Banks822

178 days until our friends and family group cruise!

The last time we went to HMC my 4 teens got back on the ship to eat lunch and then tendered back over to hang with us on the beach once they were finished eating. 

Grand Turk, Belize, Curacao. I can't pick just one!

We've cruised in Cloud 9 Spa cabins twice. Each time we got shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, and pillow spray in the bathroom and a body scrub that you make in the spa. The dispensers in the shower were filled with the usual shampoo and body wash. I have even asked for an extra shampoo/conditioner with no issues. 

14 is the youngest age allowed to zip line

On 8/2/2019 at 9:06 AM, Butterbean1000 said:

He will be our CD on our upcoming Breeze cruise.   I am looking forward to seeing him.  Not to get too far off topic, is Dr E still around?

 Dr. E is my favorite CD so far!

We are going to be sailing the Breeze for a 2nd time next August. I prefer it over the Magic and so do our 4 older teens. Conquest class are my actual favorite, but when the whole family goes the Breeze wins out. The 3D theater is worth the money and even my in-laws enjoy it. I also agree with another poster, go to tea time at least once! 

Our last cruise on the Breeze and Magic in spa rooms we were upstairs in the theater. We also had to wait as they called over and over for missing guest.

1 hour ago, mets07 said:

We took a cab to a beach beyond Governor's and loved it. Beautiful. Cab driver came back for us at requested time.  We shared the cab with about 6 others from the ship. 

There were very few people there vs. the Margaritaville area. 

 

 Was it Pillory Beach by chance? Was there a fee for beach access and chairs? And how much was taxi per person? Thanks!

On 7/14/2019 at 10:54 PM, Lottacruises said:

Don't any of those new cruisers want to do their own exploring and figuring things out?

No, I have planned the whole cruise for everyone including excursions. We intend to do most things together and some separate. That’s the way the group wanted it, and I don’t mind, but I also don’t want to be over stressed either.

Thanks for all the good tips!

We have a group of 21 going on the Breeze out of Port Canaveral. Because we have 6 rooms booked we've decided against trying to get FTTF for each room. What time would you suggest checking in with that size of group? Over half are 1st time cruisers so I'm doing my best to keep everything as simple and smooth as possible. We have never cruised without FTTF and so I'm not sure about how long the wait is without it. Thanks for any helpful suggestions you have! 

On ‎5‎/‎22‎/‎2019 at 11:24 AM, Organized Chaos said:

For those able, I'd also recommend going to the right (south) of the pier. But I wouldn't say the rocks there are sharp. We've swam/snorkeled in that spot a couple times and was able to navigate over the rocks just fine barefoot. They can be slippery, though, that's true. So it can make it somewhat awkward to get over them with the waves. Once you clear them, it opens up to a sandy bottom with some vegetation, smaller rocks, and large depressions in the sea floor. Good places for smaller critters to hang out. We've seen small fish, crabs, & a live conch in this area. But yeah, maybe not the best for smaller kids because of the rocks. If you walk farther to the south, you won't have to navigate over big rocks like that and no one hardly goes that way. Even when you're at the southern tip, you can still sea the ship. It's only about 1/4th to 1/3rd of a mile from the pier. There's a large rocky area at the southern point you can climb on that has a whole lot of sea urchins clinging to the sides near the waterline. But these rocks ARE sharp, so you'll need water shoes or something with harder soles. Pretty fun for those who like to explore.

 

We'll be in Grand Turk for our 3rd time next March. We've yet to go to Governor's beach. We wanted to last year, but started playing around at the southern tip of the island and ran out of time. I've read that Governor's is a good place to hunt for sea glass, but that was an old article, so not sure if it still applies. Has anyone done this, found any there? We don't care about food & drinks or renting chairs. We'd only go for a while to try to find some sea glass.

Yes! It is a great place to get sea glass. We go there every time we cruise to Grand Turk and we love it. You can also do some good snorkeling around the big washed up ship. 

The paper they gave us before we got onboard says Princess Cays will not be in service due to unexpected and necessary maintenance.

I do appreciate the nice comments most of you have made. Even in our disappointment we made the best of our time together, but I still feel like Carnival didn't think the new itinerary out very well, and we would of never of spent the amount of money we did for the itinerary and port times we ended up with.

Update: We made our early flight yesterday! We were in the Theater by 6:45, off the ship by 7:10, and to the airport before 8am. I'm thankful we made it, but I never want to cut it that close again!

Just wanted to say we ended up going to the Santa Barbara Resort and had a fabulous day!! The pool was great, the water was beautiful, service was top notch, and we really enjoyed the food. None of us are drinkers, but the bartenders made us several drinks with no alcohol that were really tasty! It was well worth the money spent.

The itinerary change I believe had to do with 'something' about Princess Cays tenders, which was where we were originally intended to go, not Half Moon Cay!

I also thought had Carnival flip flopped the Aruba-Curacao stops, we wouldn't have been on Aruba when there was a holiday!

But, Curacao might have observed the same holiday? So who knows!

We actually stayed on the ship in Half Moon Cay as the weather wasn't the greatest, and the next day we were disembarking.

In Grand Turk, which was also a short day, we just went to the pool, took a quick swim, then got out of there when kids started throwing balls around in the pool!!

The entire week was windy, not cold, but very windy!

I did put that Princess Cays was suppose to be our 1st stop and after the itinerary change we got HMC from 8-2. My husband asked our driver when we were in Curacao and was told they were closed down for Labor day the day before as well. If they wouldn't of made the changes then we wouldn't of been at either stop during the holiday. The water was freezing at HMC and Grand Turk!! Another reason we didn't like the changes. Once the sun finally came out, we were back on board the ship. 7am is just to early to be in the ocean for us. I really wished they could of just made Princess Cay a sea day and left the rest alone. But, we did try to make the best of it.

Odd that they would go to Aruba on a day the island was basically closed. Bet if you would have booked private tour there you would have found what was going on before leaving.

We were suppose to go to Aruba on Day 6 and after the itinerary change it ended up being our 1st stop. If they would not of changed the the dates we wouldn't of been there on a holiday.

We have always found the best in every situation while cruising, but our recent cruise was one disappointment after another. We just returned yesterday from an 8 night Southern Caribbean cruise on the Conquest. This was our 7th Carnival cruise and the most expensive one so far. We have 4 teenagers and 3 of them graduate next year. We knew cruising next year would more then likely not be an option with 3 children graduating, so we saved up and decided to have a big vacation this year.

We were really excited about the itinerary which was Princess Cays (9:00 - 4:00), Grand Turk (12:00 - 7:00), Sea Day, Curacao (10:00am - 11pm), Aruba (8:00 - 4:00), and 2 more sea days. It was going to work out where we were in Princess Cays on our anniversary and Grand Turk on our oldest sons 17th birthday. We also wanted the 2 sea days coming home to rest up.

On Friday night around 8pm we were packing the car up to drive to the airport when I got an email from Carnival saying our itinerary had changed. The new itinerary was not very well thought out. Now we would have 2 sea days, Aruba 10 am - 11pm, Curacao 8-4, sea day, Grand Turk 7-2, and Half Moon Cay 8-2. We were all really disappointed with the changes especially the new times in the ports. While we do love HMC, being there from 8-2 is not worth it.

So then on the 1st full sea day we get a notice that our excursion in Aruba was cancelled and that the day we would be in Aruba was their Labor Day and everything would be closed except a few stores. We picked another excursion and went snorkeling, but my in-laws are not able to snorkel so they did a tour of the island with Carnival. We did enjoy the snorkeling, but even the guide said he didn't understand why Carnival would of changed the dates to the 1 day a year their government makes things close down unless it's for tourism or convenience stores. My in-laws said their guide said the same thing because most of the places the tour took them to were closed and the people on the tour even had to pay money to use the bathroom on another bus. They were on a Carnival excursion and had to pay to use the bathroom because nothing was open! The stores inside the port were open, but some closed at 4:30. We were there until 11pm with the town basically closed down on holiday. That night we walked to Starbucks, got a coffee, and used the Wi-Fi to message home. I would of liked to of been able to do more, but that was not possible.

We really liked Curacao and would of liked to had more time there. We had planned out our day and night since we were supposed to of been there until 11pm and had to change everything around last minute when it changed to 4 instead.

In Grand Turk and HMC we had very short days. Grand Turk was 7am until 2, so back on board by 1:30. Nothing in town opened until 9 and it was cloudy until noon. We love Grand Turk and were looking forward to being there until 7pm. By time it warmed up and we were all ready to swim, it was time to be back onboard and we were tired from getting up so early to be off at 7am. Then since HMC had its last tender back at 1:15 they did not do the BBQ on the beach and the only thing you could purchase were drinks. We had to tender back at 12:30 because we were all hungry by then.

These things may seem minor to some, but they were disappointing for my family. We saved up for a year and our original Aruba excursion was part of our children's Christmas because they all wanted to go there and it was pricey. To have our itinerary changed, such short times in the last 2 ports, no sea days before coming home, and to be in Aruba during a national holiday were all downers for us.

The changes were said to be made because of Princess Cays getting storm damage. I would of much rather them gave us and extra sea day and kept the rest of the itinerary the way it originally was. The changes were just not that great.

I do understand we could have just not gone and that they are allowed to change things. But, after all the planning and getting the kids excused from school, and the airfare, canceling wasn't really and option. Also, I can handle change when it makes sense, but these changes made no sense to me.

Great! Thanks for the quick responses!

When you print your boarding passes and luggage tags do they need to be in color or is black and white fine? Trying to get everything done and I'm out of colored ink....of course.

My hubby and a few of our teens go straight to Guy's Burgers. I go to Blue Iguana for 2 chicken tacos, and our oldest son gets pizza. We all meet at a table and eat together then go to the buffet for desserts.

Belize and Honduras are 2 of our favorites also, but we snorkeled in Cayman Islands once and it was actually a Carnival excursion we booked last minute. They took us to 2 places. 1 was a sunken ship and the other was called Cheeseburger Reef. That was great snorkeling as well!

1. Muster drill outside

2. Chair hogs

3. When people let their children run wild and go to buffet unsupervised

Which ports are your favorite ones to snorkel at? We have a cruise coming up in April and want to go snorkeling at least once at 1 of the 4 ports. We're going to Princess Cays, Grand Turk, Aruba, and Curacao. We figure it will be either Curacao or Aruba, but would love your opinions and advice. Also interested in your favorite snorkel spots in general for us to keep in mind for future cruises.