February 13, 2024 – Mardi Gras – New Orleans, LA – Broken Clouds – 57F

Laissez Les Bon Temp Rouler

Don’t know how much "roulering" will be going on since it is cold out there.  The temperature is stated to be in the high 50s but it feels a lot colder than that.

It is so cold in the ship that I am wearing long pants and a sweatshirt to breakfast.  

I did breakfast right today.  I asked a suit for cottage cheese and sour cream and got both – I should be able to get that tomorrow by asking over near the lox station, where the food of the gods is stored in a fridge.  I even had my soggy waffle toasted at the bread station.  Those items along with delicious scrambled eggs made for a perfect breakfast.

I brought Ellen her standard breakfast.  It would have been too cold for her to come up to the Cafe for breakfast.  Fortunately, the heat is working well in our cabin. 

We decided that it was too cold to go out today and instead thought we might be able to see parades from the upper decks of the ship.  We did not see anything that looked like a Mardi Gras event (even though I checked out the parade route and we should have been able to see something). The same thing happened the last time we were here - the parades did not show up where they were scheduled to. (Note: I ended that sentence with a preposition - it's now OK to do so according to grammarians).  

Ellen and I went to the Oceanview Café for a late second breakfast – for me, herring in wine sauce; for Ellen some scrambled eggs.  We got good seats and watched river traffic.  The ship is still being watched and protected by gunboats.  

We had lunch a little later due to the dual breakfasts.  Today, I had a veggie burger at the Pool Grill (Deck 10 just outside the Oceanview Cafe) and it was wonderful (either a Beyond or Impossible Burger).  Ellen had the fare at the Spa Café (she was not impressed with the salmon "patty").  I did like the guava juice – no iced tea at this healthy place.  The burger will be on my lunch menu again. 

The afternoon was spent in both the Oceanview Café and Reflections Lounge.  

We left when the music trivia started and the music got too loud.

We had dinner in the Oceanview Café.  I chatted with the Pasta Guy about how to make my pasta.  Their process involves briefly warming the pasta in hot water and a sizzling the veggies (they don’t have onions or tomatoes on their options but I can get them at the salad bar about 20 feet away) and the pasta briefly in the pan before putting them into a bowl.  The sauce is then poured on top.  I asked him if he could cook all of it together in the end and he did, but explained to me that it’s not done due to possible food allergies.  Other Celebrity Pasta Stations are not concerned about food allergies and two of the sauces are tomato based so it would only be the meat that would be a problem.  Also, not sure how that works when shrimp, available here, is sauteed before being added to pasta - shellfish allergies are pretty common and the pans are potentially contaminated with shrimp.  I need to be the first in line before anything gets into the pan that I don't want to be there.  

Ellen had some trout (salmon trout – red trout), the same fish that was on the Dining Room menu yesterday.  The grill at the aft end cooks the fish to order – she had that with a baked potato.  We checked out the desserts but none of them did the trick.

We could not see any parade activity even though we were pretty high up in the Café.  I did get a very nice shot of the sunset with New Orleans in the foreground. Ellen's picture was better because it captured UAP (formerly known as UFOs) watching the good times roll.

We then went the Rendezvous Lounge where the Lucky Band was playing.  Seats were hard to find and we wound up leaving because the cigarette smoke from the open deck had entered the ship (the doors were open since we were spending several days in New Orleans).  From there we went to the Reflections Lounge where we were comfortable until trivia started.  The trivia leader is so loud that we could not stay there any longer.  Our only other possibility was our cabin.  Deck 2 is really cold since that is where the overnight gangway is located.  When we got to our cabin, it was cold and the heat was at maximum.  I’m hoping that the heat is not malfunctioning and the problem is due to the cold air in the hallway.

Lights out at 10:30 PM.