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The Cruise Director, Lee Mason, this afternoon announced that many people were complaining about the internet today. Lee said that when the ship was in port in Long Beach, California, they replaced their satellite dish with one that uses an Australia satellite instead of a U.S. satellite and that we are now using that Australia satellite for internet. He said that the internet will improve as we get closer to Australia, especially after we pass the International Dateline on Tuesday. I'm not sure what explains why we've had such good internet while we were cruising from Long Beach to Hawaii. The internet has been very good for our entire cruise until we departed Hawaii. The internet has been pretty bad all day today. It is working, but very slow. It will often time out when trying to reach many web sites.
We put in our request many months ago for "The Chef's Table". We specifically requested October 21st as that is my wife's birthday. Instead they gave us a reservation for October 12th. Does someone have dyslexia? We tried to change it to the 21st or even the 20th but they said both of those days were already totally booked. So we just stuck with the 12th.
Unlike what is indicated in the above photo and below menus, our chef was not Sivagurunathan (Siva). Siva did supervise the design of all the menus for this cruise as well as select and purchase the food for this cruise, but he was not the head chef on this cruise. (I'll post the name of the head chef, who also lead The Chef Table events, as soon as I get the name). I think they switched to a different chef because of this being a long 24 day repositioning cruise. I am very glad they switched head chefs as the food on this cruise has been excellent compared to the two prior cruises we did on the Carnival Splendor earlier this year.
Each Chef's Table on the Carnival Splendor is limited to 14 attendees. They had us check in at the Carnival Splendor Lobby Bar and then gather and wait in a section of the atrium lounge. We had to wait about 20 minutes as one couple that was missing. I think they eventually located that couple and they cancelled. There were two gals at the bar that I think were waiting to see if there would be any cancellations so that they could attend this Chef's Table. In the above photos you can see the chef giving us a few preliminary words before leading us into the galley (kitchen). We were each given a glass of Champagne and made a toast before heading to the galley.
The first thing each of us had to do upon entering the galley was to wash our hands. There are very strict cleanliness standards in the galley. We were then lead to a food preparation table where we had a number of different appetizers as you can see in the above photos.
The wines for the evening: White - 2017 Ecco Domani Pinot Grigio delle Venezie, Italy (12.5% ABV), listed on the Carnival Splendor Restaurant Wine List as Bin #224 at $10.75 per glass and $39 per bottle. Red - 2016 Banrock Station Merlot, South Eastern Australia (13.5% ABV), listed on the Carnival Splendor Restaurant Wine List as Bin #307 at $30 per bottle. Both wines were quite good. Barbara and I rarely order or drink white wine, but if we were to, this wine was good enough for us to order. The red wine was better than my "Good" rating, something I often label as "Good Plus", but not good enough to make it to my "Very Good" rating. I probably would not order this wine if I had other options available that were "Very Good" or "Excellent" available. The red wine was on my list of wines to order and try. This saved me from having to order a bottle in the Carnival restaurant to try it. It was nice that the servers continue to refill our glasses of both white and red wine all during The Chef's Table meal. The meal was so extensive and expensive, $75 per person plus 18% gratuity, that we though they maybe should have served a different wine to pair with each course. Or, they could make a wine pairing an extra cost item as they do in the Carnival Splendor Pinnacle Steakhouse.
This Spring Pea Soup was delicious! The chef had us put the green powder into a clear bowl in front of each of us. I think it was the "Matcha". That made the soup a bit spicier and gave a little bit of a "kick" the soup that most pea soups do not have. The cooks then came around with the green pea soup and poured it individually into each of our bowls. We were then told to whisk the soup with the item you see above that is made up of a pineapple and a cherry tomato. That blended the green powder into the soup and changed the color a bit. Barbara and I thought it was very good with that extra "kick".
The head chef on the Carnival did mention that after the refurbishment of the Carnival Splendor in Singapore it will still have an Indian serving station. But, instead of being called "Tandoor" it will have a well known international trade name. This is similar to how they will be converting "Off The Grill" to "Guy's Burgers". I hope with the change of names that they will also keep the Indian serving area open for dinner in addition to it being open for lunch. On our 3 trips on the Carnival Splendor this year it has only been open for lunch.
The head chef also mentioned they will be having a special "Indian Dining Under The Stars" at the Tandoor tomorrow evening for $20 per person. We signed up right away for the first seating at 5:30 PM! We also told the head chef, who is Indian, that the Indian food on this cruise has been excellent and a tremendous improvement over the bland Indian food on our prior two cruises this year on the Carnival Splendor. We also let him know that ALL the food that we've had on this cruise so far has been excellent, which was not true on our prior two cruises on this ship this year. He was quick to exclaim that is because he is the head chef on this cruise! He did explain that he is constantly checking all the food being served on the ship and asking passengers for their feedback. He wants to make sure that passengers are finding the food to be excellent. In all honesty, the food on this cruise has been as good or better than we've had on any past cruise, including our cruises on Norwegian and Princess.
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If in this report you see any typos, misspellings, factual errors or other types of errors, please let me know.
Please include the web address (URL) of the report in which you found the error. Thank you! Send your email to:
