Brief observations on the Carnival Breeze

[Purvis1231]

Brief observations on the Carnival Breeze our first cruise in several years.

 

We arrived the port around 9:30 and found several hundred people also had that check in time.  By 9:45 they began letting us in. The check in process went smoothly. For those who had passports and VeriFly it took about 5 minutes without that it took a little longer. Boarding began around 10:45. We were on the ship by 11:00 and did the muster drill before heading to Lido deck to find a table.

 

Bottomless Bubbles: This worked well for us. The bars served the entire unopened can with a glass us ice, several times they severed us a chilled can. All of the cans were chilled in the coffee shop but they had limited selection.  Several times they gave us extra cans to take to our room. We did give a few extra tips.

 

Food: the food was generally acceptable but not outstanding. We ate in the main dining room each day. The service was slow at times, but it was not a problem for us. We usually got a variety of the appetizers most were good to excellent. There were no fried oysters, crab cakes, and escargot was gone. The main dishes and desserts were the same as we remember. One thing we noticed many people took dishes to go so we got cheese plates several times as a late-night snack.

Guys burgers were ok but nothing special. Enjoyed some tacos and burritos. My family like the wok but it was often a 20 minute or longer wait.  The buffet was hit or miss but we found many things that were good. There were long lines at times. I got up early to breakfast so there was not much of a wait. The eggs cook to order station was the best, The scrambled eggs on the buffet looked terrible so I did not try them but many other items were good. We ate a lot of fruit. We did go the main ding room twice for breakfast. Once for seaday brunch and once for port day. This was very good. Once they brought us too much bacon and could not find any salsa.

 

Entertainment: We did not go to the main theater, or the comedy shows but we enjoyed all the entertainment in the smaller venues that we observed. We enjoyed trivia and hanging out in ocean plaza and the atrium. The cruise director was informative and entertaining.

 

SPA cabin: We got an upgrade to a deck 12 spa balcony. As for the cabin it was not much different than a traditional balcony. There were slippers and robes, but ropes were too heavy for a summer Mexican cruise.  We enjoyed the thermal suite at least once a day. They offered us no great discounts but as usual we did buy some of the overpriced services.  We did spend a lot of time on the balcony watching the wave go by and listening to the sound of the ocean. 

 

Debarkation was a nightmare partly because of our decisions. We decided to use self-assist along with most others it seems.  Being on deck 12 we found, the elevators arrived packed with people and their monster bags so it took us an hour to get on an elevator and had to ride separately. Next time we will check our luggage for debarkation so we can use the stairs. Once we got off the ship the process worked smoothly. With passports, the barely had to stop at a facial recognition tablet. Only question was from a Texas official at the door was about booze and cigarettes which everyone ignored. 

 

Overall, we had a relaxing and enjoyable trip.

 

 

Edited June 26, 2022 by Purvis1231
typo

[satx78205]

Thanks for posting this.  Haven't been on the Breeze yet.  Been on the Vista twice this year, and looking at an itinerary on the Breeze. 

[ultrafighter]

Thanks for this.  We're sailing again on the Breeze in September.  Were you one of the ones who used VeriFly?  I'm probably going to download it unless I hear of something terrible.

[Purvis1231]

49 minutes ago, ultrafighter said:

Thanks for this.  We're sailing again on the Breeze in September.  Were you one of the ones who used VeriFly?  I'm probably going to download it unless I hear of something terrible.

Yes, it worked fine. We were going to use documentation of recovery but at the last minute we retested so we could use VeriFly.

[Badfinger]

1 hour ago, ultrafighter said:

Thanks for this.  We're sailing again on the Breeze in September.  Were you one of the ones who used VeriFly?  I'm probably going to download it unless I hear of something terrible.

 

We did not use Verifly on our recent Breeze cruise and I think it took all of 90 seconds for the guy to verify our Covid documents.  Per Carnival, if one uses Verifly that time is cut in half.  Oh boy.

[Purvis1231]

I failed to mention since we spent a lot of time at the aft pool, we did eat at the Seafood Shack several times, it was really good especially with onboard credit. 

[Rudyard]

On 6/26/2022 at 11:42 AM, Purvis1231 said:

Debarkation was a nightmare partly because of our decisions. We decided to use self-assist along with most others it seems.  Being on deck 12 we found, the elevators arrived packed with people and their monster bags

 

Self Debark is Carnivals' version of The Hunger Games. Too many stupid people with too much luggage standing where they shouldn't. Tried it a couple of times and decided it's way less stressful to debark without luggage. 

[Purvis1231]

7 minutes ago, Rudyard said:

 

Self Debark is Carnivals' version of The Hunger Games. Too many stupid people with too much luggage standing where they shouldn't. Tried it a couple of times and decided it's way less stressful to debark without luggage. 

We learned that lesson- next check we will check our luggage the night before and wait at the Lideo deck until they make us leave.

[CruiseBro16]

I've been on the Breeze a few times since the restart and all but once, debarkation was a f'n nightmare. Everything else was great. Great ship and great crew!