bluejay555

Nice review and pics. Thanks for sharing.

Thank you!!!

Great review! My family and I will be on Conquest on 7/1. Can't wait!

Thanks! You'll have so much fun....I wish I was doing it all over again in a couple weeks!

So like I said earlier, we made it back onto the ship just in time for the Golden Girls trivia....and WE WON!!! It's our first ship on a stick ever, and we were so excited, that it's now being shown off on the shelf in the living room lol We actually won Dr. Seuss trivia a couple years ago, but got medals. I've always wanted a ship on a stick!!!

We have done such a good job of keeping Josie from burning too badly on this cruise. The long sleeve swim shirt is key. Unfortunately her legs did get a little fried though. She's one of those kids that burns no matter how much sunscreen is used, but from now on, in the tropics, it's swim shirt all the way!

It's my birthday!!! Funny, the night before, the wait team had approached the table with a cake and I said my birthday is tomorrow, and they blew out the candle and ran off. So I'm sure they just shoved the cake in the fridge until tonight lol It's really nice that they keep track of birthdays and have a special cake for the occasion.

Next up is GRAND TURK!!!!!!!!!!!

Just a few more pictures and final thoughts before wrapping up Half Moon Cay....

These fish were all over the place but that's about all the wildlife we saw. Maybe there's a different part of the island with more, but right at the beach is not worth bringing snorkel gear.

This slide was available but we barely saw anyone using it.

Are the drinks on HMC sold by carnival? In other words, do you pay with cash or with your S&S card?

 

Sent from my KFTHWI using Forums mobile app

Yes, you use your sail and sign card for drinks and to rent the water toys. We never made it to the souvenir shops so I'm not sure about those, but I would imagine it's the same.

Good idea to take a copy.

I always take a straightener but am very careful with unplugging it when finished, because if it was confiscated, my hair would be a frizzy mess the rest of the cruise! :D

So, we were really watching the time because we saw in the Funtimes that there was a Golden Girls Trivia at 3:15. We watch the Golden Girls practically every single day. We are experts!!! The girls were sooooo excited about this (I was too!) and we knew we could NOT miss it. We planned to leave at 1:45 so we'd have time to shower and change and grab a drink before trivia. Last tender left the island at 3pm, so we didn't even dream there would be a huge crowd trying to get back to the ship. Well, we were wrong.....Wow. Carnival needs to figure out something different. We got back to the ship just in time to race up to Vincent's lounge for trivia. We were still in our suits and had our beach bags and everything. Blah. But oh well, we made it!

I snapped some pictures of the line to get on a tender and they don't even begin to show the full scope of the mob. There was a covered area with misters and that was so nice, but a lot of the waiting was in direct sun. And it was miserably hot. There were tons of people griping but there was nothing anybody could do about it, we just had to wait. It was seriously over an hour. I can't imagine how the line was at 3pm!

After lunch, the girls wanted to ride the water bike and it was $35 to rent for an hour. They rode it for a while, but said it was really hard work and hard to steer, so I climbed on and gave it a try. I didn't think it was THAT bad. I guess it was kind of hard to turn. It's not an automatic "turn the handles and the bike turns that direction" kind of response. You sort of start drifting in that direction. There were some boys watching us, obviously wanting to try it out, so we abandoned it and let them take it for the rest of our hour. I guess we are more the lazy beach people than the sporty beach people ;)

Lunch time! Carnival sets up a buffet down behind the pirate ship area and you can help yourself any time between 11:30-1:30

I don't remember what all that food was in the picture below....I think it was stuff like potato salad, slaw, macaroni salad. They did have a fried rice that was excellent!

They offered fruit, brownies, and chocolate chip cookies

There were several pavilions like this one, where people could eat. The drink station was serving water and tea (maybe lemonade too?) and the line was huge. It was much harder to get a drink than to get food!

I went exploring the grounds and I was so impressed with how Carnival has built up this area.....brick walkways, beautiful landscaping. Carnival has something really special here!

There was even a little chapel. I wanted to get a picture from the opposite angle, with all the pews but there were people actually sitting in there and I felt rude snapping pics. We saw people getting married on the beach, but I guess if the weather is bad enough, they can use this place instead.

One of the bars.....or maybe the only bar. My walk looped around the place and I wasn't sure if I was seeing the same bar again or a different one lol

Hi BlueJay:

I'm enjoying your review and photo's also.

Thank You for getting me pumped up for the Fall[/center]

Awesome! Thanks!

Enjoying your review. Conquest is my favorite ship!

Thanks! It's a great ship!!

Here's one of the cabanas (and somebody's sand-covered arse lol....whoops...)

This is a bar

The beach houses: if I was cruising with a group, I'd be tempted to rent one!

Now, the funtimes said there would be activities at the beach all day, starting with a beach party at 9am. We never heard any music or anything, until I took a walk down the beach....the party was down in front of the pirate ship! The DJ was right there and they had a sand castle building contest, tug of war, beach volleyball. Definitely hopping on that end of the beach!

Look at that water! HMC is the most beautiful beach I have ever been to (aside from Little French Key in Roatan, but that's not a typical beach). It looks really crowded in pictures, but it didn't really feel crowded at all.

Of course....

Bahama Mama! They were selling these, miami vices, and beer on the beach. The bar had other options, but when I tried to get a margarita, they said they didn't bring everything to make them and only had sour mix and tequila. No salt or triple sec. No biggie, this Bahama Mama was awesome!

You could rent water toys at little huts on each end of the beach. This tube was $10. Someone stole it later in the day (I told my mom it was risky leaving it on our chairs while we ate lunch!) but the Carnival people told us it was not a deal and we could just grab another one.

Best day ever! HMC and it's my 44th birthday!

This kid seriously was like a caged animal not being able to do flips and cartwheels lol She actually fell off the top bunk one night, backwards and landed on her back. She swore it didn't hurt but I'm not so sure.....I bet the people below us thought the ceiling was crashing in!

Another selfie-stick masterpiece lol

As soon as we were ready, we went down to deck 5 and got tender stickers. We just sat and waited for our number to be called and I don't think it took longer than about 10 min. The whole process went very smoothly and we were to the island in no time!

From what I understand, lobster tail is only served now on cruises of six days or more. Sucks, but what can you do. Great review so far!!!

Yup no lobster on 5 nights or shorter. Thanks for the menus and pictures are great.

Oh, OK, thanks for the info and the nice comments :)

If you wanted to know if they still have the pins, why didn't you ask that question? Your post didn't ask for information, you simply told about a conversation you had with your room steward. Your post generated the kind of answers one would expect after reading a post like yours.

I did ask the question. I made it the TITLE of my topic so that people who knew the answer might click on my post and engage in a helpful conversation. I went on to describe WHY I was asking that question in the body of my topic. And I have received some very helpful answers, actually. :)

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Nice review! We were on that sailing too :)

We had a balcony room on deck 7, too, (7932) and thought it was too loud. Our neighbors would knock (pound over and over) on each others' doors at 2am every single night and then they would talk and slam doors. And one afternoon we heard a woman screaming and cussing at a child. It was sort of alarming. Oh, and we smelled a big cloud of weed every single night on our balcony. Somebody was reeeeeaaaaally enjoying themselves.

Wasn't HMC beautiful? And the cabanas at Grand Turk did look really nice. If I didn't plan on spending all my time in the water, I'd definitely want one!

Your couples massage sounds nice and relaxing!

We were wondering what the mobile passport was, and wishing we had it during that horrible trip through customs!!! Debarkation was the worst (longest) I've ever experienced!

Thanks for the review, glad you enjoyed your cruise!

Next up, Half Moon Cay! One of the most gorgeous places I've ever been to. I have a LOT of pictures to sort through.....

I should have taken more pictures of the ship's interior. It is beautiful! The Conquest's design theme is Impressionist Artists. This might just be my favorite ship!

Giant mural on the ceiling

Great review!!

Thank you!

I agree with others, pictures are greatly appreciated - especially when discussing food. Can't wait for the rest of the cruise.

Thanks! I might be able to scrounge up some more food pics to post ;)

I like picture reviews. Thank you for taking the time to upload all the pictures and share your cruise with us.

No problem, thanks for reading my review!!

Thanks for sharing!

Glad you are reading along! Thanks!

Ok. I was disappointed with the formal dinner also! So....do they only do the lobster on the 7 day cruises then? I just assumed they just removed it from the dinner. This was my father and brothers 1st cruise. My mother and I had talked to them about lobster being served during the formal, only be be disappointed!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

We had lobster on one of the formal nights last year on the Dream (used to be both nights). And the only other 5 night cruise I've done was 2013 and we got lobster then! Budget cuts.....

Keep it coming!:D

Thanks for following along!

Another fellow Missourian...south of you both in Springfield :)

I went to SMSU (or whatever it's new name is ;)) waaaay back when. I loved living in Springfield! And we go to Branson a couple times a year too.