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Comedian shines on the Carnival Fantasy

As a kid in Chicago and Sarasota, Al Ernst was called "Groceries." He hasn't missed a meal since. Today he is Big Al, one of Carnival Cruise Line's roving comedians. Self-deprecating Big Al says he's the 344th best comic in the fleet.

It all started on a Carnival cruise ship amateur talent show. On the Mardi Gras in the mid-1980s.

Al was fresh out of Lutheran Southern seminary. On his honeymoon. Always the jokester, he asked the crowd: "Why is it the airlines sit the fat guys next to each other? Do they think we want to share recipes?" The crowd responded positively.

 Eventually, he gained a career, lost the wife.

In February, I caught up with Big Al on the Carnival Fantasy, where he did his first paid cruise ship show in 1993. The crowd loved his shows as we cruised between New Orleans and the Yucatan of Mexico. See video of Big Al below.

Twenty-five years into the comedy business, Big Al could do a whole show on how he snatched the role of a regular comedian -- no easy task, as he balanced his hunt for humor gigs while working at a YMCA and some professional wrestling.

Wrestling was unplanned. He started as an announcer, then trained his way into the ring as The Inferno, a loser. "I could take a punch," he said. "My record is zero and 264."

As a struggling comedian, Al would take any job he could get, $50 a night, one evening   wowing the crowd, the next night a bomb. Same material. He remembers a stretch of bombs during which hecklers were flicking lighted cigarettes at him on stage.

Favorite tables cruising on Carnival Fantasy

Nineteen years  since I last sailed on the Carnival Fantasy. And still, I found my favorite tables for breakfast and lunch. As usual, at least one was empty.

In the early 90s, Carnival built its ships with a small balcony off the lido buffet restaurant at the aft end. It's a wonderful spot for starting the day with scrambled eggs and coffee -- outdoors, with a full view of the sea.

My favorite table, right, was empty the first day of our 5-day cruise out of New Orleans. But I had company at the next table, Jim Williams, below, a bus driver from Cincinnati, Ohio.

Ships now are built without the outdoor balcony, and Carnival says its lack of use by passengers contributed to the decision to expand the lido inside for more room to accommodate passengers who wanted to eat indoors. Go figure.

You'll find the door to the balcony all the way to the back of the lido, two doors actually, as the one on the left leads to a smoking balcony, the one on the right to cleaner air. Sometimes, high winds may force you back inside.

Carnival Fantasy just came out of drydock, and she looks good for a 19-year-old ship. The Fantasy's style has been toned down a bit from early days of flash and neon. Only negative I noticed was that it's now a darker ship. The lido needs more light. So did my bathroom in cabin U52, where two little lights are not enough.

Carnival has added its signature Evolutions of Fun -- a top deck water park with a 300-foot water slide, an adults only retreat called Serenity and a new pool area with fake palm trees.

Best of all, Carnival didn't mess with my favorite tables.

A tip for cruisers:

New government regulations require cruise passengers to check in no later than 90 minutes prior to departure. The 90-minute cutoff was instituted so cruise ships could send U.S. Customs and Border Protection the ship's manifest (a list of all passengers onboard) for review before  allowing the ship to depart.

If, for instance, because of weather or other delays, travelers miss the 90-minute cutoff, they will be denied boarding -- another reason to arrive at your cruise departure city a day early

Worth clicking:
Wine cruises drawing connoisseurs to sea

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Molyneaux is editor of TravelMavens.net. CLICK for articles on cruising, golf, Florida, Europe, adventure and travel gear and gadgets.

Cruising with blogger John Heald on Carnival Fantasy

You can tell that vacationing folks are having fun when you hear the laughter, the kind of warm guffaws that follow John Heald like a soundtrack.

Heald is a former cruise director for Carnival. He has become a celebrity throughout the cruise line by establishing a web site and blogging his personal thoughts, with great humor, about his life at sea.

Since he began in March 2007, Heald's blog has attracted 4 million hits. That's a high-powered blog. Now, Carnival sells John Heald "blogging cruises," turning away additional customers because Heald, right, wants no more than 400 devoted followers at a time. More than 400, he says, and he can't give everyone the personal touch.

Heald's touch is that of a revered talk show host. But the advantage of a blog is that the audience can talk back. And they do. The impact of Heald's blog is far beyond the life of John Heald and his wife Heidi, who is now pregnant for the first time at home in England. Readers respond -- congratulating and commiserating with each other -- as a community of Healdsmen and Healdswomen continues to grow. Heidi's pregnancy is a big hit, and a shower of community gifts and advice will follow.

It turns out that the 400 John Heald bloggers on this Carnival Fantasy cruise to Mexico have plenty of opinions about cruising, Carnival ships, and life experiences, but most of these passengers do not operate their own blogs. Instead, they use John Heald as their access to the Internet world, expressing their opinions as comments on his blog.

When they meet, they can't seem to get enough of John's banter, which teeter-totters between warm and devilish. This morning, at a question and answer session, Heald told his followers about his blog: "I get it up every morning," to a chorus of ahhhs, which led to more banter and more discussion about his wife's pregnancy. 

There is an earthiness about Heald's words.

"Each morning, when I sit there in my underpants writing my blog, I know you are out there," he said.

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Molyneaux is editor of TravelMavens.net. CLICK for articles on cruising, golf, Florida, Europe, adventure and travel gear and gadgets.

Cruising with bloggers on Carnival's Fantasy

Some 400 men and women who blog their thoughts on the Internet are heading to sea this weekend, on a cruise on the Carnival Fantasy.

Imagine that: Choosing to join 400 other people with opinions and a desire to express them. Such an experience would be a nightmare for some folks. Not me. I am a dedicated blogger about travel, and I am excited to meet others who put their thoughts on the Internet

Host for this extravaganza is John Heald, a cruise director at Carnival who has built quite a following to his personal cruise blog. When Heald invited me to come on the 5-day cruise and join him for question and answer sessions aboard ship, I quickly said "yes."

And then there's the sunshine. I live in Ohio, and I learned a long time ago that a few days of warmth and sunshine in February is worth all the hassles of getting there. In this case, the departure port is New Orleans, reason enough to get on an airplane Saturday morning.

As the weekend unfolds toward Mexico and back, I will tell you more.

For more info on Carnival's blogger cruises.

CruiseCritic has set a forum for its bloggers on the Fantasy.

For a free subscription to Travel Maven, type your email address in the box at left, or click upper right to add an RSS feed.

Molyneaux is editor of TravelMavens.net. CLICK for articles on cruising, golf, Florida, Europe, adventure and travel gear and gadgets.