Carnival Destiny Feb 6 -11th Long review with pictures

[WinnipegCruiser]

This is the second leg of our Back to Back to Back. I already posted a review of the first leg here http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1573798

 

If you haven’t read that yet, please do so now, and come back. I know you didn’t expect “required reading”, but this review will make more sense if you get the whole thing.

 

During the Back to Back change over, we had a chance to meet the other Back to Back passengers. As I mentioned there were eight other passengers doing this for this leg. Once we had our new security pictures done we went up with a few of them for a cup of coffee, and a chat. It was nice.

 

Everyone had their stories about what is going wrong with their trip. A couple of guys complained about the location of their room and its proximity to the Disco. I hope they got the room change they wanted.

 

So once again, we are waiting for everyone to board, and for the ship to leave Miami. We used the time where there were few passengers on board to do two loads of laundry. $3 in quarters for each wash and another $3 for each dry. We picked up the quarters from a bank in Miami before we boarded originally. We also bought some travel tide packets from Target in Miami. By doing it today, we avoided anyone else wanting to use the machines.

Our first evening we get to check out our new (and self selected) dinner table. It really is a perfect as I thought it would be. The view is fantastic.

 

 

Normally after dinner people head for a show in the Palladium Theater. If you have noticed that we have not been going to the shows, you are right. They really have not changed in the past for years, and we have seen them before. Personally I would go, but the DW really was board with them.

 

This evening we went to the aft lounge (Criterion), for some Karaoke. I keep trying to get up the courage to go up, but I can’t seem to do it. I even have practiced a few songs. No excuses. I just am convinced that I can’t sing.

 

The next morning we start this five day cruise with a day at sea. Basically heading for the furthest point (Grand Turk) and then coming back towards Miami. This is my favourite itinerary. Three ports of call, all of them very nice. Grand Turk, Half Moon Cay and Nassau Bahamas.

 

It is kind of nice to have a day at sea right away. It gives the passengers a chance to settle in before they are getting off and on at port. It gives them a chance to explore the ship, and start the vacation with some pool time.

 

By now we know where to get the breakfast with the least amount of lining up. There is a spot in the center part of the Lido, where they have a temporary (morning only) omelette station. The guy making the omelette will also retrieve for you some bacon and other items that would normally have to line up for. Also the Deli is converted in the morning for making omelettes. They also have most of the other fixings for your plate. Ham, bacon, bagel, toast.... You get the coffee from a pretty serious coffee making robot. You will hear about how some people don’t like the coffee on the Lido. I have to say that I noticed a serious upgrade to the coffee there. They have a machine that just automatically makes and dispenses coffee all day. There is a station for cream, milk and various sweetners always close by.

 

The Cruise Director takes this day at sea very seriously. In what way? Well you can see a lot more scheduling of all kinds of activities and shows. The center pool deck on the Lido is packed with people, loud music and people are having fun. The dance contests, hairy chest contests... trivia...

 

We prefer to spend time in the aft pool deck. It is not quite “Adults only”, but there isn’t any loud music, and is ‘contest’ free.

 

We set up close to the dual hot tubs, and settle in for the day.

 

 

A couple of words about our Cabin Steward Jaime, he really was efficient and courteous. We told him right up front that were doing this back to back to back, and he understood immediately what that would mean for our relationship. So he learned our names and our schedules pretty well. The room was cleaned twice a day. During our day in Miami he was clear that we could go back to our room, if we need, and just ignore the signs. I gave him, on top of the automatic tips, an additional $20 in cash for him, and $10 for his two helpers. I did this at the end of each cruise.

 

It is at this point I would like to give out a quick cruise tip. Be sure to have a cheap waterproof watch to wear all the time. Set it to Ship time, and never be without it. You cannot depend on there being a clock anywhere. Even the TV had three widely different times on the different channels. The Map Channel was the closest to ships time, but even it was off. The Channel guide channels were really off, and the TV itself was at last half an hour late. You want to have a watch that you can wear in the water and get sprayed with suntan lotion without any worry. We bought a couple of $10 Timex (1440 Sport) watches at the Miami Target. The tan line is worth it. I cannot tell you how many times people would ask us what the time was. I cannot imagine what it would be like to not know. Especially in port.

 

Our day at sea was spent resting and sun tanning on the aft deck. I brought a really big book to read. There was no way I was ever going to find the time in my real life to read such a huge book, but I was able to really bite into it on my vacation.

 

The other thing I was going to try and do this vacation was at least hold my diet. This was a total failure. Before the cruise, for about 16 weeks, I was on a serious diet. I was using a website called MyFitnessPal.com. Basically it is a great tool for keeping track of your calories. It is on my smartphone, and I can scan the UPC codes of the food I am preparing in order to get all the nutritional information. There is also a huge database with most food items and restaurant menus. It is a webpage on my laptop, so that I can blog about my progress and my brother who is an MD who specializes in weight issues can watch my progress and comment privately to me.

 

Well without the internet, or any idea of the calorie values of the meals, it is impossible to use the tools. I did try and use the SPA deck to get some exercise, but I never really got into it. Most of the people using the treadmills were in amazing shape. I swear when i walked it, it was boost to their motivation...the guy next to me I swear was going backwards and doing toe touches while at a full run. Show off. Well there was a sign that said to limit your use of the treadmill to 20 minutes, and I do always follow the rules.... Walking 20 minutes on the treadmill burned about 200 calories.

 

I never ate an extra entre(like so many do), or even had dessert every time. However the pounds packed right back on.

 

Serious failure. I don’t know yet how much of a failure, but I can tell that I gained a lot. I do intend to jump right back on the wagon, but as of now, I am sure I am back at square one.

[WinnipegCruiser]

First Port of Call - Grand Turk.

 

 

This one of those ports that is just for ships and tourists. You could try and go to town, but it is not exactly something they set up easily. It has a few nice tourist shops, and a huge and what I think is the nicest Margaritaville. A giant free pool, with swim up bar, really nice set up, and party music. They have added two things since I was here last. Free WIFI, and a surf wave machine. The free WIFI was really nice. I was drinking margaritas and posting pictures to Facebook. The water was “refreshing”, if that word means freezing cold in your language. Sorry, but I am a wuss when it comes to pool temperature. I swear, a couple of degrees cooler and the new attraction there could be ice skating. The drinks come with a 15% tip already factored in, so when you leave and clear up your tab you don’t have to tip any more.

 

 

Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the party, the WIFI, and the drinking. I think Jimmy Buffett is a genius. I love his music and his attitude. My ringtone is the song Margaritaville. Yes seriously.

 

The ship is really close, and docked, so you can just walk back to eat lunch.

 

 

It was that evening that they had the elegant night dinner. I never went to dinner in shorts or anything, but this night we did dress up. I even wore a tie. This is us with the Captain of the Vessel Roberto Leotia.

 

[WinnipegCruiser]

Second Port of call - Half Moon Cay

 

 

I love Half Moon Cay. This is a big reason why I cruise, why I cruise Carnival, and why I cruise the Destiny. This is the private island owned by Holland America. Well, Carnival owns Holland America, and they use this island more and more each year. This is the only place where I book and excursion. I book the Cabana every time. It used to be something you had to book ONLY on the ship, so there was a rush to the excursions desk every time at the start of the cruise.

 

They now let you book it online, and it sells out quick. You still have to select which one by going to the excursion desk. However being that this was the second leg of my back to back (to back), I was of course on board before anyone else, and was able to book the cabana I wanted without any problem. Using the resources here at Cruise Critic I was able to determine that I wanted the Cabana number 10. It was close to the bathrooms but not so close that everyone going to the restrooms went past your cabana. That is the problem with #9 and #8. The path to the restrooms is just between those two.

 

 

It is far enough from the crowd, and yet close enough for the food. You hear sometimes about people coming up and just using the shower, but I have never experienced it. The last time we had #7. That was a time when they didn’t let you pick which one you got.

 

 

 

You get a ticket and access to the first tender off the ship. The Tender boats are large and stable. They run from the ship (Deck 0 forward) right to a very nice dock on the island. When I say first tender, technically it is the second tender. There is some staff, along with supplies that go first.

 

Once we arrived on the island, there are transport vehicles that can take you to the other part of the beach. We got on one, with other Cabana people. The discussion was a bit tender. When we told the driver which cabana we were at, one of the others (with Cabana #15) made a grumbling noise. I am sure he wanted #10. He seemed to me to be a cruise critic member, and so he will probably comment here.

 

There have some other improvements to how they handle the cabanas. They now include a very large cooler with your requested drinks packed in ice. They used to fill the fridge, but frankly the fridge never really got cold enough. This is a much better idea. They also come around and check on the people in the Cabanas a few times during the day. We spoke to staff from Carnival and from Holland America a few times during the day.

 

“Just checking to see if everything is alright”

“Yes, thank you for asking”

 

One of the people who came by was a woman (I Think her name was Trish) who was a manager on the Island. She took a boat in from home, an hour and a half each day, to work and an hour and a half back. We had a nice talk with her. I told her how we at Cruise Critic talk about Half Moon Cay obsessively. How we came to decide that #10 was the best, and it made her laugh. She just could not imagine an internet discussion board talking about every detail of the island. She did say that were should not tell people all the secrets, as then it will be harder to surprise and delight the new comers.

[WinnipegCruiser]

We swam and I took a lot of pictures. However I didn’t notice until it was too late that there were some water drops on the lens. So the pictures are less than perfect.

 

 

 

 

The weather was really perfect. The water was cool, but not so cool that I wouldn’t swim in it. There were hardly any waves at all, so swimming was easy.

 

We brought back out food fresh from the Bar-B-Que to eat at the cabana, and we laid out in the sun like kings.

 

There was a guy next to us, on the beach who was smoking huge cigars. Now I understand the idea that if you are smoking outside, people who want to avoid the smoke can just move away, but we couldn’t move. I thought he would just smoke one or two and then we would be finished, but he just kept smoking.

 

 

After lunch I went to speak to him, and he was really quite reasonable. No problem at all. I saw him smoking later, but he went up and far behind the cabana.

 

Now time for a quick Cruise tip: I really don’t think this can be said enough. You must use a really good suntan lotion. SPF 30 is the minimum, 50 is better. You have to apply it BEFORE you are in the sun, and you must reapply it often. Especially when you get out of the water. There is just no excuse for adults to get these major sunburns. Along those lines, wear a hat. The top of your head is going to be the easy bake oven for your brain if you allow it to. The bell ring you hear later is not going to be “Cookies are ready”.

 

We left the Island at about 2:30. We did not want to be on the last tender back. This was the most perfect day, in a series of perfect days.

 

Suggestion to Carnival regarding Half Moon Cay. Internet. As the island is not moving, you could set up a really big dish to get some nice bandwidth to the island. I think you should make it free while in the bars. The real idea is to get people to use Facebook and other social networking sites to spread the word. The more people talk about HMC, the more people will want to cruise Carnival. 2000 people a day Tweeting, Facebooking, Google plusing, and just posting pictures from Half Moon Cay every day would be huge.

 

Second suggestion Carnival regarding Half Moon Cay. Make it a destination you can select on the main Carnival.com search. I can’t be the only one who wants to find that destination specifically.

[mountainbreeze]

OH MY GOSH, your wife's "carnival toes" are FABULOUS!!!!! :)

 

Great review and great pictures!!! We just did our B2B on the Destiny last May and I am now reliving our fun through your review! We also had cabanna #10!!!

 

I can't wait to read more, I'm on the edge of my seat!

[WinnipegCruiser]

Third port of call – Nassau Bahamas

 

In Nassau our plan was always to head directly to the Atlantis Hotel. It is a $4 per person cost. You can take a cab or take a water taxi. We got in a van with a couple of other families. There was one family and they requested to be dropped off at Comfort Suites. I said to the father “did you learn that in Cruise Critic”? Yes, and then he started to tell me about Cruise Critic, and what he learned about Comfort Suites. Funny.

 

Atlantis is an amazing hotel. Someone took the “Build it and they will come” way too seriously.

 

We checked out the casino, but we also found a nice place to sit and use the internet. It isn’t free, in fact it is $20 for the day. However, it is very high quality. We wanted to use Skype on our tablet to call around and post some pictures on Facebook.

 

The casino games (machines) are set very high. Yes, many are penny machines, but you can’t reduce the number of lines and the max bet is often set at $4 a spin. It is a high end casino for sure.

 

We actually won money, but it was all at the last 10 minutes. We had a good time for sure.

 

There were six ships in port that day. This is a picture of us leaving that parking lot full of ships. Two of them were the smaller Carnival ships, Ecstasy and Sensation.

 

 

Next stop is back to Miami to let off another bunch of passengers and start the third and final leg of our B2B2B.

[MissKIA]

 

They now let you book it online, and it sells out quick. You still have to select which one by going to the excursion desk. However being that this was the second leg of my back to back (to back), I was of course on board before anyone else, and was able to book the cabana I wanted without any problem. Using the resources here at Cruise Critic I was able to determine that I wanted the Cabana number 10. It was close to the bathrooms but not so close that everyone going to the restrooms went past your cabana. That is the problem with #9 and #8. The path to the restrooms is just between those two.

 

How early were you able to pick your cabana? Was it before other people started boarding? We also have a cabana on the second leg of our b2b so I want to get there ASAP to have our pick of the litter!

[WinnipegCruiser]

How early were you able to pick your cabana? Was it before other people started boarding? We also have a cabana on the second leg of our b2b so I want to get there ASAP to have our pick of the litter!

 

You can never know exactly when they will start allowing passengers onboard. Basically it depends a lot on how quickly they were able to get everyone off.

However the Excursion desk opens at around 11:30am, and you can hang around the lobby until it does.

[jacksmom09]

Great reviews!

[Froufie]

Loving your review - we did a b2b on the Destiny exactly one year before you and had a fabulous time (altho we did miss HMC :()...

 

So did you get a present for each 'cruise'? or just on the first b2b? :)

[smplyblessed619]

Awesome review! This is the itinerary I'm taking in the fall (my 1st cruise) and there aren't a ton of reviews out there for it ((that I've seen anyway, I'm reading stuff from like 2007 on here lol)). Anyway, thanks for taking the time to post & looking forward to the last leg of the b2b2b!

[KirkWN737]

Great review!! The wife and I are thinking about taking our son and a few friends on a Destiny cruise this summer before he goes off to college (LAST ONE! :D).

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 4S using Tapatalk

[teetee6263]

Thanks for another great review, I'm loving part 2. This is my itinerary for June. Hoping to get my BF hooked, so we can do the b2b next year.

[Oakman]

Second Port of call - Half Moon Cay

 

 

I love Half Moon Cay. This is a big reason why I cruise, why I cruise Carnival, and why I cruise the Destiny. This is the private island owned by Holland America. Well, Carnival owns Holland America, and they use this island more and more each year. This is the only place where I book and excursion. I book the Cabana every time. It used to be something you had to book ONLY on the ship, so there was a rush to the excursions desk every time at the start of the cruise.

 

They now let you book it online, and it sells out quick. You still have to select which one by going to the excursion desk. However being that this was the second leg of my back to back (to back), I was of course on board before anyone else, and was able to book the cabana I wanted without any problem. Using the resources here at Cruise Critic I was able to determine that I wanted the Cabana number 10. It was close to the bathrooms but not so close that everyone going to the restrooms went past your cabana. That is the problem with #9 and #8. The path to the restrooms is just between those two.

 

 

It is far enough from the crowd, and yet close enough for the food. You hear sometimes about people coming up and just using the shower, but I have never experienced it. The last time we had #7. That was a time when they didn’t let you pick which one you got.

 

 

 

You get a ticket and access to the first tender off the ship. The Tender boats are large and stable. They run from the ship (Deck 0 forward) right to a very nice dock on the island. When I say first tender, technically it is the second tender. There is some staff, along with supplies that go first.

 

Once we arrived on the island, there are transport vehicles that can take you to the other part of the beach. We got on one, with other Cabana people. The discussion was a bit tender. When we told the driver which cabana we were at, one of the others (with Cabana #15) made a grumbling noise. I am sure he wanted #10. He seemed to me to be a cruise critic member, and so he will probably comment here.

 

There have some other improvements to how they handle the cabanas. They now include a very large cooler with your requested drinks packed in ice. They used to fill the fridge, but frankly the fridge never really got cold enough. This is a much better idea. They also come around and check on the people in the Cabanas a few times during the day. We spoke to staff from Carnival and from Holland America a few times during the day.

 

“Just checking to see if everything is alright”

“Yes, thank you for asking”

 

One of the people who came by was a woman (I Think her name was Trish) who was a manager on the Island. She took a boat in from home, an hour and a half each day, to work and an hour and a half back. We had a nice talk with her. I told her how we at Cruise Critic talk about Half Moon Cay obsessively. How we came to decide that #10 was the best, and it made her laugh. She just could not imagine an internet discussion board talking about every detail of the island. She did say that were should not tell people all the secrets, as then it will be harder to surprise and delight the new comers.

Quick question about the cabana tickets-do they give you a confirmation tkt. with your cabana number on it when you choose it? How do you have proof of the cabana you have chosen?

[WinnipegCruiser]

Quick question about the cabana tickets-do they give you a confirmation tkt. with your cabana number on it when you choose it? How do you have proof of the cabana you have chosen?

 

I watched them write my name and cabin number in the spot on the paper marked #10.

 

If you wanted, I am sure you could ask the crew member to write it on the envelope they hand to you with the tickets.

[WinnipegCruiser]

Loving your review - we did a b2b on the Destiny exactly one year before you and had a fabulous time (altho we did miss HMC :()...

 

So did you get a present for each 'cruise'? or just on the first b2b? :)

 

I read your review, and loved it.

 

I address the Carnival blind spot for B2B2B passengers in my next post. I am travelling back home today, and will post it tomorrow morning.

[Froufie]

I read your review, and loved it.

 

I address the Carnival blind spot for B2B2B passengers in my next post. I am travelling back home today, and will post it tomorrow morning.

 

Oh oh that doesn't sound good!!! Waiting for the next 'installment' to see what happened!!!:eek:;)

 

Glad you enjoyed my review - I am loving yours too (and even the pics with the 'water drops' look kinda cool to me! :) )

[travlngrl1996]

Hi. I am really enjoying this review.

 

From the cabana you were in, how far of a walk was it from the food pavilion?

 

Where were you able to find the drivers who took you to the "far away" cabanas and how often did the drivers leave to transport people to their cabanas?

 

Thanks in advance.

[WinnipegCruiser]

The food was pretty close. I walked it there and back no problem. The transports are always running up and down the road in the back. There are even bus stops.

 

Sent from my SGH-I896 using Tapatalk

[Noreno]

Love it keep it coming!

[RMM34667]

I am also loving your review. We did the GT, HMC an Nassau Itn in November. I think it is the perfect cruise. I loved "my name is Felisa, you can call me Lisa" on HMC. She was go great. She setup a time for pickup to take my Dad back to the ship, then came back to make sure it all happened as planned. We had Cabana #7 and thought it was perfect.

 

Can't wait to read leg #3!

[WinnipegCruiser]

Right. Her name was Lisa, not trish.

 

Sent from my SGH-I896 using Tapatalk

[WinnipegCruiser]

Thank you for reading this. The final part will be posted here:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1575255

 

I hope you enjoy it.

[torchd]

My gf and I still need to write our reviews as well.

 

Look for our review in the next couple of days!

[clskinsfan]

I am doing this cruise the first week of April. Can you talk a little more about the comfort inn and Atlantis or just provide a link. I have not found that on the boards and would love to see Atlantis. But I am not paying $100 per person for it.