PARADISE found, plus our CONQUEST of two more ships (with pics) - 4/14/2018

[jimbri]

Welcome back! Looking forward to reading your review and your great photos! Thanks for sharing.

[siestakeys04]

Enjoying your review so far...quick question. What parking garage did you park at in order to take the steamboat to the Marketplace?

[Jamman54]

Hi Jamman and Patti! I'm always excited to read about your new Carnival adventures! I'm looking forward to reading your review. Thanks for taking all the time to share your photos and experiences.

 

Thanks for coming along for the ride once again, and for your kind words. :cool:

 

Woo-hoo! Love your reviews, can't wait for the rest!

 

Thanks for reading. We're getting closer to boarding the Paradise! :cool:

[Jamman54]

Beautiful pictures! Thanks for the review!

 

Thanks for reading. We are just getting started! :cool:

 

Can't wait to see the Paradise pics. We'll be on her for the first time ever in 2 weeks!

 

Lucky you! The Paradise pictures will start going up in the next day or two. :cool:

[Jamman54]

As always, looking forward to your awesome review and Patti's fabulous pictures! I'm looking forward to pics of the "new" Paradise, as Tony and I will be sailing her in October. Glad you enjoyed City Walk and Disney Springs. We love going to City Walk for dinner occasionally, the Chocolate Emporium is to-die-for and our youngest daughter is a hostess at Margaritaville, so we like to hang out there as well. Thank you for the review! :)

 

Thanks for coming along for the ride once again! If you liked the Paradise before, you will love her even more now. We love both Disney Springs and City Walk, and make it a point to go to both places every time we are down there. :cool:

 

Welcome back! Looking forward to reading your review and your great photos! Thanks for sharing.

 

Welcome aboard! Always glad to have you along. :cool:

[Jamman54]

Enjoying your review so far...quick question. What parking garage did you park at in order to take the steamboat to the Marketplace?

 

Thanks for reading! We park in the garage closest to where Disney Quest used to be. :cool:

[Megan_Strick]

Yay! I've been waiting on you to get back! I'm on the Paradise in 33 days!

[Jamman54]

We awoke to another beautiful day. We can’t believe that it’s Thursday already, and in two short days we will be aboard the Carnival Paradise. We had another great buffet breakfast at the hotel. We weren’t planning on visiting any parks today, so we decided just to cruise along International Drive. It wasn’t long before we got the itch to play miniature golf. How can you not get the itch since there is some type of miniature golf course like every 10 feet. Lol. We decided to play at Congo River Golf……..

 

They had some baby alligators there……

 

Here are Patti and I teeing off on the first hole…….

 

To be continued……

[Megan_Strick]

Hello again everybody! For those that do not know me, my name is Jeff “Jamman54” Maskall, and along with my lovely wife Patti, have just returned from another nearly month-long vacation. This retirement thing is really a lot of fun! Once again we spent some time in Orlando before driving to Tampa to board the newly refurbished Carnival Paradise for a five day cruise to Grand Cayman and Cozumel. Our good CC friends Jim and Pat were also on this cruise, and it was great to share some of our casino, dinner, beach, and pool time with them. We can’t wait to sail with them again on the Pride in October.

 

After our Paradise cruise was over, we drove from Tampa to Fort Lauderdale where we spent a few days before we boarded the Carnival Conquest for a six day cruise to Amber Cove, Grand Turk, Half Moon Cay, and Nassau. We called this our “cabana” cruise, since we had cabanas booked at our first three ports of call.

 

Once again there were many “firsts” for us on these two cruises. With over fifty cruises under our belts it’s pretty cool that we seem to have “firsts” on every vacation that we take. This would be the first time that we have sailed on the Paradise and Conquest. In our quest to sail the fleet we could now cross these ships off the list. Our goal is to sail at least one new ship, to us, each year. We had never cruised from Fort Lauderdale (Port Everglades), before. We were very impressed with our first experience there. Lastly, we had never been to Amber Cove, so we were excited to finally visit there.

 

This review will cover both cruises, plus our time in Orlando and Fort Lauderdale. As always, we will be giving you a lot of detailed information along with lots and lots of pictures. This will help you decide if you would like to sail on these ships, or visit the ports of call we visited. We like to make these reviews fun, and to make you feel that you are sailing along with us. Folks, grab yourself a DOD as this is going to be another long one!

 

Patti once again took well over three thousand pictures during our journey. I brought my laptop along so that I could download the photos from our cameras daily, and try to keep up with resizing and cropping as we went along. It soon became apparent that there was no way that I could keep up with Patti’s itchy trigger (shutter) finger, so as I write this, only the Orlando and the Carnival Paradise cruise are fully finished. I will work on the rest daily as I write this review, so that I can stay ahead of the game. For those that are wondering, our go to camera is the Canon PowerShot XS710 HS, and our water camera is the Fuji FinePix XP60.

 

So, on Sunday April 8th at 9pm in the evening, we began our latest journey. In October of last year we learned how to, or was it how not to, pack for a month vacation. This is what our month long packing looked like. We both agreed that we still packed too much…..

This is the obligatory “we’re leaving Ryan at home with the cats for a month, see you later photo”. See how happy we are……

 

Once again we will be driving down to Florida. We like driving overnight so that we miss the morning rush hours of Baltimore and Washington, and there is hardly any traffic at all. I just set the cruise control at, ahem, 79 mph and just steer between the white lines while listening to tunes all night long. We usually make quick potty and/or gas stops every two hours or so. After nine hours of driving we were ready for some breakfast so we stopped at the Patti’s favorite place, Cracker Barrel, in Santee, South Carolina…..

 

 

About three hours later we were crossing the border into Florida……

 

 

We always take the I-295 bypass around Jacksonville. Here we are going over the Dames Point Bridge…….

 

 

 

Two hours later we had made it to Orlando. I-4 is still a nightmare, and not for the faint of heart! To think that it’s going to take six more years to fix this mess. Yikes!!!

 

To be continued…..

 

 

I live in Georgia and my husband goes to Santee to fish about once a month. And yes that Orlando traffic if horrible. We went to Universal Studios in December and we were stuck for so long. That construction is terrible.

[Megan_Strick]

This is the Grill and Brew where I will be taking up residence while Patti shops and takes pictures……

 

Because the weather was crappy, Patti was not happy with the quality of the pictures, but I’ll share some with you anyway. Patti would return later in the week to do some hotel exploring and got some much better pictures, which again, I will also share….

 

 

 

 

To be continued…..

 

The Chocolate Emporium is heaven!

[peteandpris]

Love you and Patti's reviews and pictures. I can't wait for more. Thank you to you both.

[Megan_Strick]

Very excited for this ! I have been waiting for it ! I am going on the Paradise in June

 

Me too. What date? Mine is the 4th

[Jamman54]

Love you and Patti's reviews and pictures. I can't wait for more. Thank you to you both.

 

Thanks for coming along once again!:cool:

[Jamman54]

Since at this point we were the only ones there, we could play at a leisurely pace and enjoy the beautiful views……

 

 

 

 

 

I think I’m in trouble here…….

To be continued…….

[Jamman54]

Here are some views from the upper most parts of the golf course…..

We had a great time, and Patti wound up beating me by two strokes. I wish I could say I let her win, but. As we left we checked out the turtles and gators they had in pens there…..

 

To be continued……

[Jamman54]

We spent another hour or so driving up and down International Drive before stopping for lunch. Here is the Orlando Eye……

Right next door to the Orlando Eye they are building this really tall swing type ride. You won’t catch us on this thing……

 

After lunch we made our way back to the hotel to relax. This evening we went to Dave & Buster’s for dinner. Tonight the New Jersey Devils will be playing Tampa Bay in a playoff game, so after dinner I sat at the bar and watched the game while Patti went out shopping. She would come to pick me up when the game was over.

 

As an added bonus they also had the Yankee game on, so I was able to watch my two favorite teams. But alas, both of my teams lost. I had one last drink to drown my sorrows before Patti came to pick me up. We were back at the hotel by 11pm. Only one more day until we are on the Carnival Paradise!

 

To be continued…….

[Jamman54]

hooray I've been watching for this to pop up...now time to start reading. Thanks as always for sharing your travels with us!

 

Great to have you along for the ride! :cool:

[Jamman54]

It’s our last day in Orlando. We awoke to another beautiful day. After enjoying another breakfast buffet at the hotel, these were our plans. Patti was going to take the 10:50am shuttle over to Universal. She loves to visit all the on-site hotels there by taking the water taxi’s from City Walk. I, on the other hand, was going to spend my day here……..

Patti has arrived at Universal. It is a very beautiful day, and of course a bit more crowded than the other day…..

 

 

 

 

 

To be continued…….

[Jamman54]

Patti is on the boat over to the Royal Pacific Hotel. When we stay on-site here, this is our hotel of choice……

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Patti explores the Royal Pacific Hotel…….

To be continued……

[Jamman54]

This the Pool Bar and pool area…….

 

 

 

This is the Lobby area……

 

 

 

To be continued……

[Jamman54]

This is the bridge to the front entrance of the hotel…..

Views from both sides of the bridge…..

 

Patti is back on the boat…..

 

 

That is the new Sapphire Falls hotel which Patti will be visiting later…..

 

 

Patti is sailing past the entrance to Universal Studios……

 

 

To be continued……

 

[Jamman54]

Patti’s next stop is the Portofino Hotel. This is the most luxurious and expensive of the Universal hotels…..

To be continued…..

[Jamman54]

Patti continues to explore the Portofino…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be continued……

[Jamman54]

Patti’s next stop is the Hard Rock Hotel. We stayed here one time, but we prefer the Royal Pacific……

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be continued…..

[Jamman54]

Patti’s last stop was the Sapphire Falls Hotel. This is considered a value resort, and as such, unlike the other Universal hotels, does not give you front of the line access to the attractions. It is a very pretty hotel though……

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be continued…..