Alexv500

Debbie I am enjoying your review very much! I love it! It's bringing me back so many memories from my cruise on the Glory! Can't wait to see the rest!

Just want to thank everyone for reading, your support and all your kind comments truly mean so much to me! My goal is to do at least one or two sections a day! You guys are all the best thank you again!![emoji4]

Good Morning St. Thomas!!

The day had finally arrived for our day in St. Thomas! And the reason why I was super excited to visit this particular island was because I had a good friend of mine visit this island for a week 2 years ago, and she told me how amazing it was and now it was finally my turn to be on this beautiful island, and we had so many fun plans for today, and it was going to be a busy but fun day today.

Today we had two excursions booked: the first was the St. Thomas Skyride to Paradise Point and the second was a day at Sapphire Beach along with a little tour of the island! (More in depth on those later on)

We were scheduled to pull into St. Thomas at 10am so we had plenty of time to get ready and head down to the Platinum Dining room for our daily breakfast, like I said, I LOVED having breakfast in the MDR, so much better than the buffet! Me and Grandmom headed down to breakfast and my mom, brothers, and stepdad joined us as well and luckily we were treated with a table with a view, which was perfect because we were able to watch as we pulled in and dock in St. Thomas! And as we docked, I took my phone off airplane mode since there was finally some service here, and I was very happy to see how strong my signal was, all 5 bars plus LTE! So just a heads up, if you have AT&T, St. Thomas has great reception throughout the entire island. My mom has Verizon and her phone was roaming so she just kept in on airplane mode just to avoid any charges and played it safe.

But any who, since I had service, I was checking my social media since the ship's wifi was pretty slow and was only limited to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. So I was checking snapchat and snap chatting my friends my awesome view of St. Thomas as we pulled in, and posted some pics on Facebook to show off to everyone because hey why not I'm on a cruise in the Caribbean, LOL!

Views from breakfast, not too shabby eh? (AMAZING VIEWS)

It was so nice to have breakfast with my family, and they were enjoying the views and just couldn't believe how amazing the cruise life really is! I was like "Where else can you be eating breakfast and have a view of docking in an island with such blue water? Cruise life is the best life!" They were super impressed and were enjoying every minute of it, they could not get over the fact of how blue and beautiful the water was! Today was just going to be such an amazing day, and luckily my sunburns from HMC finally weren't hurting anymore!

After a wonderful breakfast with the family, we all gathered our things and got ready for our day on the island as we waited for the ship to be docked and the gangway to be in place. Finally, Eric our cruise director (The Voice from Above) told us the gangways were ready for us on deck 0! Since our cabin was on deck 1, it was SUPER convenient when getting off the ship in port, not having to go in a crowded elevator was nice and all we had to do was go down the stairs one deck and bam there was the gangway!

I think the Glory is pretty Glorious if ya ask me!

Now it was time to walk on over to the sky ride!

Up Next: St. Thomas Skyride + Amazing Views!

Alex, very sorry for your loss. Thank you for your great reviews, I always look forward to reading them. A couple of months ago I showed your reviews to my kids and hubby. You inspired me to join CC. My kids are 15 and 12 years old and have been on the Splendor twice. August will be our first time on the Glory and after seeing your posts and pictures, we are even more excited. We are bringing the in-laws with us (total of 9 of us) and this will be their first cruise, I'm hoping they love cruising as much as we do. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to share your enthusiasm with us. Best of luck to a bright future. You seem like a very kind kid and I'm sure you'll succeed with whatever the future brings you. Looking forward to more of your posts and pictures.

Thank you so much, it means so much! That makes me so happy you guys are all enjoying my review! :D I would love to sail the Splendor one day, I was actually so close to sailing on her back in 2012 when she was still here in California and that would have been my first cruise, I really wish they still had the Splendor sailing from here, we had lots of family friends sail on her to the Mexican Riviera from Long Beach and they loved that ship!! And no worries! I love doing this review, it's so much fun to share my experience and all the pictures! Definitely feel free to check out my videos I made of the trip! I'll continue to add links to each one corresponding to each day of the trip. Also, have fun on the Glory!! Love that ship, so much fun and it was an amazing cruise and vacation of a lifetime! Thanks again so much for reading!

Alex, I'm sorry to hear about your loss and I hope you're enjoying writing this as much as I'm enjoying reading it. Your enthusiasm is infectious, I am instantly put in a good mood every time I start reading your report, so for that I say, "Thank You Sir."

 

Aw that makes me so happy to hear how much you are enjoying my review! It's so much fun to share my super fun vacation experience with everyone!! There's lots more of the review to come, hope you've seen the videos I've made, I got more videos I put together from each day so stay tuned for those too!

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

Excellent reading!

 

What do you plan to do after graduation?

 

Love Miami, it's my home town.

Thanks! I love Miami too, you are so lucky to call that beautiful city your hometown, I wanna go back to Miami soo bad!! And now my future plans are to go to school to get my bachelor's degree in Aviation Administration so I can get a career in the airline industry and even maybe one day become a pilot! We shall see but as long as I get into that industry I will be very happy!

Hey all I am back once again! I know I had promised about a month ago that I would be working more on this fun review, but a few days after my last post/update I experienced a very unexpected and sudden tragedy that occurred and I lost someone who was very special and close to me, so that is why I have been MIA for the past month because I was dealing with all that stuff. But I am back now and ready to work on this review for you guys!!

So in good news, we FINALLY booked our cruise for next year aboard the Carnival Miracle to the Mexican Riviera on March 11th, 2017 out of our homeport of Long Beach, CA and I am super excited because we will be staying in a balcony stateroom and that's going to be such an awesome experience! Can't wait to just wake up every morning and have natural sunlight in our cabin and the best part will be the amazing views of the ocean!! So if anyone is sailing on this cruise, let me know!!

So anywho, let's pick up where I last left of!

Our 1st Formal Night-March 21, 2016!

So after a few hours of everyone getting ready and dressing all fancy, we all headed up to the dining room and we were ready to get our grub on! Tonight was the "American Feast" Menu and there were lots of yummy choices, including the famous cruise dinner lobster, which my aunt very much enjoyed! Tonight I had the Spaghetti Carbonara and it was very good, along with a side of french fries and for desert I had some Creme Brûlée!

Creme Brûlée, I cannot express how amazingly delicious this was, soon good omg! I hope they have this on my Miracle cruise next year!

So since today was my grandpa's birthday, we decided to do a little toast/cheers for him in his honor and in memory of him. I really wish he could have been on this cruise with us, I know he would have loved it but I felt his presence and knew he was looking down on us from heaven, miss him very much.

After dinner, we all headed down to the theater to catch a show and all I can say was I enjoyed every single show they had in the theater! Great music, awesome and talented performers, and great music! Lots of fun! Carnival really does know how to make things fun, this cruise was just simply amazing and so much fun!! And it was only Day 3! Tomorrow we will be in St. Thomas and we had so many fun excursions planned for the day ahead!

I just loved these cool cute little towel animals we got every night! The room stewards work so hard everyday and this is a nice little touch that they take the time to do for everyone!

Next up: Arrival Into the Island of St. Thomas!

Awesome review!

 

I'll be on the Glory in October on the Western Caribbean itinerary (Grand Cayman, Belize, Roatan, and Cozumel).

 

Love the pictures as well! :)

Thank you so much! You are going to have such an amazing time, I miss the Glory everyday!!

Alex, I have been enjoying your review for awhile now. My husband and I am sailing on the Glory myself in November. Can't wait to hear more about the rest of the trip!

Thank you so much for reading! Sorry for the late reply! But that's so cool you will be on the Glory! She truly is an amazing ship, and I just had lots of fun onboard, definitely a cruise I will never forget, such an amazing experience! Hope you guys have a very fun cruise!!

Hey all! I am back (again) and ready to work on some more of this review! I FINALLY just got a new laptop! I was using my brother's computer since mine broke a while back ago LOL! But now I finally have my own and I love it! I got a Macbook Pro if anyone was wondering, so now I can finally work on this and not deal with my old slow laptop anymore! I love this laptop, but just gotta get used to this keyboard! I got it today on my 18th birthday!! It's crazy I am 18 now like I still can't believe it! Also I am heading to Las Vegas on Sunday-Wednesday so I am stoked for that upcoming mini vacation!

Oh and update on next year's cruise! My lovely grandmom and I will be sailing on the Carnival Miracle on a 7 Day Mexican Riviera cruise with 2 days in beautiful Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Vallarta, plus the best part: 3 SEA DAYS! We chose this cruise because we wouldn't have to fly to FL and by saving on airfare, we will have more money in the budget to splurge on excursions and looks like on thus cruise we will be getting a BALCONY CABIN!! SO EXCITED! So there's my little update! Hope everyone is well and thank you to all of you who are still following along and being patient with me, can't wait to work some more on this review! It's almost time to write about my super fun day in St. Thomas! I will be back later on with some more of the review!

I'm so glad your back! This is such a cute and funny review. Also, your right, I don't know why some folks don't like formal nights. It makes things extra special. But different strokes for different folks I guess. That's why there's a buffet!

Aw thank you so much!! It's great to be back! And that's true, but the buffet isn't as fun as the MDR!!

Am going to have to go back and read this whole thread...great stuff - gets me excited for two weeks from now.

The pic of the lido from behind the waterslide made me laugh - good place to hang out and setup a wedgie cam!

Have a great and fun cruise!! And haha that's too funny!

This is an awesome review. Thank you!

Thank you for reading, lots more to come!

Actually I lied! I'll squeeze in another section before I head to bed! So on with the fun!

A Day at Sea Continued

So after lunch, I walked around the ship and just enjoyed everything! And despite my sunburns, I decided I wanted to go on the waterslide! And the views from the waterslide deck are just incredible!

Just look at that amazing blue water though, simply stunning and amazing!

So after some fun out on deck and on the waterslide, I headed on down to the cabin to relax and decided I was going to order some room service. It was around 4 o'clock ish and dinner wasn't till 8 and the buffet wouldn't be open till 6. So, why not order some room service, after all it's free and on my last cruise I didn't order since grandmom insisted I did not need to order any since the buffet had plenty of food. This cruise, I promised myself I would for the heck of it because when else can you order room service and not have to pay extra?? So room service it was! I ordered a BLT, Salad, Cookies, Juice, Cheesecake, I mean hey it's free!! Go big or go home LOL!

After around 30 mins or so, room service knocked on the door and my pre dinner had arrived! Tonight was going to be our 1st formal night of the cruise so gotta have something in my tummy before getting ready!

After my pre-dinner snack, I headed out on deck 10 aft to go watch the beautiful sunset, and sunsets at sea are the best, I cannot express how amazing it is to watch the sun go down while at sea, one of the best parts about being on a cruise!

Here's what I mean...

Amazing, I know! I Love this so much!

Sunsets at sea are amazing, I just can't express that enough, and so glad I had late dining so I was able to go out and enjoy all the sunsets, that would be something I could have possibly missed by eating at 6pm dinner.

After my time out on deck, it was time for me to head down to the cabin and get ready for our formal night! I was super excited because I love getting all dressed up fancy for formal night, I don't see why some don't like doing formal night, I find it pretty fun plus tonight me and my family were going to take some formal pictures as well, it was going to be a great night, so on that note...

Next up: Our first formal night of the cruise!

Now I am going to bed Lol! Hope everyone enjoys! Can't wait to share more soon with you guys!

Hey everyone! It's been while since I have posted, and I am so sorry I have not posted in a while! Finally on summer vacation and I guess I have been just too busy relaxing and watching Netflix all day, LOL but I am back and here to work some more on this fun review! Still going through some PCD, I kid you not I look at my cruise pictures everyday to live back the good days of this amazing cruise. But on with this review, I got lots of writing to do and tons of pics to show so bear with me haha!

So where did I last leave off on this? Oh that's right! Sea Day!!

Today was our first sea day (March 21) and we were enroute from HMC to the beautiful island of St. Thomas, but today was also a special day to my family and I, as it today was my grandpa's birthday. Not sure if I mentioned this, but my grandpa and I were super close and he passed away of Pancreatic cancer in 2013, but I continue to miss him each and everyday since he was super special to me and I miss him like crazy! One funny thing is I always tend to cruise during his birthday like last year (my first cruise) departed on March 21, 2015 so my grandpa's birthday is definitely a very special day and I know how much he would have loved cruising, he loved and admired the ocean very much, I think I get that from him haha!

Anywho, I LOVEEEE Sea days more than anything! Sure port days are fun, but during a sea day you just get to spend the entire day on the ship and just be able to be out on the ocean and just admire it, after all that is what cruising is all about, being out at sea, I just love that feeling so much and I love the ocean very much! Since this cruise our first day after leaving Miami was a port day, so we didn't get to really spend that first day on the ship, when normally you set sail from a port and have a sea day and then usually a port day after that, at least that's how my cruise last year was! ( actually we had two sea days after leaving LA on that cruise) But anyways (wow I ramble a lot Lol!) I was thrilled to have a day on the ship today because after today was going to be 3 port days in a row!

My favorite: Ham and Cheese omelet w/ bacon & hashbrowns..soooo delicious!

I forgot to mention! I got the WORST SUNBURN EVER after Half Moon Cay, I was super red and in excruciating pain, so being out in the sun that day was just super painful and burned like crazy! So today I was going to spend it inside the nice cool and air conditioned ship, no outside in the beaming sun out on lido today, sadly! And I was looking so forward to swimming and being out on lido relaxing, but silly me decided to get a horrible sun burn in HMC, but at least I wasn't alone because my aunt also got a horrible sun burn as well, so she was going to be my buddy today since we were both burnt and as red as the lobsters that would be served at tonight's formal dinner!

So since I was going to spend the day inside today, my aunt and I decided to head on up to the gym and workout a bit and burn off some calories from all that yummy food we have been indulging on these past 2 days!

I went down to my cabin and got changed for the gym, and luckily I came prepared with workout clothes and running shoes, last cruise I didn't even bother bringing any of that or even checking out the gym, LOL OOPS. The gym on the Glory was super nice and the best part about it, well the view!! Such an amazing view and being able to workout with the best view ever, such a great experience!

Gym with a view, I could really get used to this..

After a great workout, it was time for some lunch! I know it's bad I just burned all these calories on the treadmill only to go gain them again at the buffet, but hey I'm on a cruise and on vacation, plus there was chicken tenders at the buffet and I just can't say no to those!! So on to the buffet I went, I felt very guilty but how can one simply resist this plus a view like this..

As you can see, I love food, I'm a foodie!

Next up: More fun at sea!

Thanks everyone for keeping up with me and reading the review! You guys all mean a lot to me and I can't thank you guys enough for taking the time to read and post comments! I will for sure be working on this a lot more, I love sharing my experience and as much detail as I can to you guys! More on the way tomorrow!

Dear Alex, As you can see from my signature, I've cruised several times and I've been on Cruise Critic for several years. I've read many reviews and many other posts and thread and I have never before read anything written with such pure, wholesome JOY. I look forward to seeing your pictures of course but more than that I look forward to the JOY in your words. I pray you keep this wonderful outlook on life.:)

You just made my day! I am so glad to have someone enjoy my review so much, I just love cruising and writing about it just is something I enjoy very much! When you are passionate about something, writing all about it is a breeze, I just love cruising so much and this cruise was such an amazing and fun experience! Thank you so much for your kind words, they truly mean a lot to me and that's why I just love sharing my experience with everyone on here! I just can't thank you enough for your kind words, brought a giant smile to my face reading that and thank you sooo much for reading my review too!

Your review is awesome! I will be on the Glory on June 18, 2016! I can't wait!

Thanks so much! Wow that's in 2 days! Super excited for you! You are going to have the best time ever! Oh how I love the Glory!! So much fun!

I am LOVING this review! Your writing has a lot of voice, and it's a sweet one! Makes me happy you and your family had so much fun.

Awww thank you so much, your kind words just brought a huge smile to my face!! :) We had such a great time, and would do it all over again if I could, best vacation ever!!

Thank you for your review! We sailed the western itinerary on Glory in 2014. First cruise and we had a fabulous time!

You are very welcome!! Thank you so much for taking the time to read! More is on the way!

Please please please post some more!! Going on the Glory in September and so excited to see everything about her!! You are adorable by the way!!

Thank you so much, you are too sweet!:) More is on the way! You are going to have such an amazing time, I am telling you this has been the best cruise so far, and Glory will just always have a special place in my heart since she was my first Caribbean cruise and first cruise on Carnival as well, I am just super jealous you will be sailing on her very soon! If you have any questions about Glory, feel free to ask and feel free to watch my videos from my trip!

i'm going on the Glory in October and I'm incredibly excited reading this review!

You're going to have such a great time!! What itinerary will you be doing? I love that ship so much I'm so jealous!! I'm actually considering sailing on Glory again next year since the prices for the Vista are a little outta budget and I really want to do a Western on Glory next year, that's how you know it's a great ship when you won't hesitate to sail on her again, such a fun ship!

I love your enthusiasm!

Thank you so much!! :)

Great job on the video, and love the tunes. :) Going to grab those to add to my workout music. :D

Thank you so much!! Those videos took forever to put together and edit but I'm very happy with how they turned out, there's more videos on the way as the review progresses along! I love those songs too, they're very catchy and Everytime I listen to them now, I am reminded of this amazing vacation I got to go on! Thank you so much for also taking the time to watch the videos, means a lot!! :)

Hey Alex

 

Just a quick thanks for this review. I appreciate your genuine joy over each little detail. Now that I have a few cruises under my belt, I need to step back and appreciate those little things again like I did when I first started cruising. You arent a glass half full kinda guy...your glass is completely full! Makes me think that this is a lot better way to see things rather than sweating the small stuff...you were proud of your blue key...adorable!

 

Thanks again for keeping reality in perspective!

 

Rick

No problem! I love doing these reviews and sharing along my amazing experience that I had on this cruise, such a great time! I also love giving every detail so others can see what it was like! Thank you so much for reading along!

Alex, thank you so much for this review. It is refreshing to see young people enjoy the great things in life and to share those with your family. Congrats on your graduation and best wishes to you and your sweet Grandma! She is so lucky to have you!

You're welcome! Thank you!! And also thanks for reading along and for the support! Definitely means a lot to me and I appreciate your kind words! :)

Alex, glad to see you have already got your 2nd cruise under your belt!

 

 

 

I followed your Ruby Princess review last year so am coming along on this ride with you.

 

 

 

Keep it coming-and the more photos the merrier!

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

 

 

Norris

Thanks Norris for following along and finding this review, I love seeing my fellow friends who followed me along on last year's adventure follow me for this one too! Means a lot! More photos are on the way!

Loving your pictures and your excitement is contagious! I am not going on the Glory any time soon but truly enjoying this review.

Thank you so much and for taking the time to read! :)

More Pics!

Here are some more pics from HMC!

Half Moon Cay, wow is all I can say, that's just how amazing this place was, no private island in the Bahamas can beat HMC, it was AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL!! I will definitely go back, and this port was one of the highlights of the cruise, and my mom fell in LOVE with HMC!! She even said that her next Caribbean cruise HAS TO have a stop here, Haha!

More of the review coming up next!

Hope everyone enjoys the pictures and GoPro videos I've put together- plus I want to thank all of you for reading and being patient as I slowly put together this review, and thank you all so much for your kind comments, they mean so much to me! :D

Half Moon Cay I have arrived!!

After about an hour of waiting for our tender number to be called, it was finally time for us to proceed down to deck 0 and board our tender to paradise! I had waited soooo long to finally be living this exact moment in which I would finally be in HMC after seeing all these beautiful pictures and videos online of this place, and now I was finally here just a 10 minute tender ride towards paradise, I could not contain my excitement to finally hit the beach! As a California boy, our beaches here are nowhere near as nice as the Caribbean. Put it this way, the Caribbean makes our beaches here look like a dumpster, that's how dirty and murky our water is here, and after this trip going to the beaches here in California will just no longer be the same anymore for me, LOL!

I just love tender ports because of the great view you get of your ship, the last time I tendered was last year in Cabo. (Sorry for all the random people in my pics, it was a challenge to get a good shot on a rocky tender boat lol!)

So after a quick minute tender ride, we were finally in Half Moon Cay and omg it was amazing to finally be there!! It was a very hot day today, and that was good because the water was going to feel amazing under this humid Caribbean sun. The first order of business and most important of all- head to the beaachhh!! Today was going to be a beach day for us, no excursions for today. When we finally made it to the beach, my jaw dropped and I just could not contain all my excitement and I dropped everything and ran into the ocean, the beach here is probably the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life, no words can justify the beauty of HMC, omg is all I could say, this was PARADISE!

My whole family fell in love with Half Moon Cay and it was truly such an amazing day, and this was only our first port of call! 3 more ports after this and I was enjoying myself very much, I already knew this was going to be such an amazing week and cruise ahead! I also spent the entire day filming footage with my GoPro, and I will give you guys all the link to that video!

Please exucse the 3 minute gap of silence between 7:30-10:30-I had a song for that section but Youtube was being a pain with that so I had to take off that particular song off so they could leave me alone, so sorry about that but enjoy the video! I have videos for each part of this cruise so I will include the link to each as we go along!

Next up: More Pics and Heading Back on the Ship + I GOT SUNBURNED

Just found this review and I am loving it!!! Congrats on your graduation! My first ever cruise was on the Glory and was a gift from my grandmother (best gift EVER) for my high school graduation. I loved that ship and it got me totally hooked on cruising!

 

 

 

You really put your enthusiasm into words perfectly and I can't wait to read more. :)

Thanks for finding my review!! Hey we got a similar story haha both of us sailed the Glory with our grandma's!! This cruise was also a graduation gift for me too, and it's the best gift I could have ever asked for, such a fun cruise!! My addiction continues to grow with every cruise I go on, can't wait for cruise #3 next year! :)