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Breeze St. Patty's Day Cruise Review (Pics!!!)

Patty421

By Patty421,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

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Patty421

Patty421

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8 day Southern Itinerary: Gran Turk, La Romana, Aruba, Curacao

 

About Me: My name is Patty. I'm a 33 year old nurse from NJ. Traveling with my husband Denny (33) who is a retail manager of Dollar General and our two boys Tyler (11) and Jayden (3). We tend to cruise twice a yr. This cruise was our 10th, Tyler's 6th and Jayden's 5th. We've been back and forth between Carnival and Royal Caribbean.

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Denny had shirts for us made.

 

When we cruise we usually like to extend our vacation so this time was no different. We decided we were going to spend some time in Key West. Our cruise left Saturday March 15th but we flew out of Atlantic City on Wednesday night. We had this trip booked for over a yr. Actually we booked it onboard the Splendor last yr. Tyler had no idea we were going. It was very hard to keep this secret especially as it got closer. We had to pack while he was at school and hide our suitcases in the garage. After he got home from school on Wednesday we got into the car and told him we were going out to dinner. He was pretty confused when we showed up at the airport. We still did not tell him yet though. This was only part one of the surprise. At this point we had to tell him we were going to FL but we told him it was only for the weekend and it was for some business Denny had to take care of. By the time we got into Ft. Lauderdale it was after 10pm so we went straight to the Hilton, ordered room service and went to bed. Early the next morning we set out to begin our drive to Key West. As many times as we've cruised, we have never been to Key West. The drive took longer than we would of liked because of construction and traffic. We did not arrive until late afternoon. First thing we did was check into our hotel which was the Double Tree.

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Our view from our balcony.

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Patty421

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After we got settled in we were pretty hungry. I wanted to try some Cuban food which we had never had before so we went on a hunt for a nice Cuban Restaurant. We stumbled upon El Meson De Pepe's. I didn't know what to order so I was happy to see a platter that had 3 different dinners in one. It was very good. I wish I had taken a picture of our food.

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After dinner we spent some time at Mallory's square for their sunset celebration. They had lots of vendors and street performers. Tyler actually got called into a comedic magic act. The next day Friday we took our hotel's shuttle downtown and did some sightseeing and shopping.

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The Carnival Victory was in port!

We had lunch at Margaritaville which is Denny's favorite. Around dinner time we headed back up to Ft. Lauderdale where we were staying at Homewood Suites. We grabbed dinner at Steak N Shakes which is our pre-cruise tradition in FL. Tyler still had no idea about the cruise. At this point he thinks that we were flying home in the am.

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BabyJacks17

BabyJacks17

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Awesome! Were you part of our roll call of FB group?

 

No, unfortunately I did not participate in either this time. I was traveling with my family (party of 10) and I learned the tough way last March on the Breeze they didn't appreciate me leaving family time for roll call time! ;) Look forward to hearing about the fun times you had though!!

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Patty421

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Saturday Cruising Day:

Our hotel offered a shuttle to the port. Denny went ahead of us and told the driver to pretend he was taking us to the airport. When we got into the van the driver played along and asked us what airline we needed so Tyler didn't suspect a thing. Our plan almost hit a snag when three more people joined our van but the hotel managed to tell them what we were doing and they didn't say a word. Just before we pulled up to the port Denny handed Tyler a box to open and inside was the shirt that Denny had made that I showed in a previous picture with Carnival Breeze and the dates we were sailing. He was very surprised and couldn't believe it!

We had Faster to fun and were onboard by 11:30 am. As soon as we were onboard Denny made us run to the Red Frog Pub. I thought he was nuts but we were the first to arrive and that meant two free drinks and our picture taken and then we ended up on John Heald's page.

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More Red Frog

 

After that we headed to our room which was ready. Denny surprised me with decorations for my birthday which was March 15th.

 

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Patty421

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Five minutes after being in our room we had an incidence. Jayden got his thumb caught in the balcony door. It was so badly bruised and a color I didn't like so we had to bring him to the medical facility. They weren't even open yet so we had to go to guest service and they called them to open. They looked at it gave us some medicine and ice and basically told us just to watch it but Jayden cried for a good hour and didn't want to move his hand.

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Patty421

Patty421

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Did you have cruise insurance? That would have covered you with no issues. I think maybe a 50 deductible.

Since you were still in the USA perhaps your own medical coverage might have covered it with a claim.

 

No cruise insurance but we never saw a bill. I'm thinking it was because we were still in Miami. They did call several times through out the cruise to make sure he was ok.

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Jayden cried for a while and did not want to move from the room to go do anything. I suggested we go play golf and that seemed to work because he loved that idea. Little did I know that he would become obsessed with playing golf. We must of played about 20 times on our vacation. He loved it.

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After golf we had lunch at Guy's which was great. We first tried Guy's on the Glory and for some reason I didn't think it was as good on the Breeze. After lunch we headed to the tides pool bar which was in the back of the ship to meet up with our roll call. We had a very large group. One of the members bought everyone these nice bracelets to wear so we could find everyone onboard.

 

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Denny decided to organize a slot pull for the first sea day so at the meet and greet he signed everyone up with a time slot for the following day. Sail away was around 5pm and it was beautiful. This was our first time sailing from Miami and now I think it's the best port to sail from.

 

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Before dinner we went to the welcome aboard show. I usually like to go to this to meet the cruise director. I was very disappointed because originally we were suppose to have Butch. We had sailed with Butch on the Liberty back in 2006 when he wasn't even a cruise director. He was fantastic then so we were really looking forward to sailing with him again. His schedule got changed though and we had Pete instead. Pete was no Butch but he did do a pretty good job. We had the late seating for dinner in the Blush Restaurant. We had a table for 4 on the upper portion. Our head waiter was Dennis. He was good but we never met our asst. waiter. He never bothered to introduce himself to us.

 

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Tomato soup

 

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Chicken fingers

 

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Beef Brisket

 

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Sweet and Sour Shrimp

 

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Fried Chicken

 

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Cream Burlee

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