First time Cruiser Just got Back from Carnival Glory Review with Pics

[cherbear4000]

We are mid twenties. We've been married a while, just got the money saved up to go on our honeymoon :D

 

 

Mid twenties? I was thinking you were much older than that. Enjoying the review, so please continue. My parents are in their 70s and love, love, love Carnival.

[hobbyhrs97]

Great review so far,we cruise on Glory in Jan! Hope you are able to figure out how to post pictures

[jebby]

I'm enjoying your review and looking forward to more.

[pambud96]

Great review. Can't wait for the rest.

 

Cruises are great. Try NCL next.

[Dawg74]

Great review so far, I am looking forward to the rest!!!

[Oldgoat61]

I'm reading your review as well. Even if you don't have pictures, keep it coming!

[fishtaco]

Open 2 windows one for Photobucket and one in CC under this thread.

 

Download your pics to Photobucket from your computer by clicking on "Download pictures" it will ask you from which location (I always put the pics I want to download on desktop to find them easy)

 

Open a pic in your new Photobucket album and beside it is an img code for forums,right mouse click the code.

 

Open the window to this thread,start a reply and then right mouse click in the dialog box,this will show some numbers and letters (this is your pic)

 

Then you click "preview post" at the bottom of this page and it will show the picture in your reply.

 

Open photobucket window and click each pic you want followed by the img code for forums,go back each time to your reply here and right mouse click each img code into the dialog box.

 

Submit reply and your pictures will be with your reply.:D

 

 

Den

[edmusic]

If it's an older, maturer crowd you're looking for, I'd suggest Holland America. We cruised the Caribbean with them in March and at 57 years old, DW and I felt like we were the youngest ones on the ship! We cruised Carnival and Princess in the past and are booking another Carnival for July 2012. Carnival is definitely the 'Fun' ship.

[timetogosoon]

Mid twenties? I was thinking you were much older than that. Enjoying the review, so please continue. My parents are in their 70s and love, love, love Carnival.

 

HAHAHAHA You thought we were older. Maybe 50's??? hehehehe. I'll have to tell DH :) We just want an older crowd cause we don't drink/party etc and felt a bit out of place with all of the partiers on board. Older people tend to be a bit less drunk hahaha

[timetogosoon]

Okay, so that night at 12:30 am, I woke up in tears. The beds had been moving apart, and DH and I couldn't really cuddle and we like to spoon all night so we don't sleep well not cuddling. Also, the bed was sunk in like a giant U and my back was KILLING ME! (Had some back problems before the cruise that seemed to go away until that bed) It had hurt the night before, but we don't like to complain so we just ignored it. Well 12:30 am we went down to the Guest Services. They had a temporary fix of basically making fitted sheets with a flat sheet to keep them together. Finished sleeping okay because the beds stayed together, but still SUPER sore in the morning. DH and I both felt like we were bruised. The beds by the way are regular twin mattresses (off brand) that you could find in a discount store. They are hard and have the springs in them. So the bed is tolerable when it is not shaped in a U but not exactly Heaven. Guest Services told us that she thinks the bed may be bent because of a heavier couple that she believes were in that room. The next day, they switched the mattresses (more on this Later!)

JAMAICA DAY: So this day was FUN. But not exactly what we thought it would be. DH has always wanted to go to Jamaica (something to do with Cool Runnings) and so I had a tour booked to "see" jamaica. That morning we woke up early ish and had breakfast in the Red Sail Buffet. It was pretty good. A lot of choices. Pretty basic stuff. We sat by the window and watched the Jamaican landscape float by. A guy sat next to us that we later found out was with the Scruples cruise group on board. He was one of the top in that line of hair care. He worked with the owners of Scruples. Gave us some good tips for working in the business (we are hair dressers) and overall had a pleasant conversation! We went back to the room, got ready and were ready pretty early so decided to debark the ship right away. It was a good time actually. Not too long of a line. We got off the ship in less than 20 minutes. Right away we were herded like cattle into a small space before you leave the port area for tour groups. We had to wait about 30 minutes for our tour guide. We went with Marva Shaw at knowjamaicatours.com. We got a separate tour guide named Carolyn. She drove us to our destinations, but wasn't really a tour guide, more of a driver. Very pleasant though and very nice. She just dropped us off at Dunn's river Falls BEAUTIFUL! and also at a river tubing tour on the white river. The white river was my favorite. We got taken out by a kid no more than 16. He got us some allspice to try, fresh almonds (we broke them open ourselves) and introduced us to the local floral and fauna. It was a great tour. Then Carolyn took us to an overcrowded market full of tourists (not our cup of tea) and helped us find internet usage so we could email the kids. She then drove us back to the ship. We paid $150 for the tour, but it did include entrance fees to both the Dunn's River Falls and The White River Tubing (Each run about $20 PP so a total of $80 ish) Plus she did buy us a patty for lunch.

 

Now, Jamaica is 3rd world. A lot of tourists do not see this part of Jamaica. Carolyn took us up through a local town on our way to tubing. A LOT of people were high, they didn't have windows or doors sometimes. Sometimes you could smell feces. I mean the countryside is absolutely BEAUTIFUL but the towns are not. There is a lot of poverty, and it is very sad. People are VERY pushy. They are always trying to sell you something. Carolyn did warn us that "Nothing is Free" which was a good tip because I saw a bunch of tourists fall for the "It's Free" bit. We weren't that comfortable in Jamaica. It wasn't what we expected. We will not be going back, but we enjoyed the experience. We loved being able to go there and experience a bit of the culture and the sights. I would suggest anyone going to get a good tour guide, and stick to the touristy stuff, because its not really a place you want to go off the beaten road.

[judyzoo]

I'm still reading and awaiting your continued review!

[Cjlovestocruise]

Your review is great - I am really enjoying reading it. We sail on Glory in a week, different intinerary though.

Please continue

[gelo7]

Really loving your review, keep it coming.

[timetogosoon]

OOOOKKKAY Back from a LONG weekend and ready for more review! Next day: Grand Caymans: Georgetown. WONDERFUL DAY! So we were just going to sleep in because the ship docked at 8:00 and our trip wasn't until 11:30 so we were in no hurry. Well, we woke up at 6 am so we didn't sleep in at all! Oh well. We felt like we were bruised.. They still hadn't fixed our bed. They ended up fixing it while we were ashore that day. They put a towel under the offending U shaped mattress where the bed railing had bent and it made it flatter and more like sleeping on the floor instead of in a rut. :rolleyes: Anyways, decided to eat in the MDR again for breakfast cause the buffet just did not cut it. YUMMY Eggs benedict again. DH had it too. I got extra hollandaise. I could only finish half, so dH at mine. I had a danish though with breakfast this time and it was great. (again). So we got back to the room, sunblocked up and got everything ready. We were ready when they said it was time to go to shore if we wanted to. So we did. It was quick and painless. The ride over we sat on the outside part of the tender which was nice because there was a nice breeze the whole time. (wish we would have done that on the way back .... More on that later) We got to Grand Cayman by about 8:00 ish. It was a cute little island. We bought a fresh coconut to share for $3 and some sugar cane for $2 US. It was a good coconut. We walked around the little touristy area and looked around then we walked around the whole town. Georgetown is tiny. about 15,000 people. the shops were clean and very nice. We went to the pharmacy there and picked up some stuff. By the way: Tip for WOMEN ONLY: (Men ignore!) They have no MONISTAT (yeast infection cream) on a cruise ship. NOTHING. And sitting in an airplane for 12 hours can cause those, so if you are prone to them: Bring your own. TMI I know, but it will be useful for some woman! The exchange rate for cayman money is 1.00 cayman to 1.25 US. It was GEORGEOUS! The highlight of our trip for sure. I want to go back there right now!! The town was quiet. We were the only ship in port and a bunch of people hadn't gotten off the ship yet. We walked around, saw a couple lizards. Cute. The library downtown has free wifi and we came across a crew member that let us borrow his laptop to write to our kids. It was sweet of him. We thought he was a local till he started talking to us about the ship and stuff. Super nice guy. We went back to the touristy shop area waiting for our tour guide, and he showed up about 10:30 ish. We chatted with him for a while. He said that the guy selling coconuts and sugar cane was a jamaican (which we knew from his accent but he denied when we asked him) and that he had probably gotten those coconuts out of his yard. He had walked out on a guy around 10pm chopping down coconuts out of his tree. Thought if he would have asked he would have helped him get them! This tour guide was with Moby Dick Tours. It was $45US pp and got us a 3 hour tour. We went out around 11:30. There were only 8 other people on a boat built for 40. It was awesome! LIke a personal tour. We snorkeled the barrier reef. One of the guys has a pet Moray Eel and I touched it! (I wasn't supposed to but I was too busy making goggly eyes at DH that I missed that part of the briefing) So after we were all snorkeled out, we went over to the sand bar. The crowds had thinned out. THere were only a couple ships and the sting rays swarmed our little ship! They were anywhere between 1ft to 4 ft wide. We held them, fed them squid out of our hands ( I didn't like that part personally) and even kissed them for 7 years of luck :rolleyes: It was amazing. they really were like big puppy dogs. Two guys on the tour had british accents. They were from England (cayman is a british island!) and they had a friend with them that was visiting from england. We had a lot of fun visiting with all of them and learning about everything. We want to do that tour again. Then when we were all sting rayed out and out of squid we headed back. they got us back to the ship just in time LITERALLY (the ship leaves at 2:30.... We got there at 2:30!) There was a long line to get back on the boat thingy and we sat in an enclosed area. There was this drunk lady that sat near us that smelled like body odor and stale urine and there was no breeze. I nearly vomited. The waves made me really really sick. It took forever to get back and they packed us on there like sardines. It wasn't anything like the ride there. When we got back on I was ready to kiss the ground.

 

Oh yeah the cruise director (Josh AKA Big Sexy) told us at each port NOT TO TAKE OUR PASSPORTS inland. But I kept seeing tourists taking there passports into port with them. So that was weird. I thought that the cruise director should know what he is doing and if he tells me not to it is probably for a good reason (Like you may be mugged for it!)

[timetogosoon]

Last Fun Day at sea: Not so fun! The ship was rocking so bad that a lot of people and crew members were sick and couldn't walk straight. Our room steward stopped picking up our room, and putting out mints and such because of the bed problem. That was 2 days in a row that he didn't clean or anything. We were upset by that a bit, because we had been tipping him extra the whole time (around $10 a day extra) and we had only had the one problem with the bed. I laid in bed for a while that morning. We tried to eat in the MDR, but it was moving so much I almost puked so we left. We had room service, and then we took a nap. By the time we woke up the ship had mellowed enough that we could walk a bit so we went up on deck and enjoyed the sunshine. It was really windy, so we didn't want to swim or anything. The last sea day was basically just really relaxing. We gave the hostess a small tip with a thank you note just to show her that we appreciated her. We also gave one to our waiter and asst. waiter for being so awesome. We DID adjust our tips for our room steward. We had already tipped him $10 a day and were going to leave his tips on, but after the two days (of a 5 day cruise) with him treating us that way, we felt that he didn't deserve as much! Anyways, We moved the extra over to the restaurant staff, cause they were so awesome!

 

Debarkation: We were off the ship by 8:00am!! SO EARLY. we meant to sleep in a bit, but we woke up early. Ate breakfast in the MDR and only had a carry on each, so we left early. We stayed in the USO at the airport and got some rest before our plane left. It was easy and relaxing, no problems at all!

[Cjlovestocruise]

Thank you for your review. I enjoyed reading it. Sorry Carnival is not for you but you will find a cruise line that fits for you.

 

I leave in 3 days super excited.

[Bribrittmom]

You should have complained at the pursers' desk about your room steward.Not cleaning your room is unacceptable.

[Let'sDoThisCruiseThing]

Thanks for the nice read :)