Getting off the Ship in Halifax

When you get off the ship (don’t forget photo ID and your S&S card) you enter an enclosed marketplace. This is similar to the tent market in St. John, but it’s much larger and located within the terminal building.

If you plan on walking the city on your own and need help navigating the city, the information desk is to the right after you enter the marketplace. We didn’t realize it was there when we got off. When we asked a tour guide for directions he informed us of the information desk. You can kinda make it out in this picture.

It’s right before the glass doors and the brick wall, so just look for that and you’ll be close to the information desk. They’ll provide you with maps and other information. The guy who helped us was very nice and explained exactly how to get to where we wanted to go. We wanted to check out the local casino, so we had to go right and down their boardwalk area.

Up next: a helpful hint for those who want to see the sights of the city for FREE!

The next morning (Tuesday), the view from our balcony was much better.

Is that Halifax in the distance? Yes, I think it is!

The pilot came onboard to help us to shore.

I thought it would be cool to get a picture from my secret deck. And guess what? I discovered the panorama feature on my camera!

Uh oh, now I have another feature to play around with!

100 points to the first person to find the mistakes in the following picture:

We were docked at the Pier 21 building.

At Halifax there were two gangways. You could get off at deck 3, forward or deck 2, mid-ship. The gangway for deck 2 was a lot less steep. So if you have trouble with ramps, I recommend getting on and off the ship at deck 2. Also, you don’t need to re-board at the same point you disembarked. So if I got off the ship on deck 3, I could get on at deck 2.

Both gangways lead to the same entrance at the terminal building, so for getting off the ship there is no advantage to taking one or the other. As you can see in the following picture, passengers are converging at the same point.

We were docked near an industrial port. We watched this ship pull out later in the day. (The big orange thing is the ship I’m talking about.)

They weren’t there in this picture, but later in the day I saw some people (locals, I’m assuming), pull into this parking lot near the ship and watch the ship. They took pictures and waved to us.

After the contest was over, Jorge came on stage to introduce the captain. The captain then drew a name for a raffle. I don’t remember what the prize was, but I do know I didn’t win.

Jorge then went on to explain the origins of Carnival. You know, when the Mardi Gras ran aground on its maiden voyage. The audience got a kick out of the story.

Afterward, Gerry Cahill and John Heald made a surprise appearance – onscreen, unfortunately – during the Carnival history video. As usual, they showed all of Carnival’s past and present ships, and you cheered for the ones you have been on. The Magic and Breeze haven’t yet been included as future ships.

That concluded the past guest party. And it was finished just in time for dinner!

I decided to take the scenic route to the dining room and snapped a photo of St. John, which was now a distant memory.

For dinner tonight my parents and I ate at the buffet. We weren’t very hungry, so dinner would’ve dragged on for a long time had we gone to the MDR. I got a tuna melt at the deli, which was very good. It wasn’t on the menu, so when I told the guy I wanted my tuna and cheese sandwich toasted, he looked at me funny. But he did it and it turned out well. This was my only taste of the deli on this cruise.

We returned to our room and there was an elephant waiting for us!

Guess what else was waiting for us? The fog.

The evening of St. John is when the past guest party is. We left the port at 4:00; the party started at 5:00. Unlike the captain’s “celebration,” there are still free drinks. Because Carnival is oh-so popular, the past guest party has to be held in the main show lounge, which is the Amber Palace on our Carnival Glory.

For those seasoned Carnival cruisers, you know the drill with the past guest party. Hand in your invitation at the door, grab a seat, and wait for the waiters to come by with free drinks and finger foods. I say “finger foods” because the food can’t really be classified as hors d’oeuvres (spelled right?) anymore. This year, you had two choices: chicken salad or (if I remember correctly) tuna salad on a cracker. Oh boy. What a treat! Long gone are the days of the hot meatballs and fancy foods. This is why I believe Carnival needs to start having platinum guest parties on their cruises, with real hors d’oeuvres.

For about the 100th time this cruise, I spot Fun Ship Freddy. Why is this guy all over the place on this cruise? I hardly ever see him on our cruises, but this cruise I see him everywhere.

I tried to capture a picture of our cruise director, Jorge. He was faster than you might think! I managed to get a shot of him walking out of the lounge. So for those of you wondering what Jorge looks like (I know I did before our cruise), here he is.

I’ve heard a good number of complaints on these boards about Jorge. In my opinion, he did a good job as CD on this cruise. He was funny, and he kept the PA announcements down to a minimum. There were also a lot less sales pitches over the PA system as well, which was a welcome change. If you’re cruising on the Glory in the next few weeks, Jorge will be your CD. Disregard the comments made about him on these boards, whether positive or negative. Go in with an open mind and form your own opinion on him. That’s what I did (after reading a lot of negative comments) and I ended up enjoying him.

One of the traditions of the past guest party is the Carnival trivia game. If you’ve been to a past guest party before, you know what this is. For those who haven’t, I’ll explain. They ask for a number of volunteers to come on stage. On this cruise about 20 people came up. I’ve seen as many as about 50 people go up on stage for this. They ask a series of questions, each with two answer choices. If you believe answer A is correct, you move to one side of the stage. If you believe answer B is correct, you go to the other side of the stage. Those who answer (or guess) correctly move on to the next round. Everyone else is eliminated. The winner receives a ship on a stick and a bottle of champagne.

The competitors got eliminated really fast on this cruise. The question that got most people knocked out was this: Which ship was the first to feature Carnival’s signature funnel ? The Festivale or the Tropicale?

Do you know what the answer is? I’ll reveal it in a little bit. But here’s the remaining contestants after that question:

That’s quite an elimination, right?

After that question, everyone but the lady and the boy in the next picture were eliminated. I think the question was: Which ocean liner was purchased and converted into Carnival’s first cruise ship, the Mardi Gras? Empress of Canada or Empress of Britain?

Believe it or not, the boy ended up winning the whole thing! His parents got the bottle of champagne and he got the ship on a stick.

By the way, the answers were the Tropicale and the Empress of Canada.

There was still a little bit of time before we set sail for Halifax, so I took a couple last-minute photos of St. John. How about one more picture of the St. John Hollywood sign? As a bonus, the Big Pink Bus is at the top of the hill too.

Two steeples and a Canadian flag in the middle of this view.

I noticed the Glory was also flying a Canadian flag, in place of the American flag.

Looking at these photos, you might think we got hit with some rain. Well we must have left just in time, because I don’t remember it ever raining this night.

Of course, I was at the past guest party for a little while, so it could’ve poured and I would not have known it.

Speaking of the past guest party, guess what’s coming up next.

After mini-golf, we played shuffleboard for a little while. I forgot to mention, you get the golf clubs and the shuffleboard equipment (sticks and pucks) at the towel hut on the lido deck. It’s right near the main pool; you can’t miss it. You can see it in this picture. Look for the blue tent to the left:

As I was saying, we played some shuffleboard. How do you get to shuffleboard? Stay on the starboard side of the ship (left side, the side with the towel hut). Remember the curved staircase I was talking about earlier? Walk up that staircase. Now, instead of going up the stairs to get to mini-golf, keep walking through the glass shields and past those stairs. The shuffleboard court is right next to the glass roof off the dining area below.

Here’s a picture to help you navigate better. See the curved staircase at the bottom of the photo, near the slide? If you look closely, you’ll see the glass shields on the next deck up. The stairs leading up to the jogging track (track is blue) are just beyond the shields. The mini golf is one deck up still. The shuffleboard is on the same deck as those glass shields, starboard side.

Some more information about shuffleboard: the deck is not well suited for shuffleboard. Perhaps my grandmother and I are just really weak, but we had to move up toward the front of the close triangle to get the pucks to the other side. We found shooting from the top-most horizontal line (right before the tip of the triangle) worked best. If we shot from behind the scoring area our pucks only made it about halfway down the court.

My grandmother started out well and was ahead by quite a lot, but I came back in the final round and took the lead. I wasn’t very good at aiming, which is surprising considering I’m a good bowler.

Up next: goodbye St. John, past guest party

Alright, I lied. We didn’t go back on the ship and eat lunch. That would explain all of those pictures. Looking further in the album, I discovered I took those photos before lunch. See folks? This is why if you’re planning on writing a review, you must take notes! I’ve lost track of time. NOW it’s lunch time!

One of my few food pictures. So enjoy it while it lasts! There aren’t too many things better than a big lunch from the grille on a Carnival cruise ship.

After lunch, my grandmother and I played two rounds of mini-golf, and my dad kept score. The course is on the funnel deck (yay!), and it is 9 holes. Just a warning to those going on the Glory: the last hole is very difficult and frustrating. It took my grandmother 6 strokes to get the ball in both rounds, and it took me 6 and 4 strokes for the two rounds. This is a par 2 if I remember correctly. Just an FYI for those who want to play some mini golf.

To get to the mini-golf course, walk up one of the curved staircases by the main pool, adjacent to the seaside theater. Once up on the next deck, keep walking aft, through the glass shields on the deck, and up the next set of stairs. These stairs will take you up to the deck with the jogging track. Next, you’ll have to get into the basketball court to access mini-golf. On our cruise, only the starboard stairs (the left side stairs, if you’re looking to the front of the ship) to the basketball court were open. Once in the ball area you’ll see the stairs leading up to the funnel deck/mini-golf.

The front half:

The back half:

And the funnel:

My grandmother won the first round, and I won the second round and the overall two-round score. We had a couple nice holes-in-one. And of course a couple frustrating moments, including hole #9. The wind on the on-board mini golf courses definitely comes into play. There were many times someone would hit a good shot, only to have the ball roll back to the start thanks to the wind. This cruise we played while in port, and the winds were still pretty strong. Last year on the Legend we played a couple times while the ship was moving at sea. Forget it. It’s so hard! But that’s part of the fun, right?

One last whale tail photo, in case you haven’t had enough yet.

Is there anyone out there who enjoys the funnel pictures as much as I do? If no one likes them, I’ll try to cut them out. I just love looking at them so much!

Am I the only one who thinks Carnival does a great job making the desserts look appetizing?

Their dessert stations always remind me of that scene from Jurassic Park when the kids are in the dining hall, right before the raptors in the kitchen scene. I just want to take a couple spatulas like the kid did and start digging in.

What’s the bad part about visiting Canada? Their water reminds me more of the Jersey shore than the Caribbean.

Oh well. There’s one thing I never get tired of looking at.

What you just saw is what happens when there’s nothing to do and I have a camera in my hand on a Carnival cruise ship. What would I be taking pictures of if I was on a Royal Caribbean or Norwegian cruise ship? I can’t imagine going up on deck and not seeing a whale tail!

Right near the general store museum is another marketplace, with more local vendors.

A lot of these stalls were family-run. The vendors would bring their kids, and you could see them helping run the stall. It was great to see such an atmosphere here. One vendor even brought their dogs to greet everyone.

Further down the road is Market Square, which is a small mall with some stores and restaurants.

I got some A & W root beer to quench my thirst. Mmm… It was nice and thick, not from a fountain. I can’t speak for all the stores, but at least the A & W stall accepted US$.

Back outside, I just had to capture another photo of the funnel.

Let’s throw in a lighthouse for good measure.

Alongside the Market Square are some pubs and restaurants. There’s plenty of outdoor seating. I didn’t see many people eating though. Of course, it was still a little early for lunch. (This photo was taken from the same vantage point as the funnel and lighthouse photos. This is looking toward the main road back to the ship. The outdoor market place is to the right of the photo.)

Looking in the other direction, the road leads to be what appears to be steps down toward that dock down below.

It looks like some tours might meet down there. I’m not quite sure what the story is with that boat and the crowd of people. Maybe someone else from the cruise knows what’s going on down there?

After the photo shoot from that lookout point, we headed back to the ship. On the way we stopped back in the tent market. I found an amusing vintage ad:

There was stall selling a lot of memorabilia like that. If you liked that, you should check out that stall if you’re going on this cruise. They had a lot of funny stuff.

Okay, back on the ship for lunch!

After we got done tent shopping, we ventured into the city. We didn’t do any excursions on this cruise. Sorry about that. If you’re interested in walking around and exploring on your own, I might be able to help you out a little.

St. John has a lot of hills. Steep hills.

This year we didn’t venture up the hills, but when we were here back in 2001 on the Victory with our friends, we walked all around the city. With my grandmother that just wouldn’t be possible this year, so we stayed fairly close to the ship this time around.

Hello Carnival Glory! (I just love looking at these ships.)

If you look closely at that last picture (of the Glory), you can see the crosswalks were a nice design, rather than just thick stripes. The people really seem to take pride in their city and want it to look its best in all aspects, even down to the crosswalks! This is one of the reasons I loved this cruise so much.

As we kept walking down the road, we ran into some friends:

This guy was a little shady:

After playing tourist for a little, we ventured into Barbour’s General Store. This general store is actually a mini museum. Admittance is free, but donations are appreciated. We walked in not knowing it was a museum. But once you walk in it becomes clear.