A GLORIOUS New Year's Eve cruise. Review of Glory 12/29 sailing

[scuba_ninja]

Greetings fellow travelers. Just finished the NYE cruise on the Glory out of New Orleans. If anyone's interested in this review, here's the space to watch for the next few days as I get home and start posting pics. I've got tons and tons of ship, location and food pics. I tried to concentrate on things I don't see pictures of here often. 

 

Just like in the comedy shows, I'll warn you that this review is hopefully full of humor and sarcasm. If you're easily offended, you might not love it. Or something like that. 

 

For reference you can see my last review in my post history. 

[Joe817]

Looking forward to it! 

[scuba_ninja]

My tale of awe and wonder actually begins on Christmas. We said goodbye to our chinchillas and gave one of them (the lighter colored one) his birthday present. He's a Christmas baby! 

 

Forgive spelling errors in this post. I'm on my phone, waiting for our flight, so I figured I'd start. 

 

For those that don't have chinchillas, they make great fur babies. No, it's not a dog or cat but they are cute, friendly and fairly easy to care for. They can also live 15+ years! And man are they soft. And unlike humans you can lock them in a cage when you go on vacation and nobody calls CPS. 

 

My wife and I don't have any small humans, and finding a pet sitter is much easier than finding a baby sitter for the week, so probably just fur babies for us. 

 

My wife and I are in our 30s, no mobility issues and are not diamond, platinum, ruthenium, chrome or palladium level on carnival. We don't really drink and I like my money way too much to gamble, so no casino for us. Which means we're probably very different than most CC members. So take our experiences for what they are. 

 

Leaving on Christmas meant our trip to the airport was insanely fast. First time I've never had traffic in Chicago. Airport security line was almost non-existent, but thankfully all the food and shops at Midway airport were open. 

 

We left early because we wanted to spend some time in NOLA pre-cruise. My wife went to school there and lived in the area for a while after. She loves coming back when she can. And it may be my favorite city ever. It is for sure hers. 

[SERK]

6 hours ago, scuba_ninja said:

Greetings fellow travelers. Just finished the NYE cruise on the Glory out of New Orleans. If anyone's interested in this review, here's the space to watch for the next few days as I get home and start posting pics. I've got tons and tons of ship, location and food pics. I tried to concentrate on things I don't see pictures of here often. 

 

Just like in the comedy shows, I'll warn you that this review is hopefully full of humor and sarcasm. If you're easily offended, you might not love it. Or something like that. 

 

For reference you can see my last review in my post history. 

We leave on the Glory next month.  Looking forward to your cruise review.

[scuba_ninja]

I'd love to spend several posts talking about New Orleans, but this is cruise critic and I'll probably get flack for it. At the end, if people want I'm happy to post more about NOLA including great places to go and pictures. 

 

We got a great Airbnb on St. Charles Ave. Much cheaper than a hotel, great location. For sure the way to go if you don't have a big group. 

 

Getting to Port couldn't be easier. We took a Lyft, and from where we stayed (basically corner of St. Charles and MLK highway) I think it was $13. Once at the terminal things were not as easy. The terminal staff/security (NOT Carnival employees) were neither happy to see us nor kind and helpful. We arrived at 12:50 (10 minutes before our appointment) and they made a big stink about how we had to walk to the early late/late lane and how we'd have to wait now blah blah blah. Well, we walked 50 feet down, into the door, up the escalator and the carnival employees couldn't be nicer. We were on the ship eating at Blue Iguana by 1:15. Later arrival times are apparently a lot better in this port. Last time we waited on benches for a really long time hoping to be in early thanks to our FTTF pass. Late arrival for the win. 

 

By the time we finished our taco salad the rooms were ready and most of the cattle herd had already left lido for their rooms, so we didn't have a huge crush waiting for the stairs. It was early in the cruise, so I could still walk down two flights. 

 

We had cabin 7201 and I have y'all's to thank for it. I was originally booked steerage, but due to some tips I read here I called the day of the deposit deadline and was able to upgrade to this room for only $100 more!! Way less than it was when I booked originally. They classify this as interior for some reason (4K I believe) but it's actually obstructed picture window. It's a great view straight out of the ship. Would absolutely book it again. LOVE having natural light. And the blackout curtains worked great. The balcony right outside is technically public (so no changing with curtains open) but it is so seldom used that it is like having a private balcony. And boy did I use it a ton. Being right under the bridge never gave us any issues. It's pretty quiet up there. Our S&S cards were in a sealed envelope waiting for us when we got to the room. 

 

It's cruise critic so I'm legally not allowed to make a post without a complaint. My only complaint for now is that the art in my room was pretty ugly (clearly, it ruined my vacation. I regret not complaining to guest services and demanding compensation). But the trim in the room was pink and that made my wife happy. 

Edited January 7, 2020 by scuba_ninja
Spelling. Sorry, on mobile.

[wolft927]

Looking forward to your review. We are sailing on the Glory this month on the 26th. Its my 18 year old stepsons first cruise ever. 

[TravelE]

I love your sense of humor! That artwork is indeed ugly. How was the weather for your cruise?

[scuba_ninja]

Yay! People are reading my rantings! 

 

The weather was actually lovely. NOLA was in the 50s during the day. Ports were about 85 and sunny every day. Seas were awesome except for the very end when they get a little rough. 

 

Glory isn't a bad first time cruise, but it's not amazing. I'll get into that, I promise. 

 

Here's some more embarkation pics, along with some shots showing the Glory Hole being repaired. I'll have more details on this, but let's just say flat out it made absolutely not a lick of difference at any point in the cruise and my table for MDR was directly up against the wall in MDR they built to hide the ongoing repairs. 

 

Some of the embarkation pics are not amazing, because I was trying to snap candidly. They get real ornery if you take pics in the "secure" area. The shot straight at the back of the ship showing the damage I can't take credit for. I actually forgot where I got that pic, but I saved it on my phone and now you all get to benefit from seeing it. 

 

For any gear heads out there, the pics I'll post are a mix from my phone (Pixel 3) and from a camera I rented (Olympus TG-6). The Pixel takes incredible pictures, but the Olympus is waterproof, so I wanted it for excursions. I took over 4k pics this trip. No, I'm not going to post them all, but if you are looking for a specific thing, please let me know and I might have pics of it. I set my camera to what they call "spray and pray" mode a lot, to try and not miss action shots, so I'm not going to pretend all the pics are good, but there are for sure some real winners.  Coming from a film photo background, digital is darn cool these days. I would that Image quality out of the pixel is better than the olympus actually, but the olympus can go places the phone can't, and has zoom, etc. 

 

[richbum]

Great review so far!

[wolft927]

Awsome, I agree with you when you say its a great first cruise. I used to be a Cruise Director for another line, and have cruise Princess, NCL, Carnival and RCCL. Glory is big enough where you get the wow factor for first time cruiser. My Stepson has never even been up close to a cruise ship and cant wait to see his face

[lostsoulcruiser]

Keep posting, love your review so far. I'm on the Glory in May (May 3) and looking forward to the rest. Having been on the Conquest (same size as Glory) and Dream ( bigger), I found the Conquest just the right size.  I know this ship will not have all the modern stuff newer vessels have however, good food, good companionship, an attentive crew are as important as a roller coaster or whatever. 

[scuba_ninja]

25 minutes ago, lostsoulcruiser said:

Keep posting, love your review so far. I'm on the Glory in May (May 3) and looking forward to the rest. Having been on the Conquest (same size as Glory) and Dream ( bigger), I found the Conquest just the right size.  I know this ship will not have all the modern stuff newer vessels have however, good food, good companionship, an attentive crew are as important as a roller coaster or whatever. 

Couldn't agree more. I don't give a rolling hoot about coasters. I want good meals and a friendly crew. And a clean bed I don't have to make. 

 

Spoiler alert, I was on the Dream two years ago and liked it MUCH more. I promise I'll explain why. Glory isn't a bad ship, but Dream is better. The one thing I liked better on the Glory is that for whatever reason the aft adult only pool was significantly less crowded most of the time. That could just have been the random mix of people on this sailing too. I also think Glory had more swirls stations, so there was never a line for processed frozen dairy-adjacent dessert sludge. Which I consumed more of than I should have. 

[BigEasyCC]

48 minutes ago, scuba_ninja said:

Couldn't agree more. I don't give a rolling hoot about coasters. I want good meals and a friendly crew. And a clean bed I don't have to make. 

 

Spoiler alert, I was on the Dream two years ago and liked it MUCH more. I promise I'll explain why. Glory isn't a bad ship, but Dream is better. The one thing I liked better on the Glory is that for whatever reason the aft adult only pool was significantly less crowded most of the time. That could just have been the random mix of people on this sailing too. I also think Glory had more swirls stations, so there was never a line for processed frozen dairy-adjacent dessert sludge. Which I consumed more of than I should have. 

I agree about liking the Dream. I have only cruised out of New Orleans and we've tried the main 3 lines Carnival, Royal and Norwegian. Honestly, I liked Carnival as much or more than the others. Just my opinion. We've done the Breakaway this last year and it was fun and all, but I'm looking forward to not having to schedule every show or specialty restaurant meal. (It would be nice if Carnival would have an O'Sheehans type of limited 24 hour restaurant though. We really enjoyed that.) Well, I'm looking forward to reading the rest of your review. We'll be on the Glory for our 10th Anniversay in June.

Edited January 7, 2020 by BigEasyCC

[SERK]

47 minutes ago, BigEasyCC said:

I agree about liking the Dream. I have only cruised out of New Orleans and we've tried the main 3 lines Carnival, Royal and Norwegian. Honestly, I liked Carnival as much or more than the others. Just my opinion. We've done the Breakaway this last year and it was fun and all, but I'm looking forward to not having to schedule every show or specialty restaurant meal. (It would be nice if Carnival would have an O'Sheehans type of limited 24 hour restaurant though. We really enjoyed that.) Well, I'm looking forward to reading the rest of your review. We'll be on the Glory for our 10th Anniversay in June.

That's awesome and congrats!  We are spending our 10th Anniversary on the Glory this February.

[scuba_ninja]

Embarking day is for 'splorin the ship, so here's a bunch more random ship pics, and some ketchup and mayo drill pics. Shhhh. I was sneaky and took pictures!!

 

Let's talk about muster for a moment. What a craptacular experience. Look, I get it, we all hate how much it interrupts our fun on day one, but this was so poorly organized. There was no direction. No good signage and the staff with orange hats who are supposed to be directing us had no idea where to go. They just pointed for us to keep walking down the overcrowded stairs. I had taken a picture of the muster instructions on the back of the cabin door, and that was more help than any staffer. We were packed in to the area near the lifeboats by the Amber Palace theater. Thank goodness it is shaded/covered from rain. Still super hot and and crowded, but at least it was out of the sun. This was so badly controlled that several people in my area actually just straight up decided to leave early. As far as I could see, nobody stopped them. No penalty. In a real emergency I think this crew would be toast. I get that scanning one card per cabin gets it over faster, but I don't know that they actually visually checked for each person. At least we didn't have to bring our life jacket. For those curious, there's a service walkway on Deck 3 that runs the length of the ship on both sides. Muster station A5 is right outside Amber Palace. The rest are on either side of the ship, same level up and down the walkway where the lifeboats are held. Crew muster station is actually the very tip of the bow. We learned that on our behind the fun tour, which I'll talk about in detail. 

 

These pics take us up to sail away and there's one in here showing a nice top down view of the glory hole repair too. Not sure why the order they want to post in is weird, but I'm sure you'll all survive. 

[scuba_ninja]

If you look at the last picture above of the Colors Lobby, you'll see an interesting leaf shape motif on the floor. Maybe that's a sign as to why the Glory had a little accident in Cozumel?  OK, bad joke, I know. 

 

I hope you guys enjoy the crazy amount of pics I'm posting. I'm also specifically trying to post pics of things I don't see on here. The Glory in general doesn't get a lot of mentions on CC, so I'm trying to fill in the gaps. 

 

Also, more ugly art. Sorry if I'm offending anyone here, but man... some of this is.... awful. While we're on this subject, let's get into a brawl about the ship art sales. I get it, if you see something you actually like (supposedly they had stuff on board by an artist I do like, but never saw it) and you're on vacation.. blah blah blah.. you don't mind overpaying. Heck, I paid $8 for a 10¢ made in China magnet. But please, for the love of all that is good in this world, don't for ONE SECOND believe that the art they sell is genuine, or any kind of bargain. There are volumes written about this online, in magazines and in art circles. Just based on the shady and awful practices of the company alone, I would never buy art on the ship. 

Moving on, I've also included a pic of the infamous butter crocks we've all argued about. I asked, yes, it is real butter. It comes in giant bins. It is then warmed and whipped in an industrial size kitchenaid mixed (saw it in action on behind the fun tour) and put in crocks. Some of you are calling it a crock of.... stuff... but I saw it with my own eyes. 

Some ship pics might seem kind of random, like the tables in the Amber Palace, but again, I'm looking to show details you don't always see that some people might find interesting. If you look closely in these pictures you'll also get a good idea of the ship's condition. The ship is perfectly seaworthy, but really showing its age. If you care about rust, worn carpets and broken trim pieces in cabins, you won't like the Glory. Me personally, I couldn't care less about most of that stuff. It didn't make any difference in my cruise. The ship really needs some TLC badly though. When the sticker "paneling" in the elevators is peeling off, it's a sign you need some refurbs.

 

[scuba_ninja]

 

Because I am a kind and generous deity, I am including some menus and Fun Times. 

 

Yaaaay! Fun!  The comedy on the ship was good. We ended up seeing I think 5 shows total. Wish we got to more, but we got tired some nights. 

 

They had to heavily modify some shows and cancel others because we were short performers on the ship. As we learned in our behind the fun tour, it takes about 6 weeks to train a carnival performer on the current shows, so don't expect the show schedule to be complete for at least the next 6 sailings. There is no lip synching whatsoever, so if a performer is sick, they can't perform, which might mean a show is cancelled if they are a soloist. They did "fly on" a few folks, like the Phil Hughes guy for Viva Variety. He's a talented ventriloquist who can do neat things with his voice, but his material is SO BAD. SO SO SO SO BAD. I give him 1 out of 5 stars. Skip his show and watch some paint dry instead. Or laugh at the art auction. The Epic Rock show was very good though. 

 

 

 

Edited January 8, 2020 by scuba_ninja
take my name out of a picture

[E@syPe@zy]

I'm enjoying your sense of humor!  You've got me smiling and chuckling!

Thanks for taking the time to do a review....with lots of pictures...yea!!

I really need to book another cruise from New Orleans.  It is my favorite port!  Love me some NOLA!  And it seems like it's always the best bunch of cruisers that embark in N.O.  

[scuba_ninja]

SAAAAIIILL AWAY... COME SAIL AWAY WITH MEEEEEEEEE.....

 

 

Ok, some sail away pics. If you've never cruised done the miisssiisssippiii (that's the correct spelling, right?) river, you're really missing out. BEAUTIFUL! I wish we could see more of it during the day. STAY AWAKE LONG ENOUGH TO SEE THE OIL RIGS!!! SUPER COOL!

 

 

 

Now, something I've NEVER Seen posted about on CC... the Hanukkah Menorah lighting! We were lucky enough to spend the last night of the holiday on board, so we got a night of Menorah Lighting! THANK YOU MICHELLE ON THE FUN SQUAD FOR LEADING THIS! Including Michelle, my wife and I, I think there were a grand total of 6 Jews on the ship this week, but we really appreciate that Carnival does this. And I for one also appreciate all those who were not Jewish who came out to see the lighting. I had a really nice conversation with a deeply devout baptist who was curious about the ceremony and came to watch. This is part of what I really like about cruising. I know there were arguments a few weeks about about how much some people hate sharing tables because they hate "small talk", but I enjoy getting to meet folks from all walks of life on the ship. 

 

 

 

Hanukkah is actually not a major holiday as far as religious importance goes, but it started becoming a bigger deal after WWII. Since it happens around Christmas time usually, celebrating it publically helped displaced Jews feel more part of the communities in which they settled, particularly in the US.

Anyway, back to Cruisin' 

Dinner that night was pretty good.  Nothing on the menu looked super special, so I ordered the indian meal. I really enjoyed it actually, and I would get it again for sure.

 

The cheese plate for dessert was delicious actually. 

 

Also, above is a picture of the sugar straw drink wrappers. I got a sugar straw just to try it. It's gross. But I love it. They melt and turn to wet noodles really quickly. Did you ever have those "Candy Bones" candies for Halloween? Or the not bubble gum candy cigarettes? Imagine those, but with awful lime flavor. I can't explain why I liked them. I shouldn't have. I dunno, I'm weird. You can see the Calamari in the background. 

 

Also, here's some glory damage from the inside, right next to our table. You can see that the ceiling is a little wonky still, but otherwise, can't really tell anything happened. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 9, 2020 by scuba_ninja
Pictures posting weirdly.

[scuba_ninja]

Here's some night shots of our towel animal tonight (starfish?) , pics from the Deck 7 Secret deck, some more sail away/sail down river and some awesome stateroom door decorations. We had a ton on this ship. I was glad to see that the room stewards mostly left them alone and didn't bother people about them. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 9, 2020 by scuba_ninja

[scuba_ninja]

Both posts above have videos in them, check 'm out if you can. The first post is a snippet of the Hanukkah celebration and the second is the ship starting to turn and pull out. 

[Tiger0613]

22 minutes ago, scuba_ninja said:

Here's some night shots of our towel animal tonight (starfish?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It looks like a crab rangoon.

[scuba_ninja]

30 minutes ago, Tiger0613 said:

It looks like a crab rangoon.

Ha! It does! 

[MzShae]

Enjoying your review so far! You're funny!

[grandmarnnurse]

Following along. I leave for NOLA on 1/30, and board the Glory 2/2, Super Bowl Sunday. I can’t wait! Keep the review and pics coming! I was disappointed to see the muster drill was standing outside. I haven’t had to do one like that since 2014! Oh, well. I will survive. At least NOLA shouldn’t be hot at that time of year and I won’t faint standing there.