Breeze Review

[MissCruiseAddict]

So I had plans on this elaborate cruise review. I was going to take pictures of places on the ship and write about them all. I was actually looking forward to it. But then once on board I just got caught up in the moment and well just forgot. So with this review you get what you get.

 

Background. Every year since 2009 I go on a cruise with my parents and my brother, well with exception of my cruise on the Victory which was a party cruise with a cousin. Anyway my dad and brother share a cabin (bro is 29) and Mom and I share one (I'm 34) This year however we were joined by two of my mom's sisters and their husbands. In total there were 8 of us.

 

Pre Cruise. We drove from Indianapolis to Miami because we waited so long to book airline that the prices were too high. My aunts and uncles still flew and flew in the day of the cruise. Risky if you ask me but they booked Carnival transfer to get to the ship.

 

First travel day we left at 5 am and drove straight through, only stopping for gas and pee breaks, to Jacksonville Florida for the night arriving about 6 ish/ 7ish. We stayed at the Country Inn and Suites for the night and had dinner at Olive Garden.

 

Second travel day we stopped at St. Augustine and toured the fort there before driving the rest of the way. It was small fort but the cannon demonstration was cool. That night we laid our heads at the Courtyard by Marriott in Miramar. I don't recommend it. I mean it's a clean hotel in a nice area BUT unless you want to munch on fast food there are no options for dining in the area. We drove around over an hour and ended back at the hotel to order pizza from Dominos.

 

Embarkation day. Miramar was maybe a 20 to 30 minute car ride from the port so not too far. My dad and brother dropped Mom and I off at the port with the bags. Just FYI, since the last time we sailed out of Miami the locations of the porters have changed. They are on the side of the building now not out front. They then went to go park the car. They parked at premire parking in the garage. I believe the cost was 9 dollars a day and offered a shuttle back to the port. Mom and I gave the bags to the porters and went on in through security and got our sign and sail cards. This was about 10 am. So we sat and about a half hour later, if that, dad and bro showed up and got their sign and sail cards. So then the wait began. But it's a good wait. We were onboard by 1130 am. We were in boarding group 3 but there were 2 wedding parties and all the platinum/diamond and FTTF to board first.

 

Once on board we went to dump our carry ons to the cabins. Our cabins were interior cabins. 8230 and 8234. We did the thing where Carnival picked our cabin for us to save some money. We were happy with our cabins. I had a backpack as did my brother and between the two cabins we each had a case of water. Texted the aunts/uncles to see where they were. Their plane had just landed in Ft. Lauderdale so we knew it would still be a bit before they got on board. For those who are curious, if you fly into Ft Lauderdale Carnival Transfer will get you to Miami however you can't use the check in at the airport to check in for your cruise if you are cruising out of Miami.

 

While waiting for them to arrive we headed to the Lido for embarkation lunch. I don't remember what the other's have but I had a Guy's burger and fries and some cake for desert. As normal Guy's is greasy but good so it's a good thing I can't have them often I'd probably get sick.

 

We ate lunch at leisure as we normally do on embarkation day. The rest of our group arrived an hour later so we headed up to the Pasta place as that is what they wanted to have for lunch. Still feeling kind of hungry I ordered a Cesar salad. Just a reminder if you didn't know, it's free for lunch but becomes a paid restaurant at dinner. It was decorated nice.

 

After they had their fill of food we all went to explore the ship. My brother had cruised the Breeze before but the rest of us had not and one aunt and uncle they were new to Carnival.

 

By then it was pouring rain so we did our exploring on deck 4 and 5 and checked out our table in the Blush dining room to make sure we indeed had a table for 8. We did. One aunt was disappointed that it was off to the side and not in the center of the dining room to better see the waiters dance and sing for us but we still had a good table.

 

After our exploring it was time to muster it up. Our muster station was in the lounge and the aunts/uncles were in the dining room (they had aft cabins we had front of the ship cabins) We all agreed to meet at dinner, early dining.

 

We mustered it up and I forgot again to grab some mustard to bring to the drill to be funny. hahaha. Then it was time to unpack. Unpacked and freshened up for dinner. Met our room steward. He came up to me and said "Hi my name is Amanda (my name) your room steward." With out blinking I looked at his name tag and said "Hi Amanda I'm Pasak I'll be cruising with you this week" He got a kick out of that.

 

First night dinner was good. Most of us had the Mahi Mahi from the port of call side of the menu. SOOOO GOOODDD! Yum! I'm not a fan of coconut but the coconut flavored rice was excellent. Topped off dinner with some warm melting cake and a glass of milk.

 

I don't remember what we did after dinner because the welcome aboard show wasn't till 1015. I know my brother headed to the Lido to watch the movies they were showing. I think I played bingo. I mean I know I played bingo on the cruise but I don't remember if it was that night or the first sea day.

 

The welcome aboard show was only attended by me, my mom and one of my aunts. Everyone else either turned in early or was at the casino or movie.

 

The show that night was Motown. That is the only playlist production show I like. I've seen it before but sat through it again because I enjoy singing along to the songs. After that they had an after party in the lobby bar where we all danced a sole train and did some line dancing. Fun times. After that I walked around the ship for a bit and headed to bed

[MissCruiseAddict]

Sea Days 1 and 2: First two days of the cruise were sea days. Here is the thing about cruising with my family. On sea days we do our own thing and meet up for dinner but a lot of time we end up running into each other through out the day and hanging out. We all have different things we enjoy doing.

 

In the morning, of the first sea day, the 4 of us went to breakfast in the MDR. Brother and dad had the steak and eggs their usual and my mom and I had the Huevos Rancheros. My mom and brother had desert but dad and I didn't.

 

After breakfast I headed off to my favorite spot on sea days: Ocean Plaza. I love love love doing trivia and most of it was held there. My mom went to find a place to read at the back of the boat and I don't remember what dad and bro did. Met up with mom, and one aunt and uncle for lunch. I tried the Mongolian Wok for lunch. It was good but I've had better. Couldn't find other aunt and uncle until later in the day. Guess they perched themselves by the main pool out in the sun all day which is what they like to do.

 

So during the day on the two days I did a lot of trivia and hung out in the lanai hot tubs and did some swimming in the aft pool.

 

At night, first sea day after dinner I watched Mockingjay pt 1 on the Lido with my brother and headed to comedy and gambled a bit at the slot machine. Oh and did Motown trivia on the second night. That was SOOOO much fun because it ended up being just a big Motown sing a long conducted by the CD.

 

Couldn't tell you what I had for dinner on the second sea day. I know for sure the first sea day was TWO lobster tails since it was elegant night.

 

SIDE BAR: I want to speak about the service we received in the MDR for dinner. Our head waiter Alex was nice BUT service was just not good. The first two sea days my dad didn't get his second appetizer. One uncle didn't get his creamed spinach he ordered and it took forever for him to get his horseradish for his prime rib. One night I order two crab cakes for an appetizer and got shrimp cocktail. The night they had the beef skewers as an appetizer I thought they were SOOO tasty that I ordered more when Alex came to see if we all needed something when we were eating our main course. He looked so offended that I ordered it. I wondered if he thought I didn't like my main course (the lamb curry from the port of call menu). I did like the curry but I wanted more of the skewers. He did get them for me though. The last night, who knows what my mom got but it wasn't what she ordered. She ordered some pumpkin squash pie thingie and got two plates of I don't know what. She did mention something then and got what she ordered. That night I never received the baked potato I ordered to go with my steak. Ended up not needing it because the steak filled me up. Yes we should have said something through out the week but we are not ones to normally complain but yeah not the greatest service. The redeeming quality sorta was that after the first night I didn't have to order my milk with desert and my aunts didn't have to order their hot chocolates, it was automatically brought out to us. That was good except one night I think I received a glass of creamer because it tasted so thick.

 

Despite the so so service we were always out by 7-730 so that was good.

 

But with regards to the new American Feast/Table menu the best additions to it was the Mahi Mahi/ the beef skewers/ and the Mojito chicken all three a part of the port of call side.

[MissCruiseAddict]

Instead of giving a play by play of what we all did on the 3 sea days we had I'm just going to lump in what I did and experienced and stuff.

 

Comedy Club: I saw each comedian at least once and the only one I thought was funny was Jerome. I really enjoyed his Michael Jackson impersonation. The woman comedian, Joan I think her name was or Judy. Just not funny at all. Her whole set when I saw her was about how she wanted to get herself some "government titties" since she is now old enough to sign up for Medicare.

 

Piano bar: Ben was great. He's not that good of a singer but he can carry a tune and get the crowd engaged. He knows a lot of songs and has props he passes out to wear (funny hats, big sunglasses) If you tip him to play your song he makes you ball it up and shoot it into this small basket he had by his piano. Then you had run around and high five everyone while we all sang "olay olay olay" Also between every few songs he made everyone raise their glasses and he did a toast and reminded us all that if we needed another drink to sing "I need a bartender" I also fell asleep one night in the piano bar. It was on the day we visited St. Thomas. I was so exhausted from the day that after an hour in the piano bar I nodded off. I don't know how long I was asleep but woke up when they were all singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to me. Talk about embarrassing. :o

 

Waterworks. Only had a chance to go down one of the waterslides. I went down the drain pipe and that was fun. I also let that big bucket of water dump on me a few times. Cold and refreshing. I wanted to go down the other water slide on our last day of the cruise but as I was walking to that area I slipped on the wetness, even though I was walking slow, and busted my knee. It never swelled nor bruised but here I am a week later and well it still hurts to walk a bit but it's getting better.

 

Dive In Movies: My brother went to a lot of them. I only went and watched Mockingjay pt 1. That was the busiest. He and I ended up sitting on deck 11 off to the side. Still had a good view of the screen. It was chilly and the place they normally gave out towels during the day was giving out blankets. The Blue Igana bar also was passing out popcorn.

 

Casino. I'm not much of a gambler but did spend some time there. I spend most of my time playing the following 3 machines. The Inca one, The Gold bar one, and the Werewolf one next to the Inca one. I was at one point up 90 bucks but got greedy the last night on board and started betting higher and ended up going home 40 in the hole as far as the casino is concerned.

 

Trivia: Like I said earlier I love doing the trivia. I won two ships on a stick. One for 90s song trivia. You got a point for artist and a point for song title. So I won with a score of 33 out of 36. The other one was tv theme song trivia. I won with a score of 14 out of 15 missing only the theme song to Alias. Funny I got the others right even though they were shows I never watched. I also won a few medals for coming in second in some of the trivia. About 99 percent of trivia was ran by Scott G of the entertainment staff. He was a hoot. If you blurted out the answer before it was time to go over the answers he made you come sit on the naughty stage with your head down. Too funny.

 

Two nights the cruise director Matt Mitcham hosted some trivia that just turned into a big sing a long. He did one night of Motown songs and one night of 80s and 90s songs. He too made you sit on the naughty stage if you were trying to blurt out answers before it was time to. For the 80 and 90s trivia one of the songs was Kiss by Prince. I didn't blurt out the answer but I was siting in my seat dancing along to it mimicking Scotty G. Matt was going to make me sit on the naughty stage but instead I just had to stand up and dance and then I got to sit back down. When it was time to go over the answers he made everyone stand up and crowd in front of the stage and we all sang along and had a good time. He pulled me up on the stage to help lead everyone in singing Killing Me Softly. Great fun!

[MissCruiseAddict]

Shows: Like I said earlier the only playlist show I went to was Motown. Carnival is really slacking in the show department. If you really like shows, like I do, then what is the point in having the same shows on the same ships. It doesn't give any appeal to going on a different ship. I did like the hypnotist. All 8 of us went to that show and all got a kick out of it even though I feel some of the people were pre picked and were acting but still very funny. I laughed so hard at one point I felt I was going to barf.. TMI I know.

 

Deja Vu: They were a cover band that played nightly at Ocean Plaza. I really enjoyed them and would sit and listen if I didn't have anything else to do.

 

 

I didn't go to any of the two deck parties they had. I normally do but it slipped my mind this cruise. I didn't do any of the paid restaurants. My brother and Dad did the sushi place one day and thought it was EXCELLENT some of the best sushi they've had.

 

I did spend about 20 minutes one night in the night club. Didn't care for it because they were playing remix songs and all that and no one was dancing.

 

 

 

Well that is it for tonight. Tomorrow night will start reviewing the Island days.

[SFplusP]

Love it! Were you on the Eastern itinerary? I Think the western is 6 day right now right?

[MNKEITH]

We were on the 2/14 sailing. It was our first time on the Breeze, actually first time not on a Conquest class. We absolutely loved it.

 

Your review brought back a lot of excellent memories. Cant wait to sail her again next year!

[SFplusP]

Accidentally unsubscribed, resubscribing, don't mine me :)

[cruising maniac]

This is my kind of review. Just detailed enough. Very informative. Looking forward to the rest. :)

[leedm]

Thanks, enjoyed your review

[Cruzinbabe06]

Thx for sharing.

 

More! More!;)

[dmdiver]

Thanks for sharing!

[cruisecraze96]

Sounds like you might have been on the same as me [emoji5] It was raining so hard on embarkation day lthe whole lido deck was a swimming pool [emoji5].

 

Loved Ben at the piano bar and we several nights there he was so much fun.