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Back from Breeze Thoughts


hgalls56
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  1. It was so good to be back cruising. The staff was so happy to see us! Everyone was friendly and we met so many fellow passengers. People were excited to be back! Everyone was talking to each other and overall very friendly. Shoutout to Ratima at the Lido pool AKA “Rat Man”!! Hardest working bartender. Definitely find him if you’re on the Breeze soon. 
  2. Cookie the cruise director was great! He didn’t like my husband and I wearing clemson gear lol. He would say “hell nah roll tide” when he saw us coming. Just a great dude. 
  3. New smoke free casino annex was awesome. All casino staff was great including pit bosses and dealers. They greeted you by name every night in the casino. They left a little welcome back box in rooms of people who booked casino deals. They were also very accommodating and comped many drinks for my husband since Drinks on Us/Cheers doesn’t work the first night from Galveston. 
  4. Less people and less kids was incredible!! Being in education, I can only cruise during kid times which sucks. We actually were able to find chairs on lido whenever we wanted and go in the pool. Interestingly enough, lots of unvaccinated kids were blue cards/first timers. Was this on purpose by Carnival to get new clientele? Maybe. I thought that was interesting. 
  5. As someone mentioned earlier, dining was slow the first night. People were being real aggressive about this. We were more than understanding since it was the first sailing. We found a wait staff we liked and told the front desk at the dining room how incredible they were. They asked for our room number and from then on we were assigned to this wait staff for YTD. Even though we had to check in through the app, they assigned us the same staff because we requested it.
  6. Same old- everything felt the same as 15 months ago. Menus, activities, etc. Literally all the same! Which is so comforting to me and I love it. It felt like we were truly home. 

 

Last but not least, no, this cruise wasn’t the smoothest by any means. However, if you look for negative you’ll find it. If you look for positive then you’ll find that too. For us, we book these cruises for close to nothing because of casino offers so we just appreciate it all! If you’re cruising soon then bring a positive attitude and tips for the amazing crew and staff. The past year has been hard for everyone. 

 

If you have any specific questions about the Breeze then I’ll do my best to respond. Thanks for reading 🙂

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Thank you for your honest thoughts! I'm with you -- look for the positive and you'll find it easily enough, and when someone else is cooking and cleaning for me for a few days then the rest is all good with me. 😊  So glad you had a wonderful time! 10 more days and we'll be back on Breeze, and we can't WAIT!!

 

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13 minutes ago, crazy4themouse said:

Thank you for your honest thoughts! I'm with you -- look for the positive and you'll find it easily enough, and when someone else is cooking and cleaning for me for a few days then the rest is all good with me. 😊  So glad you had a wonderful time! 10 more days and we'll be back on Breeze, and we can't WAIT!!

 

Have the BEST time!! Keep us posted on how it goes!

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My family was there as well, and I totally agree.  For different reasons, we only travel during school breaks, so I completely agree there too - the reduced capacity is what I liked the best. 

I have read people saying they wish they'd waited longer to book a cruise.  I'm the opposite, I wish I could book many cruises in the next few months.  I joked to my husband (while sitting with only 3 other people on the serenity deck) how I'm going to have a hard time adjusting to "normal" cruising again after this.  😃

We are booked on the Mardi in a month, so it will be an interesting comparison.

Our trip wasn't without frustration (but it wasn't with Carnival).  Southwest was terrible.  Connecting flight to Hobby was cancelled, luggage was lost, flight home was delayed 5 hours (arrived home at 2:30 in the morning). 

Also, in case it's helpful to others, we were shocked by the lack of ground transportation.  On our past 12 cruises, anytime we have walked away from a ship, there have been tons of taxis lined up, plenty of Uber options.  An Uber from Galveston to IAH was quoting at $300 (and no cars available) so we decided to do the flat rate taxi option ($160) but had to wait until they become available.  I've never used Carnival airport transportation, but had I been aware that this industry is still struggling to recover (which makes sense, I just hadn't thought of it) I would have considered Carnival transport this time.

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23 hours ago, roguebandit1441 said:

That is what I say why go on vacation and not have fun life is to short for so much drama.

Question about smoke free casino, do they have a crap table or will I need to pack benadryl for the main casino?

There was not a craps table. Sorry! It was roulette, black jack, 3 card fun (don’t know if I got that name right), maybe fun 21 and slots. 

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3 hours ago, csm5986142 said:

My family was there as well, and I totally agree.  For different reasons, we only travel during school breaks, so I completely agree there too - the reduced capacity is what I liked the best. 

I have read people saying they wish they'd waited longer to book a cruise.  I'm the opposite, I wish I could book many cruises in the next few months.  I joked to my husband (while sitting with only 3 other people on the serenity deck) how I'm going to have a hard time adjusting to "normal" cruising again after this.  😃

We are booked on the Mardi in a month, so it will be an interesting comparison.

Our trip wasn't without frustration (but it wasn't with Carnival).  Southwest was terrible.  Connecting flight to Hobby was cancelled, luggage was lost, flight home was delayed 5 hours (arrived home at 2:30 in the morning). 

Also, in case it's helpful to others, we were shocked by the lack of ground transportation.  On our past 12 cruises, anytime we have walked away from a ship, there have been tons of taxis lined up, plenty of Uber options.  An Uber from Galveston to IAH was quoting at $300 (and no cars available) so we decided to do the flat rate taxi option ($160) but had to wait until they become available.  I've never used Carnival airport transportation, but had I been aware that this industry is still struggling to recover (which makes sense, I just hadn't thought of it) I would have considered Carnival transport this time.

That’s crazy about the ubers! We are actually the opposite. We tried Carnival transportation for the first time and we  did have some issues. The bus was 35 minutes late on embarkation day to pick us up at airport then we hit traffic (not the bus’s fault but I’m just saying). We had a shuttle time of 10 am and got to the cruise port at 12:40 pm. We missed our check in so we were kind of upset. 
The way back was a little better but they tell you it’s 1 hour 15 minutes when you book it and it takes well over 2 hours. 
Between inconvenience from the airport and no Cheers on day 1, we probably won’t ever sail from Galveston again. We live on the east coast so have plenty of ports we love and can drive to. We just wanted to be back to cruising so bad that we booked whatever was available!! I’m sorry about your transportation struggles. It makes sense that the usual transportation is slow to start back up as well. 

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I agree, we won't go out of Galveston again (at least not for a while).  Although it's very nice, It's just not a very convenient port/airport situation.  Of course it didn't help that we had to Uber to the airport twice trying to get our luggage (Southwest told us our luggage had been scanned and was arriving on a later plane, but it didn't actually make it onto the plane, probably due to weight restrictions).

I'm so jealous of you guys on the east coast.  We are in Washington State, so really only 1 port within driving distance.

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I was on this cruise. I had a great time however  the Breeze imo isnt ready.   Dining has a lot of hiccups main and specialty dinning. Casino cage lines very long.  Chefs on board pretty rusty as well as dining staff.  I would say give it a month or 2. 

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16 hours ago, csm5986142 said:

Also, in case it's helpful to others, we were shocked by the lack of ground transportation.  On our past 12 cruises, anytime we have walked away from a ship, there have been tons of taxis lined up, plenty of Uber options.  An Uber from Galveston to IAH was quoting at $300 (and no cars available) so we decided to do the flat rate taxi option ($160) but had to wait until they become available.  I've never used Carnival airport transportation, but had I been aware that this industry is still struggling to recover (which makes sense, I just hadn't thought of it) I would have considered Carnival transport this time.

Wow on that transport cost.

Although it doesn't surprise me at all.  I've been trying to warn people on the departure port forum about how bad traffic has been on the weekends.  There is very little chance people will be able to time their boarding right if coming in the day of.  I drive down to Galveston fairly regularly, but I have my ways around that weekend traffic.  Last weekend I would have guessed the 50 min ride from Hobby was probably close to 2.5 hours.

As a side note, I may need to look into driving for Uber on the weekends!

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6 minutes ago, SCBarker said:

Wow on that transport cost.

Although it doesn't surprise me at all.  I've been trying to warn people on the departure port forum about how bad traffic has been on the weekends.  There is very little chance people will be able to time their boarding right if coming in the day of.  I drive down to Galveston fairly regularly, but I have my ways around that weekend traffic.  Last weekend I would have guessed the 50 min ride from Hobby was probably close to 2.5 hours.

As a side note, I may need to look into driving for Uber on the weekends!

 

It really is nuts, and all the construction has made it SO much worse. I should post on the port board every time 45S is closed down because of some huge accident, but I don't have time to post that often! Just last week the northbound side was closed for a long time because of some rollover accident, and once I couldn't even get off the island until close to 9pm (I get off work at 4:30) because the causeway was completely closed. I have anxiety attacks by proxy every time someone posts that they're flying in day-of their cruise, lol. We only live less than 30 miles away, and it makes *us* nervous driving in the morning of a cruise!! We get up stupid early and keep a sharp eye on Wayz that morning.

 

And side note to your side note -- You might want to look into Lyft instead, as they're the only ones authorized now to be at the cruise terminal. 🙂

 

 

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20 minutes ago, crazy4themouse said:

 

It really is nuts, and all the construction has made it SO much worse. I should post on the port board every time 45S is closed down because of some huge accident, but I don't have time to post that often! Just last week the northbound side was closed for a long time because of some rollover accident, and once I couldn't even get off the island until close to 9pm (I get off work at 4:30) because the causeway was completely closed. I have anxiety attacks by proxy every time someone posts that they're flying in day-of their cruise, lol. We only live less than 30 miles away, and it makes *us* nervous driving in the morning of a cruise!! We get up stupid early and keep a sharp eye on Wayz that morning.

 

I was heading out of Galveston on Saturday at about 1:30 (while Vista was boarding) and a wreck on 45 southbound had the freeway shutdown right past Harborside.  Traffic was backed up for miles over the causeway.  I commented to the GF that she would be a anxiety nutcase if we were on the causeway stuck trying to get on our cruise.  She dead seriously want us to get a hotel on the island the night before! lol

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On 7/20/2021 at 5:01 PM, csm5986142 said:

My family was there as well, and I totally agree.  For different reasons, we only travel during school breaks, so I completely agree there too - the reduced capacity is what I liked the best. 

I have read people saying they wish they'd waited longer to book a cruise.  I'm the opposite, I wish I could book many cruises in the next few months.  I joked to my husband (while sitting with only 3 other people on the serenity deck) how I'm going to have a hard time adjusting to "normal" cruising again after this.  😃

We are booked on the Mardi in a month, so it will be an interesting comparison.

Our trip wasn't without frustration (but it wasn't with Carnival).  Southwest was terrible.  Connecting flight to Hobby was cancelled, luggage was lost, flight home was delayed 5 hours (arrived home at 2:30 in the morning). 

Also, in case it's helpful to others, we were shocked by the lack of ground transportation.  On our past 12 cruises, anytime we have walked away from a ship, there have been tons of taxis lined up, plenty of Uber options.  An Uber from Galveston to IAH was quoting at $300 (and no cars available) so we decided to do the flat rate taxi option ($160) but had to wait until they become available.  I've never used Carnival airport transportation, but had I been aware that this industry is still struggling to recover (which makes sense, I just hadn't thought of it) I would have considered Carnival transport this time.

Oh no…I’m coming from east coast and I am worried about Southwest, my flight and lost luggage 😩. I always leave from the Florida ports because they are nearby. I’m joining some friends and my nerves are shot. I booked carnival transportation because everything else is robbery 😂. This will probably be my first and last time leaving from Galveston.

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On 7/21/2021 at 8:45 AM, SCBarker said:

Wow on that transport cost.

Although it doesn't surprise me at all.  I've been trying to warn people on the departure port forum about how bad traffic has been on the weekends.  There is very little chance people will be able to time their boarding right if coming in the day of.  I drive down to Galveston fairly regularly, but I have my ways around that weekend traffic.  Last weekend I would have guessed the 50 min ride from Hobby was probably close to 2.5 hours.

As a side note, I may need to look into driving for Uber on the weekends!

Doesn’t help with all the construction on the gulf freeway around FM 646 to further south. I live close to 646 and 45 and avoid it if I can.

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