Scottohiocpa

When we went ashore, I wanted to buy some of the local rum, Bamburra and take it to the beach. The rules do not allow you to take it ashore, you can only buy it and then get back on the ship. So I waited and bought it on the way back to the ship.

They only sell 1 litre bottles, and the prices were about the same as the prices here in Ohio, so there wasn't much reason to buy something unless you can't get it at home like the Bamburra Rum. At 1 litre Bamburra was $20 or $38 for 2.

Next to the cash registers they sell the small 50ml (1 shot) bottles of about 10 kinds of liquor. These were priced at $2 for bacardi, $3 for abosolute, $3 for most other stuff. You could buy 4 and get 1 free. You are allowed to buy these and take them to the beach. We bought 4 bottles for $9 and got 1 free. Since 1 drink at Jack's is about $9 and 1 at Margaritaville is about $11, it saved us a lot of money. We took a cooler of ice with cokes and goombay punch (from Nassau) off the ship to mix them with.

Just as we were getting ready to get off the ship in Grand Turk, the CD came over the speakers and said no food was allowed off the ship. We had ordered sandwiches from room service. We left them behind and went ashore. No one was checking anything, so you probably could take stuff with no problems. I suspect they want you to buy more overpriced food at Margaritaville.

We went for a hike around the southern point, then got back on the ship for some lunch. The back off for the beach.

According to the port schedule, there are 2 ships in port about 5 days a month.

As expected, the area around Margaritaville was packed with Sunshine cruisers who got there at 8:00am. Further down, Jack's shack had all the umbrellas and chairs taken too. Around 2:00 it started to clear out at Jack's and Margaritaville cleared out at 2:30 as the Sunshine left at 4:00. We were able to get 4 nice chairs poolside in Margaritaville from 3:00 to 5:00 before we had to get back on the ship. At 4:00 they offered Margaritas at buy one get one (usually $11.00 each).

The area to the right of the ship was not crowded at any time and there were lots of chairs to pick from. However this area is rocky and not good for swimming without water shoes.

Once you get off the ship, walk towards Jack's shack. There are some shacks along the way that were selling 2 beers for $5. It would save you the cost of having a taxi take you 2 miles into town and back.

Looks like Guys is pulling away from the Iguana! Poll closes tomorrow!

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2055159

My wife has pictures of the Iguana and Guy's in her review.

By the way - the Iguana served breakfast tacos with chicken and cheese in them. They were the best breakfast I ever had on a cruise ship!

If you can't decide, check out my wife's review of the Carnival Glory she just posted. It has lots of pictures of both dinng places.

All I can offer is that I've never NOT seen my steward before muster. Those room motion sensors must work very well.

Actually those aren't motion sensors, they're cameras:eek:

You should be FINE! That is only 10 minutes sooner than what Carnival recommends.

We are getting of the Breeze in Miami, and have a 10:50 flight booked out of FLL.

After waiting 10 hours last year, I decided to book an earlier flight

Honestly, you should be good!:D:D

Last Saturday we couldn't get off the Glory until 10:20. Self assists didn't get off until 9:15 because 4 foreigners failed to go to customs and the ship couldn't be cleared. I am sure a lot of people missed their flights due to these 4 people whose names they called every 15 minutes until they showed up.

Last week there were thousands of broken ones, nothing even worth bringing home.

The water is rocky to the right (south) as you get off the ship and just soft sand to the left (north) all the way to Jack's shack.

Wife got a mixed drink at Jack's for 9 and a frozen Margarita was $11 at Margaritaville.

Jack's shack is 1 ship length from Margaritaville. It took us about 5 minutes to walk there. You will walk past about 5 other small operations in between.

Drink prices at Jack's are a little less than Margaritaville, but not much - Magaritaville charges $11 for a Margarita, Jack's charges $9.

The entire area from Margaritaville to Jack's is soft white sand and that sand goes over 200 feet out into the water where it's about 6 feet deep. Past that there must be some reefs because snorkeling trips were tying up out there.

If you turn right when you get off the ship you get into some rocky stuff and when you turn the corner at Boaby point there are even more rocks and thousands of empty Conch shells.

We were in port with 2 ships and Margaritaville was packed by the time we got there (2nd ship to arrive)

Round trip from FLL or in our case, a Dania Beach hotel was $100 for 4 people tax and tips included.

I would use them again.

Last week on the Glory I had Guy's Burger's 3 times and Iguana Cantina Tacos 3 times for lunch. Both of them were AWESOME!

Freshly made hot burgers on a warm buttered roll with all the topping you wanted. Seasoned fries on the side. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Or - Freshly made soft flour tortillas full of spicy chicken, pork or fish. Melty cheese and all the toppings or sauces you could ask for.

It was really hard to decide which one to get each day. I am curious to see which one will win this poll.

How many of you cc'ers vote for Guy's?

Or Iguana?

Or Can't decide?

But in this case it would "screwage fee" :D

Good one!

With YTD we had a different group each evening and the service did seem to vary greatly from one night to the next. This was our 3rd or 4th time with YTD and it was more consistent on previous trips.

I agree with the people who said they don't care if they meet their room steward. As long as the room gets cleaned, that's what is important.

The problem I personally had with this issue is that the refrigerator WAS LOCKED and the room steward was supposed to ASK ME if I wanted to have it unlocked or locked and full or empty.

We just got off the Glory May 31 - June 7 sailing.

Our room steward never introduced him/herself and we never saw them.

Finally on day 2 I asked guest services to have the room steward come meet us, unlock the refrigerator, and remove the alcoholic items from it. The guest services person called the "floor manager" and spoke to him. He said the room steward would come meet us as soon as he came on duty that afternoon. No one ever showed up. A guy who said he was just a "runner" finally came by with a ring of about 100 keys. He found 1 that opened the fridge. He said only our room steward could remove the alcoholic items because he didn't have a place to store the stuff. I said OK and he left. A little while later, he came back and said he was authorized to remove the alcohol items. We ran into several people out in the hallways during the cruise that looked like they might be our room steward but when I asked them, they all said no. On day 6 I went guest services again to make sure we didn't get charged by our phantom room steward for the missing alcohol. They vowed to have the floor supervisor meet us and the room steward too. Again, no one ever showed up.

Somehow the room got cleaned, the beds were done, and a towel animal showed up each day. If it had been a Disney Cruise I would have thought that Sorcerer Mickey had something to do with it, but this was Carnival.....

We had prepaid our tips for this cruise and I thought about removing the tips for a minute, but then I decided that the most important thing was that the room got cleaned and so I left the tip as is. We usually give our room steward an extra $20 or $30, but you can't tip someone you have never seen, so no additonal amount was left this time.

Just off the Glory and we had a great time.

This was not what we have become accustomed to:

My wife brought a bottle of wine the first evening to have with her meal and we have always thought the corkage fee was reasonable. No one ever came over from the bar staff to take drink order, and no one ever opened the wine for us. Halfway through the meal (about 1 hour) we gave up and I unscrewed the cap and served it. At the end of the meal we walked out with the half full bottle instead of having it stored for tomorrow as we would have liked. The next day, my wife brought a glass of it with her and it's a good thing she did because the bar and wine servers were no where to be found again. A bar server did come by and ask us if we wanted a drink the last 2 meals out of 6 and a wine steward did come by the last couple of evenings too.

Each night they did have two guys come around table by table trying to sell the "Shot of the day" in one of those fancy shot glasses that used to be served in the comedy club. This was their only job and it seemed they were not allowed to do anything else.

I did manage to order a Jameson's on one evening from a bar server. I highly doubt there was more than 1/2 a shot in my glass. It wasn't worth the effort to complain so I just didn't order any more of them.

Here's my ratings: (1 is bad, 5 is good)

Main courses:

Coconut Shrimp - 5

Lobster - 5

Prime Rib - 5

Pork Chops - 5

Strip Steak - 4

Lamb Shank - 5

Chicken Parm - 4

My wife and daughter liked most of their main courses too.

Appetizers:

Fried Calamari for the table - 5

Ceaser Salad - 5

Flatbread - 5

Shrimp cocktail- 5 (but kinda small portion)

Crab soup - 3 (tasted ok, but not much crab. The waiter told us he got a lot of complaints about this)

They did NOT have the fancy fruit in lime tequila or the proscuitto I really used to love.

I was disappointed that they did not offer a regular salad with a choice of dressings as a first course.

Pasta offering:

It was on the menu and we heard that it would be served for "the table", but in reality, no one ever mentioned it and I didn't see anyone eating it.

Desserts:

Blueberry or Cherry Pie - 2 (filling was good but the crust was like cardboard)

Warm Chocolate Melting cake - 5+++

Baked apple with Nutella - 3 daughter ordered this and the waiter brought her out a WCMC to go with the apple because he has had a lot of complaints about the apple

Cheese plate - 5 (but you used to be able to order this in addition to a dessert)

Fruit Plate - 2 (same old pineapple and watermelon you saw on the buffet at lunchtime. Except the pineapple was cut in a wedge but they didn't remove the core, making it really chewy)

Side dishes:

Even our waiters were confused. We had YTD and each night we heard a different story. One said the side was included, one said to order a side, one said to order 2 sides because they were small. In reality, the dishes usually came with a SMALL amount of something like broccoli or pasta to make the presentation look better, but if you really wanted a full size side you should order it extra.

Bread box - remember when they used to put about 8 butter pats out for 4 people? Now they put out 1 little 2" by 2" by 1/8" container of butter for 4 people. I like butter on my bread and this amount was about how much I put on 2 pieces of bread. One night I ordered a baked potato on the side. A waitress came over with sour cream and bacon and asked if I wanted some. I said no but asked for some butter. She rudely said "you already have butter on your table" and promptly left. I used the approx. 1/4 container left over from that day's bread on my potato which was about 1/4 of the amount I would have liked.

Now here's something a little weird - The assortment of bread was delicious and served fresh and hot. However here's the weird part - the french baguettes were usually burned black on their tops. The burn part was always face down in the basket so you couldn't see it until you picked it up. You could easily tear the burned part off and the remainder was really good. Just something I found a little odd.

Average dining time each night was about 1 hour 45 minutes. We left without dessert a few times because it was so slow.

The first ship that arrives at 8:00 will probably have an all-aboard of 2:00. So you should have a few hours in the afternoon for just your ship.

The sunshine is there from 8:00 am to 4:00. We are there from 11:00 to 5:30. I am hoping Margaritaville clears out at 3:30 so we can enjoy it for the last 1.5 hours before we get back on board.

We will be in port on June 5th on the Glory. We have to share it with the Sunshine so there will be more cruise passengers than inhabitants. The sunshine arrives at 8:00am and we don't get there until 11:00am. I am thinking they will get all the prime spots in Margaritaville and Jacks. Has anyone been on the island when another ship beat them into port, and were all the good spots gone?:eek:

We were going to rent a golf cart but I have seen where lots of people experienced break downs. Do they rent bikes - where and how much?

We will be be there on June 5th on the Glory.

Only 11 days til Glory for us!

I have upgraded from inside to outside or balcony many times with no problem. If the price of new location is lower you don't get the difference refunded, but they do give you the better room.

We are booked on the Glory May 31 and I started out with an inside for $2500 for 4 people and when the price dropped I got to change to a balcony for $2180. They did give me a refund of the difference this time because we had not reached the date when the final payment was due. Technically if they had not let me do it, I would have cancelled my original booking and lost the $200 deposit, then rebooked the balcony for $2180. It still would cost less for a better room even with the $200 forfeiture.

My wife and I walked over to the distillery in December of 2013. Here's my opinion on the place:

Good:

1) The distillery is built behind a cool historical old house.

2) They have a nice bar area where you can buy a drink and you can sit outside in a nicely landscaped patio area.

3) The guys working there are really friendly (especially if you are a young lady.)

4) They have free small tastings

OK:

1) There really isn't much of a tour, you look over a balcony area down on a few men and women putting labels on the product and some big stainless steel fermenting vats. They don't really say too much about the process. But hey, it was free, so I guess I got my money's worth.

2) Prices for a bottle of rum were high in my opinion - I think it was 25 to 30. I prefer the local Ricardo Gold rum which is less than $8 per bottle in town.

3) It was a 20 minute walk up a steep hill.