mzlinda

I was on this cruise last week too. I thought it was fantastic and I agree that Louise was a highlight.

I don't eat any fish or seafood at all so dinner was a bit challenging for me. I'm assuming the menus were so heavy in fish and seafood because it was an Alaska cruise. In spite of that, I thought the MDR dinners were outstanding, and those chocolate desserts....oh my!!!

We went to Sabatinis for dinner on the 2nd or 3rd night. My entrée was stuffed chicken and my friend had lobster 3 ways. They sat 4 or 5 tables of people pretty much all at the same time and our waitress seemed to be running ragged the whole time. We were underwhelmed by both the food and the service. In fact, we left that dinner and cancelled our reservation for the Bayou. We found food and service in the MDR was better.

As for excursions, we took the White Pass Railway up and back in Skagway. We also did the dogsled/musher's camp there.

In Juneau, we did a helicopter tour to Mendenhall Glacier. There are 3 versions of this tour, depending on how long you actually want to walk around on the glacier. We took the shortest 1 which was perfect for us. Although it was not raining while we were there, recent rain made the glacier very slippery so I was glad we weren't hiking around on it for too long . The helicopter drops you off at the Glazier and goes back to get another group of people. Then a helicopter comes back to pick you up and drops off a new round of people. A storm was just blowing in as we left the glacier. We heard that a group of people were stuck on the glacier for three hours during the storm, but that didn't happen to us thankfully. We also heard from our pilot that dog mushing in Juneau was canceled due to weather so we were glad we went in Skagway.

In Ketchikan we went to the lumberjack show then walked to the salmon ladder in the pouring rain. Didn't see any salmon on the ladder but we spotted a few along the way.

Speaking of spotting, we saw a hand full of bald eagles on our trip, and more than a few whales, but no bears. However we didn't take any wildlife excursions so we were happy with what we saw from the ship.

I was impacted by the Delta issue last week. Our plan was to fly to anchorage Tuesday. Our cruise started Wednesday. Our 1st port was Saturday. Delta could not rebook us until Thursday so we were going to miss embarkation on Wednesday. Princess said we could take the Thursday flight and stay in Alaska at our own expense and they would get us to the ship before it left Skagway Saturday. It was a Voyage of the Glaciers cruise and we would have missed the glaciers days of Thursday and Friday and we likely would have missed at least our morning excursion in Skagway which was the White Pass Railway, and we might have missed our afternoon dog sledding excursion too. We ended up buying same-day tickets on American Airlines to get to the port for the original embarkation time.

We mistakenly assumed Princess would be responsible for rebooking us on new flights since we used EZAir, or Delta would be more accommodating due to the amount of business they get from Princess. Also, we thought we didn't need insurance with EZAir.

It was a very expensive lesson. Always get insurance (I usually do) and really look at your itinerary to figure out exactly how 1 or 2 day air delay would impact your trip. In our case, our delta flight was supposed to get us to anchorage at 6:40 pm Tuesday. The ship sails from Whittier at 8 pm Wednesday. So even if Delta had rebooked us for the very next day (Wednesday), we could not have made it to ship by 8 pm.

In hindsight, there just aren't that many flights that would get us from SC to Anchorage. Flights can be cancelled for any number of unexpected reasons. If you're traveling a great distance to get to a cruise, make sure you have a workable "plan b" for getting to the ship. In our case, if we were even delayed 1 day, it would not have worked.

We're flying into Anchorage a day before our Island Princess Southbound cruise and we have transfers thru Princess from Anchorage City Center to Whittier. Our travel documents say to check in by 11 am with our luggage and that buses begin departing at noon but the documents don't really say when the last transfer leaves. If we check in at 11, can we leave our luggage and come back 3 or 4 hours later to get on a bus?

Thanks for any info you can provide.

I bring some cash and charge some to my card. If you are going to play table games (poker, craps, roulette, etc), I've read that there is a small surcharge for charging that to your S&S although I have no firsthand knowledge.

As for slots, even if you pay with cash, still put you S&S card in the machine the entire time that you play. If you accumulate 500 points, the machine will give you $5 in free play. If you accumulate 1500 points, you are eligible for free drinks in the casino. At higher levels, you may begin to get discounted or free cabin offers for future sailings. You might think that you aren't going to spend enough to get these things but you could put $50 in and win $200, then keep playing with that money. That can go on all night. Basically you earn points every time you spin, regardless of whether you are playing with your own money or with the winnings.

Good luck.

Thanks for the overview. I'm on the Island Princess in 2 weeks. I find that if I do a little research before I board a ship so I know the pros and cons, I have a better time.

I always enjoy discussions about dining room attire. Opinions are so diverse.

I do dress up on elegant night and I wish everyone did, just for my entertainment. I love seeing everyone that way.....especially families with little kids dressed up. I could hang out in the lobby bar all night watching elegantly dressed people having family photos taken on the grand staircase.

But I am not bothered at all by what anyone wears. I've been on 3 cruises in the past 8 months, all on Carnival, and I really can't remember what one single under-dressed person was wearing.

In January, I was in cabin M88 with my mom. That's an inside cabin. When's you walked in the cabin, we had one bed along the wall on the right hand side and one bed along the back wall in front of the window (which is not really a window in an inside room). That did leave a bunch of open floor space. The Pullmans were on the left and right walls. Since my bed was along the right wall, if that Pullman was down, it would have been completely above my bed, like bunk beds. If the left Pullman was down, it would have just been over moms head.

I hope that helps. Sorry that I don't have pictures.

I always receive an email for anything I order in advance. I always bring it with me although I've never needed it.

On the Glory last month, our steward introduced himself and said "I will service your room twice per day". We didn't ask. He just told us. A couple of evenings we saw him in the hall and said we didn't need/want anything, but the minute we left the room, he turned down the bed and filled our ice bucket anyway. He was fantastic.

We booked the Vista 1 year out and we were waitlisted for early time dining. That never happened before. I checked daily for FTTF and got lucky to get one as it sold out in a matter of hours. I specifically bought FTTF so we may have a better chance to get a early dinning seat I'm kind of set in my ways for dinner time and would be upset if I had to wait over 30 minuets for anytime. Is there anyone else that got this perk with FTTF?

 

Thx...

I've been waitlisted 3 times and each time when I boarded the ship, I always had my desired dining time. I always get FTTF and I assume that's why I was able to get the dining time that I wanted, but there's no real way to know for sure. Maybe I would have got it anyway.

LOL - definitely wasn't boasting but we did worry about having such an early flight so I honestly just hoped to reassure others that early flights are doable, especially with FTTF and self assist luggage.

It's easy to misinterpret posts. Wasn't trying to cause any controversy.

 

I and I'm sure others appreciate the fact that they posted that their debarkation went smoothly.

Yes, thank you! This was exactly my reason for the original post. My friend is traveling back to Vermont. She had very few options for flight times. If this keeps 1 person from stressing about an early flight that they have booked for a future cruise, then I'm happy.

Why? I always enjoy every possible minute of a cruise. I'd rather be taking my time leaving the ship than rushing off. Besides, I usually spend time in the home port pre- and post-cruise for at least an extra day or two.

Why? 2 reasons -

1. my travel companion had an early flight and we wanted to travel to the airport together. I only get to see her once a year and I would rather spend an hour waiting with her at the airport rather than 2 more hours on the ship causing a hardship for their staff.

2. I get FTTF so I can be one of the very first guests onboard. It seems only right to get off just as quickly as I got on so my room can be prepared for the next person. It does not seem right to think I should be first on and last off.

Wow...that's early.

 

 

 

Since you just got back from the Western route (which I'm 21 days out from), I expect a full report (once home and rested) with pictures, scanned funtimes, scanned menus, etc.

 

 

 

Or just a quick how it was, I guess that'll do too :)

Sorry but I won't be doing a full review. I'm not a detail person.

I will say that this cruise was just OK for me but that was due to circumstances not in Carnival's control. Here is some background info. We were in cabin 7439 which is an L shaped cabin with a long balcony, very far aft. This was a girls trip with a friend. I've been on the Destiny, Breeze, and Fantasy (3 times because I live close to Charleston), and RC Adventurer of the Seas.

We boarded the ship in the midst of tropical storm Colin and our cabin was aft. The first two days were extremely rough and pretty rainy too. Everything in our cabin shook and vibrated to the point where it was hard to sleep at night. In the MDR one night we were slammed so hard that everyone screamed. By the 3rd night, us 2 seasoned boaters and fairly experienced cruisers were at the guest services desk asking for motion sickness meds which were cheerfully dispensed to us for free. We were never actually sick, but feeling a little green. We blamed all that motion on our cabin choice but by about the 4th day, the seas were calm, the sun was out, our room stopped vibrating and we were able to finally enjoy our extended balcony. Our last full day was a sea day and the captain announced that we would be proceeding full speed ahead back to Miami due to an onboard medical emergency. By 8 or 9 pm we were docked back in Miami with a not-so-beautiful overnight view of the terminal building from our balcony.

As for the ship's itself, it shows its age similar to the Fantasy, but everything was clean, and we always received that friendly Carnival service that I love. Our room steward Imade introduced himself the first day, explained that he would service our room twice daily and told us what hours he worked. We had a bottle of vodka from bon voyage and he refilled our ice bucket morning and night. He did a great job.

We had YTD which I hate but my friend loves. We had a different waitstaff most nights. The first night service was pretty bad, but the others nights were all good to excellent. MDR food was typical Carnival food. Nothing really outstandingly good or bad.

We didn't see any production shows. We saw one comedian named Percy. His show was just Ok. They did have Quest on this ship but we missed it, which I regret, since it is hilariously funny. The calypso duo on lido was awesome, the house band Resting Beach Face was great and the cruise director Eric was the best CD I've ever encountered. OMG when he does music trivia in the lobby and makes people in the glass elevators dance, I die laughing.

I was impressed by our captain who kept us well informed about the weather and our schedule.

We visited Goff's Caye thru Ecotours and we visited the monkey farm and did a mini island your ---one of those was Belize and the other Roatan although I don't remember which was which. My friend arranged the excursions. We just walked around the ports in Cozumel and Grand Caymen since we had visited those islands on previous cruises.

Overall it was a pretty good cruise but it was overshadowed a bit by the bad weather at the beginning, and by about 3 days of feeling queasy, and by that horrible feeling I got in the pit of my stomach just knowing there was an emergency onboard so severe that we returned to port early which means something terrible happened to someone.

Embarkation and disembarkation were both a breeze because we always get FTTF.

Well, I guess I did a little review after all. I'll have to figure out if I can copy/paste this into the review section.

Just off the Glory and already in a taxi enroute to the airport at 7:40 am

My one and only trip to HMC was last year. We spent just about every single minute in the water. We brought blow up floats from home and floated around talking to people. For me, HMC is a cheap beach day.

Maybe it's like a balcony cabin where you don't know what you're missing until you try it.

[emoji23] no ultra offer for me. Boo hoo hoo. My first Premier is 10/8 and I was really surprised to get that offer because I'm not that much of a gambler. It would have been pretty sweet to also get an Ultra but I'm not complaining.

Mine said "up to $300" which meant $300.

Table cloth or no table cloth........Glory has more aft vibration than ANY ship I have been on and my next cruise is #25

That's not what I want to hear. I'm in a bowling alley aft balcony on the Glory in 2 weeks.

LOL Well now I've seen it all.

I'm used to people commenting on how wrong it is to smuggle booze onboard because it raises the cruise price for everybody but now in this thread someone has even commented that buying a bottle from Bon Voyage is wrong because you are taking money from ...well I guess they didn't exactly say who it is taking money from but I think they mean it's taking money from the drink servers.

Geez!

I was not able to upgrade my Bb from interior to OV back in January. There are a limited number of each room type available under that offer and by the time I called, only interiors were left. Good luck. Let us know how you make out.

I had a 14 year old at my table in the MDR last year. He spent about 10 minutes with us each night because he was in such a rush to get to the club. He always preordered his dinner the night before so it would be quicker.

Hope this helps. From the Carnival web site, Carnival Glory deck plans.

http://www.carnival.com/cruise-ships/carnival-glory.aspx?cid=Psearch_A_G_&SE=Google&KW=carnival_glory_deck_plans&CM=Carnival_Ships_-_Exact&AG=Ships-Glory&gclid=CI3Sj5Wp08wCFc5ZhgodTkYLJA&gclsrc=aw.ds

Go to Deck 7 and click on cabin number. Look at 360 views and floor plan.

Thanks. It looks pretty good to me. We splurged on an $85 bottle of vodka since it'll be such a long walk to the bar. Now if we can just get our room steward to find a 2nd lounge chair for us.

I'm in room 7439 on the glory next month and I've been worried ever since I booked it. I don't know what the correct catchy name is for this cabin but it's right before the wraparound balcony. We have a long balcony but our room is oddly configured (broken up by the crew stairs) and I understand that you have to practically climb over the bed to get to the bathroom. I'm excited about the balcony. Just hope it's worth it when we see the room.