Carnival Glory - 7/2 to 7/9 writeup

[Sabalon]

Sit right back and I'll tell you a tale...(already had to explain that one to my kids).

 

This is not going to be full of pictures or a blow by blow, as I've been in my own house less than 12 hours since getting back, but wanted to put down some thoughts while they are still fresh. However, I tend to overwrite, so this could be a small book :) This was our third cruise and the first time one something other than Fantasy class or out of a port designed for one ship. It was my wife and my two daughters (14 and 17). We were in room 2221, a porthole room.

 

Getting there

We live around Atlanta and had our family of four going on this cruise, so we drove the approx 650 miles to Miami. Even with food, hotel for two nights, etc, it was cheaper than flying. We stayed overnight at a LaQuinta south of Jacksonville (via hotwire) and a Holiday Inn in Coral Cables, just outside of Miami - via ticketsatwork.com - which probably has the same discount as almost any other site). Both were just fine. In Miami, we drove to a park in Coconut Grove and walked around - amazing place. I found a little Cuban pastry shop, and then we went to Wal-mart for the forgotten items. Dinner was at Havana Harry's - good food, but a littler fancier than I had figured on, but oh well. Breakfast was at El Rinconcito El Chele, which I was tempted to go back to the after we got off the ship. Great food.

 

We didn't listen to google (I-95) and just drove right through downtown Miami to get to the pier - what a beautiful city. I wish we had more time there.

 

The Port

Miami port was a bit of a zoo. We got there around 10:15 (checkin time of 10:30) Everything was labeled pretty well, and it wasn't hard to figure out where to go, however with four ships in port, there was a lot of people trying to get in and out, cutting across lanes to get here and there. Just have to be careful and always checking around you. We found our terminal, and I dropped everyone and the luggage off and went to park. That was pretty easy, except I backed in and realized I needed to pop the the rear to get stuff out of the back. Oh well...if that's the worst problem I had...

 

I met up with the family, and we tried to figure out what next. There were some closed doors that said Baggage drop off, but we asked a Carnival employee and they told us where we actually needed to drop our bags off. We went up and gave them to the porter, and proceeded into the terminal.

 

It is at this point I'll mention we had Faster to the Fun - something we've never done before. So we made it through the x-ray lines and document checking pretty fast. Nothing to report - pretty low-key and easy. We got ourselves checked in, and waited in the port for a bit. It was about 11:30-11:45 when they finally started boarding. We made our way through the anxious masses of zone boarders and up the escalator for horrible pictures, and then on board. We were on deck 2 so it was one flight of stairs down to our room.

 

Of course the doors to the rooms were closed, and my wife was telling me the announcement said 1pm for rooms. I explained again FTTF and we went on through to our room. I've read where FTTF people were not sure they were supposed to open the door to go in before, so just mentioning that. The sign does say it. On the way to our room, our steward Chaiyo met us in the hallway, asked if we were the Newcombe and showed us our room, introduced herself, etc. We went in, took pictures, changed into bathing suits and went up to Lido

 

Faster To The Fun

So, as I mentioned, we had faster to the fun. I know that is a debate on here as to the value. That is a decision you have to make for yourself. I'll say that at 12:10 I was in the main Lido pool with a Mojito in my hand watching people roaming around with all their carry-ons. That, combined with a few other things on this trip made it worth while to me.

 

On-Board / Leaving Port

Just a little more play-by-play and then I'll get into general stuff. Once on board, we went up to Lido. There were lines for the food as expected, so we just hung around the pool, did the water slide, and let those lines die down a tiny bit. We found plenty of time to get some fun in, get some food, and still be ready for muster. This was the easiest muster I've done - you just go to your stations...in the past ones, you met up in a club or lounge and then were escorted to the stations. Our muster post A was in front of some large fans blowing out some cool air, so that was a win as well.

 

We dropped a couple things in the room, grabbed the camera, and went to deck 6 for leaving port - if you go all the way forward, there are doors out to the balconies right below the bridge - not the easiest to find and not crowded. The pull forward, turn around and then head out was pretty neat to see. At this point we headed out to see, felt the nice breeze, and then let the fun begin.

 

So at this point, more general pieces instead of hour-by-hour.

 

The Ship

This was a much larger ship, however with nearly double the capacity of the Fantasy, it didn't feel that crowded. Every so often an event would bring masses of people together and it would get busy for a little bit, but other than ports, it didn't seem as bad as I expected it would be.

 

During the sea days, the pools would be pretty full. We thought we'd be smart and go to the aft adult only pool - I think that was worse than the ones with all the kids.

 

Food lines on Lido moved pretty quick - even the ever popular Guy's Burgers didn't seem any worse really than the All American Grill lines on the other ships.

 

The ship itself felt pretty nice. It's about 13 years old, but doesn't look that bad at all. I didn't go into any of the clubs but what I saw of them, they looked neat. I also didn't go in the casino at all, but you could tell from the smoke when you were near it, but it didn't seem that bad.

 

One thing that was really different is they used the lobby a lot more for trivia, bands, etc. On the Fantasy, all that was done on the Promenade deck, right outside the casino. The lobby worked much better for this as you didn't have people trying to traverse the ship having to push through the entertainment.

 

The Food

First off - Lido Deck.

 

As I said, Guy's Burgers was hugely popular. This was the first time I'd tried them and while I don't think they're the best burgers ever, they were good and are a lot better than the general American Grill on the ships without them. The brown sugar BBQ sauce was real good. The fries were the main item for me. They were great! And I finally found out what the "patty made of bacon" for the Pig Patty burger was. It was three pieces of bacon roughly in a circle to act as a "patty" of bacon. So in essence, a bacon cheeseburger.

 

The Blue Iguana was better than Guy's...if you're into burritos and street tacos. And there was usually a shorter line. Plus they had a salsa and hot sauce bar.

 

The main Lido buffet (lunch/dinner) seemed okay. I only had something from it on the last day and no real complaints. The hours can sometimes seem odd, so make sure you know when parts are open. Had some good deserts from there as well.

 

As for breakfast, the Lido buffet did not disappoint, however the lines tended to be long but moved pretty fast. The omelette station proved popular, and they had one at the buffet lines, and then usually one opened on the side, which you could also get pancakes, french toast, bacon, and potatoes at. Those had shorter lines because people didn't notice them. Also, the omelette line at the buffet was separate from the buffet line, so if that's all you wanted you could bypass the main line.

 

Main take-away from the Lido buffets is to look around quickly to see what is where, and pick the best line, and then wonder why all the other lines seem to be moving faster :)

 

I did not have anything from the deli or the pizza pirate, but my picky daughter seemed to live off the pizza.

 

Main Dining Room

With the exception of Thursday, we did our dinners in the MDR. We were in the Platinum dining room, on deck 3 aft. Most of the nights, the vibrations from the engines were very annoying. Don't know how people on decks 1 and 2 dealt with it. This was the American Table, which I don't know exactly what the differences were. It roughly seemed to be about what I remembered from before. Some nights I would find several items that looked good, some nights I almost opted for going to get pizza. The food was good, and I don't remember anything being bad. My daughters may argue differently. But what I tried of the stuff they didn't like, it seemed good to me. They also had food tailored to the port of call, such as empanadas for appetizers in Miami.

 

I forgot to take pictures of the menus, so don't recall exactly what I had. Most of the portions were on the smaller side, which was fine with me with all the over-eating. I remember having Chili Rellanos, an amazing Lasagna, something which was basically a pumpkin-pot-pie, pork chops, and my wife of course had lobster tail. Desserts were also hit-and-miss as far as finding something (other than Chocolate Melting Cake). Some days you wanted it all, some you just wanted the CMC!

 

Grand Cayman

We booked the Turtle Farm here. I looked at the tickets - be at Amber Palace at 9:45am. No problem. Next morning I looked again and realized that was for the next port - the excursion tickets were not in the order of the days of the ports. So, we missed the excursion because by the time I realized this it was too late. Here is where the Faster to the Fun helped - I was able to go to Guest Services and be helped right away (which was to be told that yup...I missed it). We then used FTTF and got priority tender boarding to get on shore to make up for missed time.

 

Once on shore, we found Discount Excursions LTD who had a booth right at the port. It was maybe $5pp cheaper than Carnival, but they booked us for the 9:30 departure. My watch said it was 9:35 when they did that....and that is where local-time vs ship time came in. So we did a little shopping at the port while we waited an hour. But they got us out there just fine - not a talkative van driver, but he dropped us off, gave us our wrist bands, asked when the last tender was and told us when he'd pick us up.

 

As for the excursion, you get to see some of the turtles in their tanks or lagoons. Then at another part, you can hold, pet and wade into a tank with them. My wife loves sea turtles so this was great for her. Then you have an option of a water-park area or snorkeling. We were there for the snorkeling with the turtles. They have a lagoon you snorkel around in, lots of fish and a number of smaller turtles (1 foot across, not the giant 4' ones) This was a lot of fun. There is an area where you can swim up to plexiglass which has a nurse shark on the other side. They feed the fish there, so you get quite the encounter. Someone forgot to tell the turtles to swim with us, so your encounters with them tended to be chasing them. Occasionally one would swim by you. While they preferred to be left alone, you could encounter them if you were smart about it. It's not like we never saw them or anything that bad.

 

After tiring ourselves out, we met our driver right when and where he said he'd be. He had to swing by and pick up another group on a distillery tour, which I wish he'd told us ahead of time, because as he started turning down some back roads, I was getting a bit nervous. But made it back in plenty of time. Tender lines were long but moved fast.

 

Roatan

After triple checking the times, we had no problem meeting our excursion here. We did the clear kayak, snorkel and gumbalimba park trip. This was a 30 minute ride to the park. Outside the port and park, Roatan is a depressing place. But the excursion was good. The snorkeling wasn't the greatest reef, but the guide would find items to point out like giant conch's or lobsters. The kayaking was fun - a quick trip down the shore and back. The clear bottoms were okay, but you'd see as much looking over the side. The park trip was a walk in the park (see what I did). You'd see large iguana, walk over a swaying cable bridge, see toucans (which they would put on your shoulder for pictures), and then see the monkeys, who they would coax onto you with food. I guess depending on the mood of the monkeys, sometimes they are more likely to come up and climb on you randomly. As this was getting later in the afternoon, they had to "convince" them to come out and play. My daughter had one use her as a climbing post to get back to a tree. Return bus ride, and some pier runners from a late returning excursion and we were off.

 

Belize

Here we did the Xunatumich Mayan ruins. This was a first off the ship and our of the port for a 2 hour bus ride. The exposition given by the guide was great. I learned a lot about Belize on that ride. The ruins were fun. There is a road-side stand with locals selling stuff when they get you off the bus. The tour-guide says after you get back you need to shop fast. You take a hand-cranked ferry across a river (30 feet maybe) and then minivans 1 mile up a hill. They have a gift shop there as well. It's then a short STEEP walk to the site. Because it looked like rain, our guide hurried us to the temple first to climb it and then did the talk after (reverse or normal order). Great views, amazing experience, hard work. As we were getting ready to head back down, the sky opened up on us, but it felt good. We went straight to the bus to head to lunch - my wife and daughters did some VERY fast shopping. They eyed what they wanted on the way up and just bought and paid on the way out (they went buying, not shopping!) The lunch was pretty close by and was very good - bbq chicken, rice and plantains. Local beer was good as well, then a long quiet bus ride back to the port, and we had just a few minutes to do any looking around there before catching the tender. I think the tour company must get paid extra if they get back before the last tender, because that bus passed everything else on the road getting back.

 

Cozumel

This port we did not have any excursions - with plans just to go to the beach. I did no research on Cozumel before leaving so finding a beach was fun. It involved quick searching facebook/twitter for someplace as that's where the social media wifi package let me get to. We ended up going to Paradise Beach. It's a resort open to the public. It's $3 for a chair, $18 for all the water activities (pool, all sorts of blow up water things - climbing walls, etc, kayaks and paddleboards) and a minimum $10 food/drink purchase per person. We chose it based on just seeing $18/pp for everything but oh well. It was worth it. GREAT food, nice location. FUN! However, when we first got there, the guy told us they had a small problem - they were trying to catch a crocodile hanging around the rocks in the ocean. So they didn't charge us for all that until they did. It was about a 5-6' long croc. Cool to see...thankfully mother was not around! Googling it shows this happens from time to time. Anyway, we hung out, had a good lunch, and made it back in time to do a little looking at places across the street from the port. Even though we were supposed to depart at 5p, there was an excursion that got back at 4:50 or so, and then there was a delay followed by what looked like a port worker walking with a baggage trolley and a lady from the ship to the port. Neither ever came back so hopefully all is well in the end. We finally left at 5:45.

 

Back at Miami

We arrived back at around 5am (bow thrusters are loud). We were off the ship and in our car by 7:15am (self-debarkation). Customs was a breeze. It was a long trip home, but with rain, food, and traffic stops, 10pm and we were home.

 

On Board Activities

We did some of the trivia, which was fun. Came in 2nd and got a medal for one of them.

 

The production shows were good. I saw Epic Rock and Divas. Had seen Motor City Madness before and didn't care to see it again. Missed Latin Nights, but family says it was real good.

 

The band (Resting Beach Face) was very good. They did different sets on different nights (classic rock, disco/70s, 80s) and usually a set of just random stuff from any time. I watched them a lot, as they were that enjoyable.

 

4th of July deck party - yeah...that was a zoo...didn't stick around long

 

80s deck party - this was pretty cool - the band played it, so it was live 80s music and just a real good time.

 

Dive in movies - was too tired most of the time, but did watch a bit of Deadpool. Really cool setup.

 

Magic show - this was fun to watch - Cruise Director Eric is a good entertainer

 

Carnival Quest - the adult game show - this was a highlight of the cruise. Holy cow this is funny.

 

Comedians - never made it up there to see any. Hadn't heard too many good things so didn't make it a priority

 

The Staff

I can't say enough good stuff about the staff in every department. They are so friendly. Our housekeeping staff were great, knew us by name. I wish I could have set down and talked more with Chaiyo. Here is, from what I gathered, a single mom with a 14, 12 and 7 year-old kids at home, who she is away from for 7 months. Actually, sometimes the more you talk with the crew it's depressing. Similar story from Kris, our head waiter. Two kids at home, sees them when he can.

 

Fun Staff - The cruise director Eric was great. I'd go on a ship just because he's the cruise director. He had a knack for making everyone feel involved. As a random proof - wife an I were sitting in the lobby in chairs side by side. The cast of the stage show was getting ready to come out for pictures, so one of the staff asked if we could move our chairs apart so they could funnel them through there - no problem. Eric comes from across the room, points at my wife, looks at me and says "Wife?" I said yes. He said "you're separated" and then went back to what he was doing. His second in command Lee was just as good. One of the last people on the pier at Cozumel, Lee ran out the pier to him and then raced him to the ship. Little touches like that from the whole Fun Staff.

 

Guest Services - As said many paragraphs ago, we missed our excursion. Went to guest services after the fact, explained what happened and they refunded it with out any questions. Don't know if this is normal, but I was not expecting it as the fault was in no way on Carnival.

 

The Bad Stuff

So, aside from things like I'm sitting in my office chair right now and my brain still thinks my equilibrium needs to be in sloshy ship mode, there were some issues, albeit not major.

 

On lido, the port side seemed to have a noticeable sewage smell mid-ship. It wasn't overwhelming, but you noticed it.

 

A couple times the main lido pool was closed and roped off mid day - don't know if a kid did something in it, or what the deal was. The water did look a bit murky - don't know why it couldn't be emptied and refilled. Also, even though the slide was supposed to be open until sunset, that didn't always happen.

 

The MDR service seemed slow. We'd be there well over an hour most nights. That wouldn't have been so bad if the constant vibration from the engine wasn't there. Also, we would run out of water a lot, and they'd be very slow to get more. You have people in hot environments out in the sun most of the day...water should be a priority!

 

Other General Thoughts

I'm still not 100% sold on the bigger ships. Ports seemed to be a mess, where with the Fantasy before there were never any lines to get back on board (that I recall).

 

I don't care about the elegant nights that much, but I did at least bring some decent clothes for them. And cruise casual nights I'd put on a clean button up shirt and nice "dress" shorts. Some of the people that would show up in something I wouldn't even wear for McDonalds did seem odd.

 

The majority of the cruisers were great. However, there were some who seemed to think the ship was their just for them...lines didn't matter to get back on the ship...same people that stay in a right turn lane til the end and then try to merge left! There were lots of towels on the chairs on Lido which never had anyone in them. That wasn't that big of a problem as there were always some open, but the people that would leave their stuff on the hammock on Serenity while they went in the hot tub pissed me off.

 

There was one table of 10 - three ladies and 7 kids, part of a larger group. Every night she had raffle tickets for what I am assuming were grandkids (though she didn't look that old!) They would draw for gifts she brought. One of them had a birthday and everyone got something that night. The kids loved the ladies as well. On the last night I told her how great it was to watch them during the week.

 

There was one lady on board who stopped my SJCAM/GoPro from dropping off the suspension bridge at Gumbalimba park. If you see this, THANK YOU. She had a similar one and said she would have felt the same way. Her quick reaction saved it when it popped off from snagging a cable. Didn't catch her name, so I'll just call her my Detroit Angel.

 

To the seven black gentlemen walking around in your robes, and one with a Luche Libre mask on, you guys were awesome. Such style.

[Clarea]

Excellent writeup, thanks!

[CARNIVALCRUISE3]

Thanks so much for your well written and interesting review! So glad that all of you had a great time. I've sailed on the Glory twice and loved it, and will sail on her soon. I sailed on the Ecstasy after having sailed on the Breeze, and it seemed so small to me. I love the bigger ships now.

Edited July 10, 2016 by CARNIVALCRUISE3

[Sabalon]

I forgot a few small items

 

Club O2

Last trip my oldest was 14. She'd wake up an abandon us for Circle C. This time she's 17 and the younger on is 14 (15 in October) We signed them up for Club O2. Youngest wanted to stay with her sister (they are close). They said she was close enough and let her in O2. 10 minutes after explaining they wanted to stick together, the oldest shows up standing next to me watching the band, abandoning her sister. Go figure.

 

The oldest didn't do very much with O2, preferring to sleep or hang with us. The youngest came and went with it. If they were doing something she liked she'd go, otherwise (and I think this is kinda the norm) she hung out with a couple of the ones she bonded with. Until she saw someone reading the same book as her and then she tracked her down and they were like two lost souls found each other.

 

Pixels

Wife wanted to try and get a formal family shot, but none really came out that good...someone always had an odd look. However that didn't stop her buying a number of random shots of the girls, and a horrible one of me at one of the ports with one of the Carnival girls as a mermaid or something. Wish they had a way of previewing the shots they took, though I suppose that'd take too long.

[Keith1010]

I like how you organized and formatted the review and it is very well written.

 

Thanks for taking the time to write this and to share it.

 

Keith

[sparks1093]

Great review, thanks! By thanksgiving next year I will also have Fascination and Glory in my signature:D.