Anung Un Rama

Used Sonny Liston our first time in St. Thomas. Have absolutely nothing but good things to say about that day.

Pics can be found in the link to our review.

Coming back from Orient is likely to be much easier than from Maho. The road runs down the east side of the island - without any possible open draw bridge or heavily built up area , other than the last mile or so just north of the port.

Thank you. I think we may want to target Orient beach instead. I could really care less about the planes.

So I've seen a lot of people complaining about the traffic getting back from Maho Beach. How about getting back from Orient Beach? We're there the last day of our vacation and I really don't want to have to sit in a cab for 2 hours either way. Thanks in advance.

Been on both and Breeze is hands down the better of the 2 ships. It has all the 2.0 upgrades except the Alchemy Bar.

I can see why the Dream was a big deal when it first came out but the Breeze is my favorite ship.

We were in an aft balcony on the Dream (same class of ship) and were a little worried but we never heard any noise from the comedy club. We also weren't in bed until 1-2am each night so that may have helped.

I wanted to say that we also ALWAYS bring a small fan and angle it on us at night. After a day in the sun and probably more than a few adult beverages, our body tempts are a little higher than normal.

Our last 2 cruises (Dream and Breeze) were in aft balconies. Never had a problem with room temp. To be fair, one of the first things we usually do is turn the AC all the way down.

I hope people are smart enough to keep the blinds closed during the day :o

With lots of sea days and late nights in the Piano Bar, we decided to go with the cheers program for this one.

From discussions with friends and personal experience in the past, it has always been hit and miss. Some ships had you flagged and some did not.

 

For the ones that did haveyou flagged, some people got others who were disembarking the next day and asked them to buy liquor for them.

 

Now it I'll be a little more tricky. Will that person be willing to go pick it up for you on the morning of debarkation? Maybe it will depend on how well you know that person and or how long the procedure will take. Guess we will have to see what others report in the next few weeks or so.

 

BTW Chris, miss all those wonderful reviews you and Cassandra used to team tag and post. You guys were terrific!

Aww thank you. It just got to be too much work. We were both slammed at work coming back and didn't want to devote a week of our free time :p

This is a friend of a friend that is doing the first leg of a B2B and then sailing with us. I think we're just going to suck it up and do the Cheers card. Plenty of sea days and late nights on this one.

Hey Chris and Cassandra!! Hope you all are doing well!

 

I have the exact same question since we are on a b2b come January.

It sounds like those days are over. I've never known them to have a list of B2B'ers before but I guess they have closed another loophole we've all loved :(

Yeah, that's what we're afraid of. I don't know if they just didn't mark us as B2B the previous times or just didn't care because of the policy.

Thanks

With the new changes to the delivery of liquor purchased on board, how does one get bottles purchased on the 1st leg of a B2B?

I've been on a couple B2B's and this was always a great way to save money on the 2nd leg as they were just delivered to the room the last night of the first cruise. But how and when would I get my bottles with the new rules?

We had 8450 on our Honeymoon. It was amazing. Plenty of room for 2 loungers as well as the normal 2 chairs and table.

Will finally be in our 2nd Aft on the Breeze in 4 days :D

We'll be in Antigua in 4 weeks. We're going to Coconuts and I received a response from them within 24 hours of emailing. We're the only ship in port that day so it should be a nice relaxing beach day.

I've been on both. The Breeze is almost certainly my favorite ship (in fact I'll be back on her in 2 months). However, I doubt I'd ever sail on the Sunshine again.

I did a large review of the Breeze and a quick one with my thoughts on the Sunshine. It's a no brainer for me which to choose.

Was on the Majesty for 3 days and we had to sign virtually every time.

I've been to all 3 of those ports A LOT. Have NEVER missed one due to weather and we mainly cruise in the Fall. I honestly think we've just been lucky. Anytime you cruise during Hurricane season, you have to be aware of the risk of bad weather/rough seas.

I love the Bahamas that time of year though. Weather is usually beautiful and the water temps are great.

How big is the Sunshine gym? I was on Dream last year and found the gym to be really undersized for the ship, the Fantasy class gyms seemed larger, more showers, there were only two on Dream, but it did have nice steam room, never tried the unisex sauna. Just curious...have cruised planned for Feb 2015 and wanted to figure out my workout schedule.

It seemed a little on the small side but it was laid out well. Was on the Sunshine for the New Year and the gym was pretty crowded every time I went but only once was there not a machine available.

The free weights section was more crowded than I was used to. But that kinda changes on every cruise (sometimes packed, sometimes empty).

Never used the steam room/sauna/or showers on any of the ships though.

The Majesty will be our first RCL cruise. We're doing a short 3 day next month. I know it's an older ship but it'll be nice to see how different the service is compared to Carnival. We plan on doing a review but I know we will spend every night at the Piano Bar since we're mainly going to see Joe Hollywood.

Here's a new RCI cruiser's .02. I just booked my first Royal Cruise last night, a quick 3 day on the Majesty in August. All dining options were available and this is less than 2 months out. I did notice that it automatically filled in pre-paid gratuities but we always do them anyway. If we get great service, we always tip more on top of our pre-paid.

Thanks for your review and great pictures!

 

Serenity area looks nice but what about entertainment?? I like the "cover bands", the (old) production shows.....I was not fond of the Playlist ones at all - I guess this Sunshine has them??

 

The comedy club situation has gotten bad on all the ships from what I can see - more people going to comedy cause there are so many lousy shows like Hasbro /Playlist - so huge crowds, lines - just not a fun time

 

 

No nightstand?? wow that is crazy:eek:

I'm glad you mentioned the cover band. Usually the bands are just background noise to me as a lot of ships have them in the casino. The cover band on here that played in the Ocean Plaza was excellent. There were times I'd just be walking by and stop to listen (which I've never done before). They had a male and female singer which worked great with a variety of songs they could do.

We enjoyed all 4 comedians but the layout of that area is absurd.

Do you think re doing an old ship was worth it. Did it seem new. New ship smell. Was the ship updated like a new ship or just an redone old ship

I would have to say a big yes. I had not heard good things about the Destiny and many I loved almost all of the upgrades that were done (they could've done without adding the cabins to aft 5 though). Most things seemed new though there are some signs that it is an older ship.

How was the tender process at Grand Cayman? Did it take forever or seem to move pretty quick?

Can't help you here as we didn't get out of bed until 3 in the afternoon (it was New Years Day after all). The only people we talked to who got off were Platinum so they didn't have much of a wait. There were at least 4 other ships in port with us that day. Why they haven't built docks is beyond me.

Sunday's alarm came way to quick (if I had a dollar for every time I've heard that :p). Since we had an early flight we decided to do self assist. Being Platinum we knew we could just get off the ship as early as we wanted. Debarkation was one of the quickest we've ever had and we were in a cab less than 10 minutes after leaving our room.

All in all it was an enjoyable cruise. The people we were with had a big hand in that though. I hated our annoying neighbors who let their kids run back and forth slamming doors and screaming all morning (thank god for ear plugs). I loved a lot of the new upgrades. The placement of most just left me scratching my head. Now that Karl with a K is gone, Jaime is hands down my favorite CD. The entertainment staff on this cruise left a lot to be desired. Lexi was the only one who showed enthusiasm and seemed like she wanted to be there. It was quite disappointing as we usually become friends with them with all the trivia we do.

I will never cruise over the holidays again. There are just way too many kids for me. I expect a certain amount of kids on every cruise but I overhead one of the Club O2 staff saying she had 5 times more kids than a normal cruise. It was great to spend NYE with our Funnatics but it also meant we missed out on celebrating with friends back home.

The food options on this ship are excellent. Probably the best on any ship I've been on. It would've been nice to have apps in the Red Frog Pub but they are no where near a kitchen (another nicer thing that the Breeze does have). I can't say I'd never cruise this ship again as there are a lot of great things about it, but it'd have to have a pretty kick ass itinerary. I hope if Carnival considers 'upgrading' a ship again they learn from the mistakes of this one because if done right, this could've been my favorite ship.

Sorry for lack of pics in this. I really didn't decide to do a review until Saturday or Sunday so I was completely unprepared. But at least this one didn't take me 2 weeks to finish.

The sea had calmed down by Saturday morning. We woke up late and I ran to the Taste Bar for a small breakfast to bring back to the room while we started packing. We still wanted to do the ropes course. And apparently so did half the ship. The line was long as hell and slow going. We stood in line for about an hour when they finally stopped letting people get in line around 2 and only let people have one lap around. I was a little bummed but by the time we started, was kind of glad. Like I said earlier, Cass never did the ropes on the Breeze and I really enjoyed it. This 'course' was much more difficult than the one on the Breeze. The first two obstacles were harder than anything on the Breeze's course. My poor baby doesn't love heights and was damn near in tears. But I'm proud of her because she sucked it up and completed it with no help. I'll admit, being shorter makes this much more difficult as you can't always reach the line for balance.

She was still shaking an hour later and I told her it was payback for dangling me off the Stratosphere in Vegas.

The Eagles were playing the Saints (and where did we cruise from) this night so we knew we wanted to watch the game but the sports bar would be packed. What they didn't announce is that it'd be carried in the Red Frog Pub, just with no sound as they had a guitarist in there. We grabbed a Guy's Burger and took it to the room (still not sure why they close at 6) since we were going to skip the MDR that night.

We had a group photo set up to be taken by the amazingly talented Mr. Radu at 7pm. With this group, it was like herding cats. Eventually we all made it to the stairs and got a few really good pictures (I unfortunately don't have them just yet). After that, we headed back to the room to grab our food and found a good spot in the Pub to watch the game. Needless to say Cass was outnumbered about 200/1 by Saints fans. To their credit they were all nice and classy after they beat the Eagles.

We made our rounds to say goodbye to both new and old friends. Our flight was relatively early so we made it an early night knowing too well how much a late last night can impact a day of travel.

Another great thing about this cruise was the amount of sea days. I love a sea day after sail away and having 2 sea days after our last port was great. We did it up the night after Jamaica. This was when I finally learned about the Cuba Libre at the Havana Bar. A double rum and coke for the price of a single...loved it!!! At 2:30 we decided to call it a night. Cass wanted some food but not pizza. We ordered room service (yes at 2:30 in the morning, can you tell someone had a bit too much vodka?). The food came quick and I gave a sincere apology and nice tip to the lady who delivered it. I guess the food helped because neither of us felt the affects the following morning.

We slept in Friday morning and hit the gym. Afterwards we decided to do the ropes course which Cass never did on the Breeze. After standing in line for 15-20 minutes, I turned around and noticed the huge storm we were about to head into. The guys running the course noticed it too and shut it down before it started pouring. And pour it did. All day and most of the night. This was the only time the ship really felt crowded. With no one out on open decks every inside area was packed.

We did another poker bar crawl this time with a funny hat theme. Cass had thought ahead and came prepared.

Neither of us won but it was still fun. We were pretty much done with the casino so we decided to kill some time in the Library Bar playing some games. After a failed attempt at some crappy Uno knock off we played some Connect Four. Cass quickly grew bored as I'm almost unbeatable at Connect Four. We did a bit more wondering and played some video poker before dinner.

Remember that storm I mentioned? Yeah well the ship was ROCKING!!! I can only remember one or two other nights that had been as bad as this. It doesn't affect me at all but you could tell a few people were not enjoying it. First time I can ever remember seeing bags put out for people.