Sabalon

1 hour ago, coevan said:

you do not need a "tour" to go to Margaritaville 

That was a video tour on youtube of it that looked cool, showing it off.  If I go there, I just need some restraint and to loosen my belt. 🙂

Thanks.  Just looking on Google maps, Grand Turk looked like it had the best option.  I think San Juan we're going to do a fort tour.   Amber Cove - yeah...the reviews are not too friendly on a lot of the beach excursions.   There is a local restaurant owner from the D.R. so I'll have to at least get off the ship to say I did 🙂

The 27 waterfall hike sounds like fun, but my wife thinks it may be too much for her.   She loves snorkeling but I'm so over doing that as an excursion.  We may compromise and do snuba or something instead.  Just found a video that shows Margarittaville at Grand Turk, and the beach right off the pier.  NICE!!!!    I just imagine in real life there being 500% more people!

I've been trying to search the boards, but I'm not having luck so I figured I'll just ask.   While not 100% Carnival related, we're on the Conquest in late June and hitting Grand Turk, San Juan, St. Thomas and Amber Cove.   My wife is wanting to do some excursions but I know she'll want a day to just have fun at the beach.  

Out of these four, which is the best one for getting off the ship and having a beach day?  That is one thing nice about the stops at Half-Moon and the like - built in beach time.

Thanks for any input.   

They all died.  🙂

1 hour ago, Joebucks said:

 

This was my second "holiday" on Carnival. The other being Super Bowl.

I've done 4th of July on Glory - not too much.  But the SuperBowl is funny - it may have been the Fascination we were on as well, but it was a much bigger holiday - FIFA World Cup!   Crew paid attention that week!

Lot of variables there!!!    You have two docks at Mahogany Bay, so there is a chance of having two ships of people on that  beach, depending on how many go on excursions.   Cozumel has two ports and maybe 6 docks overall, but there is nothing "right there" so that means all those people will be disbursing around the island to various activities.

We didn't do anything at Mahogany Bay because of the Gumbalimba park events (and travel) took up most of the day.    They do have an excursion that goes to the park and then a beach, so maybe that'd work. (Tabyana beach and Gumbalimba Park excursion)

When we did the Paradise Beach in Cozumel, it did not seem crowded at all.  You pay a chair fee and then you have your own beach chair, so I think they want to keep it somewhat controlled.

On 4/9/2019 at 10:40 AM, ZeeWP said:

In February My family and I are going on the Carnival Vista from Galveston. Our ports are Mahogany Bay, Belize, and Cozumel. Are any of them private port destinations (Kinda like HMC?) That could help us pick excursions and beach days. 

As others have said, Mahogany Bay is a Carnival section of Roatan.  Of course, you can venture out.  If you take any private excursions here, you have to hoof it to the gate at the end of Carnival land to meet them (if I remember right).  Other lines dock at the port near Thicket.  

Belize is a tender port - and the tender is a 20+ minute ride from the ship to the port.  Some excursions leave from the ship instead of port.  From what I understand, there isn't really much of a public beach area, but could be wrong.

Cozumel is a shared port.

At Roatan we did the Carnival Clear Kayak, Snorkeling & Gumbalimba Park (which included the monkey encounter).  Good tour guide.  Not the most exciting snorkeling, but not bad.  Gumbalimba park was neat.

At Belize we did the Carnival Xunatunich Mayan ruins.  This involves a two hour bus ride to the location (and eventually back!).   There is a stop for lunch on the way back which is included IIRC.  This was an amazing excursion...though there is a chance you could get there and if it's too wet due to rain, not be able to go on the ruins for safety.  Our guide realized it looked like something was coming and got us up on the big ruin first and then did the walk around guided tour.

At Cozumel, we did our own thing, wanting a simple cheap beach day.  We went to Paradise Beach.  Ended up being cheaper than all four of us on a Carnival excursion, but still more than expected...but loads of fun.  We found it on twitter I think, since only internet we had was the social feed!

I found my review where we hit those ports -it's a bit long, but it may help at least for the excursions we did.  

Some of the ports have free wifi at their welcome areas.  However it gets saturated real fast (looking at you Nassau).

Your carrier may have an international plan that is worthwhile.  With AT&T it's $10/day, only if you use it, but it's typically whatever data/voice you have at home.  Not useful onboard unless docked, but depending on your needs, that may be another option.

I get motion sickness...one of the reasons were waited so long to ever go on a cruise ( sad ).
I bring ginger pills with me, 500mg capsules.  I've done the wrist things (useless), bonine (sleep through the cruise) and found the ginger pills to really work.  

We had R02 - bottom passenger deck, almost at the front, and it didn't phase me at all.  Same with one of the excursions on a smaller boat.

This time we'll be on deck 6 for a balcony and motion was a concern, but as someone above said, chances are you spend most of the time on lido and other higher decks anyway.  If it doesn't bother you, the room probably won't either.   If I can sit on lido and read a book on a sea day with no ill effects, they should be fine 🙂

Another thing about the priority tendering - excursions will also be priority.  So if you think you absolutely must be on the first tender out, you may be surprised.  Conversely, if you're getting it just for tender priority and plan on taking excursions in tendered ports, may not be as much of a value or need.     But if when you're ready to go as are the general masses, then you're not having to wait, which is nice.  

15 hours ago, Joebucks said:

 

That's right, I think many would be surprised how many people on Carnival COULD afford more, but don't see a reason to. 

We had a similar conversation at home last night.  My daughter has two friends coming over this evening.   The mother of one asked the other where she lived, and when she told her, the mom said "Oh...you live over by (my daughter)" in a derisive sort of way, like we're scum of the earth on the wrong side of the tracks.   They have a very nice 3,300 sq ft house on a half-acre lot in a heavily HOA based community.  We have a modest 1,900 sq ft house on an acre in a non-HOA neighborhood.    Sure, we could afford to live in a bigger, glitzier house.   But why?  We'd just fill up more space with more junk.  We all have our own space and we're good.  

If I was stuck on a line with a bunch of stuffy "look at how much I have" people, I'd hate it.  I probably would have nothing to talk about with them.  Oh...you went and saw the symphony perform an obscure work and your daughter brought her beau who was so moved by the 2nd movement.  Well, I took my daughter to see an obscure 80's metal band at a club in the bad part of town...and she brought Crime and Punishment to read in line...so yeah...we're similar  🙂   

I love trying to get to know the staff on the ship a little bit.  Sometimes it's sad hearing their stories, but I'd rather spend time talking with them than someone who couldn't decide which designer suit to wear on which formal night.  But that's also why I love going to local restaurants and getting to know the staff there as well.  I like people for who they are, not what they can do for me. 

So you can call it the Walmart of the Seas, the redneck riviera, but to quote Kevin Costner in Tin Cup when he walks into the Waffle House "these are my people. I'm a Waffle House guy. Got to stay in touch with that."

It was 5 years ago, but we had room R02 on the Fascination.  Never noticed any issues, other than winding through the hall to get to our room, and knowing 100% for sure when the anchor drops!  Loved the porthole room so much we grabbed one on our next trip after that as well, Glory, no issues.

Glad to know I can request the same server.  It's nice getting to know the servers.  That is one of the nice things about the set time dining.

We prefer the ATD - in the past when we had set times, we'd find we'd get back from an excursion too close to the time for early dining and didn't have time to clean up, or our dinner would extend longer into some of the other events/shows we'd like to do, especially with the later service.

Before you leave your home port, find the setting on your phone that sets the time automatically (Settings|General|Date & Time|Set Automatically on the iPhone) and disable that.  Had that one try and bite me in Roatan or Belize.  Fun panic!  🙂

Our first cruise was Carnival - was nervous if I'd get seasick, so we wanted something semi-short, cost effective and left "nearby" (Charleston).   (Didn't get seasick - felt like 18 potential years of cruising wasted).  Anyway, we had a good time on Carnival, so the next ones were also on there.  Different ships, different experiences, but still fun.  

We did one on RCI because our girl scout troop leader didn't want to go on Carnival because of their reputation as a bunch of party frat kids, and her experiences had been on RCL.  Had a good time there too.

RCI seemed a bit more restrained.   Perhaps a little classier, or perhaps it was just the color scheme that seemed duller and more upclass.  I don't know.   I've been to the Carnival Adult Quest game, and the RCI equivalent.  Night and day - the RCI one was so much "less".  

Overall, you're on a cruise, it's all good, but Carnival seems to be more cost effective for us, the wife likes it better because they're a little more down to earth, and as far as loyalty points go, we have more there - not enough to really matter, but easier to keep going with one than to keep switching around.  Not rich enough to bump them all up to "I own the ship" status.

Thanks for the input on the Oasis. My wife said she had more fun on Carnival. I'd like to give RCI another chance, as my first Carnival I was so drugged up on Bonine, I didn't enjoy it like the next ones. The ship had 2600ish passengers. It never really felt crowded at all, other than the lines for tenders and disembarking. I didn't think about the fact that on the larger ships with more to offer the crowds will be more dispersed. I just imagine a huge line for those 10 story slides!

A couple things I forgot...

One of the things said was on Carnival, the cast of the shows came out and mingled after their last show of the voyage. My youngest loved that...but that didn't happen here.

In the MDR, I was thankful that the dancing was kept to a minimum. One night they did a conga line with all the staff and the next night they brought out the cooks to give them thanks. It was a nice recognition without being annoying. For some reason I don't like that - I think part of it is the first trip we went on, one of the staff just had this look of "please kill me" on her face the whole time during that. Also, the napkin waiving disturbs me for some reason. I think it makes me think of Jerry Springer or something. But those are my hangups :)

During the formal night, they had a parade of flags, which was how they recognized the international nature of the crew which was pretty nice. They also gave stats as to where the passengers were from. The second in command of the cruise activities (Moe) recognized any veterans who were at the Quest show which was a nice touch.

The pictures were overpriced (to me I think $22 for an 8x10 and $14 for a 5x8). But my wife bought some anyway. I'd love to see one of them go to an option where you can purchase them after the fact, but that removes that artificial scarcity which creates the impulse buy. But the photographers did a good job and there were some great pictures.

The Schooner lounge was a nice bar. Trivia there, and at times during the day a guy named Pedro playing guitar, who was amazing. Later in the night they had a guy playing piano. He was pretty good, but there was a lot of backing track he was playing along with. Both of them had a good variety of music.

Disembarking - the sad day. We decided to self disembark. I prefer it to waiting around forever and then hunting for luggage. We got up early, packed and had breakfast. Some went to the MDR, some to Windjammer. Based on Carnival, I was expecting a lite breakfast with old pastries and such, but nope - they had the full buffet out. We went down to get our luggage. This whole time was mostly taking the stairs because people were trying to get down to deck 4 with their luggage. We brought out luggage up, got in the snaking line which as it was later in the self-disembark went quick. We probably waited in a the moving line for 20 minutes. It was a leisurely walk through the terminal and to customs which was a painless process. Then it was right outside and there was the parking deck. This port has been the easiest to get in and out of. Very well designed.

As for a few tips I would like to know for my first time on Majesty:

• Press the button on both sides of the elevator bays - they are not linked
  
• Deck 7 is the lowest deck with outside access, and it circles the ship. Great for getting some air, watching things. Deck 11 and 12 also have good vantage points for leaving, arriving, etc...but no cover there
  
• Tips are automatically added to drink orders - forgot this at first. Doesn't mean you can't tip extra, which they seem to prefer cash.
  
• The Centrum (center where lots of things happen) is easier to get to via the stairs. Use the elevators for when you're going from 2 to 11.
  
• You can bring your own bottle of wine to dinner, and they will open it for you without a fee (unlike Carnival)
  
• At the Windjammer, there is a front and rear buffet, the rear one is usually less crowded, and there are seats back there. Also, don't be afraid to go up to level 12 inside Windjammer. More seats up there usually forgotten as well.
  
• Kids under 18 wanting to do the rock climbing wall need a parental consent form signed. (and socks)
  

I hope you all have a good time. It's a nice ship with a nice crew.

As my signature says, this was my forth cruise, and my first one not on Carnival. In other words, expect compare and contrast with those experiences. Also, this cruise was with my daughters girl scout troop - 4 seniors, one junior, one freshman. They have known each other since kindergarten (or longer) and grown up together, 4 of them living on the same street (two are my girls). We had 5 adults - myself, my wife, our troop leader and two other moms. So this trip was not your typical family vacation - and for those doing the math at home, yes - it was myself and 10 women. Hired muscle.

The Trip Down

We'll keep this short, but we left Atlanta the day before the cruise for a Budget Inn in Cocoa, Florida. The drive down was fine (especially as I had all adults and luggage in my car). The Budget Inn was cost-effective. It was mostly clean, however our room had a towel hanging on the back of the bathroom door that housekeeping must have missed. There was a stray cat hanging out near our room. Very sweet - wish we could have taken it home. Didn't sleep well due to there only being a sheet on the bed and was cold. But we made it through the night. There was an IHOP using the same parking lot, so make for an easy breakfast with great service.

The Port and Boarding

It was a very short trip (17 miles) to the cruise port. There was no traffic getting there, and the layout of the port worked well - we saw where our ship was supposed to be one the signs, pulled in right into the parking deck. Compared to the nightmare that was Miami (drop-off and pickup traffic combined, even before you could get to the parking deck) this was very smooth. Found a spot, went down one level and the porters were there to take our bags, and then straight into the terminal.

In hindsight, what we should have done from this point on, was do better to stay together as a group, letting security, RCI etc know. Travel documents were with the parents (three kids were under 18) and one girl did not have a parent with her (thankfully she was over 18). But we made it through. Security was a breeze - no questions, no taking stuff out of bags or anything. Some of the group got ushered ahead of us so they were in the main line. Our troop leader had traveled RCI before and was a gold member, so we went to a quicker line. However at this point people in the same staterooms were in two parts of the line, one person had not done the online checkin, and the poor people at RCI had papers being handed to them left and right, at one point two people working on the same stateroom. It took about 15-20 minutes to check in and the customer service was great...just an odd situation.

At this point they were just calling the higher-end cruisers (Diamond level in Carnival parlance), so we had a very short wait in the terminal. We bought some lanyards, hit the restroom and before we knew it we were heading on board. The obligatory picture stop, and then on we go. I'd say it was probably 10:45/11am when we got on board. We had to change the SetSail cards around because the booking did not match the actual room assignments, but they couldn't do that until after we sailed.

We went up to the pool deck, and the girls, who were already in their bathing suits underneath, began their fun, grabbed lunch, and waited til 1 when we could get in the rooms.

The Room

We were in 2013,2514,2515. I had read that comparatively, the rooms on RCI were smaller than Carnival. That was not a lie. We had three people in our room, so one of the pullman beds was down. Good thing my wife and I have known our troop leader for 13 years! I think the last room we had on the Carnival Splendor was setup so well it seemed huge compared to this. But with the luggage stowed under the beds, and the pullman up during the day, it was easily workable. There was very little drawer space to unpack in, so I lived out of my suitcase. Also, the safe seemed very small. There were two plugs in the whole room, but the location worked fine for my CPAP. Phone charging was the other concern, but I always travel with a small extension cord with my CPAP and that helped with that.

Muster

This was interesting. In my vast wealth (aka three Carnival cruises) they always had you go to your stateroom for the muster drill. In this case, about 15-20 minutes before the drill, people started showing up at stairs to direct you to your muster station, so if you went out there right away you'd be standing there a while. We had an issue where our girls were told they had to be with a buddy and not to separate. However all but one of them were at station 2, the other one being at station 1 (both forward on deck 7, one on port, one on starboard) We were waiting for them at the stairwell on 7, where it would have been easy to get to either station. The problem was they were being told they had to walk down the outside of deck 7 to their station, but they wouldn't let the one for station 1 walk with the three for station 2. In other words, they were separating them. I know they have a job to do, but there was still a lot of time before the actual muster time and if they had just let them walk down the center of the ship it would have been easier. I talked to the person by the stairs and she told me what to tell them to tell to another crew member (while trying to get me to go to my station). Finally someone by where ever they were understood the situation and let the station 1 person walk down the port side with the rest so we could collect her. For as disorganized as the rest of this drill was, it was odd they were sticklers about that detail.

Also, right before the start of this we heard a code Alpha Alpha Alpha (medical emergency). After muster, when we went back inside, paramedics were taking a ambulance stretcher up the elevator. Never heard anymore but hopefully all was well

Sail Away

I've sailed out of Charleston (a 6 mile harbor cruise), Jacksonville (13 mile river cruise), and Miami (a cool turnaround by downtown and a 4 mile trip out the channel) and then Port Canaveral was a push away and 1.5 miles and you're in the ocean. Seemed a little bland compared to the others, but at least we left on time!

At this point I'll stop trying to a do an event-by-even narrative and just put everything into broad categories

Ports of Call

Nassau

We were at Nassau from 8am until Midnight. I made it a point to get up for the sunrise and docking. Love the turn around in the harbor. We were on the first pier which meant easy on/off, which was nice after being dragged all over all day.

This is my third time going to Nassau. I won't cry if I never get there again. We took the girls to the Queens Staircase, Fort Fincastle, the Pirate Museum and Bay Street. The goal was to go to Fort Charlotte, but they didn't want to make that walk. These 6 girls have slept on aircraft carriers, gone caving, etc...not typical girly girls...but dang if they didn't know every shop on Bay Street where they could get a free pendant or something. It took us quite a while to get to the Pirate Museum because of all the stops. But they had fun. The Staircase is beautiful, though no one stopped to listen to any of the history. The Fort is okay...small, but a great view. The merchants outside were very nice to the girls. The Pirate Museum seemed pretty cheesy - had some interesting facts, but other than a small mockup of a pirate town, it was a few dioramas, narration on a loop and a gift shop. The straw market is annoying as ever. I can't stand that place...but it was hilarious listening to some of the girls think they were getting a deal because something was usually $20 but today only it is $7. As my daughter said "Hah...that means it's always $7 and you're still overpaying."

My wife and I and two of the girls had lunch at Sharkeez. Last time I was in Nassau we ate there and loved it. I wasn't as impressed this time around - some of the items on the menu that were awesome were gone. I did find a very tasty Jerk Burger which I loved, but the menu seemed more Americanized than I remember it. Also, an oddity - the drink I got was a 45oz fun bowl. It was actually $10 more than the 64oz drink. Weird pricing. My bad for not asking but I assumed that the smaller one would be cheaper than the 64oz one which I had asked the price on. Buyer beware! Also, my wife's conch fritters didn't come out. They guy that brought the food out didn't have it on his ticket...but we forget to check to see if they were on the bill.

The Carnival Sunshine was in port and left around 5. I lost track of time by the pool and didn't get to watch for dock runners. We set sail around 11:30 and headed for Coco Cay

Coco Cay

We we're trying to be the first on the island, so we at in the MDR and then made our way to the tenders. Other than some disorganization on our part for the rallying point, getting over there wasn't bad. The line for the tenders were pretty bad earlier in the morning, but was moving quickly at 10 by the time we got in it. The tender ride was quick and easy. The island itself is interesting. It's not a huge sandy beach like Half-Moon Cay is, but a series of lagoons with rocks at the end for breakers. Seating was plentiful. The water was a little cool for my liking but you got used to it quickly. Lots of crabs on the rocks and fish swimming around. We didn't do any of the activities, but there was snorkeling, and probably others. There is an aqua park, which has inflatables in the water to climb and bounce on. We got over there to find they were an extra charge (something like $30 for 50 minutes) and you had to wear a life jacket to go in that area. That was disappointing, but I guess it's a way of keeping 2,500 people from being on them at once. I liked the layout of Coco Cay compared to Half-moon. Everything was right there off the beach - food, bathrooms, drinks, and even a "straw market". I wouldn't mind going back and doing the snorkeling, but we had too many people to keep an eye on this time around. The tender back was an easy process. They x-ray the bags on the island, so it doesn't delay getting off the tender and onto the ship.

The Food

So to jump around here. I did breakfast and lunch at the Windjammer mostly. One breakfast was in the MDR and dinner was always in the MDR. The first day I grabbed a burger which was very bland. But after that one meal everything got better. I'm not a seafood person, so had none of that, but some of the highlights

Breakfast

Eggs, omelettes, bacon and sausage, biscuits and sausage gravy, pancakes, hash rounds, pineapple - I liked breakfast. The sausage links looked weird, but tasted okay. The biscuits had a bit of a sweeter taste to them but were good. The omelettes were thin and they didn't put much in them, but when you ordered one, they gave you a number and told you to come back in 7 minutes, which kept it all moving and less crowding. The breakfast in the MDR, I had the french toast. It was amazing, thick and with some cinnamon and sugar on it. They also had a small buffet in the MDR, with fruit, bacon and breads.

Lunch

As mentioned above, I wasn't that impressed with the burger, but I doctored it up enough. There were a couple of second lunches during the week where I picked and chose. It seemed they did a taco bar which was pretty good. The few things I'd grab just as a snack seemed good. The lunch on Coco Cay was very good. Basically a BBQ, complete with a suckling pig where your cut came fresh off of it. Ribs were good. BBQ chicken was okay. Better than what I remember from Half-moon cay.

Dinner

Since we had the late dinner, one night I did sneak a dinner snack from the Windjammer. They had a couscous salad which was amazing. They had some sort of chicken wing which I'm not sure if they were going for buffalo or BBQ - not that good. They had a jerk chicken wing which was incredible. If you've ever had the ones at Pollo Tropical it was like that but 10 times better with more spice. The curried chicken was a bit bland. Didn't have much there but I shall be ever hunting for something as good as those jerk wings were.

The MDR - again, not a seafood person which hampered me. I'm didn't take pictures of the menu so I don't remember exactly what all I had so am going from memory here

- Caesar Salad, Angus Sliders, Creme Brulee

- Roasted Duck (and Caesar salad), something obviously unremembered

- French Onion Soup, Lamb, Apple Struedel and strawberry something (like a mousse/sorbet)

- Rice and Mushroom balls, Caprese Salad, Lasanga, and something for dessert

The first night, nothing really appealed to me, hence the sliders. Should have gone with the NY Strip. The Caesar salad was good, everyone loved it. The duck was okay. French Onion Soup was very good, the lamb was good and the Apple Struedel was dry and flavorless (saw it in Windjammer the next day). The straweberry dessert was great. My daughter had it and I decided to get one as well. The rice and portabello mushroom balls were tasteless, though the cream cheese stuffed pimento that came with it made up for that. The Caprese was good and the Lasagna was amazing.

All in all, I wasn't excited that much about the choices on the menu, but the quality of the food was good. There was a lot of trading of food items around the table, and it was hit or miss as to if someone liked something or not. Most of the adults were quite pleased.

Drinks

I did not get any of the unlimited packages - as much as a coke zero would have been nice, I can live on water, tea and lemonade....and whatever that great Strawberry Kiwi drink was. The bar drinks - the menu seemed kinda sparse, and the drinks of the day were underwhelming. The frozen drinks are interesting - I guess because they make virgin ones as well, the rum is poured over top of the frozen drink. They would walk around the theater and have premade drinks and just added rum as needed. The pineapple rita was nasty. Wish I could have found some more options for the frozen chocolatey type drinks, basically a milkshake with booze, but never did find one. Oh well...

Service

Our room steward was nice. Didn't see much of her, but the room was clean. We only had a towel animal one night - I don't know if that is normal or not, but my wife said she saw animals in other rooms as we walked by.

The MDR service was top notch - much better than the last cruise - I don't think my water glass was ever empty, which is a help after being in the sun all day.

Other service around the ship - minimal interaction my self, but usually very good. It took 20 minutes for the guy to come back with my Guinness one time, but that's about as bad as it got. We had to move people around rooms, and once we got underway, that was handled quickly as was some juggling of on board credits.

Ship Entertainment, activities, etc

Since half the girls were over 18, they did not do the teen club, so nothing to say about that.

Pool

The pool was not as packed as other ships I've been on. It may have been the temperature of the ocean water filling it. The four hot tubs were constantly filled with kids, so I stayed out of them.

Movies

They had some good recent movies, Rogue One, Lala Land, Arrival, and others. I saw parts of this and that because of other events getting in the way. The layout of the deck and screen location is odd - you have some sun covers above the hot tubs that block a lot of the screen from parts of deck 11. It seemed finding a good viewing location without obstruction was hard to do. But I wasn't there to watch movies so it didn't bother me much.

Trivia

We love doing this. We did a few of them - music, sports and general knowledge. It was fun - the hosts did a good job, kept it funny. The sports was all over the world of sports (thankfully), so if you're expecting NFL, MLB and NASCAR you're in for a surprise.

Compass

The compass is the daily activity guide. It sucked. Don't know what the deal was, but times were wrong for events on there, descriptions were lacking, and some events just didn't seem to happen. Whoever puts that together needs to do a better job making sure it's correct. You have people deciding what to do based on that paper.

Bands

They had a lounge band (bass, drums, keys, vocals) which were good. There was also a brass band (bass,horns, drums) who I heard a bit of - not my thing but they sounded good. And finally there was a band playing reggae/Caribbean music - also very good. Would have preferred a band which can do a bit more variety. Each one was locked into a certain style which got old very fast. Other than the reggae band, which played above the pool area as well, they played in the Centrum on a landing, which was a horrible place. There was no good viewing area to watch them. No place where you could grab a chair and watch. So mostly it looked as if they were playing just to play.

Shows

I only went to one of the production shows. It was "Boogie Madness" and had a bunch of 70s music. They sounded good, as did the band providing the music, but it was boring. I fell asleep for a bit. Nothing really major to it. However our girls loved it - three of them now have cruise stage performer as their goal in life.

They had a comedian which was great. He did a very good job of working through his routine but also bringing the audience into the show...usually as a source of more jokes. Only saw his second show, but the girls were talking about it all week.

They had a guy who did juggling and a unicycle act. Also very funny and worth it.

They had a high school band on the cruise who did a performance at 10am on the sea-day. While it was just filler material and I may have been one of the few in the audience not a parent of one of the kids on stage, their 100 years of Broadway chorus/band performance was great.

The Love an Marriage show - the cruise director Marc handled this one. He had a perfect ability to whatever was thrown at him and work with it. My daughter actually fell over in her chair laughing at one point.

The Quest gameshow - not as raunchy as it was on Carnival - but still fun.

Cruise Director

As mentioned above, the CD had a knack. I didn't see that much of him, other than at shows, but I also didn't go to the dance parties. When I did see him, he was always happy, always interacting and just seemed to be a generally nice guy.

The Ship

This ship is old - 25 years or so - but it didn't feel that way. It was clean, looked in good condition and the layout worked okay. Having a second set of elevators that hit all the decks would have helped. Much of any free area inside was taken up with this or that (next Cruise desk, internet access, etc) which took away from places to just sit for a moment.

Internet

I had the internet package for work, just in case. Facebook, e-mail and WhatsApp worked great. Instagram, being more photo based was slower. Others complained about it, but for where we were, it worked amazingly well.

Motion

I think I felt the motion a little more on this ship than any others, but it wasn't bad at all. I took my ginger pills and did not feel sick at all (and I get bad motion sickness). The worst location was theater. It was on the aft and you felt more motion, probably from the engines, than anywhere else.

Casino

Walked through there once or twice - wasn't as smoky as expected, but it did reek of smokers past. Didn't spend a dime in there - $10 min bet for BJ (except one day it was $3 for a bit).

OVERALL (and comparison to Carnival)

I enjoyed the cruise. I would like to try RCI again, but on a newer and slightly larger ship. I do like the smaller ships because it is less of a zoo, but would like to see what they do with a newer ship. The passengers on this cruise seemed a step above what is on Carnival. People seemed more pleasant to each other, more restrained and less people-of-walmart. There was just an overall feeling on the ship than on the last couple voyages. Could be timing, pricing, luck of the draw or anything...but it makes me want to do another RCI.

What I feel Carnival does better

The staff on carnival seemed to go out of the their way to learn your names (dining and stewards). It is amazing how much they remember about you. And they try more to interact with you. It could have just been our steward, but that was a notable difference.

The quest show on carnival was a lot more fun, raunchy, hilarious, executed better, etc.

The shows on carnival were better, though RCI used a live band not canned music.

The bands were better on Carnival.

Carnival, where you have two elevator banks across from each other, pressing a call button works for both banks, which helps speed things up.

What I really liked about RCI

RCI seems to have taken a look at what they do and found ways to do it better. The flow of the ship mostly seemed better. Simple things like using your Seapass card to check out a towel - Carnival they write it down, here they scan the towel in an out. The soda setup for the kids - Carnival they find a can an open it. Here you have a special cup which works with Coke freestyle machines. Everything for the most part just seemed to flow better, run smoother, etc on the RCI. Like the omelette example above, they look at where they could make things better and do so. Carnival seems to be more about getting them on board and then letting them have at it.

In the end, I would like to go on a Radiance class (newer) or smaller Voyager class to see how I like those. I just can't see how the Oasis class would work...too many people at for some of the choke points - theaters, pools, ports, tenders. I guess they scale everything up, just seems like too many people for me.

Sorry this was so long! If you have any specific questions about this cruise or "hey...I'm used to carnival" questions, be glad to do my best.

Be careful with the time thing. Your phone will change time when you cross into a different time zone. However, ship's time is the standard and it DOES NOT CHANGE. People have gotten burned with excursions and/or getting back to the ship on time, among other things, for living by their phone time.

This is something you can fix before you leave the home port - at least on my iPhone you go to the settings,general and date&time and turn off the Set Automatically toggle.

In fact, to find exactly where the setting was for above, I just noticed mine was still set off from our trip.

Two big issues with it at sea

1) GPS - would probably work fine on deck but once you get inside the ship, the signal won't make it in as well. As other have said, spawn and stops are at locations so other than the occasional random one, chances are you won't see much.

2) Internet - the game relies HEAVILY on the network connection. It is constantly exchanging data with the servers about where you are, where the critters are, etc... It can be pretty sensitive to bad connections, and on-board is a textbook example of that. It would require the step above the social wifi package to work, so cost vs benefit would be low, unless they have lots of eggs to hatch. But since it tracks movement based on GPS and only counts if you're going below (from what I've been told) 10mph, general open ocean cruising is faster than that (9knots).

Then once you're in port somewhere, you have another data issue - is your phone going to work on the local cellular and at what cost to you? If you're someplace with wifi, that may allow some captures, but if you're out and about, the requirement of connectivity could again make this a costly proposition.

As for growing up - you have to grow older, you don't have to grow up!

Airplane mode turns off all the radios (Cellular, Wifi and Bluetooth) at once.

You can (at least on the iPhone) then turn on Wifi or Bluetooth individually, leaving cellular off. That way if you use the Carnival Hub app for FunTimes (if on your ship) or wireless headphones, you can enable them individually while the cellular radio stays on Airplane (aka off) mode.

Chances are if they're like mine, the kids know more about this and will be glad to show you the options :)

Cave tubing right after a hurricane would be quite an experience. ...

"Feel the rush of cool water as you meander down small rapids and through the caves." becomes a 5 minute excursion!

Bought it last cruise, made some use of it, guest services mostly.

Would buy it again (mostly for instant room access) but wouldn't not go on a cruise because I couldn't get it.

Keep looking though - I got it about a month prior to our cruise. Wasn't til after I started reading that I guess I was lucky.

I had a little of both experiences in Grand Cayman. We were on the Glory.

Since we were on a carnival excursion, they had us meeting in the theater, where they would give out the stickers and guide groups down to the tender.

We had the time wrong for our excursion and missed that whole thing. At that point, for general people leaving the ship, they had you go to the Alchemy bar and get a tender number. We did that, and then remembered we had FTTF, which had you go to the Golden dining room to get your FTTF priority sticker and they take you down and get you on.

So, depending on what you're doing, determines where you need to be. As others said, they are pretty good about getting the info out. So since you are on a private excursion, just pay attention to where to be to get your tender ticket number, unless you have FTTF.

Best I can remember, we "got in port" around 7, but the first excursion people were leaving at around 8am. The whole thing moves pretty fast for the most part. The whole group needs to be there to get the tender numbers IIRC - you can't go up and say "I need 5". And there will be different areas of the ship to get on the tender to speed things up - fore, mid and aft possibly.

But no night before ticket - perhaps they are thinking of a different cruise line or something.

Well, assuming you don't want to do it in the casino, yes, that area is for smoking and is quite large. I don't think I saw it about 40% occupied.

There was a line out the door of the laundry room on the first formal night.