Cruisin'Trooper

Background - Platinum CCL travelers and CCL Stock Holder. Spring Break cruise for my wife, son, and I. Picked this cruise since it would be the first voyage after its Dry Dock.

Arrival - We are FL locals so we arrived at the Port at 10:45am. Parking was off the chain since there were 7 ships in port (CCL, Disney, NCL, Celebrity, & Oceania). Organized chaos basically as thousands of people were coming and going and most had no clue how to get from their parking spot to their ship with luggage due to the 6 ships on our side of the port and the 1 across the highway.

We walked right in to the Terminal and went to the Platinum/Diamond lounge where we found about another 500 passengers. The computers were down so they had to manually check us in which did not work. So the lady took our boarding passes and sent us to the ship w/o the photo being taken. Upon entry to the ship they were ticked off that we did not have a photo and security had to do it on their end. For whatever reason the photo did not take and every time we made a purchase on board they denied the transaction due to the photo issue. Each time we had to go to Guest Services to get our picture made and each visit there resulted in the same comment "Your picture is there, I don't know why they cant see it ...." This got old about the 20th time - we quit making purchases .... their loss".

Ship - Well ..... I guess we expected visions of grandeur since she is fresh out of dry dock - that's our fault. We also were told a number of different things that they would be doing to the ship (mostly by CCL personnel) so that had our expectations high.

We had a balcony cabin on the Upper Deck. The room was very dusty, damaged furniture, filthy balcony (they did clean it on day 5), soiled cushions, and the mattresses and sheets were not new (this was validated by our steward). Bathroom showed signs of wear and light fixtures were covered in dust.

Common areas of the ship were dirty as well, many soiled cushions on chairs, broken fixtures throughout ship, and broken tiles in lobby, lido, etc. We did notice that the carpet was new in the shops and the casino tables seemed to have new felt .... so much for an immaculate ship fresh out of dry dock.

In the middle of the night, we were woke up to the PA system alerting crew to close water/air tight doors on 0, 1, and 2. Then an announcement from the Captain over and over advising of "some smoke" down below in an electrical panel. Later from others on 1 & 2, the smoke was super thick in some parts of the deck and the smell of burning oil/fuel was noticeable. Fire, smoke, whatever - made for an unnerving morning until we docked in Honduras and we could see daylight.

Ports of Call -

Cozumel, Belize, and Honduras were nice and we did an excursion in each port that was nice.

Costa Maya was skipped due to winds and waves and then the following announcement that we were returning to Cozumel for a passenger that needed medical attention. 6 hours later we arrived in Cozumel and were informed by the CD on the PA and I quote "As you can tell we are back in Cozumel but we are not going to stop since the passenger that needed medical attention has died so we are going to continue our trip back to Miami and your Fun Times is back up to date at this time". Thoughts and prayers to the family of this passenger.

Food - The lido was not as good as it normally is. Bland and no flavor for most part in everything. The lines went quickly for everything and it never felt too crowded due to the special Splendor layout.

MDR food was okay too, not bad but not great. Traditional CCL menu is still on the Splendor. They have not received the new American Table menu yet.

Entertainment/Talks - The 80s show was good. Majority of the cast probably wasn't born yet, but they did a good job. No more live bands, so the canned music was fine for this production but probably lacking in other CCL shows company wide.

The Future Cruise talk was informative and the CCL travel agent did a very good job.

The Platinum/Diamond cocktail party was nice. They did a good job with a little video and some light hors devours and drinks.

Disembarkation - We arrived back in Miami at 6:30am and the Platinum/Diamond folks were off the ship at 7:20am. It was nice to see that they docked at a terminal closer to our car and not the terminal we left out of :-) There were a total of 4 ships in port this morning (CCL, NCL, Celebrity, and Aida) so it probably wont be as chaotic for passengers today.

DRY DOCK DISAPPOINTMENTS - Just a quick list of what was not there and what not to expect. I only mention them since CCL personnel and other web sites claimed that this stuff would be there.

No Guys Burgers or Blue Iguana Cantina

No Water Works

No American Table or American Feast menus

The ship IS NOT as fresh and clean as you'd expect :-(

All in all, its nice to get away and we are blessed to be able to cruise!

Spa and gym area seems to be complete. Looks like it is fully operational

Consider your cabin lucky then. We do not have anything new (balcony cabin on Upper deck) and linens were not replaced according to Herri our steward.

On her now.

For a ship out of dry dock you really can't tell.

Soiled cushions here and there. Broken decor in lido. The cabins are same - steward advised that nothin g was done in regards to new linens etc.

Decks around pool, slide, and golf are in poor shape.

None of the anticipated food choices were installed either.

Nobody ??:(

Been to Freeport about a dozen times and never get off the ship. Now that our son is old enough, we'd like to rent a wave runner in Freeport.

Any advice or suggestions as to where to go or who to go with?

With the aft balconies being so popular, I thought it'd be fun to start a thread with pics of aft, aft-wraps on different ships.

 

I'll start with the Ecstasy E244

 

 

 

 

 

Just booked E244 on the Ectasy for May - it was great to see the pics!

 

st. Thomas at night

incredible!

APDMOM - We'll be on her this Saturday (the 16th) - hope you can snap some pics of me waving from our upper deck starboard aft balcony!!

I've gotten mine stamped in Nassau, Hell in GC and Grand Cayman!

 

Don't know why I only have the picture of Nassau though.

 

 

 

Where in Nassau is the guy who stamps the passports?

Keep it going folks - best thread ever!!!!!!!1

Best Thread Ever!!!!!!!!

Lets keep it going!!!

There is a story that goes with this picture. At 41 my sister had a major stroke. To save her life they had to do surgery and as a result, take out about 1/3 of her skull....it stayed safe in her belly for over a year (because she had a staph infection post op they did not want to put it back too soon) while she recovered. At her most critical moment in the ICU, I held her hand and told her if she would only open her eyes I would take her anywhere in the world she wanted to go....her eyes flew open (the first of many miracles!), and as soon as she came off the ventilator she requested we go on a cruise. So in late April this year, almost 2 years after her stroke, we boarded the Legend with our mom, our other sister, two nieces and my sisters’ best friend. My sister wanted to swim with the dolphins more than anything else, so I scheduled the Royal Swim. Although VERY skeptical when we arrived, given my sisters physical limitations, the staff agreed to "let her try”. This picture was taken during the foot push.....what you can't see are the six women standing in the water watching her, laughing and crying at the same time. Since this day, my sister has continued to recover, expanding her horizons daily; because this moment in time renewed her confidence and made her realize that ANYTHING is possible!

 

 

 

Just goes to show you that everything is possible and MIRACLES exist!

This is the best picture in my opinion!