Kechin Yer Eye

When we were on her in October the fridges were completely empty when we arrived. We did exactly as you have planned, put in our water that we had purchased and the soda & wine that we brought with us.

Have a great cruise!

Is this old news? It appears to be written today, but the article doesn't say when or where it happened at.

http://fna.speedsociety.com/carnival-triumph-cruise-ship-breaks-free-and-hits-another-boat/?source=farm

We were in a similar situation last month on the Liberty. Both DH & I had casino rates when we booked 2 rooms. We put DH & his best friend in one room, myself and DH's best friends wife in another so we could take advantage of the rates. Everyone had their own sign and sail account linked to a different credit card. Once we were on board we went to guest services and had an additional "KEY ONLY" card made for each room. So we didn't technically switch rooms but everyone had a key to the room they were staying in. We let the luggage go to the assigned rooms and just switched it ourselves. Our rooms were right next to each other, so it wasn't much of a deal for us. It also worked out great for CHEERS as both DH & best friend drink and myself & DH's best friends wife drink very little. We only bought CHEERS for the one room and us girls just paid by the drink.

All I can tell you is we had ATD a few weeks ago and were in the Golden Olympian. Don't know if it also had set times or not.

We really enjoyed the ship, probably more than the Dream. A tad bit smaller and easier to navigate.

Have a great trip!

I assume you will be going down on I-45 between Houston and Galveston. If so, expect a traffic slow down for a while near the NASA exits. Doesn't seem to matter the day of the week or time of day. Also as your are heading for Galveston, exit 17 is the one to take to make your last pit stop...it is Buc-ee's! Great place to stop...drinks, snacks, big, clean and no waiting! Some other gas stations on the way down have a "one-hole" unisex bathroom that could take you 30 minutes waiting in line...just speaking from experience.

Just a couple weeks back from our road trip to Galveston from Kansas City. We seen several signs on the way down for Buc-ee's, we all talked about what a Buc-ee's might be, then on the way back home from the cruise we stopped at one. OH MY WHAT A PLACE. No other restrooms could compare the rest of the trip home!

And to the op, we went a day early........for my own piece of mind. So thankful that we did, Dallas traffic was HORRIBLE! Huston was bad, but not anything like Dallas......and we went thru Dallas between 6:30 -8:00am on a Saturday. It was so bad, we cut over to 35W right after Houston so we could avoid it on the way home.

Well we leave Monday with 4 newbie's coming along with us. I'm not worried in the least, Carnival will take care of us and not put us in harms way. However, we may be going thru some rough seas, so although I don't get seasick, I will be taking some meds with me in case the newbie's didn't bring any. Just hoping we actually get to board on Monday and not have to spend another extra day in Galveston since we plan on getting there on Saturday and exploring on Sunday. Might need to put a few bungee cords in my bag to keep closet doors and such closed.

Maybe I need to throw a hurricane watch party on Friday night for our group that is going......I'm sure that wouldn't cause the newbie's any worries.....right? :p

I know when we take mom cruising we book very early to ensure we get an interior accessible across the hall from suitable balcony for us. (please don't think we are shutting mom in an interior. She can not do steps. There are no balcony staterooms that don't have a step up into the bathroom and a threshold out to the balcony)

On the Dream last year our balcony room was next door to a handicap balcony room. We got to know our neighbors and were invited for a drink with them in their room one night......There were -0- steps.... you could roll a wheelchair right into the bathroom. Going out onto the balcony had a metal raised thingy so a wheelchair could roll over it as well.....think of one of those things that cover a power cord where lots of people are walking in the area....it looked sorta like that. Don't know if it makes a difference or not but we were on the 8th floor I believe.

After reading thru this thread last week, I thought what the heck, let me email casinos at sea and find out if they have anything for me on our cruise in a couple of weeks. BTW, I am booked on a casino rate since I did play for several hours in the casino in Aug of 2015. Within a day I got an email back that said you are already booked at a great casino rate but you also have $75 in casino cash waiting for you! Wooo Hoooo, I wasn't expecting anything, but this thread made me think to at least ask.........then the more I thought about it, I decided to email them again on behalf of my DH (he plays very little, but he does play) and got almost the same response back only with $20 in casino cash waiting.

Long story short, we have 2 rooms booked as we are taking another couple with us for their 20 wedding anniversary present.....that is why the casino response was the same.

So the lesson learned here is you never know what kind of offers you may have if you don't at least put forth the effort to ask. ;)

Can't wait to read the rest. We leave on the Liberty Oct 3, a group of 8 of us and 6 have never cruised before.....so it should be a lot of fun! Thanks for sharing your cruise with us.

Also, want to do something in Belize other than sit on a beach all day. I would love that, but my husband not so much! Not sure if the ruins is for him either! Can you get off the ship and just "explore"? Walk to town? We are both seniors!

Thanks

I can tell you from the only time we were in Belize (Oct of 2013) we did a ruins tour, which was good. When said tour was finished, the bus dropped us off outside the gates of the port at some eating place. (I'm sure the tour company got some sort of "kickback" for dropping us there, but we did not stay and eat).......We walked back to the gated entry and it was a tad bit scary. We never felt threatened, but just very uneasy. Armed, and I do mean fully armed, security was at the entrance to the gate and you had to show your s & s as well as an ID to get back in. We loved the shopping in the port area of Belize. They had the best prices of anywhere we went on that trip and the best part was NO ONE was trying to persuade you into coming into their shop or doing the hard sell thing. It was all very laid back. There is also a nice little bar right at the edge of port where you catch the tenders that had really good fresh seafood and locally made beers.

Have a great trip!

I just got off the phone with a CSR about my upcoming Liberty cruise. I am booked with a casino offer for an inside room and was calling to see what it would cost to upgrade to a balcony. I figured since we were past final pymt date and the big sale that just ended I would take a look and see what was left.......there are several balcony rooms still available via a mock booking. CSR took forever, but was very nice, and came back with a price that is MORE than if I just went straight to the website and booked a balcony cabin right now. I told her no thanks and hung up. Think I will call back later and see what kind of response I get. After reading some of what ya'll have said here, I think it might be worth a shot.

Thanks for the review. We will be sailing on the Liberty very soon, so always excited to read anything about her.

We are up in the air as to what to do in Progresso, we will check Technotel off of our list of options. When we were in Costa Maya a few years ago, same thing......took more than just a couple of minutes waiting then a 45 minute drive on the worst roads I have ever been on in my life. The place was great, but the getting there and back, not so much.

Once again, thanks for taking time to do your review and I'm glad you had a wonderful vacation.

There is a very nice free pool at the port in Costa Maya. We went to a AI place when we were there, but it took a bit of a cab ride on the worst roads you can imagine. Lots of seaweed in the water is the thing I remember the most about that area.

Have a great cruise!

Popcorn anyone? :D

Hell is a short ride from the Turtle Farm. The rock formations are very cool, but all you need is a few minutes. The gift shop & post office is where we spent the most time. Had to get several t-shirts for friends ;) I would say we only spent a total of 30 minutes there. There is a picnic table in the shade where you can sit while others finish up shopping & such. We were told that buses come by every 20 minutes. We waited more than 5 minutes but less than 10 for one to come by, just waved him down, climbed in and off we went. I won't say that we will go to Hell again, but we are glad that we went. Not just anybody can say they have been to Hell and back. :D

Last fall we did the Amazing Turtle & Wildlife Adventure" NO lunch tour. Once we tendered over, there were lots of tour operators holding signs, go to the person holding the sign for turtle farm, get checked in, then prepare to wait for about 20 minutes. They take groups of I would guess about 20-25 and put them together and you get assigned a tour guide that will stay with you all day at the turtle farm. We spent a few hours with the turtles & swimming.....decided to eat lunch at the place. They have a sit down restaurant where you can pay and eat or the other side is a buffet where the people that paid for lunch in their tour package go to eat. Glad we got to chose what we wanted off the menu, the buffet didn't look all that great to us.

We knew going into the tour that we wanted to do a few other things in the Caymans, but didn't think we would get to since the tour was suppose to end at 1:00 and all aboard was 3:00......well once we finished eating, we went and found our tour guide, told him we were bailing on the rest of the tour, which was in reality only the bus ride back. He had us sign a release form and made sure we knew that we would be on our own getting back to port. We thanked and tipped him and went out front of the turtle farm, caught a bus to Hell, spent some time there, caught another bus back to shops that were fairly close to port, took in some shopping and then walked a couple of blocks to where you catch the tenders. There were hundreds of people waiting on tenders, so we made it back with plenty of time to kill. The bus rides were the cheapest part of the whole day, 2 bucks a person anywhere you wanted to go. Just have to make sure you flag down a bus and not a taxi, they look the exact same, but the license plates are different. Sorry, I can't for the life of me remember what the difference is, but just ask around when you get there.

We loved the Cayman's and think we might do a non-cruise trip there in the near future.

Does anyone know of a GOOD hotel in NOLA that offers a Park and Cruise offer. We have stayed in a REALLY BAD hotel the previous 2 times we have sailed out of NOLA and I am hoping there are some great hotels out there that offer this unique feature! Thanks!

Last fall and also in 2013 we stayed at the Country Inn & Suites in Metairie LA about half way between the airport & the port. They offer .....free airport shuttle, free shuttle to cruise port as well as free parking during your cruise. They went thru a remodel 2015, so things are fairly well kept. There is a K-Mart right behind the hotel that you can walk to for cheap sodas and anything you might have forgot. They also had a wonderful free breakfast in the mornings.....not just donuts & coffee but real food. There is also a Acme Oyster House right next door, so a good place to eat close by. We really liked this hotel. Not a 5 star Hotel by any means, but clean, comfortable and inviting. The staff has always went out of their way to take care of anything we might have needed or asked for.

I am hoping that the place I found for our cruise this fall out of Galveston is as great as the Country Inn & Suites in Metairie. :)

Thanks BankofDad for your review. We are booked on this same Ship the first week of Oct, so it is great to hear you liked the Liberty so well. We sailed on the Dream this past fall and didn't really care for it......to much waiting in lines, just overall to big of a ship for us. I found your comments about the buffet & various food places to be the exact same as we experienced on the Dream. Buffet was good for breakfast or lunch, but not so much for dinner. We did enjoy the Dining room and the various other places to eat as well.

I am most looking forward to this trip as we are taking our BFF's along for their 20th wedding anniversary. Neither of them have been further than 4 hours away from home (and we are smack dab in the middle of this great country) let alone seen the ocean........so yea, we are probably more excited for them than ourselves.

Once again, thanks for taking the time to post your experience on Liberty, and I will most certainly have DH read it, he will be happy to hear that it probably won't be a carbon copy of our Dream trip.

I haven't been to grand Cayman but we're going to take the bus. It's only 2.50 to ride the bus and they come by often. You can even flag it down if you are standing by road and it will stop.

We did this very thing in the Grand Cayman's last fall. We were on a ship excursion to the turtle farm, seen all we wanted to see & do there and knew we wanted to go to "HELL." Talked to our guide from the tour told him what we wanted to do and he took us right outside in front of the Turtle Farm and flagged down a bus for us and told the driver we were wanting to go to "Hell." Since we were the only ones on the bus, the driver took us straight there and said, ok take your pictures then lets get you back to the ship. We said no no no, we want to get off and look around, shop and go back after while, he said ok, no problem, buses come by here every 15 minutes or so, just flag one down. After we were done seeing the sights and shopping we went out front and waited for about 5 minutes and seen a bus, flagged him down and we were on our way back to port. We stopped and picked up 2 other passengers but it didn't really take any longer than if we had taken a taxi. By the way, the taxi's & the buses look the same, the only difference is the license plates, and I, for the life of me, can't remember what that difference is. To wrap it all up, the bus driver told us it would be $4 for the trip from the Turtle Farm to Hell, so we gave him a $5 and said keep it, he was thrilled, said he never gets tips on the bus. We did the same on the trip back to port. So maybe when we were there in the fall it was only $2 and now the price has gone up to $2.50, but still, very cheap transportation and both drivers were friendly and glad we were spending our money in their great country.

We did the NCL Jewel in 2013 out of NOLA and absolutely loved it. 4 ports, Cozumel, Costa Maya, Roatan & Belize. They well all good, but Roatan was by far our favorite. The ship was the perfect size, not to big nor to small and the food in the buffets was really good, except for bacon in the mornings.....how does one mess up bacon, I do not know, but their bacon wasn't even close to right. We only ate in the MDR twice and it was what I would consider average. The steakhouse, probably one of the best places we have ever eaten. Service was outstanding everywhere on the boat.

We then did the Carnival Dream this past fall out of NOLA and had a completely different experience. I had purchased FTTF and we still didn't even get to board the ship until almost 12:30. There were a lot of newby carnival workers at the port the day we were there and the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing. I did like that our room was ready as soon as we boarded, but it would have been ready in 30 minutes even if we hadn't purchased FTTF. The Dream is a fairly big ship, so be sure and bring your walking shoes.....and give yourself time to get from one place to the next if you are trying to do dinner and a show.

The demographic of people on Carnival out of NOLA is much different than what we experienced on NCL.....but hey any day on a ship is a good day. We heard from a lot of locals that were on the ship that if you wait at the port until 4:00pm, if there are still rooms available you can get on for $50. Some of the people told us they cruise 20+ weeks a year this way.

We thought the buffet food on Carnival was well below average, except for the bacon ;), and the MDR was a little better than NCL. The Steakhouse on Carnival left much to be desired, we won't spend the money to ever go back to their Steakhouse. I've had a better cut of meat at Golden Corral....lol

Port stops that cruise were Cozumel, Grand Cayman, Montego Bay. Our favorite was Grand Cayman....liked it so much we will probably do a land based AI their in the not so distance future. The port at Cozumel was not the same port that we stopped in with NCL. I don't know if it's luck of the draw which port you get to stop at, but the one we stopped at with NCL seemed fairly new and right outside the gates was some great shopping and you could walk to some fairly nice bars & places to eat......not so much with the port where we stopped with Carnival. We did stroll outside the gate, but there wasn't much there.

We had balcony rooms on both ships and I would rate them both about the same.....maybe a slight edge to NCL in the bathrooms, but we probably had more closet space on Carnival.

We loved, loved, loved the trivia on Carnival......you could play for a 3-4 hours a day if you wanted. Oh, and the coveted Ship-on-a-stick.......we won 2 and a "gold" medal. NCL had trivia, but usually only 1 or 2 times per day.

Give and take on both lines/ships, all in all we prefer NCL and the somewhat smaller ships, but I wouldn't rule out either one.

Just off the Dream and had no problems getting to the smoking areas other than when we first got on. Headed straight to the casino bar as there was no outside smoking while the refueling process is going on. Only half of the casino bar is smoking, and it was packed. We just stood by a few folks at the bar, had a smoke and then we were off & running to find our room.

Deck 5 has a very nice area right outside Ocean Plaza, port side (directly in the middle of the ship), it is completely covered has lots of tables & chairs. There are also lots of lounge chairs all along the port side of Deck 5 where you can smoke. There was a very nice young man that kept the area fairly clean and the ashtrays emptied. We tipped him at the end of the cruise.

Deck 11 has starboard side smoking. Back in the Aft section of Deck 11 were more tables & chairs and LOTS of lounge chairs where smoking was permitted. The table & chairs area was covered and it was a great view of the aft pool and the wake of the ship. It was always fairly windy up there, but we met some great people in that location. The same people generally tended to gather in that particular location. The area was not kept as clean & tidy as the Deck 5 smoking section and I never saw the same person cleaning that area like we did on Deck 5, but yet it wasn't filthy by any means.

In the casino I would guess that about 80% of the slot machines have a little sign on them that suggests you can smoke while the other 20% have a sign that promotes no smoking. It was sometimes hard to find an ashtray in the casino. I have a portable pocket ashtray that I always kept with me while on the ship. It came in handy several times.

We just got back from the Dream a little over a week ago and there was no problem with soda in NOLA. We had a extra wheeled suitcase in which we put 2 12pack cans of soda in. Sent it thru the scanners and we were on our way to the check in desk. No one asked us to open the suitcase or sent us anywhere other than to tell us to head over to the check in line/desk. We did see the table where there was a carnival employee checking some other persons bag. She had a pretty good stack of water bottles, Gatorade, Beer cans and other no no items.

All in all it took dh longer to get his belt and his change and other pocket items out of his pockets and into the container that gets sent thru the scanner then it did for me to lay the suitcase down on the belt and walk thru the scanner thing myself. It was very easy.

 

Also, do you have any recommendations for companies for the tour?

 

We are booked with Liberty Tours for a trip to the Blue Hole & Secret Falls within the next 2 weeks. They have TERRIFIC reviews on Trip Advisor so we are giving them a shot. I will let you know as soon as we get back how it went. I am a little nervous as I think the trip to the Blue Hole is about a 2 hour ride from Montego Bay which is where our ship ports, but Ricardo, the owner of Liberty Tours lives in MoBay and this is the trip he recommended for me. I told him we didn't have to go to the Blue Hole, just wanted a guide for the day and have a little water time and some jerk chicken......he said the Blue Hole is the best and time won't be a problem. Ok, giving it a whirl!! :)

Will check out the booze policy on NCL when I sail them soon.

From our previous cruise on NCL, and to the best of my knowledge it still applies, on the final NIGHT of a NCL cruise you go to the on board store and pick up anything you have purchased on land or in their store. It took longer to walk down to the store from our room than it did waiting to get our items. When you purchased a bottle on land and brought it back to the ship, you got a "coat check" ticket with number and that is what you gave them when picking up your item. It worked really slick.

On some Carnival boards, I have heard horror stories about people not getting the right bottles delivered/people not getting any of their bottles/broken bottles/etc..... I am not crazy about picking it up the morning we leave, but I think I prefer picking it up and knowing right then & there you have your stuff then waiting to see what gets delivered to your room.

Just my two cents worth.......and my opinion might change after going on the Dream next month.

We had been discussing the very same thing for our upcoming stop there. I decided against going with the Carnival excursion not for the price difference, which isn't much, but I have read a LOT of the reviews and several people said they were rushed and didn't have enough time to see & do all they wanted to do at the Turtle Farm. Also add in the fact that we want to venture over to H E L L which is right across from the Turtle Farm and we also want to go to the rum cake place which is within walking distance, or so I have been told. So after considering we want to make sure we get to do all 3 of those things, we are going it on our own. :eek: Guess it does help that we do indeed have FTTF, so early tendering won't be an issue. 3 ships in port the day we are there, with over 10,000 guests.....glad we are the first ship to arrive that day. Man, the things I have learned on CC :)