Eric Holen

This is an open letter to Gerry Cahill, the CEO, and John Heald, Senior Cruise Director, for Carnival Cruise Lines.

Yvette, my wonderful wife of almost 15 years, and I are getting ready to embark on our 8^th Carnival cruise.  However, unless Carnival Cruise Line corrects some, in my opinion, very basic issues, there may not be a 10^th, 15^th or 20^th Carnival cruise.

Something in the Water

It doesn’t matter how many times I think about visiting the gym while on the cruise, it seems that I gain a little weight.  I am almost positive that Carnival puts something in the water that causes me to gain a little weight.  I can assure you it’s not my fault.  I am careful at the breakfast buffet, morning brunch, lunch buffet, afternoon snack, multiple course dinner, 24 hour pizzeria, and free room service.  So I know it’s not me.  It must be something that Carnival puts in the water that causes me to gain a little weight every cruise.

Room Service, To the Extreme

Yvette and I have stayed in several hotels and even a resort.  Carnival’s habit of cleaning your room twice a day is taking it to the extreme.  I am used to someone coming in and cleaning our room once a day.  But the twice a day service that we get on Carnival Cruise Lines is just downright excessive.  The pair of dirty socks on our bedroom floor has not moved for two days.  But if we had been on a Carnival Cruise ship, they would have magically been transported somewhere.

Rumpy Pumpy, Lack Thereof

One of Yvette’s chief complaints with any of our cruises is the lack of let’s say marital relations.  It seems that with all of the onboard activities and shore excursions that I am often too exhausted to do anything but sleep in our cabin.  This is certainly having some impact to our marital bliss.  Here we go on a wonderful cruise and then . . . nothing.  Carnival really needs to look at cutting back on the fun activities so I have some energy left at night, when it counts.

Tuck In Service

I hear that on some other major cruise lines, which I will not mention here, have an option to have your children tucked in at night by some costumed character.  Where is this service for adults on Carnival Cruise Lines?  Having visited the bridge on a Behind the Fun tour in December 2010, I know that there are some handsome Italian officers available to tuck in my wife at night.  While they are tucking in my wife, why can’t I get one of those showgirls to tuck me in?  A tuck-in service would go a long way to compete with those other lines.

So, Gerry Cahill and John Heald, if you expect us to book our 10^th, 15^th or 20^th cruises, you need to correct these very basic issues with your service

This past weekend, we were having a mini vacation with several friends and their children.

On Saturday morning, while Yvette and I were cooking breakfast, I heard a 3 year old ask her mom if she could have some potato chips. The request did not come out of the blue since we had all of our weekend food, including a big box of chips, stacked in and around the dining room table.

Now it would have been very easy for her mom to just say no to the potato chips. But she surprised me. Instead of saying no, she responded,

You are not making good choices. I have taught you to make good choices.

That was powerful. Here was a 3 year old who was learning to make good choices, and not just responding to the word no.

She did not get her potato chips, but she did get some of the pancakes that I was cooking.

This morning, we got some news that our friend Sara was back in the hospital for the second time in as many weeks. While we hope and trust that she will be back home in a day or two, I got me to thinking about her and the fun we have shared since I first met her almost 8 years ago.

I met Sara in October 2003 at my very first meeting of the Kyle Volunteer Fire Department. Sara and Dallas, her husband, were already members, and I was trying to get on to the department soon after moving to Kyle. Sara was in the truck bay when we were training on donning air packs. There were only two girls among the group of guys and Sara had blond hair. Later I would find out that her husband was an officer in the department.

I ran into Sara several months later on a small grass fire. I was on the back of the brush truck and her husband asked me if she could ride with me so that I could show her what little I knew about fighting fires. At the time, her husband scared me a little, even though he was several years my junior. Not only was he an officer, but he had a stare that seemed to say don’t mess with him. That small cage on the back of the brush truck couldn’t have seemed any smaller as I tried to squeeze myself into the smallest space to avoid even brushing against Sara while the truck was in motion.

Somehow, the four of us became friends and started doing group things together.

In September 2006, 10 of us traveled to Vegas for a few days. On the first night there, we got into a little trouble with Sara because we called her room at something like 5:00 AM to let her know that everyone was still awake and safe.

In November 2006, Yvette and I went on our first group camping trip with Sara and our friends. It would be the first of several camping trips. Sara generally had the Saturday dinners covered and we enjoyed whatever she whipped up, especially her pico and queso. Over the course of several trips over a few years, we watched as Sara went from Sara, to pregnant Sara, to Sara with a beautiful baby boy who also went camping with us.

In 2008, you could find us babysitting Mason, her son.

For a birthday celebration for another friend, in June 2008, our group shared a two bedroom condo in Port Aransas. Including two babies, there were 10 of us in the one condo, but we had the best time swimming, eating and strolling along the beach.

The Stocks and Holens in the pool at Port Aransas

Closer to home, you could find us at Club 21 especially on New Years’ Eve. I enjoyed watching Sara and Dallas dance because they seemed to just glide across the floor as they two-stepped around the room.

Just a couple weeks ago, we got together for a group dinner. Yvette and I gave her some outfits for her beautiful daughter, who is just a few months old. It was later that week when Sara first entered the hospital. She got out of the hospital a couple days later and all of us hoped it would be over.

For purely selfish reasons, we hope that Sara gets better soon. There is still plenty of good camping weather left and she owes us a copy of the recipe for the delicious shrimp dish that she prepared in Port Aransas.

For the second year in a row, Yvette and I celebrated our anniversary with an extended camping trip. Previously, we would have taken a cruise or a some other vacation. However, last year, we decided to camp. Just us, nature and a comfortable trailer.

Last year, we rented a fifth wheel travel trailer that was delivered and set up for us. This year, we rented a 21’ foot travel trailer from Dependable Camper Rentals. We wanted the opportunity to do everything from setup to tear down. We picked up the trailer early Sunday morning. You would have thought we were buying the travel trailer and not renting given the walk through they gave us. They explained everything concerning the setup and maintenance, which made us very comfortable considering it would be our home for the next five days. We picked up the travel trailer so early that we had time to take it home before an driving back to Austin for an afternoon UT Longhorns softball game.

After the game, we finished packing up the trailer and headed out to Pedernales Falls State Park. We arrived with plenty of light and the trailer was a breeze to back in and setup. I drew a blank when trying to uncouple the trailer from our vehicle, but thankfully Yvette figured the latch out.

Monday started out colder than we expected so we changed our plans and drove into Fredericksburg. We stopped in Wal-Mart for some forgotten items and then to Bealls where we picked up some steeply discounted pullovers to keep us warm. Then we enjoyed lunch at the Java Ranch with plenty of hot coffee. Afterwards, I forced took Yvette to the National Museum of the Pacific War. Three hours later, even Yvette agreed that it was a great experience and we both learned a lot about the United States’ involvement in World War II. We finished up by stopping in Luckenbach (Texas) where we squeezed into the saloon, drank some Shiner and listened to live music.

On Tuesday, I took the 4-mile loop hiking trail. I used a walking stick that Yvette had given me for our anniversary. I had my MP3 player on for about the first ¼ mile until a deer crossed the trail ahead of me. It’s then that I decided to take it off so I could use all my senses. For the rest of the hike, I only came across or heard small lizards. On the back side of the trail, I came across a stretch of trail that was just beautiful.

On Wednesday, Yvette and I hiked the falls and then sat in the river. The water in the river was cold, not cold like get in slowly, cold like put your feet in for 15 minutes and wait until they were frozen. Then slip in up to your knees and wait for them to freeze. An hour later we found ourselves sitting in the river actually having a great time. That evening, we traveled into Johnson City and ate dinner at the Hill Country Cupboard so that we could watch UT Longhorns softball on GameTracker.

Thanks to Kristi West, who gave me the idea, on Thursday I somewhat unsuccessfully tried geocaching using a list provided by the park. My first attempt, just using the GPS on my phone and no special software, was a bust. So I walked a mile or so to the park office where they had wifi and downloaded some geocaching software. Then I set out to find my first cache near the office, which I couldn’t find. I walked back to the camp grounds and sought out four other caches, all within a mile from my location. I use mile loosely because that’s what the GPS read, not the actual distance through winding trails. I found one out of four caches.

By Friday, we were ready to get back to our dogs, and our own bed. Still, we had a wonderful time and are looking forward to doing it again in the fall when the weather gets a little cooler.

It’s been just over a week since Yvette and I returned from our 7th cruise, this one aboard the Carnival Ecstasy. I hope to provide a review of the cruise later, but in this post I am going to share my experience taking the “Behind the Fun” guided ship tour.

The tour is relatively new, just 18 months old. I first had and missed the opportunity to take the tour on last year’s cruise. Unfortunately, I forgot about the tour until I saw the group forming up to start and by then it was too late. Due to the nature of the tour and the areas we visit, the group is limited to just 16 people. This year I left nothing to chance and booked it just after we embarked. The tour cost $55 per person and occurred on the last sea day. Yvette chose not to go and instead spent the time relaxing.

The tour met at 9:30 AM in the Explorer’s Club library on deck 8 – Atlantic. They had coffee and pastry waiting for us as well as our honorary team member all access badges. I had some coffee, but skipped the pastry. The tour was conducted by the ship’s training manager. In her position, she is responsible for all general training activities across the ship including: new crew orientation, safety, language, customer service and management. After a brief orientation, they confiscated all cameras and cell phones, for those who had not read that they were not allowed on the tour. Then a security officer passed a hand scanner over us to verify that we were not hiding anything. He left, but would join up with the tour later and escort us through two highly sensitive and secure areas.

From the library, we headed to the Blue Sapphire lounge where the dance captain walked and talked us through the stage and the women’s dressing room. Regrettably there were no women getting dressed at the time. From there, we headed through the Wind Star dining room into the galley. It was interesting to pass by people eating breakfast and were probably wondering where the group was headed.

Yvette and I had taken the galley tour a few years ago when it was offered to everyone. They have since stopped doing the large tour to reduce the chance of spreading any illness through the galley. In this tour I learned that everything is electric (no flame) for safety, which includes the grills. While many cold items like salads are prepared in advanced, hot items are prepared when they are ordered. This made me feel a little guilty, but just for a second, knowing that I sometimes customized my dinner. Carnival is rolling out a computerized ordering system, like those found in land-based restaurants, but the Carnival Ecstasy didn’t have it yet. This means that the team waiters have to get from the tables to the galley to turn in the food orders.

After the galley, we headed off to see the food stores including a walk-in refrigerator, walk-in freezer and the liquor storage locker. While they have a machine that peels potatoes, all of the other fruits and vegetables are peeled by hand. I also found out that except for milk and eggs, almost all of the food is shipped in from Miami which helps with quality control as well as reducing costs.

Next we headed off to the laundry to see the large washers, dryers and folding machines. We started using the long crew corridor that stretches the length of the ship to get to the different areas. I think our guide referred to it as the I-5. We also saw the crew training center/computer lab. Except for the portals looking out to the water, it was similar to a land-based training center, even having several familiar management books on the shelves. I learned that every single crew member has to know how to launch one of the life rafts and is subject to quizzing by the U.S. Coast Guard.

We took a brief break in the one of the crew dining rooms where we were told that new wait staff learn the ropes in the crew dining rooms before moving on to the Lido restaurant and then finally getting to serve in the main dining rooms. At some point we also met the environmental officer who discussed ship recycling and waste management. We also saw the marshalling area where supplies and luggage are brought on the ship.

The security officer joined back up with us and we headed to the engine control room, which was behind two different secured doors and covered by video cameras. This by far was my favorite part of the trip, due in part to the Chief Engineer who enthusiastically discussed engine operations. The Carnival Ecstasy has six generators, four large and two small. When in port, one generator can power the entire ship, but for safety a second generator is always on standby. The engine control room had a large floor to ceiling display board that monitored every aspect of the ship’s operations and power production and usage. The Chief Engineer also talked about propulsion and how we had to change docks in Cozumel because even at full power the ship had struggled against the wind.

We headed up to the bridge where one of the officers, not the Captain, walked us through bridge operations including the control stations, radar, and communications. He is the one in uniform just to the left of the control station in the picture. Then the Captain joined us, answered a few more questions and we took a group picture. The security officer was with us again on the bridge.

Finally we wound through the bow of ship and through the crew bar before finishing up at the Neon piano bar. We finished off by taking a short survey, turning in our access badges, but collecting a “Behind the Fun” baseball cap, rubber wrist band and lanyard. The picture was delivered to our cabins that evening.

I like operations and seeing how things function; the tour did not disappoint. I will likely take the tour again when Yvette and I sail on a different and bigger ship.

Behind the Fun tour group photo on the Carnival Ecstasy Bridge in Dec 2010