~~A GLORYus review~~ 5/2/2010

[elldav7]

Well the review might not be that great as far as content goes, but the cruise sure was amazing. I took lots of pictures and some video and thought I would share. I booked the cruise 87 days before we left, and I'm extremely saddened to see that my sig now says "Sailed!".

 

I've been reading reading reading for those 87 days on these forums trying to prepare myself and also live vicariously through some of all of you that had cruises to go on. I had high hopes that I would do the cruise justice and nightly comprise my thoughts on my laptop when they were freshest in my head. So I head up to the Lido deck with laptop in tow only to realize that it feels too much like work to be sitting here with my laptop, so I quickly run back to my room drop off the laptop, put the swimsuit on and hit the lido hot tubs just in time to catch some harry potter! On a side note, this is a great place to watch these movies. I wouldn't recommend staying in for the full movie though. I don't think 2 hours in a hot tub is probably that good for you.

 

 

So anyways, maybe no one is even interested, but I'll go through the days the best I can remember them. Try to add some interesting images and video, and try and be creative with some commentary. If anyone has any questions about the Glory and its Western Caribbean itinerary, go ahead and post them right in this thread. I'll try to answer quickly.

 

Where to start... How about the beginning, which was around 4:30am Sunday morning May 2nd...

[seguincruiser]

More please! Can you hear the movie or is the deck too noisy?

[elldav7]

Or there will be more ;)

 

And yes, the sound system with the new big screen is awesome IMO. They cranked the volume up nice for the movies so you could hear great. And for the most part everyone on the Lido was watching, and there wasn't much noise other than the movie. I'll give a rundown of the nightly movies throughout this review, I think this is the only movie i took a picture of though...

[elldav7]

So a very short cruise background on me and DW. This is our 4th cruise and each one we've flown in the day of the cruise with no problems. Well you all had me nice and freaked out about it this time. I didn't realize there was such a big following for people flying in the day before just to be on the safe side. For us we were leaving 2 kids at home (ages 2 1/2 and 5) with the grandparents, so even an extra day would be hard on us.

 

So it all started as my Ipod's alarm goes off at 4:30am Sunday morning. To be honest, even though it was early, I jumped out of bed due to the excitement level. All bags were packed and just needed to be loaded in the car and off we went. To keep this part of the review short due to traveling days being very boring, I'll just say the whole getting from Minneapolis to Miami went without any issues. I hate flying, but this flight was smooth the whole way.

 

 

Got our bags quickly once we arrive in Miami, and walked out and hopped in a cab. 24 bucks to the cruise port, and we were flying through Miami. Here's the first sight of the Glory, this really had us excited...

 

[elldav7]

So on to embarktion, it went really smooth. Let me point out that everyone should try and do as much of the online funpass stuff as possible before your cruise. This was the first time for us to roll in to the terminal and see two different LONG lines of people. One line was for those that had their Fun Pass already filled out online, and the other line was for those that didn't. So we got in the Fun Pass finished line and it went quite fast. When you get up to the front, there are just computer kiosks that you scan your passport, and everything is taken care of. It looked like our line was going about twice as fast as the folks that didn't have the Fun Pass stuff done. When we get our Sail and Sign cards I was a little concerned because we had changed from Early dining to Your time dining or whatever it's called. My sail and sign card said

 

Dining: Golden - Deck 4

Table: 777

 

No problems though, the Golden dining room is all Your Time dining when you go in upstairs (Deck 4).

 

So finally we have arrived at our floating home for the next week and we couldn't have been happier. One thing to note, and cruise veterans may laugh here, but in Miami, pack your swimsuit in your carry on. It was very hot and sweaty Sunday afternoon, and after an already long morning of travel, it would have felt good to hit the Lido deck pool. I was in shorts and a tshirt, but still it was hot.

 

Next came the sweaty muster drill. Thank goodness for the change where you don't need to wear your life jacket. Past cruises we've had to. 4 honks of the extremely loud horn and we were off!

 

I never remember how busy South Beach gets, it looks crazy down there!

 

 

So really the rest of the day was just getting settled in. Our luggage showed up around 4:30. Like I said before, we had Your Time dining. We really enjoyed this dining method. We never had a wait any night, instantly seated every night. We liked Robinson, ask for him, he's a funny guy. The only issue is there is no view from this dining room. We've had great views off the back windows of the ship for our other 3 cruises. I had the Pan Seared Fillet of Tilapia, and the DW had the BBQ baby back ribs. Mine was kind of boring, but I still liked it. Her ribs were fantastic, kind of wished I would have ordered that. For desert I had the Vanilla Crème Brûlée, it was brilliant. And the wife had her Warm Chocolate Melting Cake obsession finally quenched after 3 years.

 

The rest of the night went to ship exploring, and just overall relaxing. It sure feels good when you're finally out at sea. First picture of this thread is from that night, I was in a very happy place ;)

[EdmondDantes]

I need my daily fix of cruisin' pix! More please!!!

[Ms. Fun Bunch]

Great start.............can;t wait for more.

[elldav7]

So our home for the week was a balcony on Panorama deck. Picked by me, the sauna in the spa was the deck above us so I figured no noise from above. Although there was one noise that really got on my nerves all week, and that was the noise of door slamming. I'm the type of guy that doesn't slam anything. Car doors, house doors, kitchen cabinets, toilet bowl seat, anything that can slam, I like to close with some grace. Not so much people on cruises. We have stateroom doors slamming at all hours of the day/night, balcony doors slamming. I mean it shakes the floor at times. So maybe do everyone around you a favor and catch a door from time to time. ;)

 

So on to the day at Sea. Today's safety tip from the Fun Times...

 

"Drying off after using the pool helps prevent slip and fall accidents."

 

Awesome, now that I know that, I think I'll have a safer time on the Lido today. A more appropriate safety message would be...

 

"Put on more sunscreen than you think you need. Your Minnesota skin that hasn't seen the sun in 6 months is going to take a beating today."

 

I realize that might be a bit focused on my situation, but take the advice, you wouldn't want the rest of your week ruined due to a bad burn. I didn't get a bad burn on my back, but it was burnt and required more tshirt wearing in the sun the rest of the week.

 

Lido deck gets a little busy on days at sea...

 

[Jeans*Fanatic]

Awesome review to start!!! Can't wait to read the rest... :D

[elldav7]

Kind of a sucky pic, but the music on the Lido was great this cruise. In the past it's been a bit loud at times. I'd rather be able to talk with the DW and not shout over the music when I'm relaxing. It was just right this year.

 

 

So I bought an underwater digital camera before this trip. I was nervous about putting it in the water this first time, but it had to be done. So we started in the pool. Here's the first ever underwater picture with this camera.

 

 

Awesome right?? That's the DW's knee. It was a misclick of the shutter button. Trust me, they get better.

 

Another shot of where we spent most of our time on the ship.

 

[seguincruiser]

What airline did you use? We're going on the Destiny in Jan out of Miami but will get in day before. We're also from MN and have tickets with Sun Country. Never heard of this airline till we moved here but the tickets were unbeatable.

[elldav7]

So we layed out all day and after the mild sunburning I referenced earlier it was time for our first elegant night. We cleaned up and headed off to dinner. I forgot to mention that on night 1, we had Wilbur for a waiter. We liked him, but we thought we'd try different people each night, so we moved on. We had Robinson on night 2 and really enjoyed him. He was a funny guy. When he'd come and ask us what we were ordering, after we said anything he would always say "You're welcome." It was out of place, and I realize that English is probably not a lot of the cruise staff's native tounge. But it just made us smile. I'm probably not explaining it well enough to understand and I'm really not trying to be rude in any way. His personality and demeanor was just one of the small things on the cruise that you look back on fondly.

 

OK, so on to the food. I had the Baked Stuffed White Mushrooms as a starter. I'm not a huge mushroom guy, but it stood out on the menu so I thought I would try it. It was fantastic. My main course was the Supreme of Hudson Valley Duck. And yup folks I'm "that guy." I realize taking pictures of food might not be totally "elegant", but I loved the food this week...

 

 

So after dinner we hung out for a while, and then headed off to the show in the Amber Palace. It was called "Livin' in America." I'll keep this short and sweet (or not so sweet). The dancers were good, and the lead singers sounded great. But the volume of the show was unbelievable (TOO LOUD). I'm a 32 year old guy that listens to loud music all the time, but this was obnoxious. At times you could hear distortion in the speakers it was so loud. I could be wrong, but I sensed others felt overwhelmed as well. At the beginning everyone was pumped, loud cheering, and by the end I thought everyone seemed much less excited. We ended up leaving with about 10 minutes left because the DW doesn't like things as loud and it was too much for her. As we were leaving there were a few other groups leaving at the same time. I could be totally wrong, but I speculate others were thinking the same thing. We usually like that style of shows, but it just didn't go well for us this cruise. No knocks on the singers/dancers, they were great.

 

I'm an uber amateur photography nut, meaning I don't know much about it, but I have a digital SLR that I like to mess with. I wanted to try some low light stuff, but didn't find a lot of great things to photograph throughout the week. Monday night I took this and thought it was kind of fun. DOD's are always picture worthy ;)

 

 

Last post for a little while, but I'll see this thing through. Next post we finally get to the interesting stuff, the ports of call, starting with Cozumel!

[elldav7]

What airline did you use? We're going on the Destiny in Jan out of Miami but will get in day before. We're also from MN and have tickets with Sun Country. Never heard of this airline till we moved here but the tickets were unbeatable.

 

We flew Delta because I had some Northwest frequent flyer miles turned in to Delta sky miles, and ended up with a free flight. I flew Sun Country to Orlando a few years back. Seemed like any other flight I've taken, and I booked them for the same reason. The pricing was great.

[jdawsonrn]

Great Start!! We are on the glory in Novemeber. Can't wait to hear more :D

[SMSACE6]

Thanks for your review and photos. Im looking forward to the rest!:)

[elldav7]

I said I'd tell the movies on the Seaside theater every night, but I forgot yesterday. On embarktion day they had Harry Potter. On Monday (the first Sea day), they had "Yes Man" at 8:30pm and "GI Joe, Rise of Cobra" at 10:30. I watched a bit of GI Joe that night due to still being awake and kind of roaming around the ship.

 

Tuesday morning, finally we're getting somewhere. One thing I'd like to point out is I'm a big buffet guy. I love breakfast buffet's in general, but to be honest it wasn't that great on the cruise this time. Every morning was the same food, and the quality just wasn't there for me. I had an everything omelette every day along with some type of meat (bacon or sausage). Most mornings I tried to hold back on what I ate in the morning, because I looked forward to my lunch options a lot more. The Passion fruit/Guava juice is so good though ;) I drank A LOT of that every morning.

 

Hello Cozumel! I woke up around 7:30am every morning (door slamming really?) and really enjoyed the ability to go out on our balcony and watch as we came in to port. We arrived around 8:00am, and the day was looking beautiful. Fun Times told us we needed to be back on board at 4:30pm. No problem for us, but it was a bit of an issue for others... More on that later. Safety message for the day goes as follows.

 

"Renting mopeds, scooters or jet-skis not available as part of CCL recommended tours can be hazardous."

 

I don't know how a moped could be more hazardous based on whether or not you rented from around the port or through CCL. The hazardous part would be the fact that the cabbies drive crazy...

 

The Glory from the pier. I think that was the Fascination behind us.

 

 

So we've been to Cozumel before and new we were looking for a relaxed day so we just jumped in a Cab to head off to Chakanaab park. Leadfoot cabbie got us their in Olympic record time (look out mopeds and scooters not rented through CCL). Beautiful beach and snorkeling right off some stairs from the beach.

 

This was our view from where our chairs were under some palms.

 

 

By the way, those clouds were pretty much the only clouds we saw all week! Right as we walked in a kid asked us what we wanted to do for the day, we said snorkel and he told us to follow. I didn't really get why, but it became evident once we got farther in the park. There are multiple places to rent from, and he brought us to the one furthest down the beach. They were all close to one another, so I guess this kid was there to get us to walk to the last one rather than stop and rent from the first. I think it was 15 bucks for all the gear for the day. I'm not much of a haggler, so this was fine for us.

 

We love to snorkel so we put on our gear right away and hit the water. Through pictures you've met the wifes knee, now it's time to meet us. So hello, this is me and the DW.

 

 

That was the last time I wore one of those life vests. This one really wouldn't blow up and when I got out it was actually full of water. I forgot how much more buoyant you are in salt water and snorkeling, it's just so easy to float. Notice no tshirt, that's going to change quick.

[As You Wish]

Enjoying your review and pics. I'm looking forward to the rest.

[elldav7]

On the left of this picture is the 3 different huts that had rental equipment. Each of them had everything to offer (snorkeling/scuba).

 

 

I didn't get great pictures of snorkeling at this place. It really was a lot better than what the picture portray. Plus this was really my first attempt at underwater photography with this camera. I was trying to get a pic of the bigger fish and the little guy ninja'd his way in.

 

 

I thought this one was funny, it looked like the fish wanted to eat this guy's hand.

 

 

Just some pretty underwater scenery.

 

 

So I LOVE snorkeling, but the truth is I'm a bit freaked out by the ocean. In Minnesota you can safely jump in pretty much any lake without the fear of something wanting to eat you. But in the ocean, although the probability is extremely low, there is that chance. I knew about the statue in the water at Chakanaab so I wanted to check it out. One of the local guys pointed us in the right direction so we swam out. It was kind of a creepy experience, the water wasn't great visibility, so as you're swimming out you just start to see this figure appear.

 

 

It was cool though, all in all it was a fun place to snorkel. Finally some video! Make sure to go down and click on 720p to watch in HD.

 

[elldav7]

So the day was extremely hot, and for some reason we decided to go back and walk some of the paths to look around. We saw this guy (and a few more like him)

 

 

Well about 5 minutes in to our walk, we're sweating profusely and just wanted to get out of there. We got a bit lost on the path, then got stuck behind some theatrical performance of a "Cultural Prehispanic Show" (that's what they called it). But finally we found our way out, hopped a cab back to the pier and were on our way back to the ship. A picture of the coast from the Panorama deck I think.

 

 

So remember how I pointed out the time when we were supposed to be back on the ship. 4:30 right? We were on way before that for lunch, I think around 2:30 (more on the lunch options later). 4:30 comes and goes and we're not going anywhere, we were sitting in our cabin, and the DW comes in from the balcony and says to come out and check this out. At this point it's 5:10pm. 40 minutes after the back on board time, and 10 minutes after set sail time. Right before I took this video one lady had to be brought on board by a security officer of some type with a firm grip on her arm. This to me is a walk of shame worse than what people talk on these forums about booze smugglers getting caught with locked baggage. People were seriously heckling these people, it was quite funny. I didn't realize balcony cabins had some additional entertainment value. Again, remember to click the resolution up to 720p, and sorry for the weird perspective/angle of the video at times, again I'm sort of new at this... ;)

 

[cruisecrazy09]

Love the review! My DH and I leave this Sun on the Glory! Super excited.

[Fishfish]

Great review! I LOVE the vidoes and the pics!!

[Mama Cruiser]

Thank you so much for the day-by-day. I leave on Monday, May 24th on the Glory out of Charleston, SC to Freeport and Nassau. This will be my 4th cruise (the 16th for my friend going with me). It's the first on the Glory for both of us.

[seguincruiser]

Love the review. Watched the walk of shame video and have to say at least the guy still had his Carnaval towel.:rolleyes:

[carynman]

We were on your cruise and also loved the "balcony entertainment" with watching the drunk girl 45 minutes late in Cozumel! It was priceless and good thing she was too drunk to probably remember about 2000 people yelling at her between the 2 ships!

 

Great review, I'm looking forward to reading the rest! We had an awesome time too and can't wait to go on another one.

 

:)

[elldav7]

The night of Cozumel I had the French Onion Soup which was pretty good, and then I had the Jerk Pork Loin, but forgot my camera so no food porn this time. That night we skipped the show in the Amber Palace called "Motown & More." Our ears were still ringing from the night before. Well not really, I just wanted to reiterate the fact that it was too loud the night before ;) The movies this night were "Terminator Salvation" at 8:00pm and "Love Happens" at 10pm. We ended up watching the early comedy show at 7:30pm, it was Michael Macy and we thought it was very funny.

 

So that was it for the day at Cozumel. Overall a great day.

 

Good morning Belize! Well you can't see Belize, but I promise we were pretty much there.

 

 

I was very prepared for all the other islands in terms of knowing what we were going to do for the day, but Belize I totally dropped the ball. We ended up trying to sign up for a snorkeling shore excursion the night before on the TV, but no luck it was already full. So we had no plans in the morning when we woke up. We decided to just get up like normal, have breakfast and then go and get a tender ticket and head on shore. The whole process is pretty smooth, but it takes some time. I think the 6 mile tender took about 15 minutes by boat and we were greeted on the island of Belize by a bunch of tour type people trying to get people to join. We ended up going snorkeling with the first guy we saw. Here's their outfit...

 

 

For 49 bucks a person we would get to snorkel and spend some time at a private beach. The pictures and video this time didn't turn out great, but the quality of the snorkeling was great, we really enjoyed it. This little guy was hiding in the sand until the tour operator went down and got him to move.

 

 

I thought this was a cool reef pic.

 

I can't remember the name of the island where they took us. We were dropped off on one side that is kind of lame actually, just some chairs and a small beach to swim. There was a walkway to the other side of the island that had a small store and a few other things. I think the island is some sort of nature reserve or eco-education something. Here's the pic of the nicer side of the island, it was very beautiful.

 

 

And now some video, first of the ride there.

 

And then actually snorkeling the reef. Or not, youtube is taking forever to process that video. I'll post this and put the link in my next post.