Fortnight on Carnival Glory – Review – West/East B2B

[JanesCruisingBuddy]

Sorry I did not get any new ground covered today, work got in the way again.

 

The weather man is calling for rain here on Saturday and Sunday, so maybe I will get some stuff "pre-written" at home on the weekend so we can finish up this review on the first of the week (reminder to you... our dial-up connection at home is so slow that I cannot work with pictures from there). I may get on to answer some basic questions, if anyone posts any, but other than that...

 

Enjoy your weekend folks, I will try my best to post on Monday.

[SueN0724]

GREAT REVIEW!! Gets my vote for best I've read so far.

 

I was thrilled to hear that Mark Price was the CD. I am booked on the Glory Western 8/23/08 and I had my fingers crossed he would be back. We sailed 9/06 and had a great cruise with him. He is a fabulous Cruise Director.

 

Glad you had a wonderful time and hope you and your DW have many more happy years together.

[JanesCruisingBuddy]

My goodness, it has taken me more time to write this review than to cruise the cruise… oh well, I am enjoying reliving it, and I am glad some others are too.

Two relaxing sea days left on the Glory… who did we fill those days… ?

Well, we decided we needed to start getting ready to face reality again, so we got up, made our bed, prepared our own breakfasts (and other meals for the day), dusted, vacuumed the floors, did the dishes, called the kids to make sure they were doing fine, started to strategize on how to get caught up when we got back to work… NOT!!!!!

No, of course not… we are still cruising:) , we will let ourselves be pampered till the end! :D

I think on both mornings we again let ourselves sleep in a bit but was… (I think it should be “but were,” but my computer keeps correcting me and saying “but was”… any English teachers want to jump in with a grammar lesson?) …let ourselves sleep in a bit but was still likely up by 8:00 or 8:30 [i guess they are right when they say you cannot teach an old dog (me) (or a sweet feline – DW?) new tricks] and went up each morning to the Red Sail for breakfast. [strange, we did not go to the dining room for breakfast these two weeks… we had enjoyed doing so some in the past, but just never did so this time around… :confused: I cannot really explain why.]

 

...more coming today... hopefully this morning...

[JanesCruisingBuddy]

On Thursday morning, our Chocolates from St. Maarten’s have not arrived yet… so I started trying to track them down… (I will post more on this matter later in a dedicated post) and DW went off around 10 am to the “2 for $20.00 T-shirt Sail” (whoops, I guess you know where my mind was) Sale” and the “Silver by the Inch Sale.”

 

I do not remember if we picked up our dinner at the Red Sail or at the Burger Grill, but I think we took whatever we got back to the aft and found a nice table by the glass where we could watch the wake.

Other than that, we spent the day roaming the ship, lounging around on deck and on our balcony, reading and generally relaxing. I remember being on deck and heading to the Lido area to try to catch a bit of the “Ultimate Battle of the Sexes Game,” but I missed that and caught a bit of the “Tail Chase Contest” instead. It being a pretty nice sea day, the central lido decks tended to be fairly busy…

…but not full…

While DW was out in the morning, she paid the entrance donation fee to join the “On Deck for the Cure.” I intended to get up there and do the same, but never did… shame on me. She never did get to the deck to do the walk… half a shame on her (at least she mad the donation).

We kind of planned to get out to the “Fun Dance Class” in the afternoon, but managed to lazily miss that too.

I said above that it was a pretty nice day, but there was a good swell in the seas that caused the ship to break more water than usual…

It was funny walking down the narrow stateroom halls behind my DW. When the ship pitched forward she would “take-off” but when it pitched back DW would slow right up… I struggled not to run into her.

I found a fairly good view of some of one of the front staff deck areas…

I think we spent some time on the deck off the Lobby (under the lifeboats) reading and lounging. This is a nice area to go if you want quite peace and shade (we were avoiding the direct sun because of DW’s burn. Out here you still get the nice warm fresh air (one side is non-smoking… I think it is the starboard side), and lots of space to yourself… for some reason very few people ever find their way out here. It is a long deck, but I think the most I ever saw out here were 6-10 people. Sometimes in the evening after spending some time listening to the music by Summer Breeze (in the Lobby), we would slip out here and “make our own music” and dance and…

This was to be the last formal night, so I slipped in to Formalities to order a rose and corsage for DW. Unfortunately, they were all out of long stems, so I could only order the corsage… and pink was the only colour left. (Note to self… next time; think farther ahead… especially for the last formal night).

...more to come...

.

[JanesCruisingBuddy]

Supper was again at 6 pm, and as usual, DW looked ravishing in her formal night dress. I enjoyed being her escort. (I was not planning to do this, but Frenchsnowhite has been kind and asked for it.)

After supper, a little more dancing and then to the “Rock Down Broadway” show with the Glory Dancers in the Amber Palace at 10:15. Again the show was good, but really the same as on the Valor in the fall… it is really a shame that Carnival cannot mix things up a bit.

After the show, we would have stopped by for a few minutes again for a dance in the Lobby, perhaps a quick visit to Karaoke, and back to our room for our own entertainments (and some chocolates ?).

 

...more to come...

 

 

.

[teacher32]

Supper was again at 6 pm, and as usual, DW looked ravishing in her formal night dress. I enjoyed being her escort. (I was not planning to do this, but Frenchsnowhite has been kind and asked for it.)

 

 

After supper, a little more dancing and then to the “Rock Down Broadway” show with the Glory Dancers in the Amber Palace at 10:15. Again the show was good, but really the same as on the Valor in the fall… it is really a shame that Carnival cannot mix things up a bit.

 

After the show, we would have stopped by for a few minutes again for a dance in the Lobby, perhaps a quick visit to Karaoke, and back to our room for our own entertainments (and some chocolates ?).

 

...more to come...

 

 

.

 

 

I, too, have faithfully followed your outstanding review. Thank you for your time and effort. We sail on Glory in September. You are indeed a handsome couple. Thank you (and Frenchsnowhite for asking) for posting pictures so we can put faces with your review. Take us to the end in detail . Your review has been like a book you don't want to really finish!! :)

[JanesCruisingBuddy]

We basically did the same general things today as yesterday (other than scheduled events and sales etc.).

Of course, this was our last day at sea… a day that potentially could have been a real “downer.” But we had planned ahead for this factor, and had purposely planned something for Saturday that we would still be looking forward to and would keep us too busy to “get-down” (more about that later). So the day was every bit as enjoyable as the others.

Breakfast and Dinner again at the Red Sail. I discovered “Cheese Covered Nachos” at the pizza counter (don’t know how I missed that for 14 days) and enjoyed them at some point today.

The “Debarkation Talk” was held at 11:00 am. It wasn’t that we thought we knew it all, but we had observed most of it just 7 days ago, and thought we had a good enough handle on what was going to happen that we decided to skip it. (Saturday during debarkation, we never felt “we should have gone.”)

They had a “Designer Watch Sale” that started at 2 in the afternoon ($29.99 each or tow for $ 49.99). Having lost my casual watch back on Day 3 (? - Cozumel) and knowing now that my spending money budget was still doing well… I finally decided I would go and try to pick up something (I knew they likely would not be “great” watches, but I usually buy cheap ones anyway… I cannot wear them as they cause my wrist to “break out”, so I usually just carry them in my pocket). I do not know if they had much of a selection at the beginning, but by the time I got there (well into the evening), there was no selection, and I passed up on it.

During the heat of the afternoon, we decided to get ourselves packed up so we would not have that hanging over us in the evening. We were glad we did, because we were able to lazily enjoy our last evening on the Glory.

Last sunset…

We went through all the photos of us that we had purchased through the week and decided to order a couple 4x6’s of one of the bigger ones.

Among the usual evening activities, we said goodbye to our dining room staff… … and I think we may have taken a last dip in the aft pool and/or hot tub.

At 9 pm we went to the “Love, Sex and Romance Quiz” in the Amber Palace… we didn’t do too badly… but when the questions and answers are based on “According to Dr. Ruth…” (or who ever it was) and her opinions etc., no one really has a chance, no matter how much “truth” you might know about such things.

All week we had every intention of attending the “Carnival Legends” show tonight, but at the last minute, we decided we did not have any real desire to see Madonna and Spears and Elvis and Dolly and Sonny and Cher etc… again. Give us some new artists, more genres and styles (especially some more of the ”old guys”) etc., and we would enjoy going again, but one can only take so much of the same-old same-old. You know, if they had say 20 artists that each ship was prepared to do (costumes etc.) and for each cruise they randomly picked as many as they could use, then the show would get a bit of a mix-up each week and from ship to ship.

…some more general thoughts, comments regarding room service, our chocolates, debarkation and post cruise etc.… …still to come!

[Calker]

Your review has been a real joy to read. Every word and picture put me right there with you. Thanks for allowing me to "travel" with you and your wife.

[JanesCruisingBuddy]

Way back on Day 2 first week of the cruise, we received a box of chocolates courtesy of BonVoyage (we had purchased them before cruising). They were so nice, and sweet, and we were eating so well at meals etc., that it took ups most of that first week to eat them all… we just slowly picked away at them (definitely out of character for us).

As mentioned in my Day 12/5 review, we had bought some chocolates in St. Maartens at the Belguam Chocolate Box… to be delivered to our stateroom that night. They did not arrive.

On Thursday Morning I called the Pursers desk to enquire about “when I should have expected them.” They hummed and hawed a bit, and eventually said they would have been delivered last night. I said they weren’t, she mad a check, and said they were. I repeated my claim, and she said she would call me back. I waited around the room for quite a while, and then gave up.

Late in the afternoon, I was in the room and the Pursers desk called again and confirmed that room service said that they had been delivered the night before. I asked her where they delivered them, because I still did not have them, had not signed for them, and still had my claim ticket for the. She said she would call me back. She NEVER did.

I noticed in the Capers that the Shopping Specialist Desk would be open at 8 pm, and I made it a point to be there for 8pm. I recapped my experience so far, and he said he would look into it and they would be delivered that night or someone would be in touch with us. No chocolates came that night, and no explanation.

Friday night I was at the desk again, and was told that room service had said they had been delivered on Wednesday night. (Why hadn’t they followed up with me with this claim?). I again said they had not been, it was only a $ 15.00 box of chocolate, but was now getting to be a mater of principle. He asked me to bring him a copy of my receipt and he would inquire again and if necessary provide a refund.

I went to my room, could not find my receipt, but came back with my claim ticket. I ended up speaking with a lady in at the desk this time, but she was aware of the case. I re-iterated that I had not signed for them either. She again said she had an e-mail from room service stating that they were delivered to my room. She said she would place another inquiry and if they could not be found they would issue a refund.

Later in the evening two ladies showed up at my room (someone of some authority and a backup) and were full of apologies that they chocolates were found on a desk in the room service office.

Now we only had a few "awake hours" to eat the whole box, as they would not travel well… by this point I would have rather had the refund…

.

[RLG1023]

I am sooo glad that I am finally able to put faces with you and your wife. You guys look like a great couple!!! Your review was wonderful, very detailed and I am sad that it is coming to an end!!

[seafun]

Add me to the list of people enjoying your review! :)

I did a B2B (West then East) on the Glory last November and your review is bringing back great memories. Thanks for taking the time to post it all!

I also went ziplining with Pirates on Roatan (Extreme, of course! :eek: ) I have very similar pictures, and a good one of me holding a monkey at the end of the ziplines.

In Belize, nine of us hired a guide to take us up the New River by boat to visit the Mayan ruins at Lamanai. Spectacular! :D

Well, enough about me...LOL. This is YOUR review. :rolleyes:

Thanks again for bringing back all the great memories!

[Prairie_Gal]

Awesome review! Thank you very much for taking the time (and I know it took a lot) to post it.

[Froufie]

In Belize, nine of us hired a guide to take us up the New River by boat to visit the Mayan ruins at Lamanai. Spectacular!

Hey Seafun - did you book thru belizecruise excursions - or another independent? I am hoping to do this tour on my upcoming Glory cruise and would love to know who you used! I am dying to see Lamanai!!!

 

Thanks

[pauline664]

Thank you soooooo much for your review. I read alot and by far this review topped all of them. I felt like i never wanted it to end (as others said), I am fairly new to cruising and my DD and I will be going on Glory in Aug on the eastern intinerary. I loved all your pics. Your DW and yourself sounds like a very special couple may you have many more Happy Years ahead.

[JanesCruisingBuddy]

Casino

 

We have never been gamblers, probably had never even walked through a casino before, but after doing laundry last Friday, we had about $ 7.00 worth of quarters hanging around in the room. Sometime about mid-week, we decided to treat a slot machine as an arcade game, and went in and did basically double our money… whoopee! On Thursday and Friday we spit those winnings up and went back and lost it all. No surprise at all.

Comment Card

 

You know how near the end of your cruise they ask you to complete a Comment Card. I found it interesting that at the end of our first week we never got one. On Saturday before we debarked/embarked I went to the pursers desk and asked for on, they said they did not have them… had to get them from house keeping. I just felt bad that I did not get to make comments on the first week. I wonder why they did that?

To Much Bonnie ??

 

We made this observation after we got home… hindsight is always better.

On past cruises DW was quite lively, enjoyed particularly getting out on the deck in the sun, and never wanted to be in the stateroom. She always tired out a bit before me, but this is true always, home or abroad. This time, she did spend an uncharacteristic amount of time in the stateroom, and we just wrote it off to: being a bit older; having gone through several stressful situations at home in the past few months that were causing us to enjoy crashing a bit more; having the larger balcony to enjoy etc. But now we are wondering if there might have been more to it.

On day one after we left Port Canaveral DW noticed a bit of a roll caused by the seas… it really was not bad, and really was not bothering her… but she “panicked” a bit and doubled her planned dosage (which was still within the guidelines on the package) (and the dosage she had used in the past and had no trouble with). The package claims to be “non-drossy,” and she totally trusted that. She continued to take that full dosage the whole cruise, regardless of the seas. Now we wonder if maybe it was a bit too much… she likely should have doubled up on poorer sea days. Perhaps a word to the wise.

Room Service

 

Generally we were quite happy with this (other than the chocolate delivery from St. Maarten and the following). On one occasion, having come back from a port by early-mid afternoon and having not eaten lunch… we decided to order sandwiches and deserts from room service. They advised us that they were busy and it might be 50 minutes. We said find. Yes, DW and I both went out on the balcony for a few (5-10 minutes), but after that we made sure at least one of us were always in the room so we would here them at the door. After waiting a couple hours, I called and asked them how much longer I might have to wait (by this time we were considering canceling and going to Red Sail or Grill for a bite). They said they had delivered but got no answer, so they had followed up with a call, and got no answer. Something was “fishy” here, this did not happen unless they had delivered almost immediately after we had placed the order (even though they had said it would be 50 minute).

When we put this together with our Chocolate fiasco, and add it to our difficulties getting our hands on our soda coupons (although the coupons were the dining room, not room service) and the early deliveries of roses to the dining room… it all makes me wonder if Carnival needs to review their protocols to find ways that can ensure deliveries happen better and create better follow-up protocols on complaints about missing deliveries.

Paradise Beach Menu

 

I found these on my computer, and thought I would share them…

...

[orientpiscesgirl88]

Really enjoyed the thorough review! Thanks for sharing!

[Calker]

Your review is wonderful - thank you.

 

Please go on another cruise soon. Hope to meet you and your wife on a future adventure.

[JanesCruisingBuddy]

...Please go on another cruise soon...

 

I will do everything I can to fulfill that request...

 

In the mean time, what I believe will be the last post of the review is coming shortly.

[RLG1023]

I will do everything I can to fulfill that request...

 

In the mean time, what I believe will be the last post of the review is coming shortly.

 

Must it really come to an end?

[JanesCruisingBuddy]

I need to get this all wrapped up… I start another job (part-time) tonight to try and help us recover from the various sacrifices we made to make the cruise, and to start creating a new fund for another cruise in the future. So, time is going to get tighter, I need to finish this.

Saturday… this is the day that we must disembark and not get right back on.

We lazily got up (we did not see us sail into port) and made our way up to Red Sail again for breakfast. Always enjoy being able to get a full bacon and ham and sausage and egg breakfast… especially when I do not have to make it, clean up after it, or reach into my pocket to pay for it (I know… I actually did that some time ago).

Knowing it would be almost impossible for me (a Canadian who does not bank in the US) to cash a cheque in the USA, I went to the purser’s desk and cashed our S&S refund cheque.

Afterwards we went back to our room and gathered our carry-offs and went up to the aft end of Lido and sat in the shade by the back windows, and started thinking about our exciting day ahead… getting anxious to have our luggage tag numbers called so we could get on with our adventure.

Eventually our number was called (if there were any, this week’s B2B’ers still had not been called to the Lobby) and the lines going out through the terminal and through immigration kept moving right along. Picking up baggage was a breeze, and we forwent having a porter help us… we really thought it would be quicker and easier to handle it ourselves. We crossed to the far side of the parking lot to the Hertz shuttle…

One other couple was already at the Hertz shuttle, and once we were loaded, the driver headed off. We were barely underway and the lady started going on about how disappointing the cruise was. She complained mostly about the dining room, especially about their wait staff who could never remember from night to night what they wanted (I thought the menu changed every night, but I must have been mistaken… I know somehow I ate differently every night for 2 weeks though). She definitely was never cruising with Carnival again and she made sure the shuttle driver and everyone at the Hertz office knew it.

[Calker]

It has been a real pleasure to travel with you.Reading your review has been a real joy. Your words and pictures always transported me to your cruise.

 

Good luck.

[JanesCruisingBuddy]

Dispite her complaints (above), I still stand by my claim, the cruise was great, the food was awesome, all of the staff were friendly, and the service was always better than I get from my lack-of-maid and lack-of-wait-staff etc. at home!!!

We got our car and headed off to Orlando. We arrived at our hotel (Wingate Inn Orlando Intl Airport) by just a hair after noon. We quickly checked in and went to our room (very pleasant basic room, nothing fancy). We took a few minutes to freshen up, to organized the yahoo maps that we had brought with us, to reviewed our money and divided it up between us so one was handling ticket money, another meal money etc… and rush out to our car again.

I think we were into Epcot by 1 pm. I am not going to bother giving a play-by-play of our day at Epcot (this is a cruise board – after all). Suffice it to say, we did a few rides that we had never done before, and a few repeats. Our trip around the World showcase was a bit quicker than we would have liked it to be. We did make it a point to stop in Paris to eat some French pastries. Of course, Canada was our last stop, and from the steps at Canada we watched the lights and fireworks show.

Back to the hotel, and I spent a few minutes on their courtesy computer printing off our boarding pass etc. for morning. Having done this, it saved us some $$ at the curb side check-in in the morning.

After a pleasant nights rest, we got up, went and filled up the rental car, returned it to Hertz, and they shuttled us over to the airport by 7 am for our 8 am flight. We had only one stop-over on the way back (Atlanta). We did experience about an hour delay in Atlanta. DW had no difficulties flying this time.

Back in Bangor, we gathered our luggage. We had left our car at our pre-cruise hotel (park-and-fly), and they were supposed to provide a free shuttle back, but we could not get the hotel to answer their phone. Eventually we gave up, and hailed a taxi back to our car. We loaded the it, went to a gas station to freshen up a bit and stock up on some “road-food”… and headed towards Canada.

Two hours later, we were at the border, made our claim at the drive through window, and passed through with no further questions or searches.

We swung by my place of work to pick up my car (DW did not have her work schedule yet for morning, but we figured we would have different hours… which we did).

I looked at my car and saw I now had a donut on the front left (my son had borrowed the car and hit a pot hole bending the rim, breaking the belts on the new tire I had put on one week before the cruise, and terribly knocking it out of alignment – the tire was leaning in at the top).

The day I left on vacation, I had the car in for repairs… it was only running on 2 out of 4 cylinders. They “fixed” it by replacing a burnt out coil. I now started up the car, and it was running on 2 cylinders again.

The next day I hammered out the rim, the following day I got the tire replaced under warranty, discovered I needed front struts. I ordered struts, and finally got them picked up yesterday and installed today and got a motor vehicle inspection done… I need two more tires for the rear and need to schedule an alignment.

(Yes, the car issues are a contributor to my rushing out to get this new part-time job… otherwise I might have been able to hold off for a month or two so I could better enjoy the summer.)

But all of those car issues (and the need of an additional job) are all ok… cause I am still living off the high of my cruise, and the high of reliving it all with all of you. [And, the extra job may allow us to book another cruise sooner…]

Thank you for allowing me to take up your time (and even sometimes pull you away from your work). This has been so much fun!!! :) :)

If you have any question, I will try to answer them.

.

[Georgiagolfer]

Mark, or should I say JanesCruisingBuddy, this is the best d.... review by far that I have ever read, anywhere, period. Sorry about your troubles when you got home. But I could say what you said to me about fixing our air twice, "didn't you just have the car repaired?" Anywho, hope all goes well on the part time job, and see you on the high seas someday again.:D

[jshupe391]

trying to figure out a way to contact you about the pictures that you took in regards to stateroom 6450 on the Glory. They do not show up on the forum and was wondering if they were elsewhere to look at or if there was a possibility of you emailing them to us?

 

 

 

QUOTE=JanesCruisingBuddy;14756656][i am experimenting a bit with getting pictures up... please bear with me...]

 

We went to dinner at the Golden Arches in Port Canaveral before going out to Jetty Park Beach. I had known there was a cruise leaving tonight so I had hopes of “wetting our appetite” a bit by watching it leave. We went out on the water break/boardwalk and waited. We watched a fellow windsurfing to the south...

 

 

...and we saw some fishing boats returning from a day’s excursion (to the north)…

 

 

but continued to wait for what we really wanted... untill the Sovereign of the Seas came out of the harbor…

 

[JanesCruisingBuddy]

trying to figure out a way to contact you about the pictures that you took in regards to stateroom 6450 on the Glory. They do not show up on the forum and was wondering if they were elsewhere to look at or if there was a possibility of you emailing them to us?

 

Originally the pictures were all there in the thread, but they existed as links to my Webshots.com sight. Problem is, Webshots.com folded up, thus the links are now no good.

 

Anyway, those pictures were also all added to another sight (Cruisedeckplans.com) http://www.cruisedeckplans.com/DP/Main/signup.php -that host stateroom pictures.

 

You do have to be a member there view the pics. Membership there ranges from $10.00 for a year to $25 for a lifetime membership. We bought a lifetime membership several years ago and now go there to review pics on almost any room on any ship.

 

They also pay you to post your pics (which reminds me, I still have pics from another room to post there).

 

If that does not interest you, then leave your e-mail address, and we will gladly find the pics and e-mail them to you.