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Carnival Glory Back to Back 9/8 and 9/15


raynvic
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We had a great time on our Glory Back to Back 9/8 and 9/15. The first leg was our 25th Milestone cruise with Carnival. We have been Platinum since 2007 and will make Diamond on our next cruise. We arrived into Miami from Phoenix via the red eye about 8:30 a.m. We called an Uber for a ride to the port. I could not get the app to let me select 2 stops, so we simply asked the driver if we could stop at CVS to pick up the allotted wine. We tipped him $20 for the stop. Once we arrived at the port, there were about a dozen people ahead of us.

Embarkation – Previous cruisers were still leaving the ship when we lined up for the Platinum/Diamond/FTF parties. We waited for 30 minutes or so before we were allowed into security. I had my boarding passes ready for both legs as I had 2 bottles of wine for each leg. Security did not even examine my wine or ask about the extra wine. Not sure why as I have had them ask for the boarding passes before in Galveston. We were then directed to an area for our group that was not roped off, but simply adjacent to the main boarding area. There is no special lounge for the VIP guests here. It is my understanding that this terminal is temporary and the reason why.

We were on board at shortly after 11. I headed to the excursion desk as I had some onboard credit I wanted to use and the reason why I did not pre-book excursions. It was not up and running yet, so I went to our cabin with DH. We booked a suite since this was a special trip for us being both Back to Back and our Milestone. The cabin was ready, so we unpacked our carryon bags and met our cabin Steward. Our pretty white cards with the Milestone logo arrived shortly thereafter. We headed up to Lido for the obligatory Guys burger which did not disappoint. By the time we got back to our cabin theluggage had started arriving.

The muster drill was as always, no one paying attention and all complaining about the heat. We were soon off to the sail away. We had the chance to catch the Vista as she sailed out just ahead of us. We did not do much after this point other than eat dinner. I had booked 8:45 p.m. massages for us and then we headed to bed. It had been along 36 hours. Remember we worked all day Friday and flew all night to reach the ship. Don’t believe in burning a vacation day traveling to port.

Edited by raynvic
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Part II

Just a few quick notes from here:

Staff: The staff on the Glory was incredible, everyone we met from the Spa to the Gift shops and in between were friendly and fun to interact with. The singers and dancers were among some of the best we have seen. All of their shows were good. We took 3 large bags of the Hersheys nuggets to pass out (this was a tip from CC). We left a filled dish in our cabin which we told our Steward and her assistants to help themselves. We gave them to thosecleaning the carpets, the room service staff, the service desk, the bartenders and anyone we encountered. It seemed to be appreciated and made us feel good to show our thanks. The fun squad was a lot of fun and we got acquainted with a couple of the staff that were on the Vista repo. The Maître’d and assistant Maitre’d were very friendly and we enjoyed chatting with them as well. The ships officers, in particular Jay the Beverage Manager and William the Service Desk Manager were friendly and interested in communicating and gathering feedback.

Activities: The Lobby was constantly busy with different activities, like life size yatzee, Sorry, trivia, etc. The usual pool activities,the nightly shows and the comedians. The first week the Casino was just busy, the second week, it was a Premier Casino cruise and the Casino was wildly busy.

Food: The Steak housewas phenomenal. The dining room just okay, no better or worse that what I have come to expect. We did the Chef’s Table the first week as we had never done this before. Chef was hysterical and had such a great personality. We enjoyed the presentation. Thefood and many courses were a little much for us and so we are probably one and done with this. The food on the Lido deck was just food, we really missed the Mongolian Grill as there is not one on this ship.

Ports: We had been to all of the ports before. The first week was Grand Cayman, Belize, Honduras and Cozumel. The second week, Grand Turk, San Juan, St. Thomas and Amber Cove. In Belize we took the Lamanai tour as it was the last of the 3 Mayan ruins that we had not seen. It was a great tour. In St. Thomas we did a private charter with 2 other couples and did some island hopping around St. John and St. Thomas. This was a terrific tour and we really enjoyed ourselves. All of the other islands we just did beach/pool activities. I will tell you that the tender from Grand Cayman presented some problems. A storm kicked up as we were loading the tender. Once it got to the ship, only about half of the passengers got off before we had to “disconnect”. We spent about 20 minutes riding out some really rough wet weather along with 2 other tenders until they could get us back to the dock. At that time there were roughly 2,000 guests stuck on the island. The weather did clear and we did all get back aboard and on time. I don’t think I have ever been that soaked even when fully submerged in water.

Transition from week 1 to week 2. We were instructed to meet in the show lounge at 9:30 ish. We waited for quite a while before we were finally taken off to go through customs. Once we got to the customs area we waited for probably another half hour as people were still disembarking to go home. We finally boarded behind new passengers about 11:45 a.m. This was not an ideal situation and worked much smoother in our last experience in Galveston. It is my understanding that there was a fairly large group of non US citizens and a surprise inspection that caused the delay.

Debarkation: This went much smoother than the week before. We met in the designated lounge and as group 3 were called off around 7:50 or so. I had filled out a customs form as we went over the duty free limit. The Agent looked at my form and waived us through. We caught an Uber (less than $20 for XL) arrived at the airport and checking in by 8:30 a.m. Unfortunately due to weather in Texas, our flight was cancelled and we were rebooked on a flight to LA and then back to Phoenix. American Airlines had rebooked us when they cancelled the first flight, so it was not a surprise when we got to the airport. Gotta love that App.

I am hoping this will be helpful to those who “mine” the boards looking for information. After 35 plus cruises, I am still learning something new and seeking more information. Bon Voyage to you all onyour next adventure!

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