Our Glory Adventure

Three years ago today, we set off on vacation (really a long weekend) on a cruise up to Canada. It was a family trip, and it was great to get to spend some time with family on the sea and away from home. As we've been recapping our other adventures, it occurred to me that, while the Glory is the one (and only) trip we've fully recapped, we never wrote a summary post about our adventures. On the third anniversary of our trip, what better time to do it than now?

Our cruise on the Carnival Glory left in the afternoon from the west side of Manhattan, which meant we didn't do much that day other than sail out, have our first dinner in the dining room, get acquainted with the ship, and end the night with some late night snacks at the grill. The Glory was your pretty basic, traditional cruise ship, in that it had a main dining room with traditional seating times (unlike the trend to have more and more smaller restaurants and reservations at all different times), a large buffet, and other snack areas. It was a smaller ship but a comfortable size for a short cruise. It had more amenities than another ship that A and I previously sailed on.

We spent the second day of the trip at sea, where we mostly relaxed as far as we can remember. I have no idea what we did other than maybe go to the gym. We had breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the dining room. It was formal night which meant we got dressed up and took lots of photos, which was fun.

On the morning of day 3, we docked in Saint John, New Brunswick. I had been there once before on a different cruise but it was A's first time visiting the small Canadian town. We didn't take any special excursions, but just wandered around town for a bit and searched out some Canadian dishes. We started the day with breakfast on board the ship before taking the short walk into town, where we stopped at a food court for some poutine and window-shopped at fast food restaurants. We closed out our stay with a local blueberry ale, a lobster roll, and a bowl of chowder at Billy's Seafood Company, which we were quite happy with. 

After getting back on board, we stopped by the burrito station in the buffet area for a snack. We ended the night on the ship with dinner and the midnight Mexican buffet, which I was quite excited about. When do I not want tacos? (As a side note, how much do our stomachs expand on trips that we can eat all that food in one day and not feel utterly sick?! I'm a bit horrified at how much we ate that day. Sure, I went over 19,000 steps that day, but I'm not sure that justifies it.)

Our last full day of the trip was another day at sea as we made our way back to NYC. We had our usual breakfast in the dining room, and then headed up to the Lido deck at lunchtime where they were having a chocolate buffet. We also grabbed some other snacks that were left over from the previous night's Mexican buffet and A investigated the Mongolian wok and some other buffet stations. A ate a bigger lunch at the Lido deck, but I only had some tacos so I ate more when we went down to lunch in the dining room. (Yes, technically 2 lunches.) We ended another day of relaxing, gym-going, and hanging out with our final dining room dinner.

After a stormy night (watching lightning on the water is simultaneously scary and amazing), we were docked back at the pier in Manhattan and it was time to bid vacation goodbye - but not before grabbing one last breakfast at the buffet (the only thing open). From there it was time to say goodbye to family, take a tedious walk through customs, and then head over to the office (yes, we went to work straight from the ship). Vacation over.

Would we take this trip again? Maybe. If the trip were just a quick getaway with a main goal of relaxation, and the price were right, then we would definitely consider it. There's something nice about being out at sea, endless blue water in every direction, that is just so calming. Add to that that there is little cell reception and you're kind of forced to relax (in a good way). The port stop was okay and the ship was fine, but they wouldn't be the main motivators to go back. It would be nice to take a cruise up to New England and Canada sometime during fall foliage season, but unlike this cruise, that would be more about the ports and less about just getting away. This may have been a very short trip, but it was a great summer break!

Last Glory Meal

It's the end of our (food) recaps for our cruise on the Glory (and the first time we've ever finished blogging a trip). Unfortunately, it's not a very exciting post.


Our last meal on the Glory was an early breakfast on the Lido deck before going to work. I had some Cheerios, peach yogurt, a banana, sausage links (they didn't have those in the dining room), hash browns, baked beans, grits and sliced peaches. Sadly, there was no corned beef hash on Lido deck. Makes me glad we went to the dining room all those other days for corned beef hash and bagels with lox. However, one thing Lido deck had that they didn't have in the dining room was POG which we loved from our days in Hawaii - passion fruit, orange and guava juice. So perfectly sweet.

We don't have a picture of A's breakfast but it was pretty similar to mine, except he might have gotten some eggs or oatmeal.

So that's it. It may have taken us almost 3.5 weeks to write about a 4 day trip, but it's done. All of our Glory adventures can be found at the Glory 2011 label. We hope you've enjoyed following along - now it's back to our honeymoon recaps, or our Dutch adventure, or our Portland trip, and all of our other delicious meals!

Last Glory Dinner

It was Sunday night, our long weekend trip was ending and we were almost back to NYC. It was time for our last dinner on the Glory! A got a few appetizers, one entree and a dessert. M wanted to construct a meal with a few appetizers for each course, which didn't work out so well, since they just brought all the appetizers a few at a time with no break, and then an entree (more on that later).

We both started with the crab cake, which was to be served with roasted red pepper sauce. Here's the crab cake that M got:


And here's the crab cake that A got:


Notice anything different? M wasn't sure why hers came with no sauce, since she hadn't asked for it that way. Maybe they gave her the wrong one. The crab cake was fine but nothing special. On a 5 scale, we both give this a 3.

We both also got the salad of "vine ripe beefsteak tomatoes and fresh buffalo mozzarella, marinated with basil leaves and virgin olive oil":


This was nice and light, but we've had better caprese salads before. This gets a 3.5 from M and a 3 from A.

We both also got the "study in sushi" (part of the didja ever section, although we didn't think sushi was that exotic):


According to the menu, the "study" came with "seared ahi tuna and Norwegian salmon tartar in spycy lemon sauce" (not sure what "spycy" means). What actually came was a piece of shrimp on a block of rice (M gave this to her grandmother), some salmon inside a cucumber slice and a small cube of seared tuna. It was ok, but nothing special. The sushi was, however, much better than the sushi from the sushi bar upstairs! We both give this a 2.5-3.

M also got a regular garden salad with balsamic vinaigrette, thinking this would be a light accompaniment to one of her appetizer courses:


It was boring and not really worth talking about, but there was nothing wrong with it. This gets a 3.

We both also got the "gratinated onion soup" baked with a slice of homemade bread, freshly grated gruyere and parmesan cheese:


Overall the soup was just okay. We were both a little surprised that the french onion soup was only offered on one day as every other cruise we've ever been on offered it daily. The soup itself was a little disappointing. The "toast" was basically just some bread plopped into the soup, and the normally full cheese topping was, as you can notice, just a small portion. The gruyere was never going to be as good as what we got in Geneva, so we kept our expectations low. We both give this a 3.

For the entree course, we both got the bourbon and honey glazed roasted spring chicken, which came with grilled zucchini and onions and pave potatoes:


The interesting thing about this was that M didn't actually want an entree. In addition to the 5 appetizers, she asked if she could get the grilled vegetables that came on the side of the chicken, trying to keep portion size small since she was trying to make a tapas-type meal. It didn't really work as they just brought out the whole plate since that was easier to do so she ended up eating some chicken anyway.

The chicken itself was moist and flavored well. The vegetables were tasty, and exactly what M was looking for. The potatoes were okay. A bit too creamy/heavy, but decent flavor. We both give this a 3.5.

For dessert, M stuck with mango sorbet:


This isn't on the menu so unfortunately you can't just order it for dinner. (We're not sure why it's not on the menu as it's healthier than ice cream and sherbet and we think plenty of people would order it, like they did on our last cruise.) But since some people in the family told them they couldn't eat dairy, they had just been given this as a dessert over the course of the cruise. We got smart and asked in advance (since apparently sorbet had to be requested in advance) if we could get more for other people in our group, and they brought out a bunch of sorbet dishes for dessert on our last day. So much better (in M's opinion, as A loves ice cream). M gives this a 3.5. A makes better sorbet, but this was still better than the sherbet usually offered! A gives this a 3 since he can make it better.

A got the baked alaska, something that always seems to turn up on cruises:


According to the menu, this was vanilla sponge with assorted ice cream and baked with meringue. Baked Alaska, as we both understand, is a giant ice cream cake covered in meringue and lit on fire. The fire "bakes" the dessert but keeps the ice cream nice and frozen. This, however, was not a baked Alaska. The cream does not compare at all to actual meringue, and the ice cream was melting by the time it got to A. Overall, this was very disappointing. A gives this a 2. M didn't try it at all.

That was the last real meal on the ship before it was time to pack up and get ready to go home. Not too bad but nothing really special either. M would have gladly switched this out for another Mexican meal. Next time, we may pay serious attention to the Indian offerings.

Last Glory Lunch

After our visit to Lido, we went for our last lunch in the Platinum dining room on the Glory. A didn't really eat much since he had a bowl of Mongolian wok up on Lido deck, but I ordered a full lunch.

I started with old fashioned German lentil soup:


I'm not sure what made it German or old-fashioned, but it wasn't bad. I would give it a 3.5. A tried a little and would give it a 3.

One thing that A did order was the chilled orange sory:


This was a chilled orange soup with tapioca pearls. It was served the way that I love watching soups being served. It arrived with a little well-arranged mound of food, and then the soup "broth" was poured on top of it.

A thought this was a good dessert after his Mongolian wok meal. It tasted similar to a melted orange creamsicle. He thought that tapioca pearls were unnecessary, but he likes tapioca pearls, so it was fine (except the menu said "tapioca pearls" and there was only one). He also found that the pile of orange and ginger didn't add that much flavor or texture, and had been expecting more from that. A would give this a 3.5.

I got two "entrees" (and was ultimately glad that I did). The first was the neptune chef's salad:


The menu said that this came with hearts of iceberg lettuce, Greenland baby shrimps, poached ocean scallops, Alaskan snow crab meat and fresh Pacific salmon, garnished with tomato wedges and watercress, and choice of dressing (balsamic vinaigrette for me). I was expecting it to look like a regular salad - greens on the bottom, assorted seafood and other veggies on top. We had a seafood salad on our Holland America cruise a few years back which came that way and it was delicious. This ... not so much. It was like a deconstructed salad - a few shrimp over here, a piece of salmon over there, a couple of scallops sitting in the front, and a mound of lettuce in the middle. The seafood itself was fine, but nothing special. The description made it sound so much better than it was. I would give this a 3. It was light and healthy but not remarkable.

My other entree was much better. It was the "oven fresh whole wheat baguette" filled with shredded lettuce, sliced tomato and creamy tuna salad:


This was actually good. The tuna salad was fresh and creamy, and had really good flavor. The bread, unlike some baguettes, was firm enough to hold the tuna salad and soft enough that it was easy to bite and had a nice chewy texture. This was definitely the better lunch entree. I would actually give this a 4.5!

We skipped out on dessert but they ended up bringing our table extra tropical fruit terrines:


I thought it would be mostly fruit, but it turned out to be like a slice of cake, and was therefore not interested. (Not even going to get started on their definition of "tropical fruit" as we have already covered that, and it was once again not really tropical fruit.) A ate the fruit and left the rest of it. He tasted the cake/pudding part and didn't think it was that good. He would give this a 1.5.

Two more meals on the Glory and then we were (sadly) done with vacation and back home!

A Visit to Lido

If you've been following along, you have probably seen that we have eaten almost all of our meals in the dining room on the Glory. On our last full day on the Glory, we spent some time up on Lido deck in the Red Sail restaurant.

The main reason? There was a chocolate buffet.

Clockwise from upper right: Chocolate Cappuccino Cream, Chocolate Sushi, Chocolate Empanada, Brownie

A ate some of the chocolate buffet but not much. After a hard workout earlier that day and feeling lightheaded he needed food, and he didn't think straight chocolate was in his best interests. What he needed was real food. He originally wanted to get some of the Mongolian wok, but the line went forever. It was found out later that the wok hadn't even opened yet. Instead, he opted to get a cheeseburger and some chicken fingers.

A's Cheeseburger and Chicken Fingers
A knew that there was no honey mustard or BBQ sauce handy so he decided to use the melted cheese sauce normally reserved for the fries as a topping for his chicken fingers. The burger was the exact same as the one he and M had shared earlier in the trip. The chicken fingers weren't anything special, but they were tasty enough. After having some calories A finally decided to try some of the chocolate treats.

He started with one of the chocolate sushi pieces. The funny thing about the picture shown above is that it's actually missing the piece that he ate. The sushi itself was sweetened sticky rice surrounding what tasted like chocolate cake frosting. It was overly sweet, and it was as close to sickeningly sweet as anything he had ever tasted.

M wasn't really in a chocolate mood that day and only tried the sweet sticky rice. Partway through the dessertfest, people started walking around with tacos. Tacos in advance of lunch? That was something she could go for.

Tacos!
Salads and salsas
The chips were a little soggy (these were all probably leftovers from the midnight buffet) so M used some taco shells as our "chips." Just like the Mexican buffet, the taco was a satisfying "appetizer."

A ended up still getting something from the Mongolian wok station. In the end, M's uncle and cousins were far up in the line and were able to get him something. He was truly pleased with the flavors and the textures of the contents of the bowl. Lo mein noodles, chicken, mushrooms, onions, peppers, and bean sprouts with a sweet thai chili sauce.

A's Mongolian Wok Bowl
Since M hadn't eaten much, we joined most of the rest of the family in the dining room for a (another?) lunch.

Back to the Burrito

I almost forgot about our visit to the burrito station upon returning to the Glory on our day in Saint John! (Insert this post between our visit to Billy's Seafood and our third Glory dinner.) We were looking for a snack and decided to split a burrito (the buffet was closed).

The burrito came with chips and you were able to pick any salsas you wanted:


The burrito was fairly large:


It was somewhat full but could have had more stuff:


Generally, the burritos at Chipotle are much better than this burrito was. It wasn't bad but it was forgettable, as evidenced by the fact that I forgot we ate it and can barely remember what was in it or how it tasted (other than that it was fine). I think we filled the burrito with chicken, tomatoes, lettuce, corn, cheese and some salsas, but I'm not sure. It was much better than the sushi station downstairs, so if we had to choose between the two, we would definitely get another burrito. But the taco station from the midnight buffet was much better and I would rather have tacos available all afternoon!

Third Glory Breakfast

It was our last full day on the Glory, and when we met up with the family for breakfast, we were a little bored with the menu and getting kind of full! We both chose not to get our usual bagel with smoked salmon and have a bit of a "lighter" breakfast.

I got grits, corned beef hash and potatoes:


A got oatmeal with corned beef hash:


He had double the amount of corned beef hash than I did. Last time, when I got it without the potatoes, I had the same amount that I had at this breakfast with the potatoes. If I had known they would double up the order, maybe I would have just gotten that!

A also got a banana, which came sliced:


I forgot about the banana. Never ended up getting one.

This was our last breakfast on the Glory in the dining room. Generally, we found the dining room to be a nice place to have a leisurely breakfast in comparison to the chaos of the Lido deck. (More on that later.) If you like breakfast and don't mind eating the same thing every day (or if you like breakfast so much that you switch it up every day), then you will probably like breakfast on the Glory. At least it was reliable, unlike the turkey dinner that I just can't stop talking about.

Midnight Mexican

On the third night of the cruise, they switched up the late night snacks and had a midnight Mexican buffet. I was very excited as I figured there would be tacos, and we all know how much I love tacos.

They made special decorations for the buffet that night, like this animal (not sure which one)...


And some Native American ice sculptures...


The food itself was pretty good. Much better than dinner that night. Here's what I got:


There were salmon enchiladas (pretty good), black bean and chicken tostadas (these were really good), crunchy tacos filled with meat, cheese and tomatoes (they made them for you behind the buffet, but they were good), potato sopes (a bit rich, not my favorite) and a whole assortment of salads (including black bean salads, pico de gallo, tomato salsa, mango salsa, etc). There were also a lot of desserts but I didn't really pay any attention to those. I was there for the tacos! A wasn't that hungry and was falling asleep, so he just ate one of the tostadas and that was it.

The Mexican midnight buffet left me quite satisfied. I could go for that every night!

Third Glory Dinner

We had such high hopes for our third dinner on the Glory... but were a bit disappointed. Maybe we picked the wrong things?

I started with the "old fashioned" chicken noodle soup:


It was fine. It was light and fairly healthy, but not that flavorful and not full of that much stuff. When I think about soup, there's the "Europa style" which is very watery and the "Hale and Hearty style" which is packed with good stuff. This was Europa style. I am not a fan of watery soup. We give this a 2.

A started with the American navy bean soup (prepared with bacon and vegetables):


This was probably the best thing we had all night. It was thick, rich and flavorful. A gives this a 3.5. I think I would agree.

I also got a salad with French dressing:


It was fine, your standard salad. I guess this gets a 2.5 because the quality was fine but it was just boring.

We got the same entree - oven roasted tom turkey with sage and onion stuffing, mashed yam and scallion hash, panko crusted green beans and homemade cranberry relish:

Turkey dinner from the front
Turkey dinner from the back
I should preface this by saying that Thanksgiving dinner is one of my favorite holiday meals. I love stuffing, I love mashed potatoes, I love Thanksgiving dinner vegetables. I love everything about Thanksgiving dinner. I was so excited for this and knew instantly that this was what I was going to order. I guess maybe I had high expectations but I don't think that's the reason I ended up so disappointed.

First, the turkey. It was fine and moist (it was also in the gravy). I wasn't a big fan of the fat/skin around the edges but that was easy to remove. So that was OK.

Second, there was some pork roulade on top of the turkey. What was that about? That wasn't on the menu. I had no interest in it, so I gave it to A. He thought it was tasty, but wasn't expecting that to be there. What disappointed him more was the "cranberry relish." He was looking for, at the very least, a little dollop of cranberry sauce. But the "homemade cranberry relish" was basically a drizzle over the roulade. I barely even had any of it, since I gave A my roulade and didn't realize that was all the "cranberry relish" (that wasn't really a relish) there was. Doesn't sound like I missed much.

Third, the panko crusted green beans didn't taste like green beans. The green bean fries at TGI Fridays are so much better than these! These did not taste as light as panko crusted vegetables should and we could barely tell they were green beans without the description!

Fourth, the stuffing. So disappointing. I love stuffing so much, and can usually see the merits in all types of stuffing, whether it's stuffing that's mostly bread or stuffing full of carrots, onions and celery. I love them all! But this? This was boring and bland, and didn't have a good flavor or texture. I was so sad because I was really looking forward to stuffing.

Lastly, the yam and scallion hash. It was really just mashed sweet potatoes/yams. They were fine.

In the end, A gave this a 3. I think I would give it a 2-2.5 because it could just be so much better. I probably would have been happier with the chili rellenos or the Indian meal of the day.

For dessert, nothing was really appealing to me other than the apple pie, which I got with vanilla ice cream:


It was OK. A little doughy, not that much apple, and A thought it was a little too sweet. This gets a 2.5.

A got the tiramisu. A loves tiramisu.


However, A thought this tiramisu was just OK. It wasn't that heavy though despite all the cream/mascarpone cheese. He gives this a 3.

As I mentioned above, our favorite thing from the night was probably the navy bean soup. The rest just fell short for us. We hoped our last full day on the Glory would bring better food than this dinner.

Billy's Seafood Company

We had a short list of things we wanted to do in Saint John. One was to eat poutine - done. Another was to go to a seafood restaurant in Saint John for lunch. We had a few places that had come up in our research and after checking the menus, decided on Billy's Seafood Company.


Billy's Seafood is located at the upper end of the City Market in Uptown Saint John, so we came across it pretty early in our walk (right after we went for poutine) and went back near the end of our stay to get lunch. It's both a restaurant and a seafood market.

We started out with some drinks. A got the Pumphouse Fire Chief red ale, which was on tap, and I got the Pumphouse blueberry ale:


Pumphouse is a New Brunswick brewery, so we were really glad to have the opportunity to try it. The beer was lighter than A was expecting, since it was a red, and he thought it was more like an amber. He was expecting a little bit more of a robust flavor, but he thought it was good. My blueberry ale didn't have a strong blueberry flavor but you could definitely smell blueberries when we poured it.

We decided to split their famous lobster roll (described on the menu as "chunks of lobster mixed with green onion in a light mayonnaise dressing"), which came with a side salad:


We both thought this was pretty tasty. The lobster was nice and sweet and you could taste and feel the consistency of the lobster without too much mayo or other stuff. A thought the bread was the weakest part, but I didn't think it was too bad. We thought it would be nice to get some Atlantic seafood while up in Saint John and the lobster roll was perfect for what we wanted.

For the side salad, we picked the Greek salad, which was a great option instead of just lettuce:


The salad came with plenty of feta cheese, tomatoes and olives, and a good vinaigrette dressing. It definitely wasn't as good as salads in Greece (nothing seems to measure up), but it was a nice accompaniment for the lobster roll and tasty.

In addition to the lobster roll plate, we decided to split the seafood chowder:


The seafood chowder had salmon, scallops, shrimp, white fish and lots of vegetables. It was very creamy and rich, but not too heavy. We liked how there was so much seafood in the soup.

Our delicious seafood lunch at Billy's Seafood was one of our last stops in Saint John and it was delicious!

Fast Food in Saint John

One thing we like to do while traveling is to check out the fast food offerings in other areas. We don't always eat there but sometimes just "window shop" to see what the different offerings are.

In Saint John, we saw that the Subway outlet had a bunch of sandwiches that we don't. The windows of the Subway shops by us are all advertising the new "oven crisp chicken" sandwich. But in Saint John, they have green chili steak and bacon, one that I'm not sure I've seen advertised here at home:


They also advertised the return of the lobster sandwich:


I don't think I'd really be comfortable ordering lobster at Subway, since (in my opinion) it's the type of thing that really has to be done right and not be as mass produced as Subway cold cuts usually are. I don't know if we ever had this, but it's not in our windows now!

Even McDonalds has different options outside the US. Often, they're better. In this case, Canada has something called the "McMini" which is a mini chicken sandwich with various sauces/flavorings, such as zesty mango, pesto and spicy Thai, and a "Tuscan salad":


While I don't go to McDonalds often (and haven't gone for a long time), the McMini is the type of thing I would like to try. It's a smaller portion size and a little more interesting than some of their other chicken options. But do we have it here? Of course not. But I wasn't going to try it in Saint John either, because we had a limited amount of stomach space and wanted to get poutine and some local seafood.

Any ideas why the non-US outlets of our US chains have more interesting food?

Poutine

One thing we really wanted to do during our day in Saint John was to try poutine. Poutine is a Canadian snack (from Quebec I think, but we couldn't get there) - french fries topped with gravy and cheese curds. Kind of like disco fries, but better.

We researched online and found a couple of places in Saint John that were supposed to have good poutine. One was Deluxe French Fries, located in the food court of the Brunswick Square shopping centre:


Sure enough, when we got there, there was poutine on the menu!


After a short wait, our poutine was ready:


It was really good. Our favorite part was the gravy, which was so full of flavor. It's probably not the best poutine ever as the cheese was packaged (and not fresh from that day) and it was in a food court, but it was good and we were satisfied with our snack. Canada is the first country on our world eats project so we will be investigating some other places here that serve poutine. It was nice to be able to try it in Canada to see how it should taste!

Deluxe French Fries is located in the Brunswick Square Shopping Centre on King Street in Uptown Saint John. If you're in Saint John for a cruise, it is a very short walk from the ship terminal and connects to both Market Square and City Market by pedway. The food court is on the lower level.