12-JUL-2007
Can You Guess Where We Are,
Or Are You A NASCAR Fan?
Next morning we were in Halifax, NS. The bad news was that,
the fog came with us and we didn’t think it was worth the money just to let Taxi Tom corroborate his St. John story.
The good news was there is a serious lot to do on the waterfront AND if that wasn’t enough, the tall ships were in. As a result we never got more than fifty feet inland and had a great time anyway. Halifax is definitely a "return to" city for us if only we can figure out exactly what day is summer.
In fact, we enjoyed it so much that we accidentally found a new strategy for boarding the ship — don’t get on until they are pulling the brow up behind you. If you’ve got nerve enough to play chicken this way, the lines are not bad and there aren’t enough crew members left in the boarding area to cause any serious trouble.
11-JUL-2007
Wife takes the Dog Watch
at Her Battle Station
Heading south, Neptune showed his sense of humor, at least to me. Thankfully, I remembered P. J. O’Rourke’s seagoing terms for LEEWARD ( the side to throw up on) and WINDWARD ( the side not to). Anyway, all that scopolamine we didn’t use on the trip north got used on the trip back, but only by the supersensitive people. The normal people did just fine and my wife only came out of Casino when the staff begged her to let them go home, so it didn’t matter to her at all.
13-JUL-2007
Marcie Onstage
Last night out was the LEGEND’S show which was the only one we saw.
While the artistic merit of a show starring passengers may be reasonably questioned (except for the last guy, who was dead on), the fun of the show is absolutely worth the occasional "cat on a blackboard" vocals and amateur dancing resembling grand mal seizures. Besides, Marcie the KJ gets to cut loose and she’s really pretty good.
09-JUL-2007
On the Way Home
Be Sure To Check
For the Big Monkey
Debarkation was the first time Carnival got the crowd movement thing right. Sat in the cabin until they called yellow, then walked right off the ship, picked up the bags and dived into the typical New York mob scene of everybody going everywhere at once. I didn’t care, I was just glad there wasn’t a line to do it. Our friends doing self serve were off and gone by 7:00 AM. The rest of us were ashore waiting for the limo by 10:30. Really easy.
10-JUL-2007
Here's a Shot of The People
We Stole The Camera From
We enjoyed this trip (but then we aren’t totally right when we travel) and the minor annoyances were mostly just that, minor. There are things Victory does really well but other things not so much.
To the good are great overnight rations, specialty food outlets (BBQ , Deli and Chinese), genuinely friendly entertainment staff (see: Marcie in the Adriatic Lounge), and extremely competent, if somewhat distant, housekeeping staff (I KNOW some people prefer that). On the downside are crazy long lines everywhere and aggressively demented traffic flows; food and service in the dining room which is just meh (I can’t comment on the Lido buffet since we could never get near it) and pools with approximately 3 square inches per person. I didn’t have any real problem with kids but if you are honestly expecting to get wet with just adults you might try standing in your shower with a really close friend (or not getting caught if the friendship is more recent).
In summary, I think we would do this itinerary again just without the continuous fog. We would also probably use Carnival again but Victory, while generally OK and certainly very green, is just too many people on not enough ship.
