My Inspiration Review, with pictures, 3/19!!

[beach410]

If I can figure our the pictures part of it all! Here we go:

 

Background: Me and my DH were celebrating our 20th anniversary along with our great friends and traveling companions. Will do anything for a cruise I tell ya!

 

Day before: We drove (actually our private chauffer drove, my friend gets car sick unless shes driving, man tough for us huh!) down in my minivan (mom mobile) from NC. Booked a room on Priceline and received the Sheraton Suites. Not bad for the price. I took pictures of the suite area, but none of the bedroom because you can find pictures on trip advisor.

 

Anyone know how I can make the pictures bigger?

[beach410]

CC members rcommended Columbia for dinner, we arrived at the hotel about 7pm and washed up and headed over there. We were seating in the garden room, it was surprisingly busy for a Wednesday.

 

Dinner was very good and there was a wonderful selection of tapas, the popular Cuban sandwich as well as entrees, you can easily find something to eat on any budget. Check out their website, http://www.columbiarestaurant.com/, they have the menu listed. My friend and I ordered two enttrees and shared them, we liked the seafood and pasta dish better then the stuffed shrimps.

[beach410]

Still cant figure out how to get these pictures bigger. I tried draggng them over and thats not working.

[beach410]

Then we were treated with the famous Flamienco dancing it was in the other diningroom, so we just popped out of our chairs to have a look, it was neat. After dinner one of the wait staff was nice enough to show us around this huge restaurant, there are so many rooms.

I forgot to mention before dinner our friends met us at our room and had a surprise for us, aren’t they (my friends and the cups of course!) the greatest?!!

 

 

 

 

 

[beach410]

My friend had these ordered from Carnival, and I think they are great!

[lostinohio]

I can't wait to read your full review. I am going on the Inspiration on April 11th and I am so excited. We also received the Sheraton hotel through priceline. Did you get the Sheraton Westshore? I am hoping the rooms are nice.

[beach410]

No thats what I wanted, but I rushed and got the Sheraton Suites. Sorry this is taking me so long, I want to get the pictures bigger and cant for the life of me figure out how.

[beach410]

Embarkation day:

DH and I woke up early and hit the gym, ok facilities, but they had no towels or cups for the H20 cooler. We went to the DR and they gave us two bottles of water as their souvenir shop wasn’t open yet. The gym overlooked the huge heated indoor pool; they were having swim lessons for a couple of little ones. After we worked out we went back into the lobby and purchased two cups of Starbucks coffee, never realizing we could have had it for free in our room, that’s what’s sitting with the coffee maker in the bar area, never even noticed. After showering, we met our friends in the lobby and while the men went to bring the car around front, my girlfriend and I hit the souvenir shop, they had a great sale and we purchased a couple of things for ourselves! We wanted to take a walk on the beach, so we took our map the front desk gave us the night before and headed towards the beach, took only about 20-25 minutes. Spent a nice leisurely 30 minutes there and then headed back to find a Publix for some last minute items.

[beach410]

Embarkation day continued:

 

We arrived at port about 11:30 I believe, it was a little confusing figuring out where to go, but we saw the covered section next to the port where people were pulling up and unloading their cars, after we unloaded and tipped our porter, the men brought the car back around to the parking garage across the street. Felt like we waited forever for them to get back, but they finally arrived and while the line seemed long, we were on board having our first DOD by 12:30. This even includes when we were sidetracked for trying to take too much wine on board, our friends really did think that they were allowed 2 bottles each (hes a wine salesman btw), and I didn’t know how strict they were didn’t think of correcting them, well, he had them in his carry on and they made him take a few bottles out, they did allow 5 bottles because he got stuck with deciding which to leave behind. A thought I had later, was darn, why didn’t we give those bottles to someone behind us.

After our drinks we headed to the buffet and had our first of many wonderful meals. There is so much to choose from, between the grill outside and hot buffet inside and cold salad bar, pizza station and deli. After lunch I cant for the life of me remember what we did, but eventually we made our way to our mandatory lifeboat drill, made the best of it and then headed up to find prime seats for sail away, we already had some of our luggage, we met our room steward Sushi (that’s not how it was spelled, but my DH insisted that is how its pronounced, so that’s what I called him, I hope they weren’t playing a joke on me!) and he was very nice and accommodating, I asked him to ice down our cooler and he did so right away. We took our bottle of champagne, and headed up to the aft deck so we can be under the tail when we went under the bridge.

The last picture is the Carnival spout, tail, whatever you call it going under the bridge, if you can make it out.

[vacruizer]

To get the big pictures you first have to upload them to a photo hosting site like webshots or photobucket. I've had the best luck with photobucket. You then have to click on the picture so it's the only one showing (at least with photobucket) and copy and paste from there.

[beach410]

I headed down to get some Sushi, enjoyed it and we hung out until it was time to get ready for dinner. We also ordered some liquor the first night so we could be in the drawing for the free liquor the next day, which we didnt win.

 

We had the late seating, 8:15, which I love because you dont have to rush in to get ready for dinner.

We had a nice table for 4, Fernando was our head waiter and Iliana was his assistant, they were wonderful. I wasnt impressed with the options on the menu the first night, but I ended up having the Tilapia and it was very good. For starters I had a ceasers salad and fried shrimp with plum sauce, the salad was very good. I ordered cheescake for dessert and wasnt crazy about it, so I pushed it aside and the next thing I know theres a piece of orange cake and a candle in front of me, this is the first time we celebrated anything on a cruise, so I wasnt expecting them to sing Happy Anniversary to us.

Not only did they sing, but Fernando says to DH, you need to kiss your wife for a full minute the way you did when you on your first date, well, my smart aleck DH says, o yeah, well then we will have to get nekked! This was the start of a lot of fun and laughs at dinner time, it doesnt usually take much to get my DH started. After a few seconds of smooching they covered our heads with a napkin, I guess we were making people lose their appetites..LOL! O and by the way, the orange cake was fantastic!

After dinner we went to the welcome aboard show, it was good. Then we headed back to our rooms and we saw our first towel animal, Ms. Bunny.

[beach410]

To get the big pictures you first have to upload them to a photo hosting site like webshots or photobucket. I've had the best luck with photobucket. You then have to click on the picture so it's the only one showing (at least with photobucket) and copy and paste from there.

 

 

Thanks so much!

[beach410]

Meant to add this above.

[beach410]

Trying this again and then taking a break, have to make dinner, no one waiting on me here to take my order and serve me...sigh....

[beach410]

Some additional information, we had rooms U7 and U9, same price as an inside room, but with portholes, I really liked them. Our friends stayed in U7 and had about two more feet to their room because of the location. I would definately choose these over inside again for the same price. The only thing is that when pulling into dock,you hear the engine,but that worked out ok, I want to wake up when we get into port anyway, didnt need my alarm clock for sure!

[vacruizer]

Thanks so much!

 

No problem - looking forward to the rest of your review! Hope to do the Inspiration one day soon. :)

[lostinohio]

I loved the part about your anniversary at dinner and the kiss. We will also be celebrating an anniversary and my dh will be so embarassed if the waiter says that to him. Me and the friends we are going with will just die laughing. We have a 6E ov this time, but on the Fascination we had a 5A with the porthole windows and we really liked them as well. My kids liked sitting up in the window and watching out.

[beach410]

This is a test, copying from shutterfly, much easier then those attachments, ok more to come after dinner!!

 

[rian90]

We are considering the Inspiration for a short cruise with friends. Thanks for the review. The porthole windows are so cute!!

 

Glad you enjoyed the Columbia. Its one of my favorite restaurants in the area. I think I will make my hubby take me there next weekend. ;)

[beach410]

some more pictures

 

[beach410]

First Sea day:

We woke up early, we normally wake up at 5am to get ready for work, my body cant turn it off even on vacation and staying up later. Headed out to the gym about 8am, sorry no pictures. We were a little confused, as we never worked out on vacation prior to this cruise, we never really worked out, been working on being healthy for the past year, anyway, you get up to the gym and we cant find the entrance, you see a sign that says women and one that says men, and I am thinking but wheres the gym, dont tell me its seperated. Another guest could see we were perplexed and said you have to walk thru each to get to the gym, found that a bit odd, split up with DH and passed the womens changing room, sauna, restrooms, etc. and met back up in the gym. They had 8 treadmills and 4 elipticals and 4 stationary bikes. I got an elliptical right away, DH has to wait for a treadmill for about 5 minutes. Didnt do my normal routine, but did 30 minutes staring out into the deep blue sea, didnt even need my headphones for that work out. After our cardio we hit some of the machines, then headed down to wash up for breakfast.

 

 

My friend got sick during the middle of the night, she thinks it was the duck appetizer, none of us had it but her, so she came to breakfast a little late, but was already feeling better. We ate ate at the buffet, I had a yummy omlette, deliscious home fries, bacon and pastries, uh oh, I should have done another 30 minutes on that elliptical!

 

We sat out back overlooking the serenity deck and scoped out a couple of loungers, we found our home for the day. We literally stayed out here until the sun went down. In the middle of the day it got real hot and the hot tubs were too hot to cool us down, so we hit the pool, it was crowded, but while it was cold yesteday, it was refreshing today. Bar service is not as apparent on the Serenity as it is up on the lido, but we made do with our own mixtures from our beach bag hidden stash and ice, lemonade from up in the dining area and guava juice from breakfast.

 

 

Tonight is formal night, lobster, yeah!

 

Me and my friend. My DH doesnt want his picture up here, hes such a wimp!

 

 

Tonight I had stuffed mushrooms, lobster and prime rib, for dessert Bitter and Blanc, yum!

 

OK, I hope you appreciate this, because I did it for you! MY DH was so utterly embarassed, he couldnt believe I was taking pictures of my food, I reallly think he almost got down under the table to hide. My friend and I know, that I had to shun him for our fellow CC'ers

 

 

The wait staff sang an Italian song and danced through the dining room, they seemed to be enjoying themselves, or they really put on a great act. After dinner we hit the piano bar, he wasnt doing many sing alongs, more like making jokes, which my DH jumped right in there and participated along. We left after awhile because it got kind of smoky and being a recent quitter, I was like either I am going to join in or I have to leave, so we left.

 

 

 

Next we hit a lounge, not sure of the name, but they had a band that was playing a pretty decent Rolling Stones tune, we hung out in there for a bit, then called it a night.

 

 

 

 

Thats it for now, Cozumel tomorrow. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

[CarolynFromPittsburgh]

Thanks for sharing. I am sailing on Inspiration in 4 weeks and your pictures are wonderful. I can't wait for the rest!

 

Carolyn

[CruiserJul]

I am enjoying your review and pictures- and I'm jealous you get to go on another cruise so soon! I can't complain too much - we are going on a family vacation in June - to Yellowstone. It will be fun - but in a different way.

[cruisinsly]

Great review so far. Cant wait for the next intallment.

[gatrbait]

Nice review I'm staying in a porthole room as well although other side...do you have anymore pics of the room?

Thanks!!

Micky