Stacie.

I found this when I googled, it says it is from 2013. http://www.beyondships2.com/carnival-paradise-menus.html

I was on a five day western Caribbean cruise on the Paradise in Nov. 2016 and remembered to take a picture of the menu twice and can post that if you'd like me to.

12 hours ago, auburn77 said:

We have never been forward before, but will be on our next cruise on the Glory. we will be above the theater, but in 7220. Will the noise from the theater reach us?

I doubt it. You'll have a floor of just cabins in between you and the theater. 

The Hub app worked well for us. Previously we had used walkie talkies (turned on low) and they were okay but clunky and if a kid shut it off there was no way to get a message to them. I love that the Hub app shows if the message has been seen by the person. We had 26 in our group and most of us had the app and as long as you left it running in the background you were fine. 

We were on deck 6 on the Glory, right above the Amber Palace. We definitely heard the shows through the floor. I used my white noise app on my phone and it drowned it out when I cranked the volume up a bit. Most evenings we stayed up late enough that we only caught the tail end of the shows as we were getting ready for bed but if you're an early to bed type of person that needs a quiet room I would encourage you to switch rooms. 

I was at Tropicante in November 2017 and I can vaguely remember shelves of books, but for some reason I was thinking they were brought mostly by cruise passengers and left with Steve? I could be totally off there. We took the shuttle thing, I think it was just a couple bucks a person (there were 26 of us in our group) for the ride there. 

On 2/22/2019 at 9:55 AM, pyropoodle said:

also, I believe there is a CVS at the port that sells them, so probably cheaper than the ones at the fort as well.

The CVS was crazy busy when I was there a few weeks ago. There were four ships in port and it seemed like half the people on the ships were waiting to be checked out at CVS. 😉 I popped in and walked right back out. So if it's really busy it might be more worth it to buy at the fort. We didn't have that much time there and I didn't want to waste 30 minutes waiting in line. Maybe I just hit it at a busy time. 

One was a room key and one was my sign and sail card. I just clipped them both on my lanyard so they were both accessible. We were on the 6th floor. I haven't had a cove balcony so I don't know how the dividers are built. I attached a picture of our balcony. The blue chair in the middle of the picture is sitting where the divider was. There is a metal pole that the divider was attached to next to the railing. 

Just to let you know...in Old San Juan there really aren't street signs. The street names are on the corners of the buildings. It took us a little while to figure that out. 😉 

We had a similar room setup, except it was 2 adults and 5 kids. We had two balcony rooms right next to each other. We dropped off our luggage and went straight to guest services and got a room key for me and a room key for the kid I was switching with. We were on early enough that there was no line and it literally took less than five minutes. We also asked our room steward about removing the divider between our balconies and he had a maintenance team there within 15 minutes to do it. This way we could go back and forth in between our rooms using the balcony and not have to mess with keys. Had I known they would do it so quickly we could've just skipped guest services all together. 

I put mine on a lanyard but keep it in my cross body purse I carry around everywhere that has chapstick, phone, small bottle of sunscreen, etc in it. The lanyard makes it easy to pull out quickly and when we're in the room I hang it up on a hook. I wore the lanyard all the time on my first cruise and had weird tan lines. I only wear my purse when walking and the rest of the time it's under my lounger so no more weird tan lines.  

The twins will be in Circle C together and the older two girls will be together in Club O2. At the very least, take them to the orientation at each club the first night and get them signed up. They can choose to not visit the club at all after that if they don't want to but it at least gives them the option to hang out there if they want to. The club leaders are usually really great and they do fun things like scavenger hunts, dance off competitions, lip sync battles, crafts, games, etc. My kids have made friends with kids on each cruise we've gone on. It's a great way to meet kids from all over the world. My DD14 had a blast on our last cruise with a girl from England and they still send each other Instagram messages with their little inside jokes. 🙂

Kiss on the Lips!

We cruised the first week in February with friends. We have 15 kids among the three families. Since there were not many other kids cruising at that time the kids clubs were fairly empty. We brought a friend with for my DS15 who is 14 but will be 15 in April. They had no problems switching him from Circle C to Club O2. There were probably about 12 teens in O2 and six of them were from our group. They also bumped up my 11 yo to Circle C with no problem and I'd guess there were about 20 kids total in Circle C. Both leaders mentioned that since there weren't many kids on board the clubs were not crowded and that's why they were able to bump them up. We were cruising with the same friends a few years ago and there were a lot more kids on the ship and they wouldn't bump their DD up into the next group of Camp Ocean. It wasn't a big deal because she was still with her older brother in Camp Ocean, just in a different section of the room. 

I stayed on the forward starboard side (6247) but walked through that hallway a few times and didn't smell any smoke. In fact the only place it was overwhelming was walking past the casino to ClubO2. As far as noise goes, there were not that many teens on the ship when we cruised and anytime we'd pop in to check on our teens it was pretty quiet in there. Our cabin was right above the Amber Palace and we did hear the shows through the floor but our white noise app canceled it out. I'd imagine being above Club O2 would be quieter than listening to an hour of rock or Cubano music.

47 minutes ago, robertlanajean said:

We are usually suckers for nachos . are you saying they were sh!tty or is that just what they're called? 

 

That's what they were called, they were advertised as the special on the chalkboard. I can't attest to the taste or quality as the teenage boys wolfed them down almost immediately as I enjoyed my conch fritters. 😉

Due to airline issues we did not arrive in Miami the day before our cruise as originally planned--we had to stay overnight in Washington DC so the airline got us on the first flight to Miami which was at 6 am the day of the cruise. We got into the Miami airport around 9:30 am, decided to just go to the port and sit around until our 12:30 appointment. Our shuttle got us there at 10:30 or so and they just sent us on through the line and we boarded the ship before 11 am. The kids were wolfing down Guy's burgers by 11:30. 😉 

26 minutes ago, canes20 said:

Once they are down, they do not stay down. The steward will put it down at night and up in the morning. You can also do it yourself.

It must depend on the steward or ship. On one of our cruises (interior room with 2 Pullman and two twins shoved together) they were stowed during the day. On another cruise (balcony rooms so one Pullman and one couch along with two twins shoved together) they were left down. I would imagine if we had asked our steward to put them up during the day he would've but it really didn't bother us and I didn't want to make more work for him.

Just talk to your room steward and ask him to leave it shut, tell him one kid will sleep with you and one will sleep on the couch. They will be happy to oblige! 

1 minute ago, pacruise804 said:

 

Thank you for the first hand account.  When I was at Jack's Shack I didn't see the road (I didn't walk around the "back" of Jack's - which I consider the front) so I didn't know how close the road got to the beach.  I have seen beaches that were "downhill" from the road and did have stairs.  I've seen others that even if the road to the beach was flat, it was still a significant walk from where cars can drive/park (I was being mostly sarcastic about driving on the beach) and where you can access the beach.

 

When we were at HMC we stayed away from the crowds and it was a steep climb from the beach to the road for the restrooms.  I'm glad to read that someone with mobility issues can easily access the beach with a cab.

You could also rent a golf cart and drive around the island, (check out the island, drive to the lighthouse, etc), then park it at Jack's Shack and hang out there until you're ready to head back.

14 hours ago, MidWestChill said:

 

Do you recall what months?  Wondering if some are known to be windier then others.  We are there in less then 2 weeks!  (hopefully)

We were just there on Thursday Feb. 7th and it was gorgeous. I hope you're able to make it!

We were in GT on Thursday with Glory. I'm so thankful for these boards because I knew about the beach chair/umbrella thing ahead of time and I also knew about Jack's Shack. Hubby was a bit dubious when I told him to keep walking but we were one of the first people to arrive at Jack's Shack and set up way off to the side. Once more people started showing up it was still not crowded and definitely not like the beach by the ship. We had 15 kids on our group and they had a ton of room to snorkel, swim, and play in the sand. We rented two umbrellas and the guy set them up so we had maximum coverage for all of our chairs. I didn't think the drinks/menu were out of line at all. We got off the ship at 11 so we just made sure everyone ate before leaving the ship and around 2:30 or so we got conch fritters, cracked conch, hot dogs, and sh!tty nachos to share for our family of 7, plus hubby and I each got our free rum shot, I got a sandy vagina, hubby got a Turk's Head beer, and each of the five kids had a virgin reef wrecker and that held us over until we got back on the ship. With our food and drink purchases and gift shop items (tshirts, magnets, etc) our tab was around $200, and then $10 for our umbrella. We brought a package of greenies for Topher and Calypso and the stray dogs and my kids were in heaven. My teen boys enjoyed snorkeling with our snorkeling gear and thought it was super cool to see some barracudas. We only had a woman come around trying to sell necklaces and when we politely told her no thank you she left us alone and that was it. A huge improvement over any place we've been in Mexico and less crowded than 7 mile beach at Grand Cayman.

For about $30/person we got food, drinks, tshirts, chairs and umbrella, a wide open beach without people smoking all around us, and a wonderfully relaxing time. Once again, so thankful for these boards so I wasn't stuck at the crowded beach being heckled. 

I don't have to plan it, make it, or serve it and there is enough of a selection that I can always find something I like, so I disagree with OP. 

I'm not a heavy drinker, rarely drink soda, and mostly drink tap water and coffee at home. I'm perfectly fine with the two bottles of wine DH and I bring onboard (he doesn't drink wine so it's all for me), he orders a beer in the MDR probably two or three nights, and I will order one fruity drink at the poolside on the sea days. DH tried the same fruity drink as I did one day and didn't like it so I had two fruity drinks and felt not great...so yeah, I'm a lightweight. We'll bring on enough soda for the kids to each have one can a day which is a treat for them, and the rest of the time they'll have lemonade, which is also a treat for them as they usually just have milk or water at home. I spent a whopping $30 on alcohol on our last cruise, DH spent about the same, one of the kids had a shake at Johnny Rockets (RCL), and one daughter bought a $15 bracelet at a gift shop. Clearly we're big spenders 😉

Four days until we board the Glory. Can't wait as we have projected wind chill temps of -81 tonight. School is closed today and probably tomorrow due to the temperature so the kids are getting their vacation homework done and getting in a mini vacation before the vacation! 

Slight hijack...is the price of a virgin drink (ordered either at Alchemy or elsewhere on the ship) the same price as it's alcoholic counterpart?