Travel Maven blog

Walking the ropes course on Carnival Magic cruise ship

Carnival Cruise Lines has introduced the first ropes course on a cruise ship. The 230-foot course on the new Carnival Magic, now cruising in the Mediterranean, is so well planned that anyone of moderate athletic ability will be able to get around. Yet, if you want to tackle the course at a different pace and style, you can get a serious workout.

Station by station, I worked my way around the ropes course on the Magic's sports deck in about 15 minutes, stopping to chat with others along the course. It had been a while since I did a ropes course – since my days in the U.S. Army – but this one is not terribly difficult, and no drill sergeant will be yelling at you to pick up the pace.

There are two courses, side by side, each in a circle, one inner and one outer, above Carnival’s new play area that includes such games as ping pong and foosball.

Cruising on Carnival Magic, firsts, thirsts, and the RedFrog pub

As the new Carnival Magic cruises in the Mediterranean, you can be pretty sure that for the rest of the summer there will be plenty of Thirsty Frog Red.

That’s the new draught beer with a Carnival Cruise Lines label, poured from a keg in Carnival’s first Caribbean pub.

The 3,690-passenger Magic debuted earlier this month to heavy applause. The ship offers three flashy production shows; the cruise line’s first family Italian restaurant, with singing waiters; and an impressive sports deck with equipment that includes workout stations and a fun ropes course.

Most of the media reports, however, have centered on the pub, and the day it ran out of Thirsty Frog Red.

Cajuns in land of crawfish and boudin, adapt, survive, eat, play

After consuming piles of crawfish and doing my best to taste varieties of spicy boudin sausage, I headed north from Cajun Country in Southwest Louisiana with a new respect for the strength of local traditions.

For some small understanding of Cajun culture, I am grateful to Barry Jean Ancelet, professor of folklore and Francophone studies at University of Louisiana in Lafayette. He spoke to a conference of the Society of American Travel Writers, stayed around to answer questions, and showed up the same night to share his appreciation for a terrific young Cajun band, Feufollet, above, playing at a popular joint for listening and dancing called the Blue Moon Saloon.

A Cajun delights in his politically incorrect name

Reader alert: If the word ass is offensive to you, stop reading this post now.
 

So, I was crabbing last week in Southwest Louisiana, which is Cajun Country, heavy on outdoors activities, music with an infectious beat, and plates heaped full of over-fried food. They fry everything here. I met a man who fries Oreo cookies, just because he can.

My guide in Cajun Country, Captain Sammie Faulk, talked about Cajuns as he baited a crab line with a chicken neck, hoping a hungry crab would grab the bait and we could snatch some dinner with a net.

Faulk surprised me when he described himself as a Coonass, which, as best I could determine, is a homespun word (sometimes hyphenated coon-ass) meaning Cajun Redneck.

Faulk, who speaks in a back country style but clearly is an educated man, said that Coonass is a term not offensive to him and his friends -- rather it is a badge of honor for working men whose lives are tied to the land and its traditions.

Canoeing Atchafalaya Basin, waiting for the flood

Canoeing in the swamps of the Atchafalaya Basin of Louisiana on Saturday, I had the strange feeling I was paddling in familiar waters. Just a week earlier, I was kayaking on the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. Hey, it’s possible.

When the US Army Corps of Engineers opened the Morganza Spillway north of Baton Rouge, sending flood water from the Mississippi into the Atchafalaya River, the level of waters in the basin – a huge swamp mostly but not totally uninhabited and an important vacation spot for fishermen and boaters – began to rise.

Where I was paddling my rented canoe, at McGee’s Landing just off Interstate 10 east of Lafayette, we were only about 4 miles from the Atchafalaya River town of Butte LaRose.

Boudin for breakfast, crabs for dinner in Louisiana

Some of us begin the day with a doughnut.

In Southwest Louisana, you might get started with a boudin ball.

According to boudin maker Kevin Downs, he sells as many morning balls of boudin as the local bakeries and fast food joints dispense doughnuts – 500-700 balls a day.

Boudin is a kind of sausage made with pork, rice, onions, and other assorted ingredients, then stuffed in a casing or formed into a ball and deep fried.