Christmas Cruising on the Conquest 2013 - Photo Review w/Fun Times

[marylena713]

Thanks for taking the time to share these pics and details related to Christmas. Next year on our Carnival Cruise (same dates as this) we'll be on board with my daughters, aged 2 & 4. Still trying to work out how we'll explain Santa bringing/not bringing gifts on the ship versus waiting til we get home... Good to know there's a letter to santa mailbox! Thanks and look forward to future posts :)

 

 

Marylena

[marylena713]

One other question about the room - we are also going to have a balcony room, but will be sharing with our kids. Does the couch fold out or down? Wondering how there'll be space for the 4 of us...

 

 

Marylena

[sissyfromcab]

One other question about the room - we are also going to have a balcony room, but will be sharing with our kids. Does the couch fold out or down? Wondering how there'll be space for the 4 of us...

 

 

Marylena

 

We've only had 2 person rooms, but my understanding is that they will turn the couch into a bed and there is a pull down bed in the ceiling to make it like a bunk bed over the couch. You should be able to find pictures on Carnival's website.

[JimAOk1945]

Great review and nice pictures. We enjoyed our cruise on the Conquest as well. We enjoy sailing at Christmas time.

 

Happy cruising! It's a great way to travel!

Edited February 23, 2014 by JimAOk1945

[SteelerCruiser]

come back please

[labsnabys]

Sometimes life gets in the way of writing reviews! :o

[cruiseclues]

Enjoying your photo review...nice Christmas toenails...could you provide your Balcony Cabin Number? :):):):)

[cruiseclues]

If you click on one of the Photos...it will take you to the same photo in Photobucket...above and to the right side of the photo there will be a block of 9 white squares in between the Prev and Next...click the 9 blocks and you will get the Photobucket albums on the left of the screen. :):):):)

[sissyfromcab]

We had muster outside by the lifeboats. It was December, but it was HOT and HUMID! One girl near us almost passed out!

We then headed up to our balcony for sailaway. It was our first time actually watching sailaway from our balcony, since we've only had oceanviews until our Liberty of the Seas cruise and sailaway was delayed until about 8pm and we missed it!

I loved seeing the shadow of the whale tail on the water.

The two Norwegian ships had left while we were mustering and it looked like we were next, since we were third in line, but the Disney ship left next.

I LOVE Disney World and would sail on a Disney ship in a heartbeat if their prices were slightly reasonable!

While we were waiting, someone decided that it would be a good idea to feed the seagulls from their balcony. Bad idea, very bad idea. The seagulls swarmed all of the balconies for about 5-10 minutes!

Next up was the Glory.

Finally it was our turn (almost an hour late)! At least we got to see a pretty sunset over Miami as we left.

[sissyfromcab]

We have never left from Miami before, so it was interesting to see the highway that ran right along the ships. Travis was loving all the expensive fast cars and watching a few of them race. He claimed this was going to be his back-up home when we retire:

The white car waiting for the ferry is apparently some super car. I had never heard of it, but Travis was impressed.

Good bye Miami! Don't look forward to seeing you in a week!

Only one ship left behind us. We couldn't tell what it was. NCL Epic? MSC Divina? Can anyone tell?

We got to see the pilot boat in almost every port, which was neat. I can't imagine being able to jump from a very large moving ship onto a small moving boat - I can barely get onto a tender when it's wavy!

[sissyfromcab]

Sometimes life gets in the way of writing reviews! :o

Thanks for your understanding. I work two jobs and am taking a class. I also had to take over an extra class for an instructor that had unexpected pregnancy issues, so haven't had a lot of free time to work on this! I would much rather relive my cruise than do Calculus 3 homework!

Enjoying your photo review...nice Christmas toenails...could you provide your Balcony Cabin Number? :):):):)

7400 - Great location!

[labsnabys]

I would much rather relive my cruise than do Calculus 3 homework!

 

I can't even imagine! No apologies necessary...I'm enjoying your review. :)

[SteelerCruiser]

Awesome! Enjoying the review! Thank you for writing it!

[sissyfromcab]

After sailaway, we got dressed for dinner and spent more time exploring the ship. We generally choose late dinner, because it allows us to spend more time in port on port day and we can always get a snack (ice cream cone, anyone?) if we are hungry before dinner.

I'd read about the Taste Bar where the sushi used to be and hoped to try out several of their offerings, but sadly we only made it there on the first night. Tonight was the Blue Iguana - some sort of tomato based soup and spicy shredded chicken. I liked the soup and drank all of mine, but thought the chicken was too spicy. Travis thought pretty much the opposite - he liked the chicken and thought the spicy-ness was just right, but the soup was bland.

 

We wandered around deck 5. Travis normally plays in the arcade for a bit at some point, so we went in to check out the games and found this:

It looked pretty cool and was normally behind a gate, so that guests couldn't see it. I don't think Travis ever made it back to play any games, probably because nothing looked all that great.

 

After that we headed to the very aft area, near the lounges.

The outside of the Vincent's Bar looked pretty neat. It looked like it was straight out of a Van Gogh painting.

But the ceiling inside was AWESOME!!

[sissyfromcab]

The Blues Piano Bar reeked of smoke (it is a smoking lounge) and we never explored more than seeing the door.

 

Last in the area was the Degas Lounge, which is where they hold the comedy shows. The couches were pretty comfortable, but being circular made it awkward to view the stage during the show from some of them. We tried to get to the shows early, so that we could get a decent view without craning our necks. This lounge was also where we started to notice little maintenance issues - on several of the benches there were long strands of thread pulled out of the fabric.

I thought the dancers were nice and MUCH better the crazy masks they have in the comedy lounge on the Dream!

[sissyfromcab]

Finally, at 8:15 we had dinner. We enjoy sitting with others and getting to know them over the course of the week, but weren't surprised to get seated at a table for two, since there were so many large groups for Christmas. We were seated on the upper level of the Monet Restaurant, but the location of our table was very awkward. We were literally in the middle of the walkway.

 

Appetizers: Me - Fruit (a little sour), Travis - chicken tenders (ok, not spicy as promised)

 

Entrees: Me - shrimp (not a huge fan of the breading, but the actual shrimp was ok), Travis - steak (from everyday menu, good, not awesome)

 

Dessert: Both - Warm Chocolate Melting Cake! (YUM!) As a side note, I don't know if they've changed the WCMC or if we just can't take sweets like we used to, but on our first Carnival cruise, Travis actually finished two WCMC on the last night, but on this cruise, he never even finished one!

[sissyfromcab]

After dinner, we went to the Divas show in the main lounge. They did a short welcome aboard bit, but it was only about 5 minutes of talking from the cruise director (Gary) and they the show. I missed the Welcome Aboard show with the fun ship and the dancing! The Divas show was a huge letdown after seeing the shows on the Dream. There were no real sets, just lots of bright lights. The singing and dancing were just ehh. After seeing all the shows on every previous cruise, we didn't even make an effort to go back to see either of the others on this cruise. I was really not impressed with the new shows and hope they bring back the old shows!

 

At some point before or after the show, I insisted that we get our picture taken with a Christmas tree. We found one in the Atrium (the sad Atrium one that wasn't much bigger than ours at home - still somewhat disappointed by that) and asked a gentleman sitting there to take a picture. He took two for us and sadly, this was the better one. I don't know if he'd had a few or just wasn't good with cameras... We appreciated the effort, and fortunately got better ones for the rest of the week.

 

Back in our room, we were greeted by our first towel animal and tomorrow's Fun Times.

Travis went to bed, but I stayed up for a little while and read out on the balcony. I love just sitting and reading while listening to the sound of the ocean!

[sissyfromcab]

Monday morning came bright and early as we pulled into Nassau at 7am! In five cruises, this was our first time in Nassau. We originally weren't planning to do anything, but when I was looking at excursions a few weeks before we left, I found a catamaran snorkel cruise that wasn't too expensive and decided that would give us something to do for the short time in port.

While we were getting ready, we didn't even notice that we pulled into port! By the time we looked out onto the balcony, we were almost docked. From our balcony, we could see a Bahamian Navy ship:

and watched the Carnival Fantasy pull in next to us:

After a quick breakfast, we got off the ship. We watched the Disney ship come into port.

And got our picture taken with the touristy Bahamas sign.

 

We had two missions (aside from any excursions) in each port.

1. Find a magnet to add to our collection on the fridge.

2. Get a picture of the two of us with something Christmas-y.

Since we weren't sure how much time we would have after our snorkel cruise, we set out to see if we could accomplish our missions before the cruise. 7am is apparently not time to be up and have your shop open in the Bahamas (can't blame them!), so we only found a couple shops and straw market vendors open. The first shop we went into had a cute magnet, but they wanted $8 for it! No way! We went a couple shops down and they had the same magnet for $4. Sold! We also found a Christmas tree, so we had someone take a picture of us with it.

We also found a t-shirt Travis liked in the straw market and he bargained the price down from $20 to $10, so he was happy.

 

After about an hour, we made our way back to the "green gate" in the port area to meet with our excursion. We chatted with another couple from the Fantasy, who said they were on their first cruise to escape from their family over Christmas. While we were waiting, I took their picture with Atlantis in the background. It turned out really cool, so they took a similar one for us.

[sissyfromcab]

We ended up waiting with about a dozen people for the excursion when another lady led up a large group that she was calling the Chippendales. We were really confused until we figured out that it was the Chip 'N Dales and they were from the Disney ship to join us on the excursion. That meant we didn't get the small private excursion we were hoping for, which was a little annoying, but not the end of the world.

We boarded the catamaran and sailed around the island for a bit to get to the snorkeling spot. I took a bunch of pictures on the way out.

[sissyfromcab]

After about 45 minutes, we ended up at our snorkeling spot. There were 3 other boats there with large numbers of people on them, but fortunately they were mostly leaving as we got there.

Our catamaran - The Seahorse

 

They provided us with snorkel equipment, but we have our own. I actually found mine fairly cheap on clearance at Target and figured it would be nice to not have to worry about how clean the equipment they provided might be, so picked it up. I was so glad that I had it, because it had a special spout on the top to keep water from splashing into the snorkel. Travis has a super snorkel that my stepdad got him and it actually closes when he swims under water! If you are going to snorkel frequently, buy your own equipment - it's not that expensive and is SO much nicer!

 

We hopped in the water and it was a little chilly at first, but once we got used to it, the temperature was fairly comfortable.

Us:

 

There weren't a lot of fish around. I don't know if the previous groups had scared them away or if we were just in a bad spot.

Some fish:

[sissyfromcab]

More fish:

 

Gotta love what salt water does to my hair...

 

We sailed around the other side of the island on the way back. That meant we were basically on Atlantis' beach. I was on the wrong side of the boat though and couldn't get any good pictures. They promised us that we would use the sail on the way back, but it took them about half the ride back to get it untangled.

We also got a snack - some plain punch or rum punch and a fun size bag of chips. They turned on the music and a Bruno Mars song came on. Travis was waiting to get our drinks and the lady in front of him started complaining that it wasn't appropriate for her 6 year old to listen to. Travis wanted to point out to her that 1. her child didn't understand what the song was about and 2. her child got here by what he was singing about! Maybe that's why we sail on Carnival instead of Disney?

[sissyfromcab]

We docked near Senor Frogs and noticed that we had been joined by another ship - the Carnival Splendor.

 

We only had about an hour left in port and we were still in wet swimsuits, so we just headed back to the ship. As we were getting off the catamaran, Allure was leaving. It was so hard to get a picture of the whole ship, since she's so BIG! I want to sail on her or Oasis one day, but they are way out of budget for Christmas, so it will have to wait for now.

 

Back on the ship we changed into dry clothes and headed up to the Lido deck for some lunch. Travis LOVES Chipotle, so we tried Blue Iguana. I had chicken tacos and he had two burritos (one chicken and one shrimp). I thought the tacos were pretty good, but I'm not a huge Mexican fan in general, so never tried anything else. The watermelon, however, was awesome! It was perfectly ripe and sweet. So sad that I never made it around to get some more. Travis thought the chicken burrito was just ok and didn't like the shrimp at all, so he went to get some pizza and was happily full (at least for a little while).

[sissyfromcab]

Shortly after lunch, we sailed away. Our balcony was on the city side, so we stayed on the upper decks to see Atlantis and the lighthouse. We both thought the AquaDuck on the Disney ship looked neat and watched few people on it.

I noticed that there was a hidden Mickey on the front of the Disney ship.

Travis noticed the hoard of birds sitting on the pier and told me I had to take a picture.

 

I also got some nice pictures of Nassau as we sailed away.

I love this last one, since you can see Atlantis, the lighthouse, and the ships!

[labsnabys]

I love this last one, since you can see Atlantis, the lighthouse, and the ships!

 

That really is a spectacular shot!

[CruiseAwesome]

Brilliant!!