Glory review w/pics 6/13/09

[dopey1200]

I know that Butch is no longer the CD, but are Jason and Phil still part of the entertainment staff?

 

Besides Ryan the CD, there was Dan, Island Girl & another lady whose name I don't recall.

 

OMG, my kids are in your photo of Deck 10! The two boys are mine, the two girls are my nieces. Too funny! You must have been sitting right behind us.

 

Too funny!

 

Could you please tell me if Robbin Cook was still there?

 

Robbin was there performing by the Casino.

 

Was the "afternoon tea" offered more than once? How many Late night buffets were

there and which night was the Chocolate Buffet? Thanks

.

 

Mexican Buffet on Wednesday till 1am. On Sunday & Thursday Tea time was at 3:30. I don't have Fridays Capers so it might have been tea again on Friday. Chocolate buffet was in the afternoon on Friday, till maybe 3 or so. Not sure if they had again that evening.

[dopey1200]

I will post more photos of the ship later & I will also give the link to all of my photos for those of you who don't mind looking at my family photos too! There are 155 total.

 

By the way, we had a changed itinerary due to the swine flu scare. Original trip was to stop at Costa Maya, Cozumel, Belize & Nassau. We ended up with Grand Turk, Ocho Rios & Grand Cayman. No complaints from me, I'll go anywhere as long as I'm on vacation.

 

Monday, Grand Turk:

 

Our group split up for excursions my husband & one brother really love to snorkel so they did the Ultimate Snorkel. They snorkeled at 2 locations & said it was great. They saw stingrays, a 3 foot long barracuda (named Chuck Norris) and others in the group saw a reef shark.

 

The rest of us hung out at the Cruise Center. My son & other brother did the Flowrider 1 hour session. They both thought it was pretty cool but the wipeouts could be slightly painful. You usually got washed up to the top & landed on a plastic grate. An instructor was at the bottom showing you how to do some tricks. After their session they had the deluxe session that allows you to stand up & actually surf. It looked very hard & nobody lasted for more than 20-30 seconds! The best place to view the Flowrider was from inside the pool. I took my son's video camera in there with me to shoot some video. The instructor's were very nice, they gave some extra help to a little boy who was having a hard time staying on his boogie board. The pool area was very large & included a swim up bar. There was a DJ playing music & holding contests (dance, worse sunburn, etc). The cabanas were still not open; I saw a worker painting one of them. The beach area was very nice (watch for some rocks blending in with the sand). Plenty of chairs available (although we were the only ship in the dock).

 

 

 

 

 

[dopey1200]

More pictures from the Cruise Center area:

 

 

 

The swim up bar

 

Heading back to the Glory

 

The pool area as seen from the ship

 

The water was many beautiful shades of blue

[dopey1200]

By the way, we are not shoppers, so I can't offer any good advice in that area. We are pretty much t-shirt buyers & that's it.

 

Tuesday, Ocho Rios:

 

We didn't arrive in Jamaica till 10:30am, which was a huge problem: EVERYBODY was trying to get off the boat at the same time. We were on Deck 10 watching the approach to the island, which ended up being a mistake. We were about as far away from Deck 0 as you could get. We spent a long time waiting for an elevator. People were being rude & cutting in front of my mom, who has no choice but to take the elevator. We ended up taking the atrium elevators down to Deck 2, then finally got on one that goes to Deck 0. The fun didn't stop there! We were docked at an industrial port, so all the tour companies had temporary tents & tables set up in a parking lot. It was total chaos. There were people everywhere & you could never tell if you were in the right line. There was only one ship at the main dock in Ocho Rios, so I don't know how many can dock there at one time. I guess since we had a re-routed itinerary, we got stuck with the industrial dock.

 

We all stuck together this time & did the Tranopy tour to Mystic Mountain. We loved this excursion & I highly recommend it. The chair lift ride takes about 15 minutes & has a great view of the coast. They stopped the chair lift so my mom could get on & they strapped her wheelchair to the back of her chair.

 

 

 

 

More details to come about Mystic Mountain!

[bfkkbc]

More pictures from the Cruise Center area:

 

 

 

The swim up bar

 

Heading back to the Glory

 

The pool area as seen from the ship

 

The water was many beautiful shades of blue

WOW!!! Is this Cruise Center swimming area free???

[dopey1200]

Yes! It is absolutely free! The Flowrider, of course, is not free.

[sandi1967]

I want to go NOW!!!!!!!! Love reading the review....thank you for taking the time to do so.

 

Take care

sandi

[BaseballMomof4]

Great pics! More please!

[dopey1200]

So here's the deal with Mystic Mountain. You take the chair lift up to the top & they have the zipline, the bobsled, the infinity edge pool, a display about the Jamaican Bobsled team & of course a gift shop. We paid $119 a person for the chair lift, zipline & bobsled ride. Once at the top you can stay as long as you want. You only get one bobsled ride but they sell additional rides after you're done riding it. The bobsled was fun, fun, fun! It only lasts for a few minutes, but it was a fast, smooth & fun ride. Your bobsled is lifted back to the same place you left from. You can use the hand brake to slow yourself down, but I went full throttle & never felt unsafe or out of control. The infinity edge pool was small, but there were only a few people in it, so there was plenty of room. We did not get in but I heard the water was cold. There was a water slide going into the pool also. The view from the pool area was amazing! here are some pictures showing the pool area & you can see the bobsleds going by in some of them.

 

 

 

 

 

The whole area was landscaped very nice & there were local people performing & some vendor selling some crafty items. Also, a member of the Jamaican Bobsled team was there signing autographs & posing for pictures.

More photos from Mystic Mountain:

 

A bobsledder

 

[dopey1200]

Upstairs form the gift shop was the R2 Restaurant. It had the same amazing view as the pool area. The food there was very good, but of course a little pricey. The problem with the restaurant was that there was no elevator to get up to it. The staff there was very nice & went out of their way to set up a patio table in the shade by the pool & served lunch to my mom & dad there. When in the restaurant, there are more stairs leading up to the lookout tower. Here's the view from there:

 

 

 

The ziplining was crazy scary! We had never done it before & we were unsure what to expect. The guides were always trying to scare us by telling us that they had never done it before either, and yelling "Omigod, pull your brake" as you were heading towards the tree at the end of the line. They are the ones who stop you though, there was no brake for us to stop ourselves. There were 5 different lines, a suspension bridge & what they called a 10 meter rappel. The rappel was actually a free-fall where they hooked up your equipment to a rope & dropped you. Some people (me included) were not too fond of this part. One lady was actually in tears. She said she wouldn't had done the ziplining if she knew about the free fall. It was literally over in 5 seconds but that didn't stop me from screaming. We did have to wait close to an hour to get on the zipline because they had to wait for the equipment to be sent back up on the chairlift. So don't wait till the last minute to do it. Sorry, no pictures of us ziplining, we were afraid to take our cameras for fear of dropping them.

 

Wednesday, Grand Cayman:

 

At Grand Cayman we were split again doing different excursions. My husband, son & brother did the Coral Reef & Stingray City tour while the rest of us did the Discover Cayman: Hell, Turtle Farm & Stingray City. Hubby & company were disappointed with the snorkeling, they only got to do it for 20 minutes. They would have rather spent more time snorkeling & less time with the Stingrays. They did see an eel though. Hell was simply some volcanic black rock formations. Not worth a special trip but OK if included in a tour like ours. And of course the gift shop sells all the shirts with funny slogans about Hell.

 

This was hell:

 

The turtle farm was pretty neat. We got to hold 1 year old sea turtles.

 

They had many different tanks holding different ages from the 1 year olds to big 9 year olds.

 

Some of the bigger ones:

 

[dopey1200]

Stingray City was pretty cool & I am even creeped out by them. We got to touch them, hold them & even kiss them if you wanted to. I opted to just hold one & not kiss it. :o They were literally swimming everywhere & would brush up against you. You had to watch your step so you didn't accidentally step on them. I took pictures in the water with an underwater camera & can't post them (no scanner) but here is one I took from the boat before getting off.

 

 

It was definitely a cool experience!

 

Random ship pictures:

 

The Atrium

 

Bean bag toss contest on Deck 10

 

Amber Palace

 

Ultraviolet game room

[dopey1200]

Debarkation was no problem. We ate breakfast in the dining room for one last time. We did the "relaxed" debarkation & pretty much went when we were done eating.

 

To sum up, we all had a great time! No major complaints about anything from anybody. We had great weather & smooth seas the entire trip. We will definitely consider cruising again!

 

Here is a link to my whole album on Snapfish if anybody cares to see all the pictures! I hope the link works, you shouldn't have to sign to see them.

 

http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=1150842009/a=30105697_30105697/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

 

Thanks for reading & let me know if you have any questions, I'll do my best to help!

 

Lisa

[firefly4423]

very cool, thanks for sharing the pictures!

[scorp111]

Very cool, thanks for the review and pics.

 

We sail Glory in November, and I am really looking forward to it!

[lollylew]

Keep it coming, I'll be there in 3 weeks! Pictures please.

 

Anyone know where the secret door is on the Empress deck?

 

Eddie

 

You go all the way to the front (past the elevators) and there should be a door going outside. Very windy but also very pretty. Go outside at night and with the lights turned off because the bridge is there, you can actually see the stars. We sailed into some fog on our way back from Key West on the Valor and that was pretty cool! :)

 

P.S. Usually the "secret door" is on deck 9, not deck 8.

[BaseballMomof4]

My youngest was very excited to see there is a game room - didn't find that in the ship information!!! Loving the pics!!!

[MTcruiser]

I know that Butch is no longer the CD, but are Jason and Phil still part of the entertainment staff?

 

I was on this cruise also. Ryan was the CD and was pretty good. One of his assistants was James?(i think) and Dan. THey are a good team.

[OhioJeff]

Thanks for the pics and review!

[cruise crazy64]

Thanks so much for sharing the pictures! Jamaca looked cool! My friend and I are taking the 7 day to the eastern caribbean Aug. 15th. The ship looks great. can't wait to go!!

 

Karen, FL :cool:

[bfkkbc]

Yes! It is absolutely free! The Flowrider, of course, is not free.

Wow I need to go there! That is beautiful. Sign me up please! Cruise for 2???

[vhcinta918]

Thanks for your thread/review.

 

You've mentioned that you've used Airportability for your transfer from Orlando to the port. What's your opinion of their service? Thanks.

[framerman]

Keep it coming, I'll be there in 3 weeks! Pictures please.

 

Anyone know where the secret door is on the Empress deck?

 

Eddie

all the way forward

[framerman]

Debarkation was no problem. We ate breakfast in the dining room for one last time. We did the "relaxed" debarkation & pretty much went when we were done eating.

 

To sum up, we all had a great time! No major complaints about anything from anybody. We had great weather & smooth seas the entire trip. We will definitely consider cruising again!

 

Here is a link to my whole album on Snapfish if anybody cares to see all the pictures! I hope the link works, you shouldn't have to sign to see them.

 

http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=1150842009/a=30105697_30105697/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

 

Thanks for reading & let me know if you have any questions, I'll do my best to help!

 

Lisa

Great review....thanks for sharing