Review of Conquest 9/3 Cruise 7 day

[cruisin wth the girls]

Well I am going to try to do a review of our cruise, it will probably be more highlights then technical as I don't remember everything because there was so much going on and I am sure it will be quite long.

 

We flew from Midland Texas to Houston and had a friend pick us up and take us to the ship. We arrived about 1pm and had maybe a one hour wait till we passed and got on the ship, it wasn't bad at all and there were alot of friendly people to talk to.

 

We had a little communication problem with our sail and sign cards as I was traveling with my daughters, 22 and 27, and I was using my debit card, one daughter was using cash, and the other was using both, but it worked out fine, only had to make one trip to the Pursers to add some cash on my daughters.

 

When we first stepped on the ship there was a waiter there selling us our first 'foo-foo' drink, I should say the first one of many for that day. We took our drink and went and checked out our room. I had booked our trip in April and did a 4a guarantee (inside room) and we ended up on deck 8, so I think that was a pretty good bargain. We had twin beds and then one bed that came down from the ceiling. The mattresses and bedding were awesome !! Our fridge was locked and we kept forgetting to get our steward to open it so we never used it, in fact we very rarely saw our steward as we kept odd hours, the girls stayed out very late and slept till about 10, but the room was always clean everytime we stepped back in it. Well as clean as he could keep it with as messy as we had it, but always clean towels and bathroom and the beds pulled down.

 

After we saw our room we went looking for a smoking area for my daughter, we found a bar on the lido deck aft, near the pizza place and that was basically our home base for the rest of the cruise, if we were ever looking for each other we went there and found them, or could ask someone there if they had seen my daughters anywhere and they usually had. My daughters are quite friendly, especially my 22 year old and make alot of friends. And for those of you who say that the men don't buy women drinks on the ship, I beg to differ, Daisy and Jehn didn't have any problems getting free drinks, I think its personality, a willingness to talk and be friendly and not be chasing (of course the skull bikini might have had something to do with it too.)

 

Sitting at the bar the first day we recognized a couple of people we had chatted with here on Cruise Critics Roll Call and got together on Monday with a few more, that felt good to already know some people, and we ran into them througout the week and it was nice.

 

Around four or so (and into about our 6th foo-foo drink) they tell us to go to our cabin and get our lifevest and go to our station. This was a nightmare but only because all of our luggage had been delivered except my 22 y/o's, and after 6 drinks she was quite upset that they had 'lost' all her clothes, then they shove us together like sardines, and we are hot, humid and just a little drunk, and we are short and towards the back so we couldnt see anything anyway, but that was the only thing I can say bad about the whole cruise, so we sucked it up, made the best of it, put our lifevests away, and lo and behold Daisy's suitcase was there, so we went to have another drink to celebrate.

 

Now the problem with all these drinks on the first day was that when we finally went and sat down for dinner (we had the 8pm), we were drunk and not feeling so well. Daisy made it through the salad and then had to go to the room, and Jehn and I made it through the entree then went to the room and we were all asleep by 9pm !! The good thing about it was that it saved a whole lot on my bar bill because I was done with drinking pretty much for the rest of the cruise, maybe a beer now and then, but no more than that.

 

Okay, I know, I gotta talk faster .....

 

Photos:

Monday we did the normal stuff and then got dressed up for formal night and picture taking. We love pictures so we chose to really dress up and we all wore black dresses and I brought some feather boa's for us, my girls thought it was corny at first but we got alot of compliments on them so they warmed up to the idea. We had so much fun going to each station taking pictures. They have great photographers and we got some awesome pictures. At $21 for an 8x10, they were expensive, but they were professional pictures, I had a set of 12 wallets made of one pose and that was an extra $10. We bought 3 8x10 and 2 5x7 and the last night we gathered up all of the pictures to look at them and had over 100 that we threw away, what a waste, but they wouldn't make any deals on them.

 

We dressed up every night, but one, for dinner and went and had pictures taken. They even had a section where you could dress in old time clothes and do those, we did that too, thanks to Scott for stepping in as 'our man'.

 

Shows:

 

The shows were great, it rocked a little more in the lounge than anywhere else on the ship so we didn't sit up top very often.

 

Mardi Gras:

I think it was Tuesday that they had the Mardi Gras party, that was a blast. Be sure you join in for the conga line and the dancing on the Lido Deck, it was a good time.

 

Food:

Dinner was okay, I am a meat and potato kind of person so we ordered filet mignon most nights (its not on the menu, but I learned from here that you could order it). The waiters were good, didn't do as much of a show as I remembered from my last one, but it was fun. We had a table for 9 and met some wonderful people.

The pizzeria was fantastic, the best pizza I have ever had, and the hamburger station was good too.

 

Dancing:

My daughters went to Henri's disco each night, the music was a little too young for me and I was disappointed that with as many people that they had from Texas that they didn't have a country and western dancing place (that I found at least). The karoke conflicted with our dinner and show schedule so we never made it there, but the talent show the last night was fabulous.

 

Kids:

They say there were 600 kids on board and I probably only saw maybe a handfull the entire time, but then again we stayed at the pool at the back and not in the middle on the Lido deck so that probably made a difference, either way it was a good time to travel.

 

Bingo

Bingo was a little high priced for me 3 games for $20, that is the cost of a picture so I bought pictures instead.

 

Sale and sign:

Our sale and sign bill was:

$240 for me, few drinks, 2 bingos, 5 pictures and had already prepaid our shore excursions and tips.

$150 for my oldest daughter, she had drinks only on it

$200 for my youngest daughter, she drank the most, stayed out till the bars closed at 4am, but also had alot of drinks bought for her.

 

Excursions:

Jamaica: Canapy Zip Line --- by far the best thing I have ever done, it was hot, humid and alot of walking and climbing, but the 6 ziplines we did made it all worth it. Very expensive $109 each, but oh so worth it. We took two cameras and one took pictures of going across the line and one took pictures of coming in, we just traded who held the camera.

 

Grand Cayman: Catamaran to the Stingray (yes, 2 days after Steve Irwin died). this was an awesome experience, the stingray are like cats and rub up against you until you pet them. $69 each

We also celebrated my birthday at Senior Frogs -- what an experience for a 47 year old--it was wild.

 

Cozmel: Snorkling - we stopped at three different reefs, it was awesome. Don't use all your underwater pictures up on the first stop because the fish get bigger as you keep going. $25 each

 

I know I'm forgetting alot, but it sums up to my daughters had an awesome time and could come and go as they pleased, stay out till 4am or sometimes 7 am watching the sun come up with friends they met. Eat pizza at 4am, and I could stay out if I wanted or go to bed after the show around 12pm. I got up early and started my day and they usually slept till about 10am then came and found me.

 

Debarkation:We had an early flight so got special tags and when they called deck 12 we got to get off, grabbed a cab for $85 to take us back to the airport and were on our way home, it was painless, especially since I 'lost' my drivers liscense on the first night (remember all those foo-foo drinks). I put is somewhere so I wouldn't lose it, and now I can't for the life of me remember where, should have put it in the safe, but didn't. Had made a copy of all our liscense and birth certificates before we left and kept a copy at home and a copy in each suitcase so I had no problem with imigration or with the airport since I had a copy on me.

 

My cell phone worked on the ship for most of the time, and I could text message from each port, but I added international roaming so it didn't cost that much. Made my boss feel better just knowing he could get a hold of me if he had to.

 

In a nut shell: The ship is huge, we didn't even make it to the front but once. Take the stairs if you can, you will be doing it alot. When waiting for the elevator, one ding means its going up, and two means its going down, that way you won't run to the elevator only to see its going the wrong way, but if you do, take it anyway and go down and then back up, it will be quicker than trying to wait for one to stop on your floor.

 

I don't know what else, we had a great time, had 2 digital cameras, 4 disposable, and 2 underwater which equals about 700 pictures, it was hard to choose what to keep and what to print.

 

I have alot up on myspace, but its mostly of me and the girls and the guys they met but you are welcome to see them, you can see alot of the ship's basics in them.

 

www.myspace.com/bks10

 

We had a great time, I would do a 5 day next time, 7 was a little too long to be in a room 10x12 with 3 women !! But we had the best time.

 

Ask me any questions, I know I missed alot, enjoy your cruise.

[mercedes355]

Thanks for sharing. It sounds like you guys had a great time.

[Blndiebby25]

Thanks for the review! We are leaving in just over 30 days on our first cruise! I can hardly wait! :D

[cruisin wth the girls]

After reading the boards we decided to try the ginger root pills for sea sickness as we didn't want to be tired. They worked great for us, I bought them at Walmart, the only time we were sick were due to the too many foo-foo drinks. We also shared them with a guy at our table that was trying the patch and still was getting sick, these worked great for him too and didn't make him tired.

[nmcrzer]

Sounds like you girls had a great time!

 

Through what company did you do the snorkeling in Cozumel? We will be on the Oct 8 sailing, and snorkeling in Cozumel is the only "must-do" excursion for us. Just not sure which one is best. Yours sounds fun!

[cruisin wth the girls]

Cozmel was the only excursion we did not book through Carnival because we didn't know how tired we would be by Friday. We got off the boat and at the pier there were just lines of excursion vendors. We chose orlando & Marinita Tours. It was about noon and we told them we wanted to go at 1:30, its a 2 1/2 hour tour and you have to be back on the tender around 4 pm. So that gave us about an hour to run across the street and do some little shopping for gifts. But there is a stand right on the pier with necklaces and little gifts for $1 each, that was the best shopping on the whole trip. Got 16 gifts for $16 !!

 

It was $25 per person for the tour, only one daughter went, the other was not feeling well and went back to the boat. There were two other guys we had met at the pool on the tour also. They paid the guide $10 extra so they could get more beer and had a 12 pack on ice for them. They usually give you 2 beers, water, or soda's a piece. There was another girl from the Ukrain that was in Cozmel for a wedding and somewhere along the second reef we picked up two other divers, one in a thong bikini, the guys sure liked swimming behind her ...haha.

 

It started raining while we were out there but no lightening so they gave us the option to stay out or come in, we chose to stay out and the storm passed. The guide had tortillas for the fish and did an awesome job. The fish were huge and came right up next to us. It was on a glass bottom boat also.

 

I would recommend them, but there are about 10 of them right when you get off the boat. this one I could reserve a 1:30 boat without having to give a deposit, I just had to 'promise' I would come back, and as i was heading back on the pier, walking past all the other vendors, my guide walked up to me and walked me back to his booth past the others. I think the other guys bargained them down to $20 a piece, I was happy with $25. The water was awesome.

[flipontheradio]

I can't belive Daisy's sail and sign bill was only $200!!! Everytime we ran into her she had a drink in hand!! Guess it pays to be cute!

[cruisin wth the girls]

I can't belive Daisy's sail and sign bill was only $200!!! Everytime we ran into her she had a drink in hand!! Guess it pays to be cute!

 

Well, $236 because we had the extra $36 from midnight to 4am in Henry's bar that didn't show up on the statement but was on the charge to the account.

 

But I know I saw her with a drink all the time and I kept checking the bill daily so we didn't get any suprise, but she got drinks bought for her left and right !! And especially when she was drinking the Mimosa, guys just like buying girls champaigne.

 

She had her first drink when she went up to have her first cigarette (but she didn't get up till 10am), and had one in her hand from then on till they shut it down at 4am. I don't know how she didn't get sick.

 

Did you guys just have an awesome time?

[flipontheradio]

We had a blast!!! I've been waiting to write my review until I get better, as soon as I got back I came down with a nasty cold. I was actually depressed when i got home Sunday night, I hit me then that the fun was over!!