10/31 Conquest review-1st timers perspective

[txflood3]

Hello all....I would like to start off by thanking everyone for all of the advice received here for the cruise. Hopefully there will be something here to help other rookie cruisers.

 

Embarkation: Pretty quick and painless. We got married the day before and flew in the day of sailing so we didn't arrive at the dock until around 4:00. There was a line but it moved rather quickly.

 

The Ship: This is a beautiful and enormous ship. It surpassed everything I had envisioned. Our cruise director was Stuart Dunn...a little cheesy at times but entertaining. We did not go to any of the onboard shows...just not our thing. However, we were in cabin 6233 over the Toulouse-Lautrec Lounge and had the pleasure of hearing all of the rehearsals and shows. :rolleyes: The food is excellent. We chose to eat on the Lido deck for every meal except one...(explanation below). We did eat in The Point Supper Club one evening for a nice quiet meal alone. Since we did not eat in the dining room, I cannot tell you if it's worth the extra $25 per person or not. In my opinion it was. Excellent food, excellent service and excellent atmosphere for a romantic dinner for 2. The staff on the ship was top notch. I cannot recall 1 time when we were not greeted with a smile and a good morning/afternoon/evening by any staff member we came in contact with.

 

Jamaica: Beautiful Island. We did a horseback riding excursion booked through A-Z Jamaica Planners and highly reccomend them. After the ride we went back to the ship to eat and change clothes then did some shopping. We wished we had gone to Sunset Beach looking back. We started with the reccomended stores by Carnival. We saw little to no value here. We wanted to shop for some diamond earrings for my new wife. This is not the place to do it. The number 1 reccomended store tried to sell us a very cloudy (almost yellow in color) 1/4 ct set for $699.

 

Grand Cayman: We were one of the 1st ships to return since Ivan. This island is paradise. Even with destruction still showing from Ivan, this was the highlight of our trip. We booked excursions through Captain Bryan's and went to Hell, the Turtle Farm and went to the stingrays on The Buccaneer. We didn't get much time for shopping since our excursions ran a little long, but as I understand, it is a bit more expensive anyway...we did manage to grab some rumcakes and duty free liquor not available on the ship. :p

 

Cozumel: Not the Cozumel I remember from years ago. Maybe we docked in a different spot from where I was last time I visited. Was still very beautiful. I did deep sea fishing booked through Carnival while the wife laid in the sun and read. I caught nothing but sea sickness on the fishing trip :rolleyes: 2 Bonine and motion sickness braclets were not enough for the 10-12 ft swells we were facing. We did some shopping in the afternoon...again, prices a little higher than expected. Don't get me wrong. All 3 stops had the traditional trinkets and souvoniers ranging from $2-$15, but the bigger dollar items were higher in price and lower in quality than expected.

 

Things we learned...

The ship is cold. Bring a sweater/sweatshirt/wrap/something.

The 2 way radios come in handy but can be hard to hear at times depending on where you are on the ship.

The power strip is a must.

The over the door organizer for the bathroom is optional. We found we had plenty of space to set things out....don't be mistaken, it is a small bathroom, we just didn't need the extra space.

Cruising is hard work. You have to stay up late and get up early to do everything you want to do or see. There just seems to be a schedule for everything....one of the reasons we opted for meals on the Lido deck, to get rid of that schedule.

 

I'm sure there are a few things I may be forgetting. I will come back and add to this if I can remember anything else. Over all I give the vacation a B+. Well worth the money but too much crammed into too short of time. Will definately consider cruising again, but will probably look into a land vacation on Grand Cayman for next time.

 

Thanks again for all the tips here and I hope this can help someone else.

[JWcruiser04]

Thanks for the review! We will be sailing on the Conquest 11/28 so I love reading from recent passengers. Sounds like you had a very nice honeymoon!

!!!!!!!!!CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!

 

Julie

[staylor]

I liked your "cruising is hard work" line. So true! We say that it is not a "vacation" it is an "adventure". If you go more often, you will start to realize that you don't have to do everything. Glad you had a nice vacation. Thanks for sharing!:)

 

 

P.S. We thought about a GC land vacation, too, but the town shuts down early and there is nothing to do in the evenings. We spoke with a family this summer on a plane who had just come home from GC. They say one cruise day is plenty. They were bored. Just a thought.