splash_in_the_water

ha. for sure I shouldn't fuss too much but isn't that what people do here on CC? But yeah that wouldn't be fun to miss a port due to inclement weather. We've always been fortunate. My biggest complaint was it was so hot! (says the guy who went to Florida in july) 😂

Regardless this was probably the shortest cruise we've been on and honestly I don't know that i'd want to do it again. The term "booze cruise" was definitely applicable this time. Normally we book longer cruises but we were already in Florida so this was just a little bonus. Basically the old "you don't know til ya know" situation.

seems to me like if they jacked up prices a little bit that would be something but as much as 2x? I know it's a captive audience, blah blah but they'd probably move a bit more product if prices were closer to what they are on land. I know they gotta make money where they can, but I guess you gotta wonder if the point of the shops is to provide cruisers with a fun shopping experience  or make the most money possible? Yes. But there's a point where there's not a good roi. I think i remember learning this on those graphs in 7th grade, given the right equation.

but, like other things it must be working or they wouldn't do what they're doing. Like anything else, speak with your wallet.   Same like Disney world, etc.

2 minutes ago, stobe1 said:

Just curious. Would you have noticed this had you not looked at the map? Water is water no matter if you are doing circles there, north of there, south of there or east of there. You cant really tell a difference. A sea day is a sea day, especially when the port of call is so close. 

 

Take a look at Radiance over out of Long Beach. It goes between LA and Catalina and Ensenada. That ship basically does circles all day every day just off the coast.

you know I think we didn't really notice til we did look at the map, good catch. We just felt like if we were moving a bit more it would have made a little more breeze.

oh, perhaps it's even closer than I realized. I was basing what I thought on a video from a Youtuber. Before we went I guess I didn't realize it was so close. We had previous been to Nassau like 3-4 times, but like I said on cruises with multiple ports, necessitating longer sails, but dang I didn't know they'd just go in circles all day!

So last year we did a 3 night cruise out of Miami last July. One stop, Bimini in Bahamas. Wife wanted to stay on the boat and I only left to go swimming off the beach near the port where the ship docked. Also being July it was Hot, not just hot, but hot- hot. Like 90-95. 

SO why did I call it trip to nowhere you might ask? well here's why. Technically it wasn't nowhere but pretty darn close. Here was our cruise path.  Crazy huh? we had been on quite a few cruises here and there, most have been mostly at least 4 night to multiple ports so we had not experienced this before. From what I know a fast boat can get to Bahamas in like 3 hours, and maybe 7-8 for a slower boat? So carnival just had us basically drifting in the channel between Florida and Bahamas...probably just using bow thrusters to keep us in the circle. I get wanting to save some fuel but this was crazy. And since most of the travel was done overnight Instead so we were doing circles on our sea days, there was just about no breeze at all which really did not help create a breeze, and it was scorching on deck. I know Bimini isn't far but they could have done some bigger loops to at least get a few more miles on the trip. Also I'm not sure but I doubt this was to avoid "weather" further south. That could probably be figured out pretty easy.

So that's it. I'm sure this has come up before, I just haven't been on CC for a long time. 

On 7/17/2023 at 7:17 AM, Gamecock_Cruiser said:

I am not a big drinker. But 5.5 mixed drinks and you are at least even. You throw in a few bottles of water, soda's, and specialty coffees, and you are ahead for the day.

pretty much this. just this last 3 day i managed 10-12 drinks/day (all day) with a couple coffees everyday so it was worth it. I can put 'em back too but 15 was hard to do everyday.

otherwise beers were about 8-9.50 and mixed drinks were about 10-12.50 avg.

Hello everyone. So as the title states I called this the cruise to nowhere. To be fair we did go to Bimini the first full day then a day "At Sea" and that's where it gets funny.

So we arrived to the Terminal Via lyft from Fort Lauderdale. Got there just abour 10 a.m. per our "check in time". Boarding passes and id's in hand we got right through and sat in the waiting area for maybe 20 minutes and soon enough our group was called - we did have fttf, though i'm not sure what we really needed it for.

We boarded shortly after, typical gangway and "we're on the boat" dance. Went through the lobby and up to deck 4 to our muster station. Ours was "G", so alllll the way back. After that we headed to the coffee statin on Promenade (5) and got an iced coffee and wandered the ship a little but too much since we've been on similar ships and my better half sailed conquest last year.

Got some food, a guy's burger and a burrito. And yes, the fries weren't that good. just regular seasoned fries but the rest was as normal. Not phenomenal, but fine pretty much like the food for the duration. we attended the Welcome aboard show and won some candy from cherry on top  with a raffle ticket.

first night we did assigned dining (8:15) and were seated with another nice couple. We planned to go to the evening show at 9:30 but service was about slow and we got done about 10:15. We both got the roasted beef with potatoe. It was pretty good but not wow.

So next day we got to Bimini right around 7 or so "right on time"...through some creative navigating by the captain. Bimini is only 2 hours out of Miami so you can see in the first picture this was the route, out, south, hairpin and a loop then right into Bimini. My wife didn't want to go to Bimini since there's not a whole lot there and the ship was super crowded she opted to stay on. I went to Bimini prepared to find a good beach for shore snorkeling but  niceafter i walked down the pier and over to fisherman's village I lost ambition...it was wayyy too hot for me. I went to the beach by the pier and did some swimming/snorkeling. The water was very clear and quite warm, not refreshing but nice. I did that for a bit then walked back to the ship. By the time I walked back to the ship i was soaking in my t-shirt from sweat.

went to the 80's pop to the max show that night which was actually pretty fun. Then went and got a few drinks at Alchemy. Eventually she went to bed and i had a couple more drinks at the Casino bar.

Day at sea was what you'd expect. I want to point out that the regular buffet breakfast, the hot part is Garbage. Worse scrambled eggs I've had, over cooked brown and serve sausages instead of good links. second and third morning they did have a different sausage that was a bit better though. And while there was plenty of bacon , it was very thin  and a little burnt. 3rd morning I opted for the omelette and that was pretty good. But how hard is it to good "american" style breakfast??

so third day "at sea" was very hot on deck, and virtually no breeze due to the slow circling the ship did all , like a vulture waiting for roadkill. see second picture.  Basically the whole cruise we only travelled 319 n.m. That's  fewer miles than it took us to get to the airport...lol.

and of course overnight we finally sailed north and got into port just about 6:30 or 7. Overnight it was nice to feel the vessel "moving" and hearing the hum of the engines. 

Overall this was a fun cruise, huge party crowd , which is expected for a 3 night from Miami. But the food was only so/so. The staff was very nice and friendly .  The ship was clean and in good maintenance. Pools were wayyy crowded, and our bed wasn't the usual very nice carnival quality i'm used to. Not trying to be negative, these are just my thoughts. Probably in a year or two I'll be ready to go again, this time to some more exciting ports.

sorry it was late when i posted. For carnival I just needed my enhanced MI DL to go to Bimini, and from Bimini they were good with just my ship card.

finally just got home tonight from this strange cruise. No birth cert needed for me. Also I know they ask you to bring your ship card and an ID but i was just fine with my ID.

we're on thbe conquest in a couple weeks, debating packing the snorkeling stuff if there;s good snorkeling on Bimini. Looks like it's not the most exciting  cruise stop. thanks.

16 hours ago, sparks1093 said:

If your license says "enhanced" and has a US flag then you may cruise on a closed loop cruise with that, provided your cruise line doesn't require something more. If it doesn't have those two features then what you have is a REAL ID compliant license and you would need your birth certificate in addition to board a closed loop cruise. Two months is sufficient time to renew a passport, but I don't think that I would unless other travel plans required it (and I do have an EDL issued by Vermont which I have used for cruising and land border crossings). 

thanks. yeah mine is an EDL and does have the flag. Come to think of it I used it 2 summers ago when we did a trip to Nassau and back ...So I should be good but may bring the BC anyway.

Hey everyone! We'll be sailing on the conquest this July, it was sort of a last minute trip that's revolving around a couple other things that happened to be going in in Florida. The cruise just goes to Bimini and back My SO does have a passport , I used top have one and it's expired (and I don't know where it is currently). Regardless I probably wouldn't be able to get another in 2 months anyway.

But! I do have an enhanced DL from MI. a quick googling says it's valid for return from Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, or the Carribean....So not sure where Bahamas/Bimini falls into that . Heck our last cruise 2 years ago they didn't even check as we went through customs. I'm sure they're back to it now, but I do have a valid ID and I have a birth cert. somewhere around here.

i think it was our last cruise, like 2 years ago maybe?....A cruiser had a larger speaker at the pool. music wasn't offensive but i was sorta like "really, dude?" i guess some people care and some don't.

i' m more of a beer guy though I do like cocktails.  I do enjoy the red frog amber though and it was only available at the red frog rum bar, and the atrium bar. The tap at the red frog pub wasn't working.

Sailed out of Miami last Thursday. Normal sail out for Miami though we left a couple hours late- not sure why. slightly wavy the first night but nothing real bad-we've had worse. The sunrise was in good shape. paint was showing some typical surface rust here and there. we were on deck 6 aft and had an extended balcony room . the larger balcony was nice but kinda dirty with paint spatters here and there. also the door was hard to open- not sure what was going on there.

The stops at HMC and Nassau were good, though we didn't get off at Nassau. HMC was nice and the water was great- must've been like 82 or so...any warmer and it wouldn't have been refreshing. The food there was good. we mostly just chilled at the beach with a rented clamshell. pretty good for $30.

the new shows were pretty good- soulbound and vintage pop. Wife and i decided they really need to be more like a musical play than just song after song...each had a story but if they made it more like a musical it would have been even better. Oh well pretty good otherwise. The sunrise rock band was pretty good that played in the red frog rum pub on deck 5-very nice people if you ever get to meet them.

Not many gripes. oddly enough the atrium bar smelled like poop...maybe they had a drain backed up somewhere near or those drains don't have traps? i don't know but it was definitely there. Also the red frog bar ran out of red frog wheat before I could try it and the red frog pub's beer tap wasn't working.

we put our bags out the night before and waited til late debarkation since we weren't in a hurry to get to the airport, etc. went right through customs just by face scan.

otherwise it was a nice relaxing trip for my wife and I. any questions let me know!

we're sailing at the end of august,,,fair went down $15 pp so my wife called and got us $30 more OBC . that's like 4 boat drinks!

Hello there. So finally all this time we finally got to book a cruise since our trip last last spring was cancelled. We're sailing out of miami and back at the end of August. Currently my passport is expired and I will not be using it, will a valid ID and Birth certificate be enough to get me by? We're stopping at Nassau and HMC. Never had a problem before. Does pretty much only customs need to see it? I understand it helps if you

 get left behind in port or something-but we pay attention to time and are always on the ship well before . 

Anyway i'll keep looking for. Thanks cruisers!

Thanks. Yes. Us citizen. Sailing out of and back to Miami. I do have valid id's and birth certificate and all that as well. I did not intend on using the expired one - just stating that it was and was the reason I was asking 

Hopefully this is in the right spot. Finally after having our cruise canceled last spring when the stuff hit the fan.... Finally we're booked for the end of August. My passport is expired and our only stops will be Nassau and half moon cay... I should be good to go right? Unless it's something I need to return through customs. I also don't have one of those enhanced driver's license... Though I am for renewal this year anyway. 

Thanks 

we had a cruise for something like march 26 or so. cancelled obviously. they refunded the port fees/taxes, grats, drink packagaes- stuff like that but not the whole cruise fare which we're just sitting on to get the extra crediton our account. hopefully one of these days we'll get to use it lol...

On 1/4/2020 at 10:13 PM, adventuredancer said:

so i teach at a science museum and we of course teach about resusable stuff and no single use plastics. of course sometimes you can't avoid them. but we have come across paper, sugar, metal, reuseable plastic, pasta straws.

we decided to test them all. and of course the paper and  sugar melted. so we tried freezing them in a regular freezer, freezing them with dry ice, and freezing them with liquid nitrogen. (we sometimes go off on the deep end of a rabbit hole in our curiosity).

 

freezing them in a regular freezer did make the sugar last longer, but not a whole lot. it didnt make a difference with the paper.

dry ice: sugar lasted even longer. paper lasted less

liquid nitrogen: they both were initially more brittle. but they quickly warmed up and didn't make a difference.

 

 

probably the most interesting post in this thread. Straws....who knew? Thanks!

On 2/5/2019 at 7:48 PM, chloebell1 said:

THe food we thought was the worst was the bacon being greasy and undercooked and the flat iron steak in the dining room and the pork loin at the buffet being very tough. Even the baked potatoes were  hard. At breakfast they would only bring you a shot glass size of syrup at a time and I asked for sour cream at dinner for my potato and they bought a spoon of it to me. My guess is they think those things and butter and jelly packets are being wasted? My husband bought a fish sandwich at the seafood shack and only took two bites, it was really greasy. I do agree about tastes varying, I don’t like the food at the resorts in Cancun beacause it’s too bland but hubby thinks it’s better than the food on the cruise.

maybe it depends on the ship. I hear ya though. i usually like the flat iron when something else doesn't look as good. I as well love my condiments, so you better not cheap out!!

while this topic has been beat to death, i'll chip anyway. Some nice jeans and a polo/golf shirt/deck shoes on regular nights always looks good. Throw a sport coat on over for a quick and sharp look. 

elegant night, spice it up with some nicer shoes and some nice slacks, or those black pants you mentioned. again with the sport coat- can't really go wrong. He'll look good, and feel good too. Sometimes it's not something you even think about 'til you get all duded up, then you see yourself in the mirror and it's like "hey, check this guy out!" ...we all get comfy in our day to day, but it's nice to get out of the sweats once in awhile.

On 4/14/2019 at 9:56 AM, Joebucks said:

It is physically impossible to have a Budweiser thread without hearing that "better" beers exist. Just like everything else. There's better cruise lines, better food, better ports, blah blah blah.

 

Personally, I'm sick of craft beers. I feel like garbage after drinking them. I love a good Bud Light Platinum for abv and being lighter. What I'm more sad about is Carnival doesn't carry Jim Beam. 

i agree. i'm not a beer snob, hell, i even brew my own beer. It's funny to see people once they go up they can't go back down. funny how the microbrews started brewing lights and lagers now. I think all beer has it's time and place. Nothing wrong with a light here and there.