Carnival Glory February 28th Western Caribbean review lite

[Playhouse05]

I'll disappoint everyone now and say that this is going to be a pretty short review i.e no pics or day by day analysis. I absolutely love those kind of reviews, but I didn't take nearly enough pics and I'm not sure what we did every day. I will touch on Camp Carnival, some food (of course), ports and service in general. So here it goes.

 

It was my DH (48), myself (35) our DD (4) and another couple with their DD (16). This was my DH and I's third year in a row on the Glory, first cruise for our DD. We flew in the day prior from Grand Rapids on Southwest to FLL. We stayed at the Best Western Plus in Dania Beach. The hotel was fine for what it was. It had an airport shuttle and we had a decent nights sleep. I don't know if I can recommend this hotel, it gets pretty terrible reviews, but we were stuck with it since we booked with Hotwire. Booked a shuttle to the Port of Miami through QLS and everything went fine there.

 

We arrived to the port around 9:45. I knew we'd be way too early, but we had F2F and my DH was itching to get onboard. We checked in and the wait began. We didn't end up getting on board until about 12:45. That was the latest we'd ever boarded in the past 3 cruises. Carnival stated they were having some issues with 6 passengers clearing customs. We didn't get upset, we were on vacation.

 

We had room 8360 and our friends had 8374. No problems with either stateroom, typical balconies. Our steward was Alexander and he was awesome! We gave him a nice tip at the beginning and requested that our cooler always have ice. He did everything we asked and always left lots of chocolates and towel animals for our DD every night.

 

One complaint we did have with our room situation was that the people in the room next to us smoked on their balcony all the time! They would smoke with their balcony door propped open so our whole hallway reeked of smoke. I thought that wasn't allowed anymore? My DH called guest services 3 times to tell them about it and who it was. Two times GS said some people are allowed to smoke on their balcony. What? The third time they sent up the floor supervisor and someone from security. The floor supervisor thought they were allowed to smoke, but security told him not anymore. They left and said they would handle it. Our neighbors and about 5 other balconies around us continued to smoke throughout the week. A few times we even smelled marijuana. At this point we decided to just let it go. We even befriended our neighbors and asked if anyone said anything to them about the smoking and they said no one said a thing to them!

 

Now onto the food! We felt everything was as good as usual. We actually ate dinner in the MDR 4 times. I usually can only drag DH there once during the week. The servers were awesome with our DD, making her animals with the napkins and doing magic tricks. The food was pretty great too. We had the lasagna, prime rib, cornmeal crusted chicken, onion soup, stuffed mushrooms, shrimp cocktail, flat iron steak, Italian wedding soup, mushroom cream soup, beef brisket, roast chicken, baked meatballs, and caprese salad. Our friends always ordered from the vegetarian menu and said the food was fantastic. One night I upgraded to the steakhouse filet. It was decent, but not as good as I'd had in the actual steakhouse. I probably wouldn't pay the $20 again for it.

 

We also ate at Fish N Chips, the buffet, Guy's Burgers, Blue Iguana, Pizza Pirate and the deli. They changed the hours for the deli. Most days it was only open from 11-2 and that was it. I was disappointed since my DD loves hot dogs and that was the only place to get them. Oh well, probably better for her.

 

Before the trip I was so worried my DD wouldn't like Camp Carnival. I didn't plan on her being there all day and night or anything. I just wanted 2 hours a day for the Serenity Deck. Well, my DD loved it! She went the first night and they gave us the cell phone for the week. She lasted about 1 1/2 hrs the first night before they called and said she wanted her mom. We soon realized that if we got Dd to take a late afternoon nap, she was much happier at camp. She even ate dinner with camp a few nights. They meet at the fish n chips (it's closed off) and the camp counsellors serve the kids a special menu. She also did the Night Owls one night until 11:30. It was DH's birthday and our Dd loved it! We went to the towel animal theater on the last sea day, it was pretty cute. DD begged to go to camp right after that so I got to enjoy my last sea day in Serenity!

 

Our ports were Cozumel, Belize, Mahogany Bay and Grand Cayman. In Cozumel we went into San Miguel and shopped around, then went to Paradise Beach. In Belize, we just tendered into town and walked around the port area. There were a lot more shops and restaurants in the port area than I'd expected. Lots of live music, we had a great time. We just stayed in the port area at Mahogany Bay too. The beach was crazy crowded though, so we just went back to the ship and had it to ourselves. I really wanted to go to Little French Key, but we had to be back onboard by 2:30, and that didn't seem like enough time to really enjoy it. In Grand Cayman we went to the Royal Palms at seven mile beach, then some more shopping and lunch at Guy Harvey's Restaurant. Sadly, no excursions for us this year. I was a little nervous with a 4 year old first time cruiser.

 

Well, that's about all I have. It was a great cruise as usual. Seas were quite a bit rougher than usual, but no one got sick or anything. If anyone has any questions, I will do my best to answer. Thanks for reading.

[silverridge]

Thanks for your review. Your assessment of the smoking on balcony situation is accurate, as in "what the f...?" Carnival could care less about balcony smoking. When you complain, they will tell you they will take care of it, but they never do. They just say whatever they can (lip service) so that you think they are addressing the issue, when in reality they are not. In our experience, like yours, they never even contacted the offending party, even though we gave them the cabin # as well. Worse yet, half the people in Guest Services and/or Security are clueless in regards to the cruise lines own "rules", especially those relating to smoking. Carnival is truly pathetic in this area. Chair hogging, shirtless in the lido buffet, etc. Why have rules if they are not enforced?

Edited March 8, 2015 by silverridge
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[NoName]

 

Before the trip I was so worried my DD wouldn't like Camp Carnival. I didn't plan on her being there all day and night or anything. I just wanted 2 hours a day for the Serenity Deck. Well, my DD loved it! She went the first night and they gave us the cell phone for the week. She lasted about 1 1/2 hrs the first night before they called and said she wanted her mom. We soon realized that if we got Dd to take a late afternoon nap, she was much happier at camp. She even ate dinner with camp a few nights. They meet at the fish n chips (it's closed off) and the camp counsellors serve the kids a special menu. She also did the Night Owls one night until 11:30. It was DH's birthday and our Dd loved it! We went to the towel animal theater on the last sea day, it was pretty cute. DD begged to go to camp right after that so I got to enjoy my last sea day in Serenity!

 

Thanks for taking the time to share your experience. The section on Camp Carnival make me very happy! I have a 4 year old grandson. My husband and I are taking the kids on a cruise on the Glory in April. Last year, we took them on NCL Gem and our Grandson (3 at the time) HATED it and refused to go. The staff were not nice and made no effort to help him get over his fear. Now that he is a year older, we think he will be fine, as long as the staff are kid friendly. From your review, I feel they are. Thanks again! Kim