Friday Dec 9
Carnival Wine Cruise 2005
Friday was an at sea day - and had 3 events scheduled for the wine club. We woke up about 9am - having set our watches back properly from our day in Mexico - and Bob brought me down some melons for breakfast. By 11am we were in the Golden dining room for our varietal tasting. Notes on that will be on the wine site.
When we were done there was a LOT of wine left, and we took 2 glasses for lunch. I also stopped by the room to get a glass of port as today was the chocolate buffet for lunch. We headed up to the Emile's area. I once again had my delicious tuna tataki and Bob got Chinese. He then got some fish & chips while I got some chocolate items. The chocolate buffet was VERY extensive and had a great deal of options there. I really loved the rum balls. We sat with a couple from Florida - she was a travel agent - and talked a lot about the wine club offerings.
chocolate sushi
When we were done we headed back to the room for me to type up yesterday's notes, then it was 3pm and time for the Spanish tasting. You can read about that on the wine site.
When that was done, at 4:30pm, they announced that they were ready to do the sabre demonstration for us. They had wanted to do this for us on the first night, but were worried about the cork flying around and hitting something. They decided to do it on the basketball court - the court is fully netted, and would help ensure that Carnival's "100% zero emissions into the ocean" policy would not be violated by a cork! We all trouped up to the basketball court. It was VERY windy up here on these upper decks. As we passed the big-screen TV, they were doing a movie trivia contest, playing little clips of movies and having people figure out where they were from. A lot of people were sitting on the pool chairs playing along.
We waited for about a half hour before the Champagne was ready to go. First, the rep from Perrier Jouet did the sabre slice. In essence she held the Champagne bottle in one hand, the sabre in the other, and whacked near the cork with the sabre. It cleanly broke off the top of the bottle, sending that flying. We then were able to get glass-fuls of Champagne to drink! A member of the wine group then gave it a try, and did it on her second swing.
Like the pied piper, the Perrier Jouet rep led us all down to the bar to finish off the two bottles. Then Bob and I swung by the photo area to look through the pictures - two of them came out rather nicely and we bought those (about $7 each). We met up with the Spann winemakers and chatted for a while, listening to the garden trio of musicians play lovely classical music. The lights were on a "slow wave" pattern which was very soothing. After a little while, we decided it was 5pm and we should pack and prepare for the 7pm farewell Champagne event.
Oh - I was just uploading this and ran out of my 110 minute plan - so it was perfect timing almost!
We dressed up for dinner and went down to the Victoria lounge for the farewell ceremony. Bob D. gave a short talk and we all cheered for the crew that managed the events. The Champagne poured liberally with most people getting 5-6 glasses, plus a number of appetizers. Finally we were all set and headed down to dinner. The dining room was sparsely populated tonight, and we were alone at our table. We had Alex all to ourselves. I gave him and our second waiter 2 origami dollar bill creations each, in thanks. Bob also gave them $20 as an extra tip.
Dinner was quite good, and when we were done we hung out with Peter Spann of the Spann Winery for a while, finishing off the port we'd brought. Then we went up to the room and finished our packing. We put our bags out before midnight as instructed, and headed to sleep.
Photo Collection from Friday
Carnival Liberty Winecruise main travelogue page