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Carnival Breeze June 11, 2017 Review


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Great review so far - thanks for posting! We will be boarding the Breeze in just a few weeks for our cruise. We are on the MB/GC itin. A few questions if you don't mind: 1) would you still bring the room fan knowing the AC was cool enough? 2) We are also doing a couple days of non-Carnival excursions. I had read on some post here that you needed to go to guest services to get priority. If I read the letter correctly, they tell you where to report for priority debarkation, right? 3) Finally, we are doing Mr. Sancho in Cozumel. Was it too hot to enjoy the beach? Should we consider something else?

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Friday 2nd Sea Day - We woke up and went to breakfast and then the cloud 9 spa. I left the spa and went to the Serenity deck for a couple of hours. Aaron is a light packer and found that he needed to do some laundry so he used the laundry facilities on deck 7. He said the washer and dryers were fast and efficient whatever that means. 🤣 It looks like it was $1.50 for the detergent and $3.00 each for the washer and dryer. I used the laundry room this evening as well to try to get some wrinkles out of my dress for elegant night. The iron was free to use. We had dinner and one pixels photo taken before we went back to the room to change before going to Flick the production. After Flick we made our way to the piano bar. We had hoped to go to a comedy show that night but the line formed 45 mins before the show and we didn't want to spend our time waiting in line. We spent the remainder of the night at the piano bar.

 

Saturday 3rd Sea Day - Went to breakfast and had breakfast burritos from Blue Iguana. After breakfast we went to the Tides pool and took in as much sun and views as we could handle. At 2pm Schwartz had a Q&A and I went to that while Aaron napped. The Q&A was fantastic. Then I went to Guest Services for envelopes for our additional tips. We prepaid gratuities but left additional tips for our head waiter and two assistants as well as our stateroom attendant and his assistant. The Chocolate Extravaganza was this afternoon and we were not impressed. We packed our luggage before dinner so that we could get it set out during the time Carnival had requested. After dinner we went to Lip Sync Battle and it did not disappoint. And finally we would spend our final awake hours on the breeze at the piano bar.

 

Disembarkation - We set the alarm for 6:30am but of course I woke up about 5:55am just as we were getting into Galveston.

 

We readied ourselves and went to grab our last breakfast burrito from Blue Iguana. We made our way to the Ovation theater as our instructions said at 8:15. We were only in there for a few minutes before they said our zone could leave. So sadly off the ship we went. Once off the ship we located our luggage in the terminal and found a porter. There was a very long line for immigration and even though there were only two of us and we didn't have a lot of bags we used a porter. If you use a porter you are taken to a separate area that has lines only for those requiring assistance with a wheelchair or a porter. This likely saved us an hour or so. We both traveled with passports and had no issues with immigration. We made our way to the area where Lighthouse was to pick us up and the shuttle pulled immediately.

One final picture of the ship from the shuttle pickup area.

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They have a rule that the shuttle waits 30 minutes or until the shuttle is full. When we boarded the shuttle there was room for two more people and there was another empty shuttle that pulled up. We thought surely they wouldn't make us wait 30 mins to fill two spots, well they didn't. They only made us wait the 25 minutes. It was a bit frustrating but we understand it was their policy. We were in our car and on our way home by 9:30am.

 

CHEERS - We debated back and forth on if we would purchase Cheers or not. At home, Aaron is a beer drinker and can put them down but occasionally will order a Long Island ice tea or other mixed drink. I on the other hand may have a glass of wine with dinner a night or two a week and maybe a couple of drinks on the weekend. Looking at our sail and sign print out they left for us it looks like we had 77 drinks on the Cheers package. I know that probably 8 of those were bottled water so. Ultimately we would have been better off not getting the Cheers program but I did appreciate that we didn't have to worry about the shock of what our final charge to the credit card would be. Next time we cruise we will likely pass on the Cheers package.

 

Cruise Director Schwartz - he was fantastic. He had so much energy and seemed to be everywhere. I don't have any real memories of the cruise director from my last cruise but have no doubt I won't forget about Schwartz. He is leaving the Breeze to go to Vista for a few months but then will be back on the Breeze when it moves to Port Canaveral. If you are able to cruise with him consider yourself lucky.

 

Food - I am a pretty picky eater and only found a few items that were not good on the entire cruise. The beef lasagna in the dining room was awful! We enjoyed the american table menu for the most part. We ate dinner in the dinning room each night except our first night. One night I ordered a steak from the steakhouse. It was cooked perfect and had a good flavor but it was a bit tough. Blue Iguana breakfast burritos were our go to for breakfast. We enjoyed Guys burgers for lunch twice. We never had the chance to eat at the Mongolian BBQ, Tandoor, Cucina Del Capatino, Bonsai, Guys Pig and Anchor, or the buffet for lunch.

 

Sapphire Dining Room Staff - we had anytime dining and these folks were wonderful. If you have anytime dining in the next four months on the Breeze I would definitely request to sit in Jakapan's section.

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Cloud 9 spa thermal suites and t-pool - I used these two days and Aaron used them three days. He enjoyed them and felt it was worth the extra $180 (I received a discount from John Heald that he announced on his social media page) I thought it was a waste of money. So next time we cruise on a ship with cloud 9 spa he can get an individual pass. The spa was never crowded but always had other people in there. During the time I did use the thermal suites and t-pool I found them to be relaxing. I think the most disappointing thing was the hours. It didn't open until 8am which was fine for Sea days but on port days we weren't able to find the time to go.

 

Playlist Productions - We went to each show they had and enjoyed all of them. Flick was my favorite.

 

Comedy club - we wanted to be able to attend more of the shows however as I mentioned earlier there was always a line outside the theater 45 mins before the show. The line often went all the way back to bonsai sushi.

 

Piano Bar - we spent a lot of our evening hours in the piano bar with Gregg. He was AMAZING! He is currently on the last week of his contract so when the Breeze returns to Galveston on Sunday he will go home to California. I believe his next contract starts in a few months on the Dream. You can search social media for Piano Dude Gregg.

 

We had a wonderful time on the Breeze. She is a beautiful ship. There were so many activities and food options that we weren't able to experience everything we wanted to. We found the other guests to be considerate and friendly. I was concerned about cruising in the summer with all the kids but it never felt to me like there were just so many kids like others have described. I could tell by the last two Sea days that many of the parents patience had worn thin and they were ready to get home. I've already planned my next cruise in March with my sister and her kids. Aaron said he definitely wants to cruise again but wants to wait until summer of 2019.

 

I'll try to answer any questions anyone may have.

 

 

 

 

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Great review so far - thanks for posting! We will be boarding the Breeze in just a few weeks for our cruise. We are on the MB/GC itin. A few questions if you don't mind: 1) would you still bring the room fan knowing the AC was cool enough? 2) We are also doing a couple days of non-Carnival excursions. I had read on some post here that you needed to go to guest services to get priority. If I read the letter correctly, they tell you where to report for priority debarkation, right? 3) Finally, we are doing Mr. Sancho in Cozumel. Was it too hot to enjoy the beach? Should we consider something else?

 

 

 

I would still bring a fan. We brought two but usually only had one fan on at a time.

 

I had also read that we would need to go to Guest Services but the letter we received didn't mention that so we went straight to the dinning room they said.

 

For us it was too hot to enjoy the beach. When in the water we were comfortable but the two of use could only stand in the water for so long. Mr. Sanchos was right down the beach from Nachi. If it weren't so hot we probably would have stayed longer. Afterwards we talked about it and wished we had done something different in Cozumel.

 

Have fun on your cruise!

 

 

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Other things I forgot to mention:

 

Carnival HUB- this was worked fantastic for us. I appreciated being able to see the scheduled activities on the phone as opposed to carrying around the paper fun times.

 

Wifi - I purchased the social media plan for the last two Sea days so that we could connect with family at home. Only one time did I have problems getting it to work, waited about 30 mins and tried again and it worked just fine. With Sprint while we were in ports we were able to call/text home for free.

 

 

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