dltvermont

Thank you KK. I appreciate it. Im just a beginner when it comes to using anything but my P&S or Iphone!

I cant compare....YET.....but we went on our first cruise ever this past Spring on NCL Dawn which is a smaller, older ship. We loved it but maybe were a bit star struck as it was our first time. We will be sailing on CCL Breeze this coming Spring with the rest of our family. The main reason? PRICE. I compared the identical itinerary with NCL and CCL and was going to have to dish out MUCH more money for the family to cruise NCL. I have friends who do CCL only and am sure we will have a great time. If its just my wife and I, I would do NCL (or CCL) but as a family, there was no comparison when I looked at the money involved.

As someone above said, its a cruise! A Vacation! anything's better than work or staying in the Northeast cold temps!!

Spidy,

Id try that on our next cruise too but there is no way, no how my wife would be able to receive texts and NOT answer all of them immediately. My cell bill would be more than my cruise fare!! haha

D

C2, in this size its not bad but if you look at it closely, its not real clear (the ship that is). I think it would look fine on a regular sized printed photo. Wouldnt want to enlarge it though. Im probably being alot more critical of myself that I need to. This was my first time on vacation with a DSLR so I still have alot to learn.

On our cruise, our first, this past April/May, we left our older teens at home alone. We signed up for one of the ATT texting packages and as soon as we were off the ship on an island, we would make contact and "Catch Up". Once we hit St Thomas, it was included in our domestic package anyway so we were good there.

And St Maarten. This one looked alot better on the tiny camera screen than it did once I saw it on my computer screen.

IMG_0936 by darron.tabor, on Flickr

And in Curacao

IMG_0707 by darron.tabor, on Flickr

From our first cruise this past April/May. Grand Cayman

IMG_0413 by darron.tabor, on Flickr

Well Im real late to the party here but great review and loved all the pictures. We are taking our second ever cruise on the Breeze in April and taking the kids this time. Will be their first. Looks like we all will have a blast! Last April we went on our first ever cruise for our 20th and hit Aruba and Curacao...your pics brought back some great memories.

We sailed on her in April/May. It was our first ever cruise so I have nothing to compare it to but we loved it. We saw many negative reviews and I chose to ignore them and make my own opinion. The Dawn is an older and smaller ship. We arent foodies so found the food to be just fine. We found the crew to be friendly and accomodating.

If you have any specific questions like people said above Id be glad to try to address them.

I dont know anything about that specific tour but if you are looking for a private tour, we used Bernards Tours and had a great day. If you decide on them request the Mailman as your guide.

So, I guess it is time to pack my Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader Hot Pants for Elegant Night.

 

So.

 

We now have "tailored" shorts on Elegant Night.

Recorded Music and Videos for Showroom Shows.

Hasbro for an Evening Show.

 

But we do have unlimited Alcohol for an additional price.

And Guy's Burgers.

 

How long before they institute 'Family Style Dining' where the Waiters just plop a large dish in the middle of the table and you serve yourself. Oops, that is called American Table isn't it.

 

What the hell has happened to Carnival. They are no longer just the Walmart of Seas, they are turning into the Dollar Tree of the Seas.

 

Show some class folks. The Waiters will be dressed better than you.

I dont want to hijack this thread by being off topic, but I think in answer to this specific reply, you have to look at the whole picture. Look at the small number of people on here compared to the vast number that cruise with Carnival and then look at the differences in opinion in just this small cross section. I would bet for the vast majority of CCL Cruisers, its all about money. I would also bet that for that same vast majority, the things you mention do not rank real high on their concerns.

When I booked my cruise for this coming April, it was purely based on price as I am bringing my kids and grandson. Looking at the identical cruise with NCL, I would have paid $1800 for our balcony and $2400 for our inside room versus CCL at (listed price, ours was less) $1380 and $1720 respectively. Thats a total savings of $1100! Thats big for an average family.

I think if you want elegant, you want amenities, you want fancy.....you go to another line that has all of that and be willing to pay for it.

You can only do so much and keep your prices down.

We had our first ever cruise last April/May. Not once did I ever look around in dismay or comment at what others were wearing in the dining room. I was focused on my beautiful bride of 20 years and good conversation......Up at the pool? Now that was another story. Many many people have to realize when their bodies just arent made for a banana hammock or bikini.......just sayin' !! Funny, I never see posts complaining about THAT!

Why would anyone be so pretentious as to care what ANOTHER person was wearing at dinner? If you like to dress up, by all means do it. If not, dont.

I love the idea of the poster above about having one dining room for playing dress up and the other for those who want to go more casual. Me? Im not going to be packing a suit or tux any time soon. Im on vacation.

We spent our afternoon at Palm Beach in Aruba. As the poster above says, it is gorgeous. We had dinner planned at Passions on the Beach at sunset and then returned to the ship. Most everything was closed when we were there that evening as it was their Labor Day.

As the other poster above says, we too were not impressed with Curacao. To be fair, it could have been because since we had done things costing money at other ports, we decided to just do a self guided walking tour. I have since seen a few reviews on here where people did actual paid bus tours and it looked a lot nicer.

My response is only related those two ports as Ive never cruised that time of year. We cruised for the first time last May and ended up in Aruba late, 1-11 PM. We liked Aruba MUCH better than Curacao and if we had the choice would want to be in Aruba all day and Curacao for the later times.

I guess it also depends on what you intend to do there. Casinos clubs etc would be night time. Beach and touring would be day!

Just wondering, did you do any post processing of the pictures from the beach by the fort above? The blue sea water is just gorgeous. I never seemed to capture the true colors of the water when we were on our cruise. Just wondering for future reference!!

Wow, we've never been to Bermuda (on our to do list) but we were on the Dawn last April/May for our first ever cruise and your pics bring back so many great memories!

Great toddler review. I will show this to my daughter. We are cruising on the Breeze in April and she will be bringing her son along who will be about 18 months old at that time. This fit her situation perfectly.

Cant wait to see what shows up in this post. Great idea! I dont believe I will be contributing much as I am just a newbie myself, so I'll be the one scarfing up all the info!!

It was just my wife and I on our cruise this past spring and I worried about the same thing. IF I brought the DSLR, either my wife was right there next to it (she's more beach than water) or we were both close enough to watch it while in the water together.

Not sure how I missed this review earlier!! We were actually in Aruba with you, on the NCL Dawn parked right behind you! We spent the day at DePalm as well, I pretty much floated in the ocean the whole time. What a beautiful area.

We didnt even arrive until 1 so having everything closed was kind of a bummer for my wife. She wanted to shop a little after dinner but oh well!

Anyway, thank you for the review and pics. We are on the Breeze this coming April!

Don,

I realize mine aren't backed up...........until I get home to a computer. I don't own a laptop so don't have one on board to back up there. At home they are on a computer, on two back up external hard drives and on DVD's. The point of multiple cards is to not lose everything in ONE card is lost, damaged etc. The odds of ALL of my cards being corrupt or damaged unless I lose my suitcase are not that great.

I took just over 1000 pics on my cruise and all are safe and sound in many places.

On our first ever cruise this past spring, I used a tip I saw on another post on CC. Probably overkill and since you back up probably not needed for you but I had one card for day before and sailaway, one for each island and one for the sea days. But I was able to just snap away and not worry about loading up my cards and as said above, if something got stolen or lost I still had the rest.

SD cards arent that expensive, especially at online retailers and after the cruise I had/have them for whatever else!

Grand Cayman

IMG_0385 by darron.tabor, on Flickr

IMG_0386 by darron.tabor, on Flickr

I had a CC with a low limit on it that I hadnt used in some time that I used on my purchases on land. I told my CC company that I was going on the cruise (which you should do anyway). Using that smaller card I found it easier to keep track in the event there was anything fraudulent going on as its used was limited. And, being such a low limit, if someone DID get ahold of it, their shopping spree would be cut short as well!

Everything on the ship was attached to another card.

As I said in an above post, cash was limited to taxi fare, tips etc. I didnt find much use for cash at all. I budgeted for my excursions ahead of time and had the cash for them in separate envelopes in the safe and took whatever I needed on that day.

I preferred everything on a card that I could pay all at once when I returned home.