine as the sun sets. Is this available thru room service? I am new to the blog, but have been enjoying it very much.

Thanks!

Juli

John says:
Hello Juli Gilbert,

While you can order complimentary room service 24 hours a day, including wine and other spirits, we don’t serve the dinner menu on the balconies. I wish you a wonderful cruise and thanks for joining me here on the blog. If you have any more questions please let me know.

Best wishes.

John

Jessemon asked:
John,

Have you ever considered writing for one of your famous British tabloid newspapers? With the lies you tell about a company that is continuing on the downward spiral and your constant references to sex and other filth means IMHO you would be perfect.

John says:
Hello Jessemon,

I wanted to thank you so much for making me realise the one thing that this blog has been missing. A Page 3 girl. Yep, instead of John’s Mate of the Week we can have a Page 3 girl which for those who don’t know is a standard in a newspaper called The Sun here in the UK and its page 3 is two of the reasons The Sun is by far the most popular newspaper in the UK. So thanks so much for that brilliant idea and I don’t know you well enough madam to even suggest that you feature in this new section but please let me know if you decide to whip your bra off for the good of the blog and thank you in advance for your support.

Best wishes.

John

Peter Winters asked:
John,

Just got off the Carnival Sensation and another fantastic cruise. I wanted to ask a behind the scenes question if I may? I notice that many of the staff on this ship was from Eastern Europe and there were less from the Caribbean than before. Is Carnival not hiring from “the islands” anymore?

Thanks John for all you do.

John says:
Hello Peter Winters,

I am very glad to know you had fun and enjoyed the Carnival Sensation. If you ask any senior beard at any cruise line they will all tell you that one of the greatest challenges they have now and one that will always be a challenge is finding the right crew. By this I mean finding crew members that have the right qualifications and abilities to be a waiter, stateroom steward, photographer, cook, cleaner or plumber. If you go back to when I first started with Carnival the island boys as we called them were the domineering nationality with Jamaicans, Grenadians and others making up most of the dining room staff and bar department. Then we started hiring in India and then Latin America and now as you say we have gone to countries like Russia, Belarus, Romania, Croatia and other Eastern European countries. That’s because there are at anyone time many thousands of crew at sea in this industry. I have no idea how many but each and every cruise line is hiring constantly to keep each position filled. On the Carnival Magic we had 48 countries represented (fleetwide, it’s more than 100 countries represented) and that I think is the answer to your question and shows that we are hiring from……well most everywhere ………except France….obviously. It’s our job to train the crew and mould them into the best at sea and for the most part I think we do a great job with this and can continue to proudly say we do have the best crew on the seven seas. I hope you agree Peter. Thanks for writing and I am glad that you had such a great cruise.

Best wishes

John

David asked:
Hello John,

I’m currently deployed to Afghanistan with the Air Force and I have a couple of weeks before I head home to be with my family. It’s been a long year and my lovely wife decided to let me book a cruise with Carnival. This will be my first cruise with one of the big ships and my wife’s second with Carnival. Originally I wanted to book the Spirit in December for Hawaii, but my darling wife made other plans. It was her idea to book a B2B in November on the Glory for the Western and Eastern Caribbean, which I think is awesome and will let me spend some time with my wife since we have been apart for a while. The second leg of the B2B is during Thanksgiving week. I do have a couple of questions. I’ve read on your blog there was a veteran’s meet and greet on your ship. Do most ships have veteran’s meet and greet? Veterans are wonderful people and there is always a great connection with military and veterans. I love talking to veterans since they have been there and know what we are going through. My wife always tells me that my face lights up when I talk to veterans. My other question is during Thanksgiving, does Carnival do anything special?

Thank you for your wonderful blog which I find great to read during my off time here in the desert.

-David

John says:
Hello David,

Let us start by saying thank you for your service and I see that you posted this just under a month ago so you should be home now and I hope you are relaxing and enjoying some time with your family. Congratulations on booking the back to back cruise on the Carnival Glory, your wife did good there and you will have a brilliant time. There will be a veteran’s meeting and it will be listed in the Fun Times. I hope you can go along and meet some people who have done what you are doing now and I am sure they will be thrilled to meet you too. As for Thanksgiving, there will be a big dinner and a wonderful night of celebrations. Talking of which, maybe you could ask your wife to send me a note on Facebook a few days before you cruise so that I can send you a welcome home gift from us all.

Have a brilliant time. Best wishes to you both.

John

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

So here I am again, sitting here in my underpants in the office at home. It’s 9:45am, Kye has gone to play school and Heidi is shopping and so it’s just me and Planet Rock Radio and a cup of tea. I want to thank you so much for allowing me this last week off. It really meant a lot not just to me but to the girls, as well. So I guess we had better crack on then and let me tell you what’s happened and what will be happening.

More and more the beards are reading our blog and Facebook page and as one very senior beard said in a recent email “the blog and Facebook have become valuable of tools for us to see what our guests are talking to you and each other about. The opinions are written by honest Carnival guests and not by people as on other websites who may have an ulterior motive in writing negative statements.” This really was great to read and I can tell you now that from our President and CEO Gerry Cahill on down through the rank of beards they read this blog daily and the comments you make here and on Facebook. I am honoured by this and while I can’t promise that they will agree with everything you say or suggest that they are listening and that has to be a good thing.

Immediate proof of this came last week where after reading a comment on the blog about seat saving at the Punchliner Comedy Club a change in how we seat guests was made. So starting this past weekend each Punchliner host has been instructed to clear the lounge of all guests at the end of each show and then 10 minutes before the next show the doors will open again. This was already in place on a few ships but will now be standard practice across the fleet and should truly help. I also received a commitment from the same beard that the subject of deck chair saving would be addressed once again and this also came about from them reading your comments on Facebook. Yes, I know we have heard this before but there are new beards in town and I have nothing but faith in what they say. I will keep you informed on this of course.

I need to get something off my chest and apologise to someone on the Carnival Magic. I have no idea who that person is but I have asked Calvyn to post this bit on the crew notice boards on the vessel. Now like most major corporations on land we also have crew suggestion boxes. This is where the crew can drop in anonymous notes about anything they would like the ship’s command to address and these notes are then read out at the captain’s meeting each week. Now with the introduction of the new human resources director on the ship I am sure that these boxes will become obsolete as the crew will have face to face chats with someone should they have a concern. Most of the time the suggestions are about food with crew wanting different food based usually on their ethnic backgrounds. Occasionally there is a note about life on board or one that will have a little rant about a supervisor or manager but for the most part they are well written and usually things that we can act on. Although my suggestion of replacing my cabin steward Ketut with a 20-year-old Latvian girl was never honoured.

So at the captain’s meeting this past week there was apparently a note about me. James, the current CD, wrote to me and told me that a crewmember had complained that he had seen me smoking a cigar on the Lanai. Now as you know crew have been banned from smoking in all guest areas and are only allowed to smoke on the aft area of the lifeboat deck. Now for the most part I have adhered to. But during my last week on the Carnival Magic I was tired, my arm was hurting and late at night I took a walk, sat down with some guests from my home town who were sailing and did an informal “Cigars Night Under the Stars with John” which we host from time to time. This promoted an anonymous crew member to write “Cruise director was smoking a cigar in guest area. Should be one rule for everyone no?” Now obviously there were some giggles around the senior officer table as the senior cruise director and brand ambassador was mentioned in the crew suggestion box. But the crew member is right because as the rules stand I should not have been smoking and I certainly apologise to whoever wrote this and hope he or she sees this apology.

Do you remember a few months ago I wrote about a lady who had though she had booked a European cruise on Celebrity and realised she hadn’t when she boarded the Carnival Magic? Well it doesn’t just happen in Europe as you will see now from my colleague Butch on the Carnival Dream.

Hi John……thought you should see this.

Thank You and Kind Regards,

Butch Begovich
Cruise Director, Carnival Dream
Carnival Cruise Lines

From: DREAM CRUISE DIRECTOR
Sent: Sunday, September 25, 2011 04:48 PM
To: Heald, John (CCL)
Subject: FW: A – **** – BOOKED THE WRONG SHIP

A – **** – BOOKED THE WRONG SHIP
At 2:40 PM, Ms ___________came to GSS stating that she wanted to leave the ship now and wanted to have cruise fare refunded back. Gst claimed that she had verified with CCL Reservation Agent so many times that she expected to have a suite and a normal stateroom, to book them on the newest ship with animated characters walking around the ship, a turtle tank in the dining room, and a large water slide and leaning over the sea. Gst was very disappointed. Since gst also purchased CCL insurance. GSS found out that gst wanted to book for the Disney Dream but called in to CCL for the Dream reservation. GSS escorted off the ship. Their bookings were cancelled in the system.

There are so many places to go here but I think all I have to say is that we should have tried to keep her on board. Maybe we could have gotten her to believe that she was on a Disney ship. We could have doubled the charge of her cruise tickets for a start. Ahhh…….but she wanted animated characters walking around the ship. Well, we could have stuck two huge ears on the top of Fun Ship Freddy’s funnel…..do you think that would have fooled her? Still, thank goodness she had insurance and can now join Mickey and Goofy and have what I hope is a fabulous time on her Disney Dream and enjoys eating her dinner while being entertained by Donald Duck on a comedy trombone.

Just a quick note about my carpool tunnel thingy. A week’s rest has really helped but even now it has started to ache again. I saw Doctor Longfinger and he sent me to a specialist who I have an appointment with tomorrow and we shall see what he has to say. I have been trying a voice activated program and it works, well, sort of. It’s slow and it also won’t let me write words like bollocks or bugger or underpants……..so what’s the point. Let’s see what the doc says tomorrow. I will be writing another blog tomorrow and on Thursday and will be on Facebook each day.

I was supposed to be leaving home and heading for Miami on October 7 but that’s all changed because on Saturday October 1 I climb aboard a Virgin…….. sorry, the phone rang…….. what was I saying? Oh yes, I will climb aboard a Virgin Atlantic flight to New York. Why? Well to host a very special event on October 3 where I will be joined by Gerry Cahill and other very senior beards to announce the news you have all been waiting for regarding the Carnival Liberty and some other surprises as well. I will post minute by minute information on Facebook as the announcements and details are made and I am being joined by Peter the Hair and the video crew because there may just be some people there that you may recognise. You know, I have received a lot of flack on Cruise Critic about me not revealing what we are doing on the ship during her dry dock period and some of it has been quite nasty. So I hope they will be amongst those who join me on Facebook and on the blog on October 3. It’s going to be a great day and not just for those booking on Carnival Liberty!

Obviously this means I have to leave a week earlier which I don’t like and neither of course does Heidi. I haven’t told Kye yet either. I also have to tell Kye some other bad news when she gets back from play school today ……….Harriet her Hamster died today. Heidi found it face down in its food bowl, which was where it always was. But this morning it was different in the fact that its little feet were as blue as the Caribbean Sea. I wrote about Harriet six months or so ago here on the blog thingy and how Kye loved her……..for about 3 days before loving Barney more. Since then Harriet sat in her cage and just ate away her rejection. She ate and ate and refused to use her exercise wheel. I urged Harriet to be more active but she looked at me as if to say “Who are you to give me advice you fat bastard?” I did care though and had I known that her end was near I would have bought those diet pills from the guest on the Carnival Magic.

But now she is gone. Well…….ummmm………actually she hasn’t yet. She is still in the cage, her nose in the food bowl. I didn’t want to upset Kye before she went to school so I decided to wait until she returned and for the last few hours I have been rehearsing the words “hamster heaven” in my head.

But Kye is two and a half years old and although blessed with her mother’s common sense and intelligence, I don’t think she has quite grasped the concept of death yet. So I just say that she has gone to play with other hamsters and along with last night’s bucket of KFC. It’s what she would have wanted.

Goodnight.

Your friend

John

Had one of my friends been accused of spilling a beer over a man who looks like one of the ex- KGB, no-neck Russians we have on board this cruise who has muscles the size of Pamela Anderson’s knockers, than I would have stepped in, said it was me that did it and taken the beating……..however that would have made me feel extremely stupid today because I can’t even remember some of their names. How the heck did this happen, how did eight people who were as close as you could imagine suddenly….well……not be anymore?

I am sure the last time I said “See you soon” to them I truly believed I would. We had not had an argument, some of them hadn’t suddenly bought some sandals, grown beards and went to find a rare dung beetle in the Amazon, we literally just went home and never saw each other ever again. I had a quick look on Facebook and found a couple of them but still, why did we stop being friends? Bloody hell, I was best man in Tim’s wedding yet I haven’t seen him in 20 years. This is mostly my fault though because every time I go home from the ship on vacation what I like doing is staying in, watching TV, reading the paper and of course playing with my beautiful Kye.

Going out means dressing up, personal grooming and wearing nice clothes……things I do each and every day at work. If I do go out it’s once a week which means that I never get to see any of my old friends. When we are home we get invited out a lot and eventually after using up every excuse in the book, including being attacked by a rabid hamster and having a sudden onset of syphilis, I have to go.

I also have to say……….and I hope this does not sound pretentious……..but since the blog has 11,500,000 views and 18,500 on my Facebook page all of a sudden more and more “old friends” have started to get into contact. These calls all take the same form……”Hello, mate how are you?” ”It’s been too long, how’s Kye?” “Not made her a brother yet, ha ha?”………”I am doing fantastic”……”Really miss you”…….”We should get together”…..”Love your blog” ……… ”Come for dinner”……and oh yes, “Can I have a free cruise on the Carnival Breeze, please?” There is one bloke who we shall call David, because that is his name, who has started to call me after 10 years of nothing but silence, which was just fine with me. Let’s just say that on the list of people I would call to spend a night out with he comes just after the “We hate that fat bastard John” group on Cruise Critic ……..and anyone French. If I saw him coming toward me in the street I would start touching his bottom until he buggered off and if that didn’t work I would introduce Calvyn as my lover and ask if he wanted to join us tonight.

He has asked and asked to get together and Heidi being Heidi thinks we should and that it will be good to meet up again after all these years. But I don’t want to. Because through all his overtures of renewed friendship I know that he never paid for anything, it was never his turn to by a drink and we all thought he was tighter than a camel’s arse in a sandstorm. All he wants is a free cruise. But Heidi as I said seems determined and is planning a get together on September 25. This means I have one choice and that’s to call the British police and tell them that in 1983 David Cookson broke into Shoeburyness Comprehensive School in Essex, peed in the swimming pool from the top of the diving board and it was he that went to the principal’s office and drew a huge red gentlemen’s sausage on his door. That should take care of that friendship then.

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

Graham R asked:
John,

Can you tell me if I wanted to bring a remote controlled helicopter to fly around the deck. Would that be allowed? I am an avid modeler and to be able to fly one of my helicopters around the decks of the Carnival Glory would be a huge thrill. I don’t want to bring it all the way from Pennsylvania and then get it confiscated. Please can you tell me if I can bring it?

John says:
Hello Graham R,

This is a first. I think you must be the first ever to ask me this and you know what, I had no idea if you could or not. So I asked the captain and security officer and they had no concerns about the radio frequency but we do have a safety concern for the guests on the deck that if the helicopter should fall then it could injure someone. Therefore, from an overall safety perspective I am sorry but we can’t allow it. I hope you have a wonderful cruise though and please let me know if you have any other questions.

Best wishes.

John

Joe Henry asked:
Just off a great cruise on the Glory. Wonderful staff. Many positive memories. But allow me to give you two comments for policy changes:

1) The Comedy Club. On Carnival Dream in April, the club was emptied after each show to allow a full new audience to come in. On Carnival Glory this week, the vast majority stayed from the first to the second (and to the third!) show. Many people were waiting outside and only a few were able to come in. I would suggest you implement the Carnival Dream policy fleetwide. If you have late seating dinner, you can almost write off the comedy club.

2) I could not believe staff was allowed to smoke during the safety briefing. We left our room on deck seven aft and entered the “crew only” staircase as instructed. It reeked of smoke! When we got down to Deck 3, we saw why: there were four crew members in dining room uniforms smoking cigarettes. Hundreds of passengers had to walk through the smokey gauntlet. Officers in white uniforms were directing traffic ignoring them. I cannot believe this is good, let alone legal, policy.

Can you please ask the “beards” to consider these issues? Thanks.

John says:
Hello Joe Henry,

Thanks for the email. Regarding smoking, the Deck 4 outside area is though the only place that crew can smoke since the new smoking regulations came into effect and I guess what we have to do is not allow the crew to smoke in the period leading up to the drill. We do allow them to smoke there but we should prohibit this as I said before and during the drill. Thanks for telling me this and we will get this changed. I will also remind the ships that the policy for the Punchliner Comedy Club is to clear the lounge after each performance and that is the only fair way to do this. Thanks so much for passing this valuable information and I hope you had a great time on the ship.

Best wishes.

John

Drake Ronsberg asked:
John,

I want to be a cruise director. I am a good singer and a great dancer and have been on three cruises. How do I get to be a cruise director and how quick do the promotions happen at Carnival? I am 25 years old and very funny. What do I do and where do I go to apply!!!!

John says:
Hello Drake Ronsberg,

Thanks for writing and may I suggest that you kindly go to the www.carnivalentertainment.com website and look at all the information there on the job of entertainment staff which is how all the CD’s start. Most cruise directors go through the process of entertainment staff to assistant cruise director and then, eventually, cruise director. There really is not any set time period for this but it can happen within three years or five, a lot depends on you, of course. I wish you all the best and maybe your dream to be a cruise director will come true.

Best wishes.

John

Lisa asked:
John,

I will be sailing on Carnival for my first time in Jan 2012. My mother-in-law has booked 16 of us on the Carnival Imagination. I am planning on making a goodie bag for the kids in our group (ages 9-17). Do you have any ideas of items I can include? So far I am thinking about glow sticks, sunglasses, candy, a lanyard to hold their cabin key. Also, does the Carnival Imagination have any theme nights? If so, maybe I can include items that work with the theme.

Thank you in advance for sharing your knowledge.

Lisa

John says:
Hello Lisa,

That’s a great idea and maybe you can include a scavenger hunt, as well, getting them to get signatures from an officer in a white uniform, a man with no hair, a bar waiter, etc. etc. There are no theme nights but maybe you can make one with funny wigs or hats. Apart from that, I would suggest that you add some decoration for their cabin door maybe. Have a think and let me know if you have any questions or if you need anything else. Congratulations on booking this first of what I hope will be many cruises.

Best wishes.

John

JetsfanTony asked:
John,

As football season is only a few weeks away I want you to make sure that the games are played on the giant screen when me and my buddies cruise the Carnival Dream on September 24. We sailed on the Carnival Freedom before and none of the games were put there and were in the small sports bar which upset hundreds of passengers and there was a near riot. I hope Carnival gets it right this time.

John says:
Hello JetsfatTony,

I spoke to the CD of the Carnival Dream and he will play the Sunday night and Monday night games on the Seaside Theatre but the daytime games will only be shown on the sports bar screens at the casino as we have live music and events on Lido for those who don’t like football. I hope this is OK with you and I wish you a wonderful cruise.

Best wishes.

John

Paul Romanow asked:
Dear John, (Oh, dear, it sounds like I am breaking up with you)

With things having gotten back to normal (darn, that stuff in the office was still there when I got back) after a wonderful two-week European vacation, the last week of which was a fantastic time on the Carnival Magic’s July 17 cruise, I have a chance to comment on the cruise. We were amazed that you and the captain were able to completely re-arrange the itinerary on all of three hours notice of Monte Carlo being closed the next day. It would have been so much easier for Carnival to just throw an additional sea day in and skip Monte Carlo, but the effort taken to retain the port of call was much appreciated. And we were very glad that you decided to keep everyone informed on the mayday call. We were among the hundreds lining the rails that night, and the captain was brilliant in maneuvering around to provide a portable sea wall for the vessel in distress. I don’t think the poor pizza pirate chef has ever had to serve as many pizzas at 2 am as he did that morning. The rest of the cruise as wonderful, as well as all of our excursions (booked through Carnival), from going to the top of two volcanoes and seeing Stromboli erupting, to seeing how the other half of the other half lives in Monte Carlo. Our wait staff (table 517, Southern Lights) was marvelous as were our cabin attendants (6419, 6495). Though we never got the chance to meet up with you (understandable with nearly 5,000 guests aboard), we always enjoyed seeing and hearing you at the shows, on the PA and on the TV. (I wonder if the Atkins managed to board their flight home on time?). This was our second cruise (the first being with Disney eight years ago, when the kids were wee ones), and we are certainly looking forward to cruising with Carnival again.

Thanks to you, the crew and Carnival for a wonderful experience.

Paul, Joanne, Thomas and Heather

John says:
Hello Paul Romanow,

Please don’t break up with me, I won’t do it again …..promise. I am really glad that you have taken the time to write as that cruise feels so long ago. The captain did indeed do a brilliant job in maneuvering the Carnival Magic to protect the yacht from the rough seas and both on board made it home safe thanks I think to his efforts. I will pass on your thanks to those mentioned and I hope that we will see you again very soon.

My best wishes to you and all the family.

John

Uptown Cruiser asked:
Hi John,

I for one don’t understand the near hero worship you have on this blog. It’s quite pathetic to see grown men and women thinking that you are their friend. If I want a table I do it the proper way and tell the maitre d’ at embarkation what I need and they always do it. But as I know I won’t get an answer from Carnival’s customer service I am also forced to write to you. My last Carnival cruise was on the Carnival Triumph and one area that didn’t impress me was the lack of food after dinner. On RCI there is a buffet every night and yet on Carnival it’s pizza or you starve. Also you might want to check cabin 1365 as the AC was so cold I had to stuff a towel in the vent. I told the cabin steward but nothing was done.

John says:
Hello Uptown Cruiser,

The only thing I will say about your opening lines is that they are my friends and if you ever need me to help you with anything I am here. I have asked the ship’s management on the Carnival Triumph to check the air conditioning in that cabin and see if it needs adjusting. Sometimes there is little your stateroom steward can do and often what is cold for some is not cold enough for others but I apologise that it was extreme for you and I will get it looked at. We used to have late night buffets but with our late night snack, 24 hour pizza, and 24 hour room service, I don’t think the word ‘starve” can truly be used for anything that we do on board our ships. I do hope you had a great cruise and that if you do need to contact me again that you will know I am here to help.

Best wishes

John

Karen Lian asked:
John,

When will Carnival put out information on the Carnival Spirit once it gets to Sydney? We keep calling and no one can help, we want to do two cruise stays in Sydney for two or three days and then get back on and cruise for 10 or more days. May have to go to another lines, can someone help us PLEASE.

John says:
Hello Karen Lian,

That’s an excellent question and of course it deserves an answer. I have posted this to a senior beard and I hope to have an answer for you very soon and will post it here as soon as I do Karen. Please allow me to apologise for the delay as final logistics are being put into place for our first journey to the Land Down Under. Thanks for your kind patience.

Best wishes.

John

That’s all for today and as I head to my one week break I want to thank you all for your comments. I will keep you up to date on all that’s going on here and on Facebook and after the week away I hope to give you more news in the coming weeks about some exciting projects here at Carnival.

You learn something new every day and a lot of the time it comes from guests who tell me things here and on Facebook that I never knew. For example, a guest pointed out that there was no Gideon Bible in his cabin. I did a little checking on this and am told that this change has been around for a couple of years now when we began provide bibles available upon request via the guest information desk and also have multiple copies in the ship’s libraries, which is standard practice on some other cruise lines I’m told and it’s worked out very well. For those who want to read the bible on board, all they need to do is simply ask their stateroom steward and he or she will deliver one to you. I’m sure many of our guests don’t go into the cabin and before checking the view from the balcony or what’s in the mini bar or if the bed is strong enough for a marathon session of rumpy pumpy before boat drill, look for the Gideon Bible. But they are still on board ready for when you need one. And this blog is the only place in the world where you will find the words rumpy pumpy and Bible in the same sentence ……… ooops. Still, I am a believer and I know God has a sense of humour…….and I bet she spells it correctly, as well.

So this will be my last blog for a week or so and the girls and my eyes and my arm are all grateful that I am taking a week off. I shall be seeing a specialist about my Carpool Tunnel thingy although I have to say that the acupuncture really did help. Yes it still hurts a lot but the tingling has gone completely now. Anyway, I shall go to the doctor and also have a diabetic eye test which on previous blogs I have told you involves these awful drops being squirted in your eye that leaves me crying like an Oscar winner. But that’s not the thing I am dreading the most ………nope…………that title goes to Dr. Drillerkiller……….the dentist.

Sometimes, I wish I was an elephant, not just because they have huge thingies but because if they are left alone they would never die. They have no natural predators and unless they are shot by some total bastard big game hunter they would never die and the world would be overrun with these incredible creatures. That’s why Mother Nature decided to say that when Mr. and Mrs. Elephant lose their sixth set of teeth it would be time for them to go to the elephant graveyard. I know this because I saw it on a BBC documentary called Blue Planet ……. extraordinary stuff by the way.

Humans are different. The enamel substance that coats our teeth is the toughest, most resilient parts of our bodies. I mean, look at these police forensic type programs. The guys can pull a body out of a swamp and even though the body was shot, stabbed, chopped up, bathed in acid and put through a mincing machine, one look at the teeth and they can tell us who the body was, who killed him and what his favourite cruise line was.

It seems therefore that people are obsessed with teeth…..…..and I am not. When I was very young I slipped on some ice, landed on my face and bent my tooth back. My Mum took me to a dentist called Dr. Steiger. He spoke with a heavy German accent and I will always remember that he had huge hands. I hated him. One time he opened my mouth and as he was looking around, dropped the mirror thingy down my throat. I couldn’t breathe and he was panicking, my Mum was panicking, I was turning blue and luckily the dentist assistant turned me upside down and managed to get hold of the end and pull it out….…accompanied by lots of diced carrot. And that was that, it was my last visit for many years to a dentist. My Mum tried to bribe me with toys and food but I would go, sit in the chair and refuse to open my mouth….. After a while…… they just gave up.

Later, as a single man I went to the dentist only once when I had a toothache that had lasted for days and only when the options were go to the dentist or shoot myself in the head. I went in Cozumel where the dentist said that all my teeth would have to be filled except three. I told him to “el buggero offo” and just take the bad tooth out. So, he pumped me full of that nova stuff and all the fear and tremor of the incident when I was young returned……….and so did my previous night’s dinner as I decorated the dentist and his chair in a bright coat of orange.

For the next 10 years, I didn’t go to the dentist at all and it does not seem to have made a difference. I have not been visited by Mr. Stinkybreath…..at least nobody has fainted when I speak to them because my breath smells like a skunk’s underpants. Then, I met Heidi and my teeth world changed as I was surrounded by an army of electric toothbrushes, floss and various toothpastes. Heidi also insisted that I have a dental check up every six months and because I am scared of her……I go. But when I do go I sweat, I shiver and often before going my head is buried in the toilet. Yes, I know I smoke cigars although since that avenue of pleasure was taken away with the new smoking rules my cigar smoking is virtually nonexistent these days.

But anyway, why do I need to have someone poke around in my mouth with a huge screwdriver? It h has proven that my teeth will last 1 million years after I am six feet under. Nobody has ever died of tooth decay, it’s the other parts that pack up first yet most of us don’t go to the doctors for a full service. But even then people still go to the doctors for nothing. I have to go for my company medical otherwise I can’t work on board. But there are some men who actually go to the doctor and say “Hello Doctor Longfinger,” I feel wonderful, no aches, no pains. I have never felt better but can you please strip me naked, have a good poke around and then please shove a video camera up my arse …..Just to look around.” That’s wrong and it’s the same for dentists, as I believe you should only go there when something is wrong.

But teeth have become an obsession for so many people. Here on Carnival Magic we have teeth whitening experts who promise our guests that they can after just one treatment look like a local news TV anchor. I know my teeth aren’t the nicest. One is as bent as a dog’s back leg and thanks to coffee and cigars, they are a little on the yellow side. But that’s mostly because while I am not afraid of being on stage and facing hordes of angry guests because we missed a port and have fear of spiders, snakes, muggers, monsters or Calvyn…I would rather cover my body in gazelle fat and wake up a sleeping lion by tickling his testicles with an ostrich feather…..than go to the dentist.

But I am a minority. These days so many people are not happy with the way they were born and the way the look. Botox, bigger breasts, smaller breasts, plastic surgery, replacement surgery, thingy enlargements, bigger bottoms, smaller bottoms, cosmetic surgery, teeth whitening, hair replacement…..the list is endless. I sometimes thing that God must be sitting on his cloud looking down at us and thinking that his people have gone absolutely bonkers.

So time to reminisce. And before I do let me say what a wonderful time I have had here on the Carnival Magic. It has been difficult at times to bring out a new ship and blog and Facebook and there were a few comments here and there these past few months that suggested that I wasn’t “around the ship enough.” While these comments are commonplace for all cruise directors, these days what with all the behind the scenes stuff we do, there have been times that because of my commitments that those one or two people that made those comments were absolutely correct and I will work to improve this next year.

You know, it was 24 years ago in August 1987 that I walked up the gangway of the M/S Holiday into a world I knew nothing about. Not just because I had lied in my interview by saying I knew everything about wine and cocktails, but the world of cruising, something I had absolutely no contact with in my 22 years. As the years went by, I left the bar department and discovered something called a microphone. This was also a foreign object to me and at first I tried to be the same as others I had seen using it……and I failed. Then I realised that it just made my voice louder and I relaxed, was myself and people responded with laughter. And so, I became a cruise director and at that time it would have been easier for me to join Chippendales. Cruise directors didn’t look like me. They were handsome or beautiful or both. They sang, made things disappear, juggled, danced or wooed the ladies with their perfect smiles and tight buttocks that were encased in Armani tuxedo pants.

Cruise directors were not ugly looking ex-bar waiters who were less talented than a dead hamster. Yet, someone gave me a chance and even though I have highlighted guests who shout and guest who scream and guests who try to sell me pills and want their laundry done for free because they got rained on…….. my journey has been one of fun and each and every day I pinch myself as a reminder that I am the luckiest sod in the world. And as I sit here in my underpants writing this blog, the last one from the Carnival Magic for a while, I have to say a huge thank you to all of you for your company these past four months. You have put up with my bad moods and we have shared in the continuing story about life on the ocean waves. I am heading home on Friday and will take a week away from the computer which both Heidi and Kye will appreciate and so will my left arm which still hurts despite the intervention of 12 pricks………I don’t mean the French Rugby team………..I mean I had acupuncture.

I must also thank the beards who still allow me to have a free hand on this blog even though there must surely be times when their bottom cheeks squeeze together as they read something that I probably shouldn’t have written. But the blog continues with 11,750,000 views and joined now by the 18,400 on Facebook which means you must still be enjoying my silly musings and for that I thank each and every one of you.

So after a month of preparation and three months in operation it is time for me to bugger off.

Carnival Magic is in a way a new beginning for Carnival Cruise Lines. It was the first ship that was influenced by the gang of new beards who under the watchful eye of Chief Beard Gerry Cahill, Ruben, Lynn, Jim, Mark, Gus and their teams have designed new features, marketed them and here they are on this brilliant ship. The RedFrog Pub, Skycourse, Cucina de Capitano have been a brilliant success and I can’t wait to see the guest reaction once we arrive in Texas. But it’s not just the new areas that are here, it’s far, far more than that. The Lido Deck is wide and open and the best designed one yet. The branded areas are amazing, especially Cherry on Top and the Cucina’s incredible value has had 1,400 guests enjoying a meal there on a 12-day cruise. It’s hard to put into words but having been at sea for so long I look for the certain special in a ship, something that makes really good sushi wonderful and if you will excuse the reference……a plain old shrimp less so.

I have delivered a lot of new ships for Carnival and I have visited a lot of our corporation’s ships and while they have all been exceptional only one truly made the hairs on my bottom stand straight up and she was the Queen Mary 2 which still makes grown men clutch their private parts in excitement. But the Carnival Magic has the same affect albeit for different reasons but simply put, never have I had so many positive comments about one of our new ships. Never has one of our new ships, especially those that sail in the Mediterranean, reached the number one spot in guest review results. Yep, she really is that good. There are still things we can do better and we are making subtle changes along the way but right from the start Carnival Magic has been a ship that our guests and, just as important, our crew absolutely adore.

Then there are the ports here in Europe. Monte Carlo, Rome, The Vatican, The Coloseum, Naples, Tuscany, Florence, Pisa, Sorrento, Capri, The Amalfi Coast, Dubrovnik, Venice, Taormina, Mount Etna. Palma de Majorca and yes……even Marseilles. Imagine having visited all those places. You get off your tour bus tired but fulfilled and there in front of you is not some faceless hotel and the prospect of packing before more security checks at the airport and yet another flight but this gleaming ship, your ship ready to cocoon you with friendly service, ready to excite you with the evening’s entertainment, ready to refuel you with great food. Imagine, no packing and no flying. You just lay your head on the pillow of your Carnival Comfort Bed as the captain takes you to the next exciting destination while you rejuvenate ready for the adventures tomorrow will bring.

So congratulations on this brilliant ship must go to Gerry Cahill and his band of beards. Now Gerry isn’t one of those corporate presidents who spends his evenings being carried around promenade deck in a sedan chair, waving his diamond encrusted Rolex out of the window. He lives his life like you and I……..except with more fish. He saw that what you wanted was new spaces and a chance to use huge slides and swing on ropes and eat in a family-style restaurant and drink a pint of beer in a pub. Yes, Carnival has changed direction somewhat and yes there are a few who may not like it but let me say that I have spoken to hundreds, yes hundreds of guests here and many more on Facebook and the blog and they all say that the Carnival Magic is our best ship yet. And it is.

You know there are times when I have had to review a Cunard or Seabourn ship and while I relish those chances I also am aware that when I post it on my blog that some of the readers will wonder why I’m reviewing a ship that many people may never sail on. I do this because despite what some people say, there’s no harm in dreaming and it shows the incredible diversity of this great corporation. Yet when I review the Carnival Magic I know I am talking about a ship that has something for everyone. It is by far the best of our ships because there really is room for 4,500 guests without it ever feeling like there are 4,500 guests on board and without it looking like a floating parking lot.

Yes there are those who will say that other ships have ice rinks and are huger but if you apply the cold steel of logic to your choice of a cruise and factor in the extraordinary cost of the cruise ticket itself ….. It is absolutely impossible to come up with anything better. Until the Carnival Breeze is launched, obviously.

Goodnight and see you in a week here and on www.facebook.com/johnheald.

Your friend always
John

Here is a message from Annie’s mother.

Ref: 887271222A
Cabin: **** Booking#: ****** Added-Changed: 09/111/11 – 09/11/11
Subject: UNHAPPY WITH CIRCLE C ACTIVITIES
Guest reported to GSD stating that she was unhappy that her 12 year old daughter had not received any education activities at Circle C. Guest expected that she would be taught history about the European ports but it has all been games and dancing. Guest asked to speak with Cruise Director John. GSA offered to call YD but Mrs.______ insisted on speaking to CD.

I am really on a roll this week what with guests trying to sell me diet pills, the reaction to our Sept. 11 ceremony and now this. I can understand why people want to speak to me. Oh hold on, that sounded big headed and I didn’t mean it to be — I just mean that I am the voice of the ship and so the guests have a perception that I am in charge of everything. But in reality it’s the youth director who is in charge of all the three children and teen programming on the ship and the youth director reports to the hotel director. Personally, I find this a little odd as what they provide is as much entertainment as what we do for the adults and I would love to get the CD’s more involved with the program. Anyway, I digress. So even though I am not in charge of the program I met the lady in the company of our youth director and I have to say it has been an interesting cruise to say the least.

Now I have to say that before I headed on down to Carnival Magic’s lobby which is where I hold all my “The cruise director is a fat useless bastard” bollocking sessions that I had some pre-conceptions in my mind about how this lady would be. She would be wearing a caftan, have her hair in pigtails and ready to “teach the world to sing.” Wrong! She was pleasant and just wanted to explain that she had expected her daughter to receive an “education” while she was on board and not have her just “playing all the time.” I apologised and also said that I would take her suggestion that we should include teaching the kids Italian back to the beards in Miami.

Annie’s mother further explained to us that her daughter was “gifted” and was home schooled. I know nothing about “home schooling” and I am sure for many this really works but as she rattled off all her achievements I couldn’t help but look at her daughter as a normal kid who sat quietly, listening to Mum say that she wished she could have learned more about the history of Venice yesterday rather than decorate T-shirts with glitter. I felt sad because her daughter’s eyes looked sad they looked like she would have loved to be at Circle “C” right now having fun with her new friends. Now Kye is two years old and while I would never dare to criticise how another parent brings up their kid, it just seemed sad that she wasn’t allowed to go and be…….well, 12 years old.

All of us wrap up our children when it’s cold. We put them on booster seats in the car and make them wear so much safety equipment when they ride their bicycle it looks like they are doing so in Afghanistan. We strive constantly to keep them out of harm’s way, and then we send them off to school so they can be punched, kicked, and learn how to swear by the time they are five. Maybe this lady is right…………….maybe home schooling is the way to go.

Annie is skilled in mathematics I was told and at the age of 12 she probably is better at math than I ever was or ever will be. Mum told us her daughter, who already speaks fluent Spanish, starts school at 7 am every morning, works with her dad on math and English until noon. Then at 1 pm she works with her Mum on languages including Mandarin Chinese. But before she can collapse into bed she has to do two hours of homework. Facebook? A bit of Glee? Some texting? Forget it. The youth director and I sat there and listened to her daughter who in a strangely robotic voice spoke in Spanish until Mum flicked a switch and she changed to Chinese. She reminded me of Data from Star Trek. It was impressive, though, and it made me think if I would ever home school Kye? Probably not. I respect this choice but I of course could only teach her to tell bad jokes and to say “bugger”…… and much to Heidi’s displeasure I have already taught Kye to say “bugger” which means once I have taught her a joke about poo she will have graduated.

I want Kye to leave school with basic academic skills, enough to get her to $32,000 on Who Wants to be a Millionaire. But more than that, I want her to learn social skills so that she can interact properly with other human beings. I want her to learn to blog. I want her to enjoy life, to have fun. I can’t bear the thought of pressuring Kye so she can be put on a treadmill and have no social skills. School is supposed to prepare a person for life, not wear them out. Yes, I must do everything we can to keep Kye safe. But I should also do everything we can to make her happy as well. But who am I to judge. Maybe Annie was happy. Maybe she wanted to learn multiple languages and maybe she wanted to spend her time touring the art museums of Italy. And maybe she didn’t want to be on Facebook or using the Carnival Magic’s water park and maybe she didn’t want to be meeting new friends at Circle “C” and dancing to Justin Beaver’s new hit. And maybe she didn’t mind that after meeting me and shaking my hand that her mother made her hold out the hand that I had shaken to have it cleansed with some sort of antibiotic wipe she had produced from her bag. Our youth program is all about fun and maybe I am wrong, I hope I am…..but I don’t see Annie’s life so far containing much of the “f” word at all.

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

Mary McQuillen asked:
Hi John,

I have nothing but praise for Carnival! I have never had a bad cruise with Carnival but did on a RC cruise. I will never sail with them again! I am getting ready for my eighth cruise with Carnival. My daughter and I are doing our second mother/daughter cruise on Carnival Elation out of Mobile. I would love to do something special for her. This is our second cruise that we have done for her birthday. Leaving the families at home even though our hubbies and her kids are not happy about it! Any suggestions? Carnival is just fantastic with the best “Fun Ships” out there!! This will be my third of four cruises this year. I love reading your blogs and some of the funny requests of some of the guests. All the crew members are great on the ships!

Best wishes to you.

Mary

John says:
Hello Mary McQuillen,

I would be glad to send your daughter something for her birthday but I can’t see when you are cruising next. I do hope that I haven’t missed it so please can you let me know. I think it’s marvelous that you are spending some mother/daughter time together and on the wonderful Carnival Elation. I can imagine that the rest of the family are a bit jealous of you doing so, maybe next time you can all cruise together. Please let me know then when you are going either here or on Facebook.

Best wishes to you both.

John

Gerrit asked:
Dear John,

Our German family of seven will be sailing on the Carnival Magic October 7, 2011 (staterooms 2215 & 2219). While we were very sorry to hear that apparently you won’t be sailing with us (it would have been the third cruise with you as the CD for some of us), we’re really looking forward to yet another wonderful Carnival cruise in the sunny Mediterranean. The kids in particular look forward to meeting “Fun Ship” Freddy, needless to say. May I ask whether it would be possible for you to do our party two favours (spelt correctly):

#1: Through Carnival’s GSA in Germany, we asked for a baby bed to be provided for my younger son Tyler who will be turning two later this month. The GSA responded that it won’t be possible to provide one as my son will be two years old at the time of the cruise and that as a result of that it would be possible that he is too large to fit into a baby bed – which he is not as he sleeps in one at home, as well. Would it be possible for you to arrange for a baby bed to be provided for Tyler? Otherwise, we would have to bring our own baby bed for which the airline would charge us an excess baggage fee (actually two – one for each flight).

# 2: On two previous Carnival cruises, Ivan Lobo from India was our dining room waiter. I understand he’s working on Carnival Magic now. It would be absolutely wonderful if you were able to arrange for our party of seven to be seated at one of his tables during our cruise, if possible.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this and thank you even more for making the before mentioned favours possible – if possible, of course.

Kind regards,

Gerrit from Germany and family

John says:
Hello Gerrit,

I am so sorry that I won’t be here with you but I promise that you will have a brilliant time here on the Carnival Magic. My daughter is two years old as well and also sleeps in a kid’s cot when she is on board so I will arrange one for you to be placed in the cabin. Ivan is currently on vacation I am afraid and doesn’t get back till after your cruise but please don’t worry as I am sure you will truly enjoy the service in the dining room and I have requested your table for you.

I wish you the very best of times and a wunderbar (that’s German by the way) cruise.

Best wishes

John

Buddy and Guy asked:
John,

My partner of 12 years and I will be on our platinum cruise on the Valor September 25. Each year we cruise with Carnival, I always request a table for two and yet we have never been thought worthy of enough to be given one. I was directed by http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=162 to come to you to get a table for 2 confirmed for our sailing in cabin 7344 on the late seating.

John says:
Hello Buddy and Guy,

Thanks for taking the time to write and many congratulations on your Platinum cruise on the Carnival Valor. I am not sure what you mean when you said that the reason you have not been given a table for two was because “you were not worthy” but I will certainly do my best this time to make it so. I wish you both a brilliant time and thank you for your loyalty to Carnival. Have fun.

Best wishes to you both.

John

Fay Branton asked:
John,

I don’t think I have ever been more disappointed than I was when I read that you won’t be the cruise director for our Trans Atlantic cruise. Why have you not told the people who made the decision to move you what an impact this will have on the trip. I am so angry at you and at them because one of the reasons we booked this cruise was that you would be the cruise director as we sailed with you to Istanbul on Carnival Freedom and you were excellent. Will Carnival be offering some kind of compensation for this trouble? This is just not acceptable!

John says:
Hello Fay Branton,

I was so sad when I read this because I know that there are as you said one or two others who feel the same and I hate, absolutely hate, letting people down. Like most people I work for a company with a command structure and the people at the top of the Carnival tree felt I could be better served elsewhere during this period. I realise again that by doing so I have disappointed you and for that I sincerely apologise. The compensation comes in the form of my replacement James Charlton whose bio I featured in the blog on Friday. He is young, tireless and energetic and I know he will make sure you have a brilliant entertainment and activity program. I wish you a wonderful crossing and I am so sorry I cannot be with you.

Best wishes.

John

Simon Freijland asked:
John,

I agree 100% with the comment made by Greg today about the language barrier between your passengers and the Carnival crew. It is extremely frustrating to have to repeat over and over again what you want from room service and despite doing this the order still arrives late and incorrect. Case in point: on my recent cruise on Carnival Sensation I ordered a ham and cheese sandwich on toasted white bread and repeated the order again to the foreign speaking telephone operator. The sandwich arrived 40 minutes later and on WHEAT bread. I sent it back and had to wait another 30 minutes. Staff seemed to have no idea how to answer my questions and this was because none of them had any education in English and so were unable to answer. Greg said he found this very frustrating and I wanted to echo his thoughts and bet there are thousands more of your customers who would agree.

John says:
Hello Simon Freijland,

I am very sorry that your room service order was wrong as that is something that should not happen. However, I do disagree with your comment because as I think I probably mention to “Greg” when he posted a comment here that every single one of our crew must have an understanding of English as demanded by United States Coast Guard operating under the SOLAS agreement – SOLAS stands for Safety Of Life At Sea. It may not be their first language but they all speak English and while some definitely speak it better than others none of them should have concerns in answering your questions. However, if as you say they did, well again I apologise. I hope you had a wonderful cruise and that we see you again soon.

Best wishes.

John

Kathleen Stutchman asked:
Hello John!

Recently, my family and I cruised to Alaska on a Holland America ship (after 11 Carnival Caribbean cruises). When I first sailed on the Carnival Inspiration in 2001, passengers were allowed to go to their cabins upon boarding. Now, as you know, we must wait until 1:30 to have access to our cabins. When we sailed to Alaska we were allowed in our cabin as soon as we boarded since HAL recently made that option available. Anyway, what I would like to know is do you think that Carnival will consider making the changes like HAL did so that we can go to our cabin when we board? It really is a pain to carry around our carryon luggage. The reason that I don’t check in all of our luggage like I did on my first cruise is that I don’t like my make-up, and hair stuff, etc. crushed on the bottom of the huge luggage bins to leak all over my clothes. If Carnival can’t make that option available to everyone, maybe add it as a Platinum perk? Thank you for taking the time to read this, I don’t really know how you are able to do all that you do and keep up with this blog and Facebook too! You were on our 3/2011 cruise getting ready to take over from Chris Jefferson the following week-I got to see you around the ship-just not as CD. Really looking forward to having you as CD on our annual Spring Break cruise on the Magic 3/18/12!

Kathleen

John says:
Hello Kathleen Stutchman,

Thanks for taking the time to write and I was very interested in hearing this about how Holland America allows guests to go straight to their staterooms. I recently sailed on Princess and on P&O and they had the same restriction of going to the staterooms at 1 pm. I wonder, was debarkation over extremely early in Alaska as I am curious as to how they managed to get the staterooms clean and prepared in time. Please if you have a moment could you let me know what time you boarded and went to your cabin? There are no plans at the moment to have this as a Platinum perk as the stateroom stewards need all the time in order to get your cruise home looking its best. I can’t wait to show you the Carnival Magic and if there is anything you need before you sail please let me know.

Best wishes.

John

Margaret Green (Margie) asked:
Hi John!

My husband and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary on the second sailing of the Carnival Magic. We had such a wonderful time and met so many interesting people on board. We are sailing on the Carnival Magic on the first sailing out of Galveston (yes, we are Texans…but don’t get me started) and we were wondering if our favorite wait staff would still be on the Carnival Magic? We discovered Vladimir and Jarovic (Jay) in the ‘Anytime Dining’ and requested to be seated in their section every night. We enjoyed Vladimir’s wicked sense of humor and excellent menu suggestions and we loved conversing with Jay in the dining room and many other times we saw him on board. We can’t wait till we can sail on the Carnival Magic again!

John says:
Hello Margaret Green,

Coming back to the ship in Galveston will I am sure feel like coming home and that’s simply brilliant. Both Vladimir and Jay are here still but both are leaving on vacation between now and November and so they won’t be here when you sail again…..sorry. I am sure you will find their replacements just as good and if there is anything you think I can do for you before you come home please let me know.

Best wishes.

John

Melissa Royal-Cleveland asked:
Dear John,

I just wanted to tell you about the wonderful time my husband, very active two year old, in-laws, and I had on the July 19th sailing on the Carnival Spirit. My husband, two year old, and I were in cabin 1185 and our room steward was the best EVER!!! I would also like to tell you about our wonderful dining room servers (I don’t remember their names but we ate in the Empire dining room at 7:45 table #392). They always had a chocolate milk and a fruit cup waiting for my son when we got to the dining room, and when one night I left the dining room early because the very active two year old was getting restless and I didn’t want him disturbing other guests at dinner our serves went to the maitre d’ to see if they could have my meal delivered to our stateroom. While on the Carnival Spirit my husband and I took my father in-law on the Behind the Fun Tour. He loved IT!!! When we got back to our stateroom later that evening we had a note from our behind the fun tour guide stating that she was missing some of the passes, we knew that we had turned ours in and the note did not have any contact information on it so we assumed that it had gone out to all of the tour members and we didn’t think anything of it. Well we were wrong because around 9:30pm our phone rang and it was the tour guide wanting to know where her passes were, my husband tried to tell her we didn’t have them. This phone call woke up our very active two year old causing him to be up until 1:45am. My only suggestion is using caution when calling a guest stateroom after 9pm.

THANK YOU CARNIVAL FOR A WONDERFUL CRUISE!! WHILE ON BOARD WE BOOKED OUR NEXT TWO CRUISES!!!

John says:
Hello Melissa Royal-Cleveland,

Let me start by saying how sorry I am about that phone call. I know how two year old kids are when they have been woken up unexpectedly and we should take this into consideration and I apologise. I will also send this to the ship. That aside I see you had a brilliant time and I will make sure that all those mentioned get to see your praise. And many congratulations on booking more cruises and I hope that you will let me know if you need anything at all before you sail.

Best wishes to all the family.

John

Judi asked:

Really no suggestions…I just wanted to say (as so many do) that you crack me up! I sit home on my lunch hour and laugh till I cry! I love the honesty. I’m taking my first cruise ever with my
family next June on the Carnival Liberty. I’m sure we’ll have a blast. Thanks for the smiles.

John says:
Hello Judi,

I just wanted to say a huge thank you for joining me on the blog and on Facebook and yes, you will have a brilliant time on the Carnival Liberty and if there is anything you need please let me know. Until then I will do my best to give you as much fun here and on Facebook as I can.

Best wishes.

John

That’s all for today, back with more tomorrow.

I had a note from Senda Schultz who recently cruised here on the Carnival Magic. She told me that she had included Carnival in her Vacation Bible School. Here she is:

“John, Our VBS was themed ‘Beach-Blast’ so what a better way to have a beach blast than with Carnival? It turned out really cute…Carnival cups and all…if you can see them! ”

Let’s have a look shall we?

Fantastic, Senda. We are truly honoured that you did this and I thank you for taking the time to show us all. I send my best to you and all at your church.

Well as I said it’s been a cruise with some interesting characters on it but compared with what this hurricane season has brought so far, it’s been an easy ride here on the Carnival Magic. In the past couple of weeks in the Caribbean, there have been thousands of cruise ship guests who displayed an understanding and sympathetic attitude to the changes forced upon us by Hurricane Bastard and Tropical Storms Bastard 1 and Bastard 2. My fellow cruise directors reported the usual small percentage of guests who did not understand why the ship didn’t go to all the scheduled ports and demand that they be given 12 free cruises and a Aston Martin because they had to sail on a revised itinerary or spend an extra day at sea.

At the forefront of making sure these guests do understand and make sure that all the passengers remained informed, happy and content were the cruise directors. They were making constant announcements, and were making sure that the fun continued regardless. So, I salute my colleagues in the Caribbean whose positive attitude and ability to turn a complaint into a smile is what makes them the best in the business……well done all of you.

I want to talk about the way guests purchase photos here on the Carnival Magic but first because I can never just stick to what I am talking about I have to write about technology. Now, I know that I am to technology what the French are to deodorant but I am positive that none of the stuff designed to make our lives better actually bloody well works.

My new Raspberry keeps flashing me a message about if I want to connect it to my car via Blueteeth even though I am on a cruise ship in Italy and my car is home in the UK. And even when we are together in the same place as in my fat arse is sitting in the driver’s seat, it is still impossible. And this is because Blueteeth attempts to connect things using the air. That doesn’t work. If you want to join something to something else, you need a screw, or a nail, or some wire. And, because Blueteeth uses air to connect you there are going to be things in the air to stop that happening.

For example, for some strange reason the Blueteeth connection never works after I have had a curry. My Raspberry also says it can access the interweb but it can’t and in Europe it keeps dropping the signal together. That’s probably due to the ludicrous names the telephone companies have. In the US and the UK we have Vodaphone and AT&T. In Italy they have I TIM and Pop Star and in Spain they have……….well they have bugger all because whenever the ship is in Barcelona my raspberry never works. What else? Aggh yes, the self check-in consoles at airports ask a million sodding questions then tell you to bugger off to see a human at the end of a six-mile line. And some people moan about waiting 15 minutes for a fresh plate of Mongolian Wok to be cooked…………..I just don’t get it.

The machines that answer phone calls in Bombay haven’t a clue what you’re all about. Then there is the digital camera I use to post photos here and on Facebook. Mr. Radu understands it and it works perfectly for him but not for me. Mine takes a picture about two years after I press the shutter button. My photograph album these days is full of snaps of chairs, taken after the person who was sitting there has got up, gone home and died.

Today, you have a video iPod and a wafer-thin television set. You have a portable satellite navigation system, Tivo, a digital camera, a widescreen laptop, a rampant rabbit, automatic sprinklers on your lawn and a cell phone that plays the sound of the ship’s horn when anyone calls. At home I even have a coffee machine that is programmed to deliver an espresso in the morning, a mellower blend in the afternoon and big cup of girly decaf after six in the evening. How cool is that?….except you have to have a degree in astrophysics to just get it out of the box.

All of these things have created a new type of person. The gadget freak. And slowly some of these gadgets are arriving onto the ships and the latest comes in the form of the facial recognition thingy. It’s simple. You have your photo taken as you board the ship as normal, you know the one that’s embedded in your Sail & Sign card and the one our security team checks when you leave and when you return to the ship. Well now it has a second use as well because a bearded tech wizard for our Q branch in Miami…….actually it’s Miami so that should be our Que branch …….has designed a facial recognition program. All you do is swipe your card. It then recognises the photo and in turn puts all the photos you have had taken by our 23,989 photographers and you choose which ones you wish to buy. Simple. It has proven to be a big success here and I asked the head photo beard if there were plans to put it on other ships as well and was told that they are pursuing further development of facial recognition and other technologies that helps guests to find and sort their cruise memory photos more easily……which is beard talk for ummm …….maybe, could be.

Anyway, here is what the machines look like.

Finally today, one more question to answer.

Harvey S asked:
John,

All Carnival brand ships look the same and yet you dare sit there and judge. RCI ships and NCL ships are unique yet Carnival makes multi-brand ships as I am sure we shall see soon when a Dream-class ship goes to Princess or Holland America. Same old same old, just stretched and painted different colors. Maybe you should look in the mirror before casting your tactless wit on other cruise companies.

John says:
Hello Harvey S,

I am sorry that you feel all Carnival ships look alike. You are right though as so successful is the Dream class that we will proudly give one to Costa Cruise Lines in 2014 who have completely different plans for her interior. Each of our brands is different, with their own identity and this is one of the many reasons why individually, Carnival, Costa, Cunard, Princess, Holland America, AIDA and Seabourn are so successful and why together they form the strongest alliance of cruise companies in the world that is Carnival Corporation. I hope one day you will discover this by sailing on one or more of our ships where you will discover just how brilliant the respective ships are.

Best wishes.

John

Actually, no………sorry I can’t leave it there Harvey. You see my arm hurts and it’s been a long few months so let me say this. All Carnival Corporation ships do look alike? Actually you’re right ……but only if you drink 12 pints of ThirstyFrog and sniff a pair of my underpants. Then maybe the Queen Elizabeth looks exactly like the Carnival Magic. And while you’re there have a good look at me because I will look just like LeBron James.

Goodnight

Your friend

John

This includes the new thing Calvyn wears. It is a vest. A spandex paneled man’s vest that….. and I’ll put this nicely ……….holds in his…….ummmmm…….chest skin. A vest that, if you believe what Calvyn says, banishes his man boobs, or mobs, and his love handles and gives him an “instant six-pack”……the abdominal kind, not the ThirstyFrog Red kind. Calvyn wears this vest, which along with his control pants, compresses his colon like the filling of a Lido Deck burrito. Calvyn has suddenly become obsessed with trying to eliminate every lump and bump with this “magic” elasticized underwear. I am sure he is only a few days away from dining on laxatives and boiling his arse in seaweed or whatever it is they do with these cellulite loss treatments in the spa. I thought it was only women that do all this kind of stuff to improve their image but apparently it’s men that do it, as well. Who knew? I’m told that men use Botox eye lift, bleach, peel and be wrapped in oils and mud to achieve the GQ Magazine-approved version of a “hot” body. What a load of bollocks, honestly, it really is.

Calvyn’s latest thing is he wants his hands waxed. It is a sad day when a man looks at the back of his own hand and feels that it could look better, prettier even. Why, unless the back of your hand is covered in welts and sores and zits, then leave it alone for God’s sake. Whiskery nostrils? I’ll pass you the clippers myself, Calvyn. But a slightly hairy hand? It’s just a hand. Let it be. Who is Calvyn modeling himself on…….Cameron Diaz? He has gone too far and the final straw was as we were about to go live on the morning show when he said, “Be honest, John, does my gut look big in this?” That’s when I realised that I am not living in the same world as Calvyn and many of my metro sexual colleagues. Control pants? My underpants are men’s underpants or at least I thought they were. They are either plain white or are military camouflage while some have Aston Martins or rocket-blasting-off imagery. I also know while boxer shorts are undoubtedly cooler, big baggy briefs are rather better at containing unexpected toilet related accidents.

And after that wonderful image to start today’s blog, let’s get on with some Q and A. Here we go:

Scott Pullen asked:
Hi John/Beards,

I love the blog, read it daily, and my wife and I are avid Facebook followers. We started reading the blog a couple of years ago but never caught up all the way back to the beginning. Before the new format, there was a calendar that you could click on to view the archived blogs. Is there any chance of getting that back? It would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much for all you guys do for us. My best to Heidi & Kye. John, keep up the awesome work.

Sincerely,

Scott

John says:

Hello Scott,

I asked the beards about this as someone else mentioned it as well and here is Eric the Beards response.

“We are working to get this back up shortly. Will send you a note once it’s back up”

Thanks, Eric, and I will, of course, let you know as soon as he tells me.

Thanks so much for being such fans of my writing and I hope we get to sail together soon.

Best wishes to you both.

John

Beth James asked:
Hi John,

It’s interesting that in today’s blog you mention Postini. You see, we stopped receiving emails from CCL about a year ago. We talked to a PVP about the problem and although he tried to help, the problem is still not solved. We had the PVP send us the error message he was receiving, my husband is a techie kind of guy and we could track that the email being sent never leaves CCL and could see it was being held up by Postini. When we tried to explain this, the concept was lost. He even has CCL tech support look into it. Well, sometime later we were told CCL no longer uses Postini and it must be that they have stopped sending out blast emails. I guess the point of all this is, maybe you can have someone contact me to see if we can get this resolved. We continue to cruise with you and will for a very long time, but we feel we could be missing out on great specials or just CCL news. My phone number is _______and my email address is already here. Thank you for all you do. You really are a wonderful and helpful man.

John says:
Hello Beth James,

A few weeks ago I was trying to send and receive emails with one of my Facebook friends about an experience he had on the Carnival Legend and the same thing that happened to you happened to him, as well. It was only after much deliberation that we discovered that his email was sent to our Postini system which filters emails. Now, as I don’t have a beard, I cannot pretend to understand the complexities of this, but the bottom line I think is that the same thing is indeed happening to you and therefore we can and will make sure we contact you. I will pass this onto someone who can make this happen. My apologies and thanks also for the kind words and please let me know once you get that first email.

Best wishes.

John

Grace Keddie asked:
John,

Love the blog but have to say that sometimes your humor is not appropriate for my 14 year old son to read. We cruised with you the week before the Carnival Splendor fire and had a great time and Marcus, my son, loved your shows and has been reading your blog ever since and has written to you on Facebook as well. Please can I ask that you start placing a rating at the top of each page such as PG and R and X so that I know which ones he can read or not if the case may be? Please start this as soon as you can.

John says:
Hello Grace Keddie,

Thanks for taking the time to write and I apologise sincerely if what I have written here may not have been suitable for your son to read. I often forget that younger people read this blog and agree that I need to keep younger readers in mind as it can be a bit on the naughty side sometimes. I hope you enjoyed sailing with me on the Carnival Splendor and please send my best to Marcus.

Best wishes,

John

Nancy O’Hara asked:
John,

I’ve cruised on Carnival only once on Carnival Sensation and what keeps me from returning is the price of booze. I like a cocktail at lunchtime and a few in the afternoon and again in the evening but the prices were so high, I spent more on liquor then I did on my cruise!!!!!!! I am from Aiken, SC where a margarita is only $2 and it’s even cheaper at happy hour. How does Carnival think it can charge $5 or more?

John says:
Hello Nancy O’Hara,

Those sound like some very cheap bar prices indeed and I expect a few of the blog readers may be heading to their car now to drive to your town. On a serious note, our prices are on par with most land-based resorts and are also priced competitively in the cruise industry. I hope you will consider coming again with us and consider the fact that you spent little on the cruise experience itself and all the happy memories you had……..if you can remember them with that bar bill …….. sorry, cheap shot. Seriously, come and sail again and if you have any questions, please let me know.

Best wishes.

John

Kurt Eberle asked:
John,

Hannah’s parents here (from the July 17th cruise). This was our first cruise ever and while we had low expectations (I worked on a cruise line after college in Alaska), the family consensus was that every aspect of our experience on the Carnival Magic was fantastic! Thank you for a great first night welcome show. Hannah had fun on stage; the magic medallion you gave her was a problem because she has two brothers (thanks a lot).

John says:
Hello Kurt Eberle,

Your daughter is clear in my memory and her antics with me on stage brought the house down. She is a wonderful little girl and you should be very proud to have raised such an angel. I apologise for costing you $20 – or was it $60? I hope to see you all soon and I am so glad you had a brilliant cruise.

Best wishes.

John

Bonnie Gill asked:
Hello Dear John!

You and I have sailed together four times (remember the Salmons?) and I look forward to seeing you again on the BC5 next March. I have a request…On September 17, 2011 I will be sailing on the Carnival Glory out of New York. The request is not for me – as a Platinum guest, I already have more than I need – but for my dear childhood friend, Gail Tyler. We will be roomies on that cruise and will be seeing each other again for the first time in 36 YEARS!! As this will be her first cruise ever, I am hoping you can think of a way to help me make her maiden cruise memorable. Our stateroom is 8445 and booking #****** Thank you, John, for all that you do and I really appreciate anything you can come up with – I know you are so very busy.

Love from your FB and blogging buddy, Bonnie!

John says:
Hello Bonnie Gill,

Thank you, first of all, for your loyalty as a Platinum guest and I am excited to read you have booked the Bloggers Cruise here on Carnival Magic. I am now about four weeks behind on my questions here on the blog thingy and I wondered that as you are not sailing until mid-November that you could ask me this again by posting here on the blog on October 10 or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/johnheald a week before you sail. Either way, I will be happy to send Gail something. I look forward to hearing from you and I will see you here in March.

Best wishes.

John

Lane’ Small asked:
John,

I just ended a call with a booking representative for suggesting I leave one of my family members home. My question to her was, I have a family of six. Two adults and four children under the age of 10 and needed a suite to accommodate us. She advised me that I would have to purchase two separate rooms or leave a family member behind. I would like to know is this truly Carnival’s only option or did I just have the misfortune of speaking to a less than accommodating rep?

John says:
Hello Lane’ Small,

I am hoping there is another side to this story but I do apologise that you left this call feeling less than happy. I will pass this now to someone who can help you discuss cabin accommodations. By the way, our largest staterooms only accommodate five people and for six guests indeed you would need to purchase two staterooms. Please accept my apologies and someone will be contacting you shortly. I hope we see you and all your family soon.

Best wishes.

John

Sami asked:
John,

When can I find out who the cruise director will be on the Carnival Legend in June 2012? I am wanting to book and it may seem harsh but if there is a specific female there I won’t go as her voice ruined my cruise. I won’t say any more here but please feel free to email me if you want more information.

John says:
Hello Sami,

Thanks for taking the time to write and I am sorry to hear one of my colleagues had such a negative effect on your cruise. I obviously know who you are talking about and I should mention that this lady also has many fans. While I don’t have the complete schedule and as soon as it’s published, we’ll let you know. If there is anything else I can do for you please, let me know.

Best wishes.

John

Alexander Knight asked:
John,

I am PLATINUM and I was just wondering if you could tell me where Maitre d’ George the Greek is these days. He was fantastic and we had him on four of our 14 cruises.

Thanks, John.

John says:
Hello Alexander Knight,

George the Greek was indeed a brilliant maitre d’ and gave many great years of service to Carnival. He retired last year though and we miss him a lot. Please let me know if you have any other questions and thanks for your loyalty.

Best wishes.

John

And that’s all for today which is good as my arm is hurting ……bugger. I am going to take a break and turn things over to a good friend of mine Mr. Robert Brother. He and I are both from the UK and he owns my favourite fish and chips shop back home……..his cod and chips are the best in the world. Anyway, we are in Venice today and last week he was in Venice as well on the beautiful new Princess ship Azura.

Now because this blog often waffles on about underpants and stuff, I never get chance to truly describe the wonders of some of the ports we go to and none are more wondrous than Venice. Robert wrote me the following email describing what he did in Venice and I thought it was so brilliantly written that I would share it with you. Here is Mr. Robert Brother in his own words.

We had a really good cruise on Azura and were really well looked after. The highlight of the cruise was, of course, Venice. We had wanted to see the Dogana museum having seen scaffolding around it for so long, and having discussed how best to get there with Graham, the port presenter, we walked to the end of the dock area and got the “people mover” monorail. Graham had said you’ll need a one Euro coin for the ticket, but we didn’t have any one Euro coins and the ship only keeps notes. However, there was a small shop/kiosk at the end of the dock so I asked if he could change a five Euro note for coins for the people mover. “I sell you tickets” he cried, so we were fixed. Arrival at the people mover produced the next problem as there were hundreds of loud women with suitcases queuing for this having disembarked the ___ ship in the next dock. So we had to queue with them for I suppose 20 minutes but we made it. That took us to the Piazza Roma, the first stop on the Grand Canal where we queued again for tickets. We took the No 1 Vaporetto which stops everywhere along the Grand Canal to the Salute stop. What a lovely way to see Venice though and with a 12-hour ticket you could stay on it all day.

Anyway, you were right about the Dogana, the light is quite spectacular and I loved the roof timbers. We bought the guide book so we could reflect on it later. There were some works by artists that I’ve seen in England too. Having had a good look round and not been disappointed, we went back on the Vaporetto to the Accademia stop to see the Glasstress exhibition. The name of the venue is The Institute of Science, Letters and Arts (strange combination) and wasn’t shown on any of the maps, but it was clearly advertised with large posters and was right next to the Accademia bridge. It was interesting and there were some quite beautiful pieces. And then a quick walk back over the bridge and along to the Peggy Gugenheim Collection. We’ve been before but amongst other things, they have my favourite Kandinsky painting (Upward). Incidentally, the BBC has been making a big thing about art that is in storage in this country and not on display and one of these owned by the Tate is a quite beautiful Kandinsky painting (Swinging) of a similar type to my favourite. What a waste, maybe they’d lend it to me. So….Venice was a real adventure this time and we loved it.

I have posted this for two reasons. Firstly, because it describes passionately how beautiful Venice is and, of course,………..free fish and chips. Well written Robert – send more please.

As you know, this is my last cruise here in Europe on the Carnival Magic and my last cruise with the wonderful entertainment staff who have provided thousands of guests with so much fun. Indeed, James, Eli, Leonnie, Calvyn, Christian, John (aka LSOP) Eric, Katie, Ryan and Mel were the best start up team I have worked with. Some will be here when I return in November but a few will not and that’s because they have, thanks to their brilliant work here, been promoted and I would like to give them a mention here on my blog thingy and we shall start with Christian Davies:

Hi Everyone I’m Christian Davies and all I can say is becoming an assistant cruise director is a dream come true…quite literally as I will be heading off to sunny Port Canaveral to return to the Carnival Dream in my new position. When I found out from John that I was becoming assistant cruise director, I nearly fell out of my chair as it’s an honor to get one step closer to that hallowed chair of the cruise director. I have had some amazing times on board and even crazier memories I will never forget from many of my activities…..I just love the unexpected. I am looking forward to guiding others now in creating a fantastic experience for all our guests and create some more everlasting memories. I also want to thank John for believing in me and giving all his wisdom which I intend to take with me. He is like a cruise ship Yoda.

Thanks, Christian and I am sure that it won’t be long before you are in the big chair and I wish you all the best…………….oh, and Yoda, my arse.

Now let’s meet L.S.O.P. or John Gleason as few call him.

Greetings Everyone! Or as they say back home in the Big Apple, “How you doing?” My name is John Gleason and I am extremely excited about this promotion to assistant cruise director. I remember embarking on this great new adventure; with the intentions to one day hopefully grace the big chair as cruise director…..and I’m now one step closer. (Cue dramatic movie trailer music). It has been a whirlwind of great challenges and even greater memories, and I know that there are even more around the corner. I am looking forward to the new challenges and new adventures that await me and of course all the opportunities to put smiles on the faces of the people and help make their cruise with me an amazing memory. One for the record books or, more fitting, the scrapbooks.

And if you see John, ask him what LSOP stands for. I wish him much success and he is another star of the future.

Also promoted to assistant cruise director is Melody De Dios and I will miss her the most.

She has been my personal assistant and worked so hard and put up with my mood swings which on the days directly after my girls leave me, are pretty dramatic. Mel will join me in Galveston and back here for the Bloggers Cruise but will then take her place as ACD on the Carnival Conquest.
She has been invaluable but it’s time for her to move on and bring the same smile that she brings me every day to thousands of lucky guests. Good luck, Mel……and thank you.

So who is going to be my new personal assistant? Who is going to fill the huge gap that Melody will leave? I looked hard around the fleet and finally went with someone who is funny and extroverted and someone who I hope will be able to look after me in the same way as Melody did. Here he is

My name is Calvyn Sean Champagne Martens (I am one man). I come from Vancouver, Canada, and have accepted the position of executive assistant to Mr. John Heald. At first, I had to think about it, but after John literally was on his knees pleading with me, I had to say yes. What I look forward to the most (besides learning from an outstanding cruise director) is bringing him his coffee at 5 in the morning. What I am not looking forward to the most is him throwing it at me if it is not precisely 118 degrees (he has a digital thermometer). I also relish the challenge of turning him into a metro sexual and giving him warm hugs and a friendly pat on his bottom when he is feeling blue. I imagine that on the Carnival Breeze we will work hard but in the evenings take long walks around the shipyard, sit at a Trattoria and talk about our shared passions, Liza Minnelli, The Golden Girls and David Hasselhoff. I am so lucky and feel like skipping down promenade naked. See you on the Bloggers Cruise.

Oh FFS! What have I done?

On a more serious if not confused note, I have to talk about yesterday, the 10th anniversary of September 11…….oh, by the way, before I forget, thanks so much for all the wonderful words about Friday’s blog, that was so kind of you.

Anyway, like all the ships, we here on the Carnival Magic paused for thought just before we arrived into Venice. It was a beautiful day with the early morning mist having dissapissatated (spelt correctly) and the sun shining through and onto this beautiful ship and her guests. At 11:30am local time I gave a small brief speech about memories that would be created in Venice and how today we should also remember what happened, etc., and then invited the guests for one minute of silence. Now most of the ship were lining the open decks and on their balconies to see the arrival into Venice and as I invited everyone to hold hands together I could, from my position on the bridge, see that everyone was doing so and as the minute of silence began that most were bowing their heads in remembrance. The minute ticked by and the end was marked by one blast of the ships whistle. And we moved on and I spoke about Venice and all was well. Well, you can imagine my surprise then that over the next few hours I received three complaints and because I am both frustrated and confused, I wanted to share them with you.

The first one is self explanatory.

Guest: Mr ————- Ref: 848081432A
Cabin: **** Booking#: ******Added-Changed: 09/11/11 – 09/11/11
C – ****- RUDE GUESTS
Mr. **** approached and said that during the CD’s talk on 9/11 on the PA system the guest who was on deck 10 starboard side said that during the silence minute that a group of guests were laughing and talking. Mr ______ told them to be quiet but guest was rude and swore at him. Mr___said this was very disrespectful and wanted to make sure his opinion was recorded.

Considering that there are numerous other nationalities here on the Carnival Magic, including several hundred French and Russian guests, I am certain that they didn’t understand the announcement which was not repeated in multiple languages….or at least I hope that’s the case.

That comment is a little frustrating because obviously it spoiled the moment for the guest who commented. And while that is, I guess sort of, understandable…………these two are not.

From: MAGIC GUEST SERVICES
Sent: Sunday, September 11, 2011 7:49 PM
To: MAGIC CRUISE DIRECTOR; MAGIC HOTEL DIRECTOR
Cc: MAGIC GUEST SERVICES SUPERVISOR;
Subject: 9/11 ANNOUNCEMENT COMMENTS – 09/10/2011

John, following your announcement earlier today, we have received the following comments from three cabins.

Cabin****
Mr._______ said that he was on vacation and shouldn’t have to be forced into a moment of silence. Guest was very angry, John, and has asked to speak to you and the captain. He feels that he is on vacation to get away from the event.

Cabin ****
Mrs________ also said basically the same thing but added that your announcement woke her up as well.

Cabin ****
Mrs________said that it was inappropriate for the event to be mentioned as the ship is in Europe not in the USA. Mrs______also said that the American flag hanging in the lobby was also wrong and asked for it to be removed. John, this lady has also asked for a meeting with you. I will let you know if we get anymore.

Guest Services, Carnival Magic

You know, having done this job for as many years as I have you would think I would be prepared for anything. Well, I wasn’t prepared for this and what I truly am confused about is all three guests that made those comments are all U.S. citizens. I have spoken already to the lady who complained about the speech and the moment of silence and she berated me with her political views. And even though she is from California, her views on what I had said and her flag flying proudly, high in the lobby, really made me have to bite my lip severely. All I could really say was my hope was that all the guests could simply just pay our respects to the people who lost their lives and the families that lost loved ones and leave any political debate on the pier in Barcelona, it will be waiting for her when the ship returns in four days time.

You see, I have already upset the guest who offered the diet pills to me who in fact hung the phone up on me when I tried to apologise, so the last thing I wanted to do was to upset another guest. But it was hard not to express my true beliefs to her and so I have to force them on you, my blog readers and friends. It’s not often I express my political beliefs here and before I do, a kind reminder that the disclaimer says that this is my blog and my opinion and not Carnival’s etc., etc., etc.

But as I said, she stood there telling me how she hates her country and the government and actually what her country’s flag represents. But what really got to me is when she told me that “America had got what it deserved.” How can she say that? How can she say that about her own country and not have an ounce of sadness in heart for those who lost their lives and the remorse for the families that still mourn today and will be still mourning tomorrow? I had to force myself from not looking her in the eye and tell her and all the defeatist sods who share her views……… to bugger off. But I didn’t. I stood there listening and nodding my head until Mrs. Ihatemycountry and her hairy legs headed for the deck 5 coffee shop to no doubt buy a soya milk latte.

Yesterday on the Carnival Miracle 2000 guests got to experience what surely was the most emotional event and only those with ice in their veins could not have been moved by what they saw. The following photos speak more clearly than any words I could write.

GOD BLESS AMERICA.

Goodnight.

Your friend,

John

Now I should preface this by saying that the laws and regulations of the world will soon state that you will be sentenced to life in a Turkish prison if you accidentally tread on some nearly extinct insect, you will not be able to have rumpy pumpy without the government’s permission, cheese will have to be marked with a government health warning, you will be prevented from telling jokes about men, women, Catholics, President Obama and people selling diet pills, and smoking in your own home or car will be punishable by death.

Yep, the laws get stranger and more ludicrous each and every day but it was as I watched this kid on the Carnival Magic’s Lido Deck that the law I wonder about the most is how should you discipline your child if he or she behaves like a total brat?

Back to the story. Shahnaz, our Operations Director, and I watched a 10-year-old boy take a handful of pasta off his plate and hurl it at his Mum hitting her squarely in the head. She sat there with pasta in her hair looking like Whoopi Goldberg and as the tomato sauce dripped down her face she looked like she was about to cry. The pasta was thrown because she dared suggest to her son that he stop playing his portable Playstationendobox thing for a few minutes while he ate his dinner. Now if I had thrown my pasta at my Mum, not that she ever cooked pasta, I don’t even want to think about it, not to mention I would be banished to my room for two years. The punishment for the kid was …. well ……. nothing. His Mum wiped the pasta sauce from her chin, picked the long strands out of her hair and just carried on.

Obviously, watching this scenario, I turned my thoughts to what I would have done if Kye had done this. I think not only is it right to chastise our offspring for willful disobedience but I was chastised not only at home, but at school when I was a child and through that I learned respect. Just my honest opinion but I am, I guess, just an old fashioned chap and today telling a kid no is cruel and unusual. Having seen poor Pasta Mum, I have decided that now Kye is two years and four months old I’ll be starting a unique program in which I will give Kye pocket money but take a bit of it away for every time she misbehaves. If Kye is really naughty I will dock a whole week’s payment so she owes me. I will then take her Barney cuddly toy into custody as security on the loan. Every house should have a super nanny “naughty spot” where children are exiled for bad behavior and every time she has a tantrum and while she is there I dismember Barney with a power drill. I am going to put all my valuables in a closet along with dangerous belongings. Kye must understand that in that closet are monsters and if she opens it, she will be cooked and eaten by Cruise Critic trolls. I need to show Kye a photo of an ugly scary goblin……….Judge Judy will do.

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

T Kahn asked:

Another brilliant blog, John, you really must write a book. Can you help me with a problem, please? I just returned from my fifth Carnival sailing, this time on the Carnival Freedom. My wife and I had a great time up until the last day when we left our camera in the internet station. I realized a few minutes after I had left and rushed back but it was gone and the three people there said they had not seen it. I checked all day at the front desk but it had not been handed in. The camera is a Cannon EOS 60D and contained all our photos of the cruise plus our daughter’s graduation the week before. I know this is a long shot, but can you check with the ship and the lost/found office? Is there one at your HQ? We were on the Carnival Freedom that left on July 17 and our cabin was 7339.

Thanks, John, for anything you can do.

John says:
Hello T Kahn,

Thanks for the kind words and maybe one day I will indeed write that book. I have checked with both the ship and with our Miami office but I am so sorry to say that no Cannon EOS camera was handed in that cruise. I know that often it’s the photos more than the camera that people want returned and I wish that whoever found it had been honest enough to hand it into the guest services desk. I wish there was something I could do for you and I hope that you will let me know if there is anything you need.

Best wishes.

John

Virginia Milheim asked:
Hi John,

I am going on my seventh Carnival cruise in September. I am striving to become a Platinum member since I only have a few more cruises to go. My question is, does Carnival recognize past guests on other cruise lines, such as Costa, Norwegian, RCCL, or other lines that are no longer in service? It would be great if they did, then I would have my Platinum card already. I enjoy Carnival the best of the others I have cruised on, as well as my husband. Thank you very much for taking time from your very busy day to write your blogs, Facebook, and answer silly questions like mine. The blog stories are very interesting & you do a good job writing them.
Keep up the good work.

Virginia Milheim

John says:
Hello Virginia Milheim,

There is no such thing as a silly question here and even if there is yours does not even come close to some I have been asked. The simple answer is no, we don’t take into consideration cruises on other lines with regard to our Platinum loyalty program. Each line is individual and we can’t merge them I am afraid. I am sure it won’t be long until you reach your Platinum goal, Virginia, and I hope that happens very soon. I am here should you ever have any other questions.

Best wishes,

John

Greg Babstock asked:
Hi John,

I’ve become a rabid follower of your blog and love your honest day-to-day observations of life on the sea. Now I’m hardly a marathoner, half marathoner or anything of the sort, but I do enjoy a good run a couple times a week. What are the chances of there being a port “excursion,” perhaps managed by the fitness staff, of organized runs around some of these exotic locations? I don’t know if safety and security would be a concern. Just an idea. It’s a good way to earn that visit to the buffet later in the evening…Thanks so much, John, and looking forward to the Dream in a mere 121 days….Cheers!!!!

Greg Babstock

John says:
Hello Greg Babstock,

“A rabid follower.” So now I have this image of you sitting at your computer, foaming at the mouth and howling occasionally. Seriously, that’s an excellent idea and I wonder if it’s something we could actually do? I know the fitness instructors and I run three or five miles every port day so why not invite guests? I will ask Greg and let you know what they say and hopefully the next time you cruise we will have this as an option. There is though a good chance that if you cruise on the ship that I am CD on, that I may not be able to join you on the run due to an ankle injury, my carpool tunnel syndrome and my bleeding hemorrhoids. I will see what the chaps have to say and if there is anything you need before you sail again, please let me know. Thanks again for enjoying the blog.

Best wishes.

John

Martha asked:
John,

I was in a group of seven couples that cruised with you on the Carnival Splendor in July 2008; the fabulous itinerary included St. Petersburg and Estonia – it was just wonderful. Last year we enjoyed a cruise on the Carnival Valor, and in October my husband and I will be taking our four children on the Carnival Dream cruise of October 1. I now have a request to be seated at a table for six? It would be nice to spend this quality time with our family. Please do not forget to do this. I know how busy you are but this is a priority and it would break my heart if this did not get done as we rarely get together as a family and now that we are we are doing so on Carnival.

John says:
Hello Martha,

I remember that itinerary well and those two ports along with Amsterdam, Warnemunde, Helsinki and Copenhagen, made for a brilliant cruise. I am glad you continue to sail and I have asked the Carnival Dream maitre d’ to do his best to get you a table for six. I hope you will have a brilliant family cruise vacation.

Best wishes to all.

John

Jon Ralph asked:
Hi John,

Love the blog. I do not have any issues with Carnival as we have always had a splendid time when we cruise with you guys. You are our cruise line of choice. My comment/suggestion revolves around Carnival Glory’s itinerary. It’s a real shame that Carnival does not travel beyond Saint John, New Brunswick or Halifax, Nova Scotia on its Eastern Canadian route. I live in St. John’s Newfoundland and we currently have a rapidly developing cruise port. We are frequently visited by Princess, Norwegian, Cunard, etc. St. John’s is a beautiful city and the list of excursions goes on for miles. Myself and my wife cruised with Josh Waitzman last year and during a recent conversation he agreed that Newfoundland should be included and stated we needed to let the head office know. I could not find an email address on the Carnival website so I thought you may be able to pass this along. Thanks for your assistance this past spring in helping us get a window seat in the dining room on the Dream.

Already looking forward to a future cruise.

Jon

John says:
Hello Jon Ralph,

In 2002, I was cruise director of the Carnival Legend and on our way back from Europe to New York, we stopped for an overnight stay in St. John. The guests had a brilliant time and I was given the key to the city as was the captain by the mayor who as I remember had a beard and wore shorts to the ceremony. It would be wonderful to go back again and I will certainly pass this onto the Miami office and I truly hope that one day we will return to your homeland. Thanks for all the kind words and I hope to see you soon.

Best wishes.

John

Peggy Martin asked:
Hi John,

A fairly quick question for you, but I have no idea who to ask. Six of us are sailing Dec. 18 for a Christmas cruise on the Legend. We will be on a totally different itinerary than the Carnival Legend normally has (Key West, Grand Turk, Ocho Rios and Grand Cayman). We have found so many great Carnival excursions to take that are listed on the main Carnival site. But none of them show up on the booking site where we can purchase the excursion. Is there anyone at Carnival that can help us? I’ve written to the excursion department and they say…”Wait til you’re on the ship.” Seems kind of late, could be filled up and also you don’t have anything to “put under the tree.”

Thanks, John, have a great cruise and relax, you deserve that part of a cruise also.

Peg

John says:
Hello Peggy Martin,

I didn’t know Carnival Legend was doing this brilliant run at Christmas time, it sounds fabulous. I spoke to Martin, our shore excursion beard, in Miami who told me that these excursions will be fully available to purchase online by October 12. Please have a look at them and if you have any questions, please let me know. I wish you all a wonderful cruise.

Best wishes.

John

RavenJohn1 asked:

Can you tell me who the comedians will be for our Carnival Imagination cruise on September 23? My wife has a birthday on the cruise cabin M109. She is 50. Can you send something?

John says:
Hello RavenJohn1,

The comedians who will be starring in the Punchliner are Adam Hunter and Anthony Acosta. I don’t know Adam but Anthony is a very funny young man and his adult show is exactly that, adult, so please bear that in mind. Enjoy the shows and enjoy the cruise.

Best wishes to you both.

John

Melissa Dekle asked:
Hi John!

My husband and I just returned from a five-day Western Caribbean cruise on the Carnival Inspiration. We had a wonderful time and the crew was wonderful. A special shout out to our waiter, Francis, who was awesome and to the senior hostess (I think that was her title) Yanna. My husband has food allergies and Yanna came to our table each evening at dinner bringing the next evening’s menu. She helped my husband select what he wanted to eat and made suggestions as well. Everything was taken care of and his meals (and mine) were wonderful. The maitre d’ in the Mardi Gras dining room was extremely nice and came by our table to see how things were going. We enjoyed ourselves immensely and look forward to another cruise sometime. Our only suggestion: On the Serenity deck it would be great to add a couple of ceiling fans, if possible, just to circulate some air around the upper chairs. Our question: Another passenger made the suggestion that he would love to see an adults only cruise. I don’t know if that would happen but we wondered if Carnival had ever considered making one section of one deck “adults only.” We love children but when you go away as a couple, it would be nice to have a section of cabins where there were no children. Just a thought. Anyway, love your blog and hats off to the crew of the Carnival Inspiration for a job well done.

John says:
Hello Melissa Deckle,

Thank you so much for taking the time to send in this review and it’s one I will pass straight to the ship so that Yanna and Francis can see your words of praise. The ceiling fans seem like an interesting idea so I’ll pass that along to the higher ups and see what they say. I don’t think you will see Carnival or any of the other major cruise lines advertising an adults only cruise. You see, while there are certain times of the year where the number of children on board is low, every cruise line realises that they need to appeal to families and it would be a very brave move indeed for any of us to say we are not. I can see the appeal though and the subject of children on board is something we have discussed here on the blog these past few days. Anyway, most importantly, I am glad to see you had fun and I thank you so much for the great review.

Best wishes to you both.

John

That’s all for today and I will be back with more soon. Thanks again and if I haven’t gotten to yours yet, I will ASAP plus you can always contact me on www.facebok.com/johnheald.

Lots of great feedback on the new menus but it appears that I forgot to post the four- and five-day rotations. Here is a link thingy to them as provided by Eric and Everett the beards and I have used the Carnival Ecstasy as an example.

As you know, I will be leaving here in a week’s time and I have been spending time with the soon-to-be cruise director of the Carnival Magic James Charlton. James has been an ACD for some time and this is his chance to shine. James is from West Yorkshire which is a beautiful part of the north of England and like many from “up there,” James has a great personality as I have seen these past few months.

There is no doubt that he is a little nervous about taking over as CD on the flag ship in Europe. I say this as he seems to have worn nothing but brown pants, but he has nothing to be nervous about. I have spent time with him, helping him and praising him and giving him some advice which he will hopefully take under consideration. I remember my first few months and if I had been judged on what I achieved those first few weeks, I would have been writing a blog about flipping buggers………..because I was total rubbish.

I gave James the same advice I had been given….just be yourself. Don’t try and copy another CD’s style……..just be yourself. I also suggested he doesn’t change too much as we have a good and effective entertainment program here. But he will because it’s the law. Each CD will join a ship and always say to the current CD, “I’m not going to change a thing” and that, of course, is total bollocks as every CD is different and will always think that they can do better by changing things around. But I have nothing but the utmost confidence in James and I know he will do a brilliant job.

Here he is:

Well, over the weekend, millions of people around the world will be pausing to remember the 10 year anniversary of September 11. Gosh, has it been 10 years already? You know, each and every day on a cruise ship can be pretty much the same. Yes, you sail to different ports and yes, you meet different guests but the structure of each day is very similar. This means that many of my memories over the last 24 years of working on the ships of Carnival have become a bit disjointed and while I will remember a situation or a guest, I won’t always remember what ship that situation happened on or what ship I met that specific person on. There are a few memories though that will forever be clear and present. The Carnival Splendor fire. The day I proposed to Heidi on the Carnival Imagination. The Latvian casino dealer on the……..oh, bugger …….never mind. And, of course, the Carnival Triumph on September 11, 2001.

Yep, I will never forget that day as I am sure none of you will either. We were aboard the Carnival Triumph, I was in the cabin, in the shower, when Heidi walked in the bathroom and said, “Think you had better get out of the shower, something terrible has happened.” My immediate thoughts were “family” and as I jumped out of the shower I could see that my usually calm wife was ashen white. I looked at the television as like millions of others, I watched the world change. I sat, aghast, watching the image of smoke pouring out of the top of one of the familiar Manhattan buildings. I sat glued to the images coming via satellite across the Pacific. On CNN – or was it a feed from NBC? I forget – the commentators were speculating wildly about the cause. Several minutes passed. Then in a blur, a small dark object flashed in from the right of the screen. The second tower belched flame and debris from its middle. Oh, no… Oh, no … Please no. This can’t be real. This mustn’t be real. It is too hideous to imagine.

My wife joined me watching on the main television changing between the four live transmissions from the U.S. that the ship’s satellite was receiving. They showed the second impact again — in slow motion. How many people were there in the buildings? Who was doing this? Then CNN crossed live to a new picture. I don’t know how much time had passed. It was the Pentagon, they said. It was billowing with gray smoke. War.

I sat holding Heidi’s hand hoping that any minute that someone would say that this was a trailer for some Hollywood action picture…….but they never did. I seemed to be in a trance, then Heidi looked at me and I will never forget what she said…..”John, you need to tell the passengers.”

It was just after breakfast time and the Carnival Triumph was sailing the Western Caribbean spending the day at sea heading to Grand Cayman. I was due on stage in an hour to tell the guests about the fantastic beaches of Cayman and the fabulous Dunns River falls in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. I called the captain, one of my best friends, Angelo Los, and told him what was happening and that I was heading to his cabin. I remember walking out of the cabin to the elevator passing crew members who also had no idea what was happening, each greeting me with a cheery, “Good morning,” which I tried my best to reply to.

I reached Captain Los’ cabin and we both, for some reason, hugged as we spoke no words. Just hugged……It was one of those moments where it seemed the natural thing to do. I headed for the bridge to make the announcement. I imagined everyone having breakfast on Lido, sunning themselves in the already searing Caribbean heat, laughing and joking with their families or having a late morning in the cabin after a night of fun in Cozumel. I was about to change the memories of their vacation forever.

I pressed the emergency button which sends the announcement into every guest and crew cabin and every public area…….The bing bong of the PA sounded …… and I told 3,000 guests and 1,000 crew. A lot of what happened after that is a blur, but here are some random memories. I had the news playing all day on the big screen in the main lounge as guests watched, cried and prayed together. I remember sitting with the Cabrini family from New York who were on the cruise to celebrate an anniversary. Their son was a New York firefighter, they were inconsolable as they tried to contact him…….I never did find out but will always remember sitting with the family in their cabin, 6242, a cabin that if I ever pass now on any ship, the memories return.

I remember how hard it was for the families on board like the Cabrini’s who because of the flying restrictions, could not get off the ship. I remember calling my Mum and Dad who were worried about me. I remember holding a Q&A session in the main lounge and one guest wanting to “arm himself” and buy a gun in Jamaica because we “are at war.” I remember arriving in Cayman the next day and most guests not getting off the ship. They just watched the TV’s and waited.

It was then that I had the most difficult choice I have ever had to make as a cruise director. Should I continue with the program of shows, fun and activities or, like Letterman and Leno, cancel the shows? I agonized over this for hours and finally I made a decision. I called all the guests into the main showroom after sailing from Cayman and before dinner……it was 5 pm. Every seat was taken, guests were standing and sitting on the floor and the stage. I was very nervous as I said that it was my belief that if we canceled all the “Fun Ship” entertainment that indeed whoever had committed these horrendous acts would be the winners and in a miniscule way they would have beaten us. I asked the audience if they agreed…….I had no idea what their reaction would be……the answer?

STANDING OVATION.

And so the cruise continued and even though the tears continued every show, every joke, every piece of music was greeted with applause and laughter like I have not heard since. I wish I had the names of every guest who was with me that cruise so I could say thank you for helping me get through one of the biggest challenges I have ever had as a cruise director.

At the end of that cruise, we held a simple service in the main theatre. It was thrown together quickly and with the help of some guests who offered to say words of prayer and a little speech from me and the captain, the theatre was full as full can be. I had asked the production singer Heather, to sing a song and before the National Anthem I asked her to sing this.

When you walk through the storm
Hold your head up high
And don’t be afraid of the dark
At the end of the storm
There’s a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of the lark
Walk on, through the wind
Walk on, through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown
Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart
And you’ll never walk alone
You’ll never walk alone
Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart
And you’ll never walk alone
You’ll never walk alone
Tears flowed in the audience and tears flowed on stage as well.

As you know, we are delaying the departure of the Carnival Miracle so that guests on the ship can view the ceremonies in New York Sunday. I am sure it will be a special moment full of emotion on the ship and of course in New York as well. As you know, I was in New York over the New Years Eve period and it is the most amazing, incredible, incomparable city I have ever been to. However, talking to my friends that live there and were there during 9/11, I had a clear sense of its invulnerability that the “We can stand up to whatever you bastards throw at us” is not as strong as the last time I was there. I can only put this into what I think has happened in my home city of London where the feeling there is similar. Not just because the towers were destroyed or because of the tube (subway) bombings on 07.07.07, but thanks to the events which followed in the wake of the attacks including financial panic and the credit crunch thingy, both cities seem to be always looking over their shoulder. But as a friend and born New Yorker told me last week as we chatted here on the Carnival Magic, “New York is a fragile city which has rebuilt itself as it always has and always will.”

And so here we are, 10 years later, the Carnival Magic will be there in New York and all the other ships will remember this day of unspeakable tragedy on board. The Stars and Stripes will fly in the lobbies and atriums. The captain or the cruise director will make a short speech over the PA system. And guests and crew will be invited to pause for thought and if they wish…..pray. And then a minute later, the fun will continue because it must. The fun must always continue because if it stops, well, those bastards will have won.

Goodnight.

Your friend,

John