Patty421

After dinner we put the kids to bed and it was out to the piano bar. The layout of this piano bar was a bit different as it had seating in an open area on the promenade. We had to stand a little while as the place was packed. It was actually packed every night and the reason why was because we had Ben Gentry. He was one of the best. We skipped all the shows every night to hang out in the piano bar. It was so much fun. After 11 pm it became dirty pick up lines and toasts. He also had hats that he would hand out for country songs and glasses for Elton John songs. There was so much audience participation and if you did not join in he would call you out and shine a flashlight on you.

Before dinner we went to the welcome aboard show. I usually like to go to this to meet the cruise director. I was very disappointed because originally we were suppose to have Butch. We had sailed with Butch on the Liberty back in 2006 when he wasn't even a cruise director. He was fantastic then so we were really looking forward to sailing with him again. His schedule got changed though and we had Pete instead. Pete was no Butch but he did do a pretty good job. We had the late seating for dinner in the Blush Restaurant. We had a table for 4 on the upper portion. Our head waiter was Dennis. He was good but we never met our asst. waiter. He never bothered to introduce himself to us.

Tomato soup

Chicken fingers

Beef Brisket

Sweet and Sour Shrimp

Fried Chicken

Cream Burlee

I tried to scan the fun times, not sure if everyone can see them ok.

Jayden cried for a while and did not want to move from the room to go do anything. I suggested we go play golf and that seemed to work because he loved that idea. Little did I know that he would become obsessed with playing golf. We must of played about 20 times on our vacation. He loved it.

After golf we had lunch at Guy's which was great. We first tried Guy's on the Glory and for some reason I didn't think it was as good on the Breeze. After lunch we headed to the tides pool bar which was in the back of the ship to meet up with our roll call. We had a very large group. One of the members bought everyone these nice bracelets to wear so we could find everyone onboard.

Denny decided to organize a slot pull for the first sea day so at the meet and greet he signed everyone up with a time slot for the following day. Sail away was around 5pm and it was beautiful. This was our first time sailing from Miami and now I think it's the best port to sail from.

Did you have cruise insurance? That would have covered you with no issues. I think maybe a 50 deductible.

Since you were still in the USA perhaps your own medical coverage might have covered it with a claim.

No cruise insurance but we never saw a bill. I'm thinking it was because we were still in Miami. They did call several times through out the cruise to make sure he was ok.

Loving your review and can't wait to read more! We sail soon and I'm very excited about this ship. What type of room did you have? I love it.

It was a balcony suite. Room 7252.

Five minutes after being in our room we had an incidence. Jayden got his thumb caught in the balcony door. It was so badly bruised and a color I didn't like so we had to bring him to the medical facility. They weren't even open yet so we had to go to guest service and they called them to open. They looked at it gave us some medicine and ice and basically told us just to watch it but Jayden cried for a good hour and didn't want to move his hand.

Saturday Cruising Day:

Our hotel offered a shuttle to the port. Denny went ahead of us and told the driver to pretend he was taking us to the airport. When we got into the van the driver played along and asked us what airline we needed so Tyler didn't suspect a thing. Our plan almost hit a snag when three more people joined our van but the hotel managed to tell them what we were doing and they didn't say a word. Just before we pulled up to the port Denny handed Tyler a box to open and inside was the shirt that Denny had made that I showed in a previous picture with Carnival Breeze and the dates we were sailing. He was very surprised and couldn't believe it!

We had Faster to fun and were onboard by 11:30 am. As soon as we were onboard Denny made us run to the Red Frog Pub. I thought he was nuts but we were the first to arrive and that meant two free drinks and our picture taken and then we ended up on John Heald's page.

More Red Frog

After that we headed to our room which was ready. Denny surprised me with decorations for my birthday which was March 15th.

I was on this cruise with you as well - excited to read your thoughts and experience from the trip! :)

Awesome! Were you part of our roll call of FB group?

More to come later tonight. :)

After we got settled in we were pretty hungry. I wanted to try some Cuban food which we had never had before so we went on a hunt for a nice Cuban Restaurant. We stumbled upon El Meson De Pepe's. I didn't know what to order so I was happy to see a platter that had 3 different dinners in one. It was very good. I wish I had taken a picture of our food.

After dinner we spent some time at Mallory's square for their sunset celebration. They had lots of vendors and street performers. Tyler actually got called into a comedic magic act. The next day Friday we took our hotel's shuttle downtown and did some sightseeing and shopping.

The Carnival Victory was in port!

We had lunch at Margaritaville which is Denny's favorite. Around dinner time we headed back up to Ft. Lauderdale where we were staying at Homewood Suites. We grabbed dinner at Steak N Shakes which is our pre-cruise tradition in FL. Tyler still had no idea about the cruise. At this point he thinks that we were flying home in the am.

8 day Southern Itinerary: Gran Turk, La Romana, Aruba, Curacao

About Me: My name is Patty. I'm a 33 year old nurse from NJ. Traveling with my husband Denny (33) who is a retail manager of Dollar General and our two boys Tyler (11) and Jayden (3). We tend to cruise twice a yr. This cruise was our 10th, Tyler's 6th and Jayden's 5th. We've been back and forth between Carnival and Royal Caribbean.

Denny had shirts for us made.

When we cruise we usually like to extend our vacation so this time was no different. We decided we were going to spend some time in Key West. Our cruise left Saturday March 15th but we flew out of Atlantic City on Wednesday night. We had this trip booked for over a yr. Actually we booked it onboard the Splendor last yr. Tyler had no idea we were going. It was very hard to keep this secret especially as it got closer. We had to pack while he was at school and hide our suitcases in the garage. After he got home from school on Wednesday we got into the car and told him we were going out to dinner. He was pretty confused when we showed up at the airport. We still did not tell him yet though. This was only part one of the surprise. At this point we had to tell him we were going to FL but we told him it was only for the weekend and it was for some business Denny had to take care of. By the time we got into Ft. Lauderdale it was after 10pm so we went straight to the Hilton, ordered room service and went to bed. Early the next morning we set out to begin our drive to Key West. As many times as we've cruised, we have never been to Key West. The drive took longer than we would of liked because of construction and traffic. We did not arrive until late afternoon. First thing we did was check into our hotel which was the Double Tree.

Our view from our balcony.

brcucina@carnival.com

 

this is the mail address. they answered within hours. tipping is a bias thing, i like to reward good service regardless of the standards......happy cruising

 

Brian

That's funny because I emailed them months ago and still have not gotten a reply.

Yes we have a big roll call. Also have a face book group going.

Brad and Ben are probably the two best Carnival has.

I love Brad. We are on the Breeze in March and are just missing Brad but I heard great things about Ben too.

I am leaving for the Carnival Liberty Saturday 2/1 and I understand they changed our Piano Man AGAIN for the 3RD TIME :( ... First we had a newbie who didn't have the correct paperwork and couldn't get out of Canada, then we were excited to find out we had Brad Alexander and now he's been transferred to the Breeze...

 

From my understanding, we should now have "Jonathan"... thats all I know about him except that he doesn't have a very large knowledge of songs, doesn't even know Bad Bad Leroy Brown and does alot of country... for me ok---not so much for hubby :(

 

Does anyone know this Piano Man.. does he have a facebook account or a website..?? Any info would be appreciated.. We love to spend our evenings hanging out at the piano with the Piano Man, but we need one who will keep us entertained...

 

Thanks for any feedback on Jonathan...

 

.

Brad is on the Breeze???????? For how long?

We are going on an excursion from 2pm till 7pm. Just wondering if all the shopping by the port is still open at night. Anyone know?

Need some info about booking a reservation. Is it correct that you can't book this for dinner prior to your cruise? Also does anyone have any idea how late they accept reservations for dinner? My problems is that our shore excursion in Aruba is over @ 8pm which is too late to make the dinning room.

Great pics.

This is the first time I've read a review about a ship that I'm not going on but I loved your Breeze review so much that when I saw your name again with another review I subscribed right away. You seem to have so much fun on your trips. I wish I could mingle in with strangers the way you do. You meet so many great people. I am shy and could never cruise alone. Thanks for keeping me entertained. :)

He told me that he will head straight to the Breeze after the Bloggers Cruise. I'm not sure of the exact dates, though.

Thanks for the info. We are sailing on March 15 and are very excited to see him. I wonder what the dates are for the blogger's cruise. I have no idea.

I know Ben is on the bloggers cruise. Does anyone know the exact date he returns to the Breeze. It says 2/15 but has this changed since the announcement of the bloggers cruise?

According to John

I love John but according to him, the announcement was weeks ago, yet we are still waiting. :eek:

Someone keep us updated with the new menus. I'm sailing in March on The Breeze and really hoping to see a change. I don't believe the table cloth thing. that seems really silly.

I thought Butch posted on his facebook page that he was returing to The Breeze on March 16. Is this not the case anymore?