WeCruiseToo

We won’t be there, but Carnival Freedom is a great ship and that 8-night Eastern Caribbean is a fantastic itinerary! Have a great cruise!

Another cool feature Jason – thanks!

Welcome to CruiseCrazies! We all love cruising and this is a great place for help planning your next trip and talking about past adventures!

So Paul, as someone who’s familiar with all the shore excursions, what was your personal favorite?

Many of the most delicious dishes we’ve had on cruises are Indian food! We’re not vegetarians, but we’ll order the Indian vegetarian entrée more than once while we’re sailing aboard Celebrity in a couple of weeks! Can’t wait!

We couldn’t agree more! We’ve had many, many wonderful meals while cruising! And now I’m hungry just thinking about it…

Nice itinerary! Doubt we could swing 2 weeks away from the jobs but it sure looks like fun!

Very cool! Congratulations Jan!

Have a fantastic cruise! We’d love to hear all about it when you get back!

Have a fantastic cruise! We’d love to hear all about it when you get back!

Have a fantastic cruise! We’d love to hear all about it when you get back!

Have a fantastic cruise! We’d love to hear all about it when you get back!

Welcome to CruiseCrazies! We all love cruising and this is a great place for help planning your next trip and talking about past adventures!

Wow – that’s fantastic! Happy cruising!

Welcome to CruiseCrazies! We all love cruising and this is a great place for help planning your next trip and talking about past adventures!

Another great topic – and I’ve got more questions! Even though the new chefs are working their way up to cooking for guests, they don’t practice by making the same dishes they will one day prepare for guests? I know the officers of the bridge crew are normally all of the same nationality. Does this skew the menu towards Greek or Italian or Norwegian depending on the senior officers? Personally we find international dishes very appealing (traditional American food tends to be fairly bland). So if the majority of the crew is Indonesian or Pilipino or Croatian, most of the dishes in the crew mess will reflect that even if the chefs are from India or Italy or Jamaica? It sounds like cooking on a cruise ship prepares you to work anywhere in the world! Thanks again for all your insight!

Our friends on the West Coast are always glad to have more options! Obviously they’re jealous of us with all of our cruising opportunities out of Florida!

I really doubt that.

Paul, thank you so much for all this wonderful information! I just keep thinking of more questions I want to ask you! Please let us know if it gets too bothersome or if we ask anything you’d rather not answer. Is there a chance that any of us met you while you were working aboard the cruise ships? Now that you’re cruising for fun, do you ever run into any of your old shipmates who are still working while you’re cruising? Is that awkward?

Glad I could help! Maybe we should start a cruise trivia over in the Ongoing Games forum? Of course everyone would have to be on their honor not to just Google the answer…

Welcome to CruiseCrazies! We all love cruising and this is a great place for help planning your next trip and talking about past adventures!

Paul, thank you for the fascinating incites! Do they try to put roommates together who have opposite schedules, or was it just luck that you only saw your roommates in passing in the room?

And yet, even with the long hours, most crew members are always friendly and helpful. More than once we’ve run into crew members spending some time ashore while in port. Even in their own clothes during their precious time off they still go out of their way to be friendly. Just another reason why we love cruising so much!

Maybe it’s a “romantic” notion, but we’d like our first transatlantic cruise to be a real New York to London (Southampton) sailing (or the reverse) with no port stops. That probably means a Cunard cruise. After that anything goes – we always enjoy sea days!

Well, I can’t find anything to confirm this, but I seem to remember hearing those bow hatches referred to as “dive boards” (there’s probably a more official, nautical term though). I’m pretty sure they’re used by the officer in charge of mooring the ship to monitor how those big ropes are deployed or retracted.