Our Side by Side Cruise review Glory & Splendor

[cmptrwiz]

Back in October 2016 we took a Side to Side cruise on the Glory and Splendor. I lost my iPad on the airplane when we returned home. I just got it back two days ago. Better late than never.

Our Cruises: We booked a back to back cruise well actually I call it a side to side cruise since we changed ships in the middle. Back in February we booked our cruise to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary for October 15-22 and October 22-30 2016. The first was on the Carnival Glory for seven days in the Eastern Caribbean stopping at Half Moon Cay, St Thomas, San Juan Puerto Rico and Grand Turk. The Second half was on the Carnival Splendor going to Grand Turk, La Romana Dominican Republic, Curaçao, and Aruba. These would be cruises number nine and ten for us. We choose these itineraries because we had only been to Puerto Rico and LaRomana of all the stops and we thought it would be nice to explore new destinations. We were once on a cruise that was supposed to stop in Grand Turk, but it never made it because of high winds. We purchased Faster To The Fun for both of these cruises and because of that I will make a lot of comparisons for you.

Ourselves: We are a 58 year old couple from Idaho. Who raised four boys who are all out on their own now. We have cruised with family and friends before, but we wanted to spend a little alone time together. We started cruising in 2002 and I guess you could say we are hooked. All but one of our cruises have been on Carnival and that one was on Norweigian around the Hawaiian Islands for 10 days. We like Carnival and the pricing they offer. I for one feel cruising is very economical. Unpack once and see lots of different places. We are very nonjudgmental and can have a good time just about anywhere doing just about anything. We aren't especially picky, but in this review I tried to be very critical and picky so others could get the whole picture

Our Cabin: Glory was room 1239 on the Riveria deck level 1. It was your standard inside room. Our room steward was outstanding and I tipped him extra. We received both morning and night service and were never asked if we wanted one or both. Water pressure was outstanding and the water was always hot and the shower drained just fine even when we put a lot of sand down there. The cabin temperature was just ok and we kept it on the coldest setting and sometimes when moving around a lot like when we were unpacking it got just a little warm, but tolerable. We brought a little fan that I bought on Amazon because I heard some if the rooms can be a little hot, but only used it sparingly. There was no ice bucket and we did not request one. We ordered a 12 pack of water that was delivered to our room before we boarded that I put in the fridge which worked well at keeping things cold. Our room Steward was outstanding on the Glory!

Some of the things we didn't do: No room service, no slides, no swimming pool, no adult comedy, no piano bar (well only for two songs), no trivia, no welcome aboard show, no karaoke and I'm sure something that I missed.

Splendor was room 1023 up on deck 10 the spa deck. Our room was inside, but a spa room with spa access. Decorations better. I like the room it was arranged a little better than Glory with the safe over the fridge. Speaking of safe we used it by putting a four digit code in to lock it way better than the Glory safe which used a mag strip on a card to open and close. Shower drain slooowww to drain. I called maintenance and told them about the slow drain they said they would take care of it. We got the spa soaps, lotions and shampoos, but I really didn't care about that. Our room steward was ok, not over the top just ok. Our bed kept creeping apart so I asked him if he could fix it and it was taken care of when we returned from dinner and the show. We did receive a $50 spa discount card. The water pressure in the shower was fair compared to Glory. We had to ask for beach towels because they weren't in our cabin. The room temperature was really good. I like the room a little cool and it was almost too cold for my wife. I did end up turning the heat up a little one night because my wife was cold. We did have an ice bucket in our room that was filled when the room was serviced in the evening, but we seldom used it, because we got used to going without from the first week. We ordered water that was in the room before we boarded so we put it in the fridge. The room did have a little fridge, but it didn't work well at all things were only mildly cool if that. One day I decided to check the electrical outlet for the fridge and there was a button that looked like a reset button that I pushed a couple of times but did not make a difference, but upon further checking I unplugged the cord which didn't offer much if any resistance and pushed it all the way into the outlet and presto changeo the fridge turned on. I'm happy to report the fridge worked great all cruise after that. We ran out of toilet paper and Kleenex so I grabbed some off of a cart that was in the hallway as we went by because our steward didn't restock our bathroom. I guess no extra tip for you. The room Steward was just ok. Not over the top. He did his job for the most part, but hey we didn't have to make the bed, clean the room or bathroom so how bad could it be.

[cmptrwiz]

We drove to SLC from Idaho on Thursday left work early at 3:30.pm. We ate at Maddox in Brigham city, Utah. We Drove to SLC to the Comfort Suites and had a nice room with a free breakfast they offered a shuttle to airport and caught our flight to Atlanta. We were offered $500 each to bump if we weren't flying beyond Atlanta. The finally said we could take the $500 but there weren't any more flights that night to Miami so we would of had to fly the morning of our cruise so we passed. On our flight the tv in the seat back weren't working and the charger ports didn't either. We landed in Atlanta and went and ate at Chick fil A. Took the tram to the next concourse and found our gate. There weren't very many chairs at the boarding gate. That is just crazy. Our next flight was full as well, but not overbooked. We were in the back of the "Bus" the engines were very noisy. We arrived in Miami about 9pm. The airport was pretty quiet. All the shops were closed or were in the process of closing. We went to baggage claim and won the luggage lottery. One bag was going around the carousel and the other bag came out shortly. We grabbed our bags and headed outside. When we got curbside we used uber for the first time. Ricardo was our driver and arrived about five minutes after we requested him. He loaded up the trunk and head out to the AirBNB. We arrived about 15 minutes later and it coat us about $15.00. The AirBNB was great.

Saturday Day one: We got up in the morning had a quick bite to eat which consisted of couple of rolls we brought from a restaurant the day before, we packed and requested another uber. Mohammed was our driver this time. He didn't really seem to know where he was going or said he was trying to avoid construction. We went through the tunnel and that was pretty cool. We finally arrived at the port of Miami at about 10:00am and he drove us right up front to drop off our luggage. After we got out of the Uber and grabbed our luggage a woman approached us and noticed we had FTTF tags. We left our luggage with the porters who put special orange tags on our luggage and gave the porter a couple of bucks for each bag. After that we were directed to the special FTTF line where there were hardly any people in line. They checked our passports and sent us through security to screen our carry on luggage. After we got through the special security we went to a special FTTF line to get checked in and get our Sail and a Sign cards. The woman manning the counter was very nice and was surprised we had everything in order. We even had the health questioner filled out and signed. I asked if there was a special area for FTTF and she said no just sit anywhere. Later we found out there is a special area for Platinum and FTTF. Oh well. We took a seat in a pretty empty building. As we were waiting we met some very nice people. At about 11:30 they called FTTF. We had some matching tee shirts made to celebrate our 40th anniversary and wore them the first day, because we thought it would be nice to match for our embarkation photo. As we were making our way up and around and over to the embarkation photos no one was there. I was disappointed because we wore our matching shirts. It was funny to me how many comments we had about our matching tee shirts, we even had a couple of people want to take our picture. One lady approached me and told me I was the best husband ever for wearing the matching shirts. As she walked away I didn't have the heart to tell her I was the one who ordered the shirts and it was my idea. I told my wife if anybody asks hey were did you get those shirts? Tell them there were a bunch of them on a table as we entered the building! She wouldn't go along with my scam. We continued around and the up the escalator to the gangway. It's pretty exciting to see the ship up close and finally get on board. I don't remember having our pictures taken for our S&S card anywhere. They dinged us in when we were still in the building and didn't say smile. Oh well. So as we got on the ship we decided to take advantage of our FTTF and drop off our carry ons which consisted of a large purse and a big backpack. We made our way down into the depths of the Riviera deck. You know "steerage" like on Titanic. Or what I like to call the cheap seats. We opened the big heavy fire doors and proceeded down to room 1239 towards the front of the ship. We opened the door and it was your standard inside room. Our water we had ordered was there so I unwrapped it and put it in the fridge. We left our carry ons in the room and headed back to the elevators. We met a couple who weren't FTTF or Platinum who were trying to get to their room to drop off their carry ons. They saw the sign and decided to give up. I didn't say anything to them about us dropping our carry ons off, but they told us what they were trying to do. I just simply agreed with them that WE all might just might have to wait until 1:30 like they announced although the sign on the doors said 12:30. That's one thing about carnival lots of little inconsistencies. The truth be told since they had gotten that far if they had just opened the big door I don't think anyone would of said two words to them about dropping off early, but I wasn't going to tell them that.

After dropping off we headed to the lido deck to try and find some lunch since we didn't really get much for breakfast. We headed for the lido deck and it was not very busy and I was surprised because that is where all the food is. The first thing we spotted was Guy's Burgers. We have been on a few ships, but none had a Guy's. We headed over to the burger stand and got in line. Another cruise Critic person had told me there were two entrances so I looked for the other on and sure enough no one else was standing there so we made our way over there rather than stand in a line. We got our order added some toppings and then had a seat. My burger was really good, but my wife's was over cooked a bit and our fries were heavily seasoned and had a lot of salt. After finishing our burgers we we to find some fruit. My wife found some cantaloupe and water melon and I found some salad and dressing. After the healthy food we went up to the fish and chips place on deck 10 and got some tuna with watermelon. It wasn't as good as I remember it on the Valor. We decided to split an order of fish and chips. I thought they were pretty good, but my wife wasn't thrilled with them. After the fish we just kind of wandered around checking out the ship. There was a meeting of the Facebook roll call people at 1:00pm, but we arrived at about 1:30pm and everybody was gone. We did meet a few people from the Cruise Critic and Facebook roll call when we were wandering around. We parked out in the sun in some of the loungers just hanging out for a little while. While sitting there we talked about how much extra time we had by getting on the boat early with the FTTF. It seemed like we almost had a half a day extra. We decided to go down to the cabin and check to see if our luggage had arrived and it was sitting in the hall. As we walked down the hallway nobody else had there luggage or they had already taken them into their rooms. I'm sure most had not received theirs yet. We took our luggage into our room and started to unpack. Just to give a little update on the cabin, the temperature seemed pretty good maybe a little warm and the water pressure was fantastic. There were only two problems. The round stainless garbage can was missing from the cabin and the clothes hanger line in the shower didn't retract,but that's not critical it's almost not worth mentioning it to my readers. I mentioned to the room steward about the garbage can and he said he would work on it. I thought yea right. When we returned later we had one round stainless steel garbage can. No ice bucket, but I'm sure we could of requested one if we felt it was necessary. After we got unpacked they called for the muster drill. My wife wanted to go right away and I told her let's just wait for a few minutes. When we arrived they put us in the front line and then it started.

After muster we needed to go to a room with the aft wrap balcony for sail away. I needed to make arrangements for our shared villa and give our new friend who was sharing his villa with us, a check and let my wife know about the secret arrangements. We met a bunch of really nice people especially Gail and Rick. We had never been in an aft wrap cabin and it was pretty nice.

After sail away we went to our cabin and finished unpacking and watched a little TV. We got ready for dinner I had the mahi mahi and she had the beef brisket which was a little tough.

After dinner we decided to skip the welcome aboard show and get ready for tomorrow HMC.

[cmptrwiz]

Sunday Day 2 Half Moon Caye:

When we awoke the weather was lousy. I just knew we weren't going to be able to tender. We decided to get Breakfast burritos at the Blue iguanas and they were pretty good. I asked a worker if he thought we would be able to tender that day and he said it wasn't very likely. I knew from reading past cruise critic post that they miss HMC some of the time because of tendering. After breakfast we went to the room grabbed our swimsuits and other stuff and headed to the amber palace for priority tendering where we met up with the rest of our "villa" group. They kept telling us the water was rough and some people were saying if it's too rough just cancel it. Finally they announced we were going to go. Yea!! HMC was fantastic and we had a great time. The villa had a hot tub, water, pop, chips, salsa, relish tray and snorkel stuff shower and toilet. We swam, snorkeled laid out in the sun, used the hot tub and had a wonderful day. By splitting the cost of the villa with another couple with their two toddlers and a single gal it made it about $135 for us as a couple very affordable. After spending most of the day on HMC we decided to leave at 2:30pm. There were long line for tenders with everybody trying to get back on the ship. We went to the shops on HMC, but they were all closed and it didn't look like they had been open in several days. We made it on ship about 4:00pm got back to the room and unpacked looked at menu and decided to do the steakhouse. We secured a 6pm reservation for $35 each. It was our anniversary so we decided to splurge. My wife had surf and turf I had the 9oz filet mignon. My wife had the cheese plate for dessert and I had the chocolate sampler. When we left we were both stuffed. The meals were both excellent and we enjoyed ourselves. After we went to the PG comedy show it was pretty funny and then went to the main show playlist production getaway island and it wasn't very good so we left and went back to the second pg comedy show. After the comedy show went back to the cabin and went to sleep.

[cmptrwiz]

Monday Day 3: Sea day and so I ran a couple of miles on the track. I am signed up to run the Rock and Roll half marathon in Las Vegas in November so I have to do keep up my training. There was some sort of medical emergency that happened on the lido deck after I was running. It looked like somebody must of passed out or something. We never had to have an at sea rescue or anything. We went to brunch late and enjoyed ourselves. This was the First elegant night and I had prime rib and my wife had two lobsters. We went to Motown show it was canceled because of rough seas so they just sang the songs it was ok.

[cmptrwiz]

Tuesday day 4 It was St Thomas. We had a tour with Godfrey tours. It was supposed to be shopping, a tour of the city and the your choice of beaches. We choose Coki beach because it has good snorkeling. Our ship was a little late for docking. We were supposed to be picked up at 10:00am just outside the security gate by someone with a sign. We arrived at our appointed pickup place and no sign. We started asking around about Godfery and we were told to just wait where we were standing. I kept looking for the sign that wasn't being held up? We kept asking around and finally a big guy said that we would go with him and he would drop us off for shopping and then hook up with our group. So we got in the back of his truck with a bunch of other people that had several rows of seats. He wanted to collect the money for Godfrey so I gave it to him. He said we were short $10 and I pulled out a printout of our reservation. He took the money and grumbled a little bit. As we drove to the downtown shopping area which was an area with a bunch of tents and canopies set up for a flea market we were told a few things like this is the Coast Guard building, this is a school and stuff like that. We arrived at the flea market and were told we could shop until 12:15pm. My wife enjoys shopping and haggling with the shop owners at a flea market style market. We proceeded to shop and haggle and I decided I needed a new hat so I set out to get a good deal. I asked at a couple of places at the outside row of booths the prices of some hats I liked, but no budging on the prices so I headed to the inner booths. There I found a hat I liked at a price I was willing to pay. Score! I also found a shirt I like in my size so I bought it as well. My wife picked up a few different things and we were done. We went across the street to a few other shops, but didn't find anything we could live without. We then crossed the street to a city park where we could get in the shade, rest our feet by sitting on a park bench and watch for our tour driver. In the park were your standard pigeons and a bunch of chickens with baby chicks. So we watched the mama chickens with babies for entertainment until our tour bus arrived. I approached the driver, gave him our name and waited while he looked us up on his hand written sheet. He said that we wouldn't be going with his group and he was getting us a taxi to take us to the beach. So we waited. He offered us some cold water or pop so we took him up on it. Our taxi finally arrived and we got in his nice air conditioned van. His name was Roland. He started driving us to Coki Beach and we had a nice conversation. I asked if most of the people in St Thomas are religious and he said some are religious and others are spiritual. I thought that was an interesting way of putting it. He did tell us a few of the things on the way to the beach. It was about 35-40 minutes until we arrived at the beach. The temperature was 86 degrees. When I saw the beach I was surprised how small it appeared to be or maybe it was all the people that made the beach appear smaller. There were four ships in port that day one of the being the Royal ship Oasis of the Seas. That is a big ship 6000 passengers I believe. There was also the Norwegian Escape which is a pretty big ship as well. So lots of people at the small Coki beach. Our cab driver found the person at the beach who was supposed to help us. I believe his name was Donald he asked us if we wanted any loungers. We said yes two please and he told us they were $5 each. He grabbed a couple of loungers off of a pile of them and carried them right down if front of everybody and on the edge of the water, so when big waves came on the beach they hit the bottom of our loungers and got our towels and just about everything else wet. I was just getting ready to take my tennis shoes off when a wave came up and soaked them. Hey we are at the beach how bad can it be? A lady with colorful hair came up to us and said if we needed any drinks or food just let her know. We told her thanks. We had worn our swimming suits with some clothes over top so we were ready to swim in a jiffy. My wife went out first and the water was pleasantly warm. I watched her from the loungers as she bobbed around in the water. I decided to join her. Entering the water was kind of difficult because of the waves. They would come in and out so fast kind of knocking you over as you tried to go out. I finally made out to where she was bobbing around and realized I still had my prescription glasses on. So we swam around not getting my head in the water. It was nice and the day was warm and the sky was partly cloudy. After swimming around for awhile I decided to go snorkeling over by the reef on the side of the beach. When I got over there it was like an aquarium. There were fish everywhere, thousands of fish of all different kinds especially little black and yellow angel fish. I was really even that close to the reef. People were feeding them and they were swimming over the sandy areas waiting for food. After swimming around for all while I went and told my wife to go over there and I would watch our stuff. She took on of our full face masks and headed over there. After awhile she returned and I asked her how she liked it and she said she didn't get to snorkel because the waves kept knocking her down. I looked at her mask and it was full of sand. I took the mask and rinsed it out. We finally decided for both of us to go down there and try it. I asked a guy that was near our stuff if he would watch it. He said he would. We went down by the reef and again saw a lot of fish and had a great time. After awhile we went back to our stuff and everything was still there. It started to rain a little bit and everybody started getting out of the water, packing up and leaving so I moved our loungers up the beach a little bit. We both started to get a little bit hungry so I went and bought a $10 hot dog with fries that we shared. We swam a little bit more and finally decided it was time to leave. We packed up all our stuff and went over to the shower area and washed the sand off our feet. They told us to walk over to Coral World because that is where Godfrey tours would pick us up. It wasn't very far so we walked over there. It was closing down and people were leaving and cabs kept pulling up and people kept leaving. I was getting a little nervous because they were supposed to pick us up between 4 o'clock and 4:15 and it was after 4pm. I figured were ok we could just grab a cab if we needed to. I approached a cab and asked how much back to the ship and they said $9 each. I figured we would be okay to wait a little bit more, because we didn't have to be on board until 5:30pm. I approached a worker and asked about Godfrey and she said she would call him. She called and didn't get an answer. I told her thanks and went over and sat back to down on the planter we had been sitting on. After a few minutes she came over to where we were sitting and told us she talked to our driver and he would be here at 4:15. I asked if he had called her back when he saw that she had called and she said no she had called him again. We thanked her and she left in a car. After she left I thought to myself I should of given her a couple of bucks for helping us. About 4:20 the Godfrey tours bus pulled up completely empty. We waved him down and jumped on. We started heading back to the ship or so I thought when he said through his loudspeaker which was difficult to understand that we needed to pickup some other people. So we drove around and picked up a bunch of other riders. After almost filling up the back of the truck we proceeded to go back to the ship. We now had people on the truck who were from the Glory, the Magic and the Oasis. I was happy when he dropped off the Glory people first. After we jumped off I handed him a couple of bucks for a tip. We then made our way onto the Glory. What a day. We dropped off our wet and sandy towels in exchange for dry ones before we proceeded to our cabin. One of the nice things is when you are on deck one when you come in from a tour you don't have to wait and get on a crowded elevator you just walk up one quick flight of stairs and you are really close to our cabin. We went to the cabin showered and changed clothes and got ready for dinner. When my wife took off her one piece swimming suit to shower she had sand everywhere. When the waves were knocking her down it must of filled he swimming suit with sand. After we got changed for dinner we went to anytime dining. We were seated at a table for two. After being seated another couple were seated by us. We struck up a conversation with them and they told us they were from Illinois. They were nice and this was their first cruise. He was a piano tuner by profession. We had a nice casual conversation with them throughout our dinner. It's funny because after having dinner with them we kept seeing them on the boat and in some of the ports. After dinner we went to the PG comedy show which was pretty good then went back to the cabin watched a little TV and went to sleep. I know who watches TV on a cruise.

[cmptrwiz]

Wednesday day 5 San Juan: This port day was going to be easy. After the ship docked we grabbed some breakfast and grabbed my backpack in which I carry a few essential thing, first aid kit, sunscreen, bottled water, rain ponchos, and other important things, I think you get the idea. We got off the ship at pier number four and Carnival Magic was already docked. I heard someone say the magic came from Orlando and was doing all the same stops as Glory only missing HMC. The Viking River Cruise ship was in town as well so things were a little hectic this day. We wandered over to the free trolley stop and waited for our ride. When it arrived there were a few seats available for us to use. It meandered through town making its way up to the old fort San Cristobal. After arriving we got off and went and purchased tickets for $5 each and that lets us into both forts. We explored the fort on our own and had a great time. Last time we were here we shopped a lot and didn't have a chance to tour the forts so this was something I really wanted to do. After exploring and watching people surf in the ocean we went to a different trolley stop that was just after our original stop. The problem was the trolley was full from the last stop so we decided to walk down to another trolley stop in front if the fort. A bunch of school buses pulled up in front of the for blocking off the drop off area for the fort. The trolley came and went, it was an enclosed trolley not like the open trolley so because of being enclosed and the loading area being blocked by all the school buses we opted not to ride this one. The trolleys, we were told arrive about every 45 minutes so we waited patiently for the next. When it finally arrived we jumped on in the last two seats available. The trolley took off and stopped at the next stop where we had been waiting before, but because it was full nobody could get in the trolley. We stayed in the trolley while it made all of it's stops. The trolley made its way up to the next fort and we still didn't get off. After the the trolley made its way around the two forts it headed back to the pier area where our boat was waiting for us. Before the trolley arrived at the ships we opted to get off the trolley and walk around an area where people had set up canopy and were selling their goods and souvenirs. We bought a few things and the decided we needed to visit the Walgreen's across the street from the pier. We went in and purchased a few essentials, potato chips, candy, nail polish remover and some stuff we didn't need. As we left the store a big down pour started and the wind kicked up as well. We waited under the little awning on the outside of Walgreen's trying to outlast the storm. My experience in the Caribbean is just wait a few minute and the rain will quit, so we did and the rain didn't quit. It did lighten up a little, but continued to come down. We finally decided we better put on our rain ponchos and head for the ship. I felt sorry for the people heading back to the ship without an umbrella or a poncho. When we reached the covered area at the pier we had to wait in line to get back on the ship. The was a lady nearby us who was wearing a white shirt who was totally drenched and of course her shirt when wet became very transparent so I yelled out did you win the wet tee shirt contest? My wife elbowed me in the gut, because it was rude. As we were waiting to get on the boat we called my wife's folks to check on them and let them know we were doing great. After we got on the boat we got cleaned up and I went to the Cruise Critic meet and mingle. We were told we would receive invitations in our cabins to let us know when and where it was being held, but that never happened. It was printed in the fun times, but not in the hub app electronic version. When we met there were only six people from CC and the Cruise Director and Entertainment Director were there as well. It was too bad that was it, because there were over 25 people signed up to attend. I ran into a few people from the roll call later that day and asked where they were and they said they weren't even aware of the meeting having not seen it in the fun times.

We had made arrangements with Gail and Rick from the roll call to have dinner together tonight. We met in the anytime dining room and had a wonderful dinner. We visited for quite awhile and had a lot of fun telling stories and getting to know each other better. After sometime they went to the casino and we headed for bed.

[cmptrwiz]

Thursday Day 6 Grand Turk: We slept in a little today because we didn't dock until a little later in the morning. When we got up we got some of our beach stuff ready for the day. We went to the lido deck and had some breakfast. Since we had eaten at the Blue Iguana Cantina a couple of times which is pretty quick and easy we decided to just grab something at the breakfast buffet. I got a great Omelette and my wife got fruit and cereal. We found a table ate and then returned to the cabin. We had reserved a snorkeling tour off the internet with white sands snorkeling. I had pre paid an $85 deposit via credit card a couple if months before. I had an email with instructions of where to meet for our 1:00pm snorkel excursion and a reservation number. We docked at 11:00am today. We waited for the Cruise Director to announce that we could exit the boat while we had the TV on the channel of the front of the boat camera and we could see people were going down the pier into town, so we grabbed a few things, but not our beach stuff because we didn't need it until later, and headed downstairs to get off the boat. Sure enough the stairway was crowded with passengers trying to get off the boat. So we finally made it to the Grand Turk cruise center which is full of shops and people lining up to go on Carnival excursions. We browsed around a little bit in some of the shops looking for any souvenirs we couldn't live without. Luckily we found a couple of things! I sat down in a chair outside Margaritaville and asked for the wifi password. I started downloading emails and text messages. I decided to text home and make sure everything was ok and post a few things on Facebook. While my wife was shopping I was catching up on emails and Facebook. We decided it was time for me to go back to the ship and grab our beach stuff and meet my wife in the shopping area. As I went back to the ship I felt like a Salmon swimming upstream. The Carnival Magic had arrived an hour after we had and when they were docking they wouldn't let anyone from the Glory off of the boat because it could be dangerous. So everybody was trying to make their way to the beach except me. I finally made it into the ship and to our room and grabbed our beach stuff. Now to make my way off the ship and back to the shopping area and find my wife and see if she had any money left. I found her after a quick search and we headed down to the beach. The instructions said someone with a sign would meet us on the beach near the exit from the shopping area. Guess what nobody showed up. I couldn't believe this was happening again. We finally started asking around to see if anybody knew where we were supposed to meet them. One security guard had no idea and someone else said maybe down the beach. So we proceeded to walk down the beach. We finally saw some people with snorkel equipment who looked like they were looking for someone. I asked if they were looking for us and they said yes. I asked about the signs and they said they had blown over. So we paid for the rest of our excursion and they started fitting us with fins. We got the right sizes and were told to get on the boat that was waiting just off the beach. The waves were really big today and it made getting on the boat really difficult especially for my wife, but we finally both got on. After everybody got on the speed boat we took off and headed for "the wall". The Captain said the waves were a little rough and visibility wasn't very good at the normal snorkel place so we were going to a different place to snorkel. When we arrived we were given old water bottles with bread in them to attract the fish. The water was rough and I was starting to get a little sea sick on this small boat. I usually take meclazine when we cruise, but I had decided to try cruising this time without it, because it makes me more hungry. Not a good problem to have on a cruise ship. I thought maybe if I got in the water I might feel better, boy was I wrong. I felt like a cork bobbing up and down in the waves. It was difficult to enjoy myself snorkeling while feeling like I was going to throw up. I was told there were some nice fish and we got to see the "wall". We got back on the boat and the captain said we would go to the other side of the island and it would be a lot smoother. We all got back on the boat and headed out. On the way over to the new location I finally threw up three times. After throwing up I felt a lot better. We arrived at a coral reef that we swam through and saw some more fish and it was pretty good. After the reef we loaded up again and went to an area where the captain and his helper dove down and retrieved a bunch of conch. After they brought up about a dozen or so we went over to a little island where they cleaned the conch and made us a conch salad. It tasted pretty good even though I had just thrown up about an hour before. After they cleaned the conch there were stingrays attracted to the guts of the conch so we got out of the boat and held and played with the stingrays. After a while it was time to leave and return to the big boat. The captain tried to start both of the outboard motors, but only one would start. We left with only one working, but we couldn't go very fast. The helper piloted the boat and The captain got out on the back of the boat and removed the top of the outboard motor and tried a couple of things to get it started. Eventually he got both of the motors going and we took off. I was starting to get worried we might miss the cruise ship because we were going so slow. As we we're headed back to land the helper was cleaning the outside of the conch shells for us. When we finally made it back to the beach and could see the cruise ship I knew we were almost out of time to be back on board the Glory so we had to hurry. We took the conch shells grabbed our gear and headed back to the ship. We made it back with just a few extra minutes to spare to get back on board. After getting back on the ship we headed back to the cabin to get showered and cleaned up.

Tonight was the 2nd Elegant night and I had the teriyaki Salmon and orange sherbet which is funny because I really don't eat a lot of fish, but it was excellent. My wife had scallops and Grand Mariner soufflé. After dinner we went to the comedy show with Happy Cole and he is really funny. After the comedy show we went to the Playlist Production Amore Cuba. The show was good, music was great, singing good except most if the songs were in Spanish. After the show we went and had a few pictures taken since we were both dressed up. We finally made our way down to the piano bar for the first time and sat down and listened to a few songs and even sang along with a couple of the songs. We usually spend a fair amount of time in the piano bar, but not this cruise. The guy played fantastic and was even a pretty good singer. After a while we both decided we were tired and needed to hit the hay. A man and woman were arguing down the hall as we are trying to go to sleep.

[cmptrwiz]

Friday Sea Day day 7: When I woke up I decided to go up on deck 11 and run around the track again. Today was a 5k run day or for those of you who can't do the conversion its 3.1 miles. I forgot to take my phone with my music so I had a pretty boring run. There were a few other people walking and running on the track with me so I had to bob and weave around the walkers. After running I grabbed a cup of hot chocolate for my wife and returned to the cabin. We hung out in the cabin watching a little TV and then decided to go grab some lunch. I went to the deli and got my traditional cruise sandwich of pastrami on toasted white with mayo. Very good. We were sitting in a both eating and I had brought the pinochle cards so we played cards for a while. A lady we had met one night from Illinois who husband tunes pianos for a living stopped by our table a visited for a while and we invited her to sit and visit with us while she ate her lunch. Her husband was in the cabin with a backache. After she left we continued to play a little more. We went back to the cabin and started to pack somethings so it wouldn't take so long later tonight. It was kind of nice not having to worry if our luggage was over 50 pounds like you do for traveling by airplane. After packing a little We wandered around the ship for awhile and made it over to pixels to look at our pictures. We had been given a free photo card by our room steward for our anniversary so we tried to use it. They make it so difficult to use with all sorts of restrictions. We finally found a picture that qualified and purchased another picture from the formal night backdrops.

We went to the dining room for dinner and My wife ordered the prime rib and it was much better than the first elegant night prime rib. It was much thicker and less fat, just a much better cut of meat, she shared a little with me. I ordered the cornmeal crusted chicken breast and it was good, but I wish I would of ordered the prime rib. I was surprised they had it on the menu since it wasn't an elegant night. After dinner we had to decide between the Happy Cole PG comedy or the show epic rock. I had heard that epic rock was a good show to go to so we chose epic rock and it was a very good show. In retrospect we should of gone to the Epic Rock late show and the early PG comedy, but sometimes it is hard to stay up late especially when you have to get up early for debarkation the next morning. So after the show we finished packing and went to bed after setting the alarm for 6:30am. We have done back to back cruises before with keeping the same room and that is really nice because you don't have to pack the night before. It was nice to know that as we were packing up with everybody else that we still had eight more days of cruise left. Everybody else was sad getting off the ship but we were smiling because we had more than half of our vacation left to go. Sorry it was hard to keep from smiling from ear to ear.

[cmptrwiz]

Saturday day 8 debarkation Glory: We got up early, about 7:00am showered and went to breakfast in the dining room. Our food was good and the service was good. After breakfast we went back to the room and grabbed our carry on luggage. We took our luggage and went up to deck nine to wait to get off the ship and jump on the Splendor. We waited by the aft pool. I went up to deck 10 and looked around. Guess what was parked behind us at the port. The Carnival Splendor just waiting for us to jump on and have a great time. I could see the FTTF line outside the terminal. People were lined up waiting to get in the terminal, but the line wasn't moving. We sat patiently just waiting. I wasn't in any hurry to have to stand in line to wait when we could just sit back to and play pinochle enjoying ourselves while waiting patiently. We could of left almost anytime with our FTTF because we had luggage tags number two. Finally I could see over at the Splendor the FTTF line was moving so we decided to make our way over to our accommodations for the next 8 days. We grabbed an elevator dropped down to level 3 got in a short line and were dinged off the Carnival Glory for the last time. It is a weird feeling knowing that you are amongst a bunch of sad people getting ready to head home and you are heading out for another fun eight days on a cruise! Once off the ship and downstairs trying to gather our luggage and get in a huge line for customs was a real treat. We grabbed our suitcases and headed for a double line going to customs. We meandered around and around making our way closer and closer until we found a ladies restroom and my wife had to make a visit while I waited outside loosing our place in line. When she returned a nice couple let us in line and we continued our journey to customs. It was finally our turn and we presented our declaration form and both passports. The guard commented about our matching shirts my wife commented about being married 40 years and the guard asked what we attributed our long marriage to and I off handily said just do what I am told and we all laughed. He said go ahead and we were on our way to Splendor. We walked out the front of the terminal where there were a bunch of people wanting to get on the Glory and a bunch of people trying to get on a taxi or to their parked vehicles who just got off the Glory. We made our way towards the Splendor walking down the sidewalk as far as we could go and the we walked in front of the storage warehouse where all of the goods being loaded on the ship were held. Forklifts were unloading some semi trucks going back and forth so we had to be careful and not get run over as we made our way closer to the Splendor. We crossed a little blacktop area and then there was an area of big buses dropping off lots of future passengers. We made through there without getting hit by any buses. At this point we were in the luggage drop off area for Splendor.

[cmptrwiz]

Saturday Embarkation on Splendor Day 1: We arrived in the luggage drop of area and couldn't find a porter to give our luggage to. There were a bunch of official looking people standing there, but no porters. The important looking people asked if we needed to drop off our luggage which seems it should of been very obvious. I said yes and they said it looks like all the baggage cages were gone. Again very very obvious. Soon a nice porter appeared and took our luggage. I mentioned that we needed the orange FTTF stickers attached and he said he would take good care of us. I tipped him $4.00 for our two bags. We then went to the FTTF entry area where there were a couple of people in line ahead of us. We went to the next available check in person and she checked all our documents and passports. She then told us that things are a little different because our sail and sign cards are in our mailbox in front of our room. So after checking in we went through the x-Ray security machine and this is where all the fun started. We had brought with us two conch shells that we got while snorkeling at Grand Turk. Evidently they can be seen when they x-Ray your carry on luggage. We had brought our dirty laundry from the Glory onto the Splendor in a duffle style bag with two conch shells inside. They called over security and I said they are conch shells and they said they have to call someone over. They took us out of line and back against the wall. I forgot to mention I had a couple of waters leftover from our room and I stuck them in my backpack to sip on while we were waiting to get off the Glory. They spotted the bottle of waters and made me take them out of my backpack and she said I could drink them right there if I wanted. I said no thanks and she put them of to the side of the X-ray belt. So we are now against the wall waiting for someone to decide if we can take the shells onboard or not. They called a supervisor and they weren't sure or not. They asked us if we paid for the shells and I said yes we did. Well indirectly we paid for them! Finally they were going to call someone from the boat and see if we could bring them on the boat. All of the security people wandered off leaving us alone while they were determining if we could bring the shells on the boat. At one point I told my wife lets just take the shell we had left stick it back in our duffle bag with all of our dirty laundry and head inside. It might be difficult to find us in this "sea" of 3500 people waiting to start their vacations. She didn't refuse my idea, but but wasn't too thrilled with the idea of being "on the lam" while on vacation. After a delay of about 30 minutes or so they finally said we could take them with us and off we went. During all the fuss I walked over to the lady at the end of the X-ray machine and asked if I could get a sip of water out of one of our bottled waters they confiscated and sat on the end of the X-ray machine. She said sure just put the remainder in the trash and pointed at a garbage by the wall where they were checking out our shells. I opened the water took a couple of swigs, recapped it and walked over to the wall and put the water back in my backpack. We took our shells put them back in the duffle and walked into the main seating area. A woman asked for our boarding pass and told us we could sit anywhere. I asked where the FTTF seating was and one person said oh just sit anywhere and the other woman said it's over there and pointed to a little nicer area to sit with USB charging stations and it wasn't very crowded yet. We sat down and tried to make ourselves comfortable. At about 11:30am they started calling wedding parties and visitors. Then they called Priority Diamond. I noticed a group of people being led to the boarding area and some of them had FTTF tags on their carry ons so I told my wife grab your stuff and let's follow them so we did. We got on the tail end of that group and sure enough we were headed for boarding. The interesting thing is that before getting on the ship they scanned our boarding pass bar code with an iPad looking device and checked to see If we had a picture matching our sail and sign card. If there wasn't a picture they took your picture with the iPad and off you went. Our pictures were from our passport photos so we didn't need to have our picture taken, but both of our bar codes didn't scan so they manually entered our room number and our pictures popped up. This time they were taking embarkation photos and we were wearing our matching anniversary cruise shirts so we had our photos taken. We went up the gangway excited to be getting on the Splendor for the second leg of our anniversary cruise.

As we entered the ship they checked our boarding pass one last time. We were finally on board ready to get our party started. We decided to drop our carry ons in the cabin and get our sail and sign cards. When we were in the cabin we thought now might be a good to do our dirty laundry because the laundry rooms on the ship should not be busy. I took the duffle style bag with dirty laundry down to deck 9 where a laundry room is located since there isn't one on our deck 10. I went to open the door to the laundry room and it was locked. I thought are you kidding me. When I was on the Glory I specifically asked if we could do laundry on embarkation day on the Splendor and they said yes and even sold us a roll of quarters to do so. I stopped a room steward and asked if the laundry room should be open and he was surprised that it wasn't. He called his supervisor and they said they would send someone to open the room. A little while later someone in a white uniform came and unlocked the door. I went in and loaded up a couple of washers with our clothes and went to put in the some quarters and they don't accept quarters anymore. On the wall is an electronic card reader to run the dryers and washers which by the way are $3.00 to wash and $3.00 to dry. So it cost us $12 total to wash two loads and dry two loads. While our clothes were washing we went out to the lido deck to get something to eat. One thing I immediately noticed was that the Splendor doesn't have all the food choices that the Glory had. We got in line at the buffet and filled our plates. We wandered around for a while looking for a table to eat at and all the tables were pretty packed. A couple of ladies were sitting at a table for four and offered to let us sit down and enjoy our lunch I thought that was pretty darn nice. We had a pleasant conversation while we ate our lunch. After finishing our lunch we went to check our laundry and it was time to change it from the washers to the dryers and then we returned to our room. Our luggage had been delivered and so we decided to unpack. As we were unpacking there was a knock on the door and we had an opportunity to meet our room steward I Gusti and he had a form asking if we needed any extra pillows and any other things and if we preferred morning, evening service or both. I was kind of surprised because on Glory we had both morning and night and didn't have to fill out any forms. I had read on Cruise Critic about this going on some ships and not on others. We chose evening service and asked if we could get a couple of robes and slippers because they were missing from our cabin. Because we were in a spa cabin the spa robes should of been in the cabin automatically. He said sure, but didn't seem too happy about getting them. We continued unpacking when they announced the dreaded muster drill. We proceeded to our muster station where they scanned our room cards with the iPad devices and then we listened patiently when the instructions were given. After muster we returned to our room and finished unpacking, folding and hanging our clean laundry. We went up to the spa to get our spa passes and looked around the spa to see what amenities we were entitled to. After checking out the spa we went out on the "secret" deck to watch sail away. One of my favorite things to watch as we sail away is us going past Miami beach and south beach and seeing all the people on the beach enjoying themselves and watching the harbor pilot jump onto the little pilot boat and go back to the port. After watching those things I returned to the room and we talked about going to dinner around 6:00pm. We watched a little TV until six rolled around. We went to the dining room and the service was a little slow, but the food was good. The menu was the same as the first night on Glory. After dinner our robes had been delivered so we decided to hit the thalassotherapy pool in the spa and found it was very nice and relaxing. As we were getting our swimsuits on there was a little tap on the door and then it opened and he announced housekeeping and my wife was standing there totally naked, she dashed out of view from the door and I still had my shorts on so I approached the door to help block his view and he presented us with the missing slippers. I guess we need to deadbolt the door when we are in the cabin. After a big soak in the thalassotherapy tub and relaxing on the heated tiled loungers we decided we had a big day and we were tired and it was time to hit the sheets.

[cmptrwiz]

Sunday sea day and day 2: Last night the room was kind of noisy. It seemed to creek and groan all night long and those noises weren't from the occupants even though it was our anniversary. The walls to this room seem to be extra thin because we could hear the TV in one room and talking going on in the other room next to us. This morning there was lots of loud laughter in one of the rooms next door and it was so loud I looked out in the hall to see if there were a group of people gathered outside our door making this ruckus, but the hallway was empty. The room only holds two passengers, but it sure sounded like a lot of people were in there laughing and having more fun than should be allowed on any cruise ship.

I decided to get up and go run around the track. This track took 10 laps for a mile where as the other track took only nine laps. I managed to knock out 2.5 miles, before returning to the cabin. We decided to skip breakfast today and hung out in the cabin and watched a little TV. It was about noon and I was starting to get a little hungry so I headed out solo to check out the food. It all looked so good, but I decided to head to the back of the ship to the deli for my traditional pastrami sandwich. When I returned to the cabin my wife had turned off the TV and fallen asleep so I headed out on deck to work on my review and people watch. I can't remember what we had to eat or what we did in the evening, but suffice it to say I'm sure we enjoyed ourselves.

[cmptrwiz]

Monday day 3 Grand Turk: We got up early at about 6:45. The ship was scheduled to arrive at 7:00am so we wanted to eat and get on the island and grab a couple of loungers by the ocean with an umbrella, before everyone else got the same idea. So we headed to the buffet before many people were up for breakfast. We grabbed a few things to eat and quickly finished our breakfast. We returned to the cabin grabbed our beach bag and headed to the gangway. When we arrived there wasn't a long line to get off the ship, and security was there ready to scan our sail and sign cards, but not with the usual method. They were using the iPad looking devices to scan our cards when we departed the ship. Once they were scanned our photo appeared on their handheld displays. We walked down the gangway and proceeded down the long concrete pier to the beach that we had visited a few days earlier on a different ship! This time we had made arrangements to rent a golf cart to motor around the island and checkout the light house and other highlights. When we reserved the golf carts via email the company didn't really seem to be very professional and didn't require a deposit. The prices had gone up when we emailed back and forth and I just had an uneasy feeling about the company. Someone else had posted that the golf carts weren't really in very good condition. So we decided to bail on the golf cart idea. So we decided to hit the beach. Once we passed through the cruise ship gift shops and did some more shopping even though we had been here just a few days ago and then we headed to the beach. When we arrived we had a huge selection of beach chairs with umbrellas because it had started to rain a little bit. We plopped down in a couple of lounge chairs with an umbrella and a great view of the ocean. My wife went swimming and I just hung out and relaxed. She gave me a bad time about not getting into the water, but I didn't care. I got up after awhile and wandered over to Margaritaville to get wifi and check Facebook. I got an email about a friend who was ill who passed away and news about a relative who crashed his side by side and was in the hospital in bad shape, but was expected to live. We hung out on the beach for awhile and it started to rain harder and it thundered really loud. When the rain started to let up a little we decided to make a run for it, back to the ship. Ok maybe we walked back fast to the ship. Once on board we headed to the spa to take advantage of the thalassotherapy pool and heated tile loungers they felt pretty good after getting cold in the rain. After the spa we returned to the cabin just in time to let maintenance in to check out our slow draining shower. It works great now. We were hungry after not eating for a couple of hours so we headed out to the lido deck or as I like to call it the food deck. We found a table staked a claim to it and headed in different directions. I went to the deli and she went to the burrito bar and then we both met up at the table. I had asked a kid with his family to keep an eye on our stuff on the table while we were gone, but when we returned the family and the kid were all gone, but thank goodness all our belongings were still there on the table when we returned and no one had taken our table. So much for help from strangers.

After lunch we decided to go play the bean bag game which we are usually pretty good at because we have one at home we play at parties and family reunions in the summer. We watched the people that were playing for a while and they were pretty good. Finally we got a chance to play and we didn't do so good. We played a second game and still got beat pretty bad. We put our tails between our legs and left In disgrace and went to the cabin. We watched a movie on the TV and fell asleep after the movie. When we woke up we got ready for dinner because all this resting makes us hungry. We went to the dining room again and I had the veal Parmesan and my wife had the Rosemary Lamb Shank which is boneless lamb and it was very tender. After dinner we went to a PG comedy show and it was pretty much a repeat of the night before. We hung out at the Grand Piano bar for a little while and then after we went to the room and got our quarters that were intended for the laundry that we didn't need in the end on the Splendor and then headed for the casino. We like to do the quarter push machines, because it feels like we have some control rather than mindless pushing a button or pulling the handle. After retrieving our quarters we headed for the casino. We don't typically spend a lot of time in the casino for two reasons. We don't like all the smoke and we just don't gamble much. I guess I feel like I work too hard for our money to just give it away. When we arrived at the casino all the push machines were busy so we stood around for a while waiting to give our little bit of money away. After waiting for a while we gave up and headed back to the cabin. For some reason I didn't think they were having a playlist production in the showroom, but I was wrong so we went to the later show. The show was Studio VIP and they preselected some audience members to participate in the show. The show overall was ok for me, not outstanding, but just ok. After the show we went to the cabin and got ready for our day in LaRomana.

[cmptrwiz]

Tuesday Dominican Republic LaRomana day 4: The boat was set to arrive at 9:00am so we set the alarm for 8:00am. We originally wanted to go to Bayhiebe and hang out on the beach and visit the little shops along the beach, but I just had a bad feeling about going and not being able to get back in time to get back on the boat. So we opted to hang around the port for a while hitting all the shops there and then buying a couple of tickets for $5 each round trip to the downtown Central Park area. We got on a big air conditioned bus and headed into town. When we arrived downtown they had a big flea market going on in the park which was right up our alley. We got off the bus into the hot and humid air. I'm just glad most of the booths were in the shade. My wife was looking for a dress like she had purchased on a cruise before. She shopped long and hard and ended up with four dresses. After shopping we finally boarded the bus and headed back to the pier. When we got back on the boat we went up to the lido and hung out, had lunch and played cards for awhile. I went outside on deck and texted home back and forth for a while. We went back to the cabin watched a movie and took a nap.

After the nap it was time for us to go to dinner. We got dressed, my wife wore one of her new dresses, and went down to the dining room. We were seated by a window and had a good view since it was still light outside. They took our order and before you know it our appetizer arrived and our main course right after that. It took a while for the dessert to arrive, but I'd bet you we were in and out in 40 minutes or less from start to finish. If we hadn't ordered dessert it would have been 30 minutes. After dinner we wanted to do the dive in movie at 7:00pm Independence Day Resurgence. It was a good movie and lasted 2 hours. It was hard finding two loungers together because the chair hogs were out in force. Some people put a sandal or tee shirt on a lounger to save it. I grabbed a lounger from across the way and drug it next to the one were my wife was seated and hers was next to one with a tee shirt on it. So we had three together were there were really only supposed to be two. I moved a little table that was in between two of the loungers so the extra one didn't stick out in the isle so much.

[cmptrwiz]

Wednesday Curaçao day 5: we didn't have to get up early because the boat was going to arrive in the early afternoon. So we slept in a little watched a movie on TV and played a little bit of pinochle. After that we went out on the lido deck to get something to eat and we caught it just right. They were still serving breakfast on half of the buffet and lunch on the other side, so we had the best of both worlds. We grabbed a little of everything, but mostly breakfast. After eating we went back to the cabin to prepare to get off the ship in Curaçao. We had booked a tour on the Internet with Irie tours consisting of a five hour tour west end beach and island tour for $75 each. It seemed a little expensive at the time, but was well worth it. We arrived in Curaçao at 1:00pm and our tour was scheduled to begin at 2:00pm, but we were asked via email to checkin 10 minutes early. As we departed the boat there were some young women standing there with Irie shirts on so we asked about our tour and they said our names were on their list, but we needed to go out to the roundabout and meet our driver. As we were leaving the secure area just outside there were a couple of guys selling weed and offered us some. Of course we turned them down and went on our way. As we were waiting for our tour we weren't too far from the guys selling weed so we watched as they approached people offering their product. We arrived about 15 minutes before our checkin looking around for our guide. There weren't any distinctive Irie vans near the roundabout where we were instructed to meet. I began to get a little nervous until a group of five showed up for the same tour. A guy selling tours offered to call and check what was going on so I gave him the phone number and he was kind enough to call. He then told me he got a hold of them and they were on their way, but they had to stop at a hotel to pickup another passenger. They finally arrived around 2:00pm and the driver was very apologetic so then we all seven of us loaded up in the van and took off and we were on our way. As we were going through the city to our destination the driver mentioned some highlights on our way to the beach. The first beach was a beautiful little bay that we had to walk down some stairs until we got to the beach. The sand was beautiful and the water was a wonderful turquoise color. We grabbed a couple of loungers put our stuff down and headed for the water with our snorkels. When we entered the water visibility was good so we started swimming towards some rocks on the side of the cove. We we got there we found a few fish that were pretty. We swam around the rocks for a while seeing some nice fish but not very big. I got out of the water and headed over to the loungers. I'm not sure if we were supposed to pay for the loungers, but we were only there one hour and nobody said anything so we used them without any cost. I pulled ours up into the shade so we didn't get too hot. Another couple obviously from Europe parked there loungers next to ours. I say they were European because he had on a speedo swimsuit. They swam for a little bit and the came back to the loungers and the woman sat down and removed bikini top. I looked over at her and I was pretty shocked. I was trying to get my wife's attention just to let her see something you don't see every day in the United States, but she was busy. After a little while she put her top back on and they loaded up their stuff and left. When our time was up we headed back up the stairs to the air conditioned van took a couple of pictures and the headed down the road. The next stop was a National Park where we went into a cave down by the water on the Atlantic side where the water wasn't nearly as pretty as the Carribean side, it was dark green almost black. After the cave we walked up to a lookout point that was beautiful and took some pictures of the ocean. We walked back to the van and loaded back up and headed down the road. The next stop was another beach that had some sea turtles swimming by a dock and a whole school of thin long small fish. It looked as if it could of easily been 1000 or more. After checking that out we drove to one more beach called Willywood that was very picturesque and the sun was starting to set. We walked along the beach and took a few pictures, but decided we wouldn't get in the water. Everybody in our group seemed anxious to get going again. After leaving Willywood we stopped in a place where there were flamingos out looking for food. The water they were in was both fresh and salt and they were looking for shrimp to eat and that is why they are pink, because they eat a lot of shrimp. After seeing the Flamingos we headed into town. When we reached the town he started up the tour narration as we headed to the ship. When we reached the ship it was 7:00pm so our excursion lasted 5 hours. We both felt it was well worth the money. After getting on the ship we quickly showered, dressed and went down to the dining room. This night was the night that had the menu that isn't available on any of the seven day or shorter cruises. Because this was an eight day cruise I figured the extra menu would be at the end, but no it was tonight. We sat down and both ordered the Beef Wellington and it was delicious. After dinner we wandered around for a while and then headed to bed.

[cmptrwiz]

October 27th Thursday Aruba day 6: The boat docked a little early at 8:00am. We had absolutely nothing booked or planned. So we kind of slept in. The night before the nice Canadian couple told us of a special the excursions desk had for $20 each and we could do whatever they offered. They just weren't sure what that was. So after we got up I went down to the excursions desk to see what they had to offer. It sounded like a pretty good deal you get to see three beaches and stay 4 hours on the last one, but we only had 20 minutes to make it and we hadn't eaten breakfast yet so we opted to strike out on our own and see what we could come up with. We went down to the lido deck and got our breakfast and sat down at a table with a window. After finishing breakfast we looked out at the city and we could see a couple of flea markets not too far from the ship and not too far from each other so now we had a game plan. We went back to the cabin grabbed our backpack which wasn't too heavy, because we didn't have towels or suits or snorkels, and headed out. After getting off the boat we were of course directed to exit the pier area by going through some shops. I noticed my wife wasn't wearing her hat so rather than go back on the ship and go through security again both ways we purchased a new hat and I gave her my St Thomas hat. We went out into the main area and it was hot, hot, hot, and the sun was just beating down on us, we saw a taxi stand. I approached the stand and was trying to find out how much a taxi ride to the flea market was going to be, when another couple approached us and asked if we wanted to split a cab going to Eagle beach and we said sure. It was $13 one way for the four of us. At this point in the cruise we were kind another couple approached us and asked if we wanted to split a cab going to Eagle beach and we said sure. It was $13 one way for the four of us. At this point in the cruise we were kind of snorkeled out. We just wanted to go and collect some sand from the beach. Before we left for our cruise we ordered some small bottles with corks and told our grand kids we would bring them back sand from all of the beaches that we visited. So we just wanted to visit a beach, get some sand walk along the beach, maybe collect a few small shells or sea glass and maybe head back to the ship. So that is what we did with the other couple. She really wasn't interested in getting in the water, but he wanted to get in and swim around a little bit. We walked the beach, collected some shells, took a few beautiful pictures and the man swam around a bit. After walking up and down the beach and doing all of the above we were ready to go. We returned to where we were dropped off and there was a taxi there waiting. After getting in the taxi we talked about going to a big flea market we saw from the ship while eating breakfast. We all agreed, at least the wives did, that it would be fun to go to the flea market so the driver said ok I'll take you to the big one behind the gas station, so we headed out. It didn't take long until we arrived at our destination, paid the driver $13 for the trip, and bid him farewell. The flea market was covered with big plastic tarps to shield you from the sun, but it and the sides blocked most of the breeze that could of been blowing through the booths to keep you a little cooler. While we were walking around the market looking at all of the wares it was pretty hot and miserable. I purchased a nice tee shirt and some little souvenirs for our grand children and my wife bought a couple of pretty dresses at the market. While we were still shopping the couple we arrived with decided to go somewhere else, but we stayed behind making sure we didn't leave any booth untouched. When we were convinced we had visited every booth then we decided to walk down the road to the smaller flea market which was about four or five blocks. It was a pretty hot walk getting there. Once we arrived I spotted a booth selling ice cold bottled water and I quickly purchased one opened it and drank some of it. I quickly found my wife and she took a big drink as well. After taking our drinks we rubbed the cold bottle on our necks and faces to help cool us down. This market was a little more open air which meant you could feel the breeze, but had to deal with the sun. After making a few more purchases of items we absolutely could not do without we headed back to the boat. We walked the several blocks to the boat in the blistering heat walking by all the retail stores. When we walked in front of Diamonds International their air conditioning was blowing out onto the sidewalk and boy did it feel wonderful. We continued our trek to the ship stopping along the way to catch our breath every once in a while. We finally reached our destination and headed to the cabin to take a nice relaxing shower and to cool down and get the sticky sweat off ourselves. After the shower we went up and got a bite to eat. It was weird because there weren't a lot of people anywhere to be found. The lines at the deli and the buffet were non existent. We usually don't return until the ship is about to leave port so this was very different for us and it was nice. I had a pretty good signal on my phone so I texted back and forth to home to make sure everything was ok. After lunch we played a little pinochle at the table and then decided it was time for a little nap so we returned to the cabin. The ship left port while we were a sleep, but with all the announcements it woke us up. We watched TV until it was time to go to dinner. We had a nice dinner and decided to go to the Love and Marriage show which was pretty funny. After the show we went to the cabin and went to bed.

[cmptrwiz]

October 28th Friday 1st Sea Day and day 7: We slept in today for a while and then I decided to get up and run around the track. I ran 3 miles trying to work off some of the many deserts that I had partaken of. After running I headed back to the cabin where we watched a little TV and decided to skip breakfast. At about noon we decided we would go to the dining room for sea day brunch, but on our way we discovered the lido buffet was Mexican. Now who doesn't like a good enchilada. We grabbed our plates and loaded up on Mexican food, but guess what no enchiladas. No kidding. Oh well we made the best of it. After eating we played pinochle and my wife beat me. After playing we headed up to the serenity deck, because we had not been there this time. It had been sprinkling outside a little and some of the recliners were wet so we found a couple of dry ones. After getting situated and laying back and starting to try to take a nap a couple came up next to us and started chatting about their plans to return home. I gave them a daggers stare, but it didn't do any good. I should of just said hey the sign says serenity not gab fest, but I didn't. After a while we decided to return to our cabin and run down and do some laundry. Trying to find a laundry room that wasn't really busy was no easy task.

[cmptrwiz]

October 29th Saturday 2nd Sea Day and day 8: Being this was our last sea day and our last official day of the cruise things were pretty somber for us. But hey we had made a good run 15 total days on two different ships visiting several places we had never been to before all while celebrating 40 wonderful years of being married. We both slept in and got up so late we had missed breakfast. We wandered around for a while and finally got a few things from the lido buffet. After our late lunch we played some more pinochle with each other for a couple of hours and eating ice cream and snacking on whatever we could find. We went back to the cabin and started to pack so we could get that out of the way. I can't remember what we had for dinner that night, but I'm sure it was really good. We made our way back to the cabin finished packing and went to bed early so we could get up early and get off this big boat.

[cmptrwiz]

October 30th day 9 Debarkation: Well to day was the day they kicked us off the boat! We got up early grabbed our small carry on and my wife's purse. We made our way down to the dining room to have our last official breakfast of the cruise. While we were enjoying our breakfast I checked my phone for emails and text messages. After checking for messages I opened up the Carnival hub app and checked out our sail and sign bill. There was a final charge to our account for two missing robes. I was thinking oh great now I get to stand in a huge line of people all wanting to settle their sail and sign accounts or remove tips or whatever they needed to do. I went over to guest services and yes the line was terribly long except the FTTF line only had two people ahead of us so we got into the FTTF line. So in a couple of minutes we made our way to the counter and showed the person behind it my phone with the incorrect charges on it. I had a feeling I was going to be in for a big fight, because it might be your word against the room steward's word and they are in a big hurry to get the room changed over for the next guests and probably had already sent the robes out to be laundered. The guest services person took a look on my phone and then punched up our bill on his computer as I was explaining how we wore the robes all week and left them in the closet when we left this morning. He made a phone call punched somethings into the computer and said ok everything was taken care of. He printed out a new copy of our bill with the charge taken off. After we left the desk I used my phone to open the hub app and checked our bill and everything was correct. I'm just glad I happen to to check our bill before we got off the ship, can you imagine trying to straighten it all out with the Miami office over the phone. No thanks!

So we took our carry ons and proceeded to depart the Carnival Splendor one last time. We went down to the luggage carousel and managed to find all of our luggage. We stood in line to go through customs and then proceeded out side with all of our luggage. We had plans to stay over one more night in the AirBNB where we had started our journey with so we got on a big bus that the car rental agency provides and it took us to the Miami airport where we got our rental car. We threw all of our luggage in the back of our rental and proceeded to Ft Lauderdale where we had plans to do some different activities for the day. Later that evening we made our way back to Miami and to our AirBNB. We crashed for the night having had a full day of fun. Just a side note by staying an extra day the cost of our flights that left early the next day after the cruise were so much cheaper that we saved some money even after paying for the extra day at the AirBNB and a rental car. It was nice to have an extra day after the cruise and not have to rush rush rush around getting to the airport directly after our cruise vacation. Hey who doesn't like to save money.

[cmptrwiz]

October 31st: Going home. We got up early, got lost going to the airport and finally made it there and returned our rental car. Our trip home was pretty much uneventful. Our flight arrived in Salt Lake in the early afternoon and we made the three hour drive home without any trouble.

Conclusion: We had a great time. We were able to enjoy ourselves and had a lot of alone time for our anniversary. The Glory was a great ship with Guys Burgers and the other food amenities that the Splendor didn't have. Our steward was fantastic and our standard deck one inside room was very nice. I mean how bad can it be with all these nice people taking care of us.

The Splendor is a great ship, with the inside spa cabin which was nice. The steward was ok and did his job. In the end I did tip him extra not because of over the top service, but I guess I felt sorry for him. The spa amenities were very nice and we took advantage of the special pool and the heated loungers. Was it worth the extra charge? I think it was. I'm glad we splurged for our anniversary. I was worried about sea sickness being up on deck 10, but never had a problem. I just wish the Splendor had a Guys Burgers.

Doing a side to side cruise was interesting, because you got to have different entertainment and different cruise directors. I wish we didn't have to pack up and change ships in the middle of the cruise, but it is what it is.

Again we had a wonderful time, but I think we are pretty easy to please.

If you have any questions or comments please feel free to post.

Wiz

[firemanbobswife]

Sunday Day 2 Half Moon Caye:

When we awoke the weather was lousy. I just knew we weren't going to be able to tender. We decided to get Breakfast burritos at the Blue iguanas and they were pretty good. I asked a worker if he thought we would be able to tender that day and he said it wasn't very likely. I knew from reading past cruise critic post that they miss HMC some of the time because of tendering. After breakfast we went to the room grabbed our swimsuits and other stuff and headed to the amber palace for priority tendering where we met up with the rest of our "villa" group. They kept telling us the water was rough and some people were saying if it's too rough just cancel it. Finally they announced we were going to go. Yea!! HMC was fantastic and we had a great time. The villa had a hot tub, water, pop, chips, salsa, relish tray and snorkel stuff shower and toilet. We swam, snorkeled laid out in the sun, used the hot tub and had a wonderful day. By splitting the cost of the villa with another couple with their two toddlers and a single gal it made it about $135 for us as a couple very affordable. After spending most of the day on HMC we decided to leave at 2:30pm. There were long line for tenders with everybody trying to get back on the ship. We went to the shops on HMC, but they were all closed and it didn't look like they had been open in several days. We made it on ship about 4:00pm got back to the room and unpacked looked at menu and decided to do the steakhouse. We secured a 6pm reservation for $35 each. It was our anniversary so we decided to splurge. My wife had surf and turf I had the 9oz filet mignon. My wife had the cheese plate for dessert and I had the chocolate sampler. When we left we were both stuffed. The meals were both excellent and we enjoyed ourselves. After we went to the PG comedy show it was pretty funny and then went to the main show playlist production getaway island and it wasn't very good so we left and went back to the second pg comedy show. After the comedy show went back to the cabin and went to sleep.

 

It was so nice meeting you guys and this "single gal" had a great time in our Villa on HMC. Matter of fact, I'm getting ready to do it again this October. You coming? BTW I still have the pics since you guys forgot your camera on the ship!

[cmptrwiz]

It was so nice meeting you guys and this "single gal" had a great time in our Villa on HMC. Matter of fact, I'm getting ready to do it again this October. You coming? BTW I still have the pics since you guys forgot your camera on the ship!

 

 

 

We enjoyed meeting you as well and we had a great time. I'll email you with my email address and maybe you could send them to us.

 

We (as in my wife) would really like to try Alaska. We have an Alaskan cruise in mind, but I had some surgery back in the middle of May and I have been back to the Emergency room twice (2 separate problems my heart had to be shocked and I had a crazy infection the second time) and had to spend a couple more days in the hospital. So we have spent $5000 to meet my out of pocket limit and we are out of money.

 

 

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[firemanbobswife]

We enjoyed meeting you as well and we had a great time. I'll email you with my email address and maybe you could send them to us.

 

We (as in my wife) would really like to try Alaska. We have an Alaskan cruise in mind, but I had some surgery back in the middle of May and I have been back to the Emergency room twice (2 separate problems my heart had to be shocked and I had a crazy infection the second time) and had to spend a couple more days in the hospital. So we have spent $5000 to meet my out of pocket limit and we are out of money.

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Bummer! Hope you are on the mend. That's some scary stuff!

[riclop]

Good for you.

[cmptrwiz]

It was so nice meeting you guys and this "single gal" had a great time in our Villa on HMC. Matter of fact, I'm getting ready to do it again this October. You coming? BTW I still have the pics since you guys forgot your camera on the ship!

 

 

 

By "single gal" I didn't mean your marital status just that you were alone on this trip.

 

 

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[firemanbobswife]

By "single gal" I didn't mean your marital status just that you were alone on this trip.

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Oh I know. No worries!