BIGA961

99 until a cove on the Horizon--I can't wait!!!

Cool, quick review, thanks!  Just booked this cruise for October, can't wait!!!

On 2/4/2019 at 2:45 AM, opensaysme said:

I have never experienced a balcony other than a cove so I have nothing to compare it to however, we really loved it! This was on the Dream. We loved being that close to the water! We could watch the flying fish and beautiful sunsets and sunrises with a great view of the horizon. The shape of the balcony does give you a cove feeling in a cozy kind of way. There are lifeboats up ahead that block the sun in a way that I can appreciate. I will share some photos that will reflect it in a beautiful way.

 

 By the way, in 2016 we didn’t have any issues with heat on the 2nd floor. It was quite cozy actually.

 

Thanks for these pics!  I just booked a cove on the Horizon for this fall, and every review showed pics of the cove from inside the room--which really didn't help much.  This looks awesome--I can't wait!!! 

The vibe onboard is contagious for these cruises.

I would agree with this. We were on either the Liberty or the Freedom when Chris Tucker had a show, and while we didn't attend, there was definitely a vibe onboard, and it felt like "an event"!

I haven’t experienced this either. On my last cruise on Freedom, I was amazed when a waiter who wasn’t ours, stopped by remembering me from my cruise on the Liberty 7 months earlier. She still remembered my name and my sons name—who wasn’t with me on the second one. I’ve always been impressed at how the Carnival staff have an amazing ability to remember names!

I booked the Triumph yesterday for next Monday, and it'll be a new class of ship for us. We've been on several of the Conquest ships several times, but of course they're all the same. What differences will we find, is the slightly smaller size noticeable either with the movement or in the layout?

10 days--booked it yesterday! Never did that before, can't wait for a quick trip to Mexico!

I was in one of these rooms on Liberty this past March. It was my first time sailing without a balcony, so I liked the window, even though you really can't see too much. I loved the access to the outside deck, but those doors were locked one of those days due to high winds.

The negatives were walking the length of the ship to get to the dining room or the aft pool area, but the biggest issue was how warm the room was! We begged for a fan, to no avail, and we shopped in Montego Bay and Costa Maya for one. Weed was easy to find, but no fans...😏 I'd probably book that room again, but not without packing a fan!

For our 10/22 cruise I started looking in April and it was sold out. I probably looked 2-3 times a week on average, and especially 75 days out when final payment was due, but nothing doing. It was finally available on 8/30, 7 weeks out. Good luck!

Can somebody say "Oops!"? Wonder if this is why Carnival raised the FTTF prices?

No, but I'm sure they're glad they're only servicing the rooms once a day and they eliminated the chocolates--that's called foresight!!!:D:D:D

Your wording is a little ambiguous, but if I understand you correctly, you're asking if we'd rather take one 7 day cruise on a Dream-class ship or two 5 day cruises on older, smaller ships. I have only been on Conquest class ships, but I would definitely say that for the same money, I would rather go on two separate cruises. That would be twice as much time spent dreaming and planning, only have 6 months between trips, and three more days...it's a no brainer for me. I think I'd like the large ship better, but not that much better.

580 days until cruise

 

Well today is 5 months to Christmas, and 1 year and 7 months until our cruise sets sail!!

 

The cruise planning has kind of died down the last few weeks. Summer is just so busy, and here in Ontario so short. We are always out doing something. So the cruise planning is going to wait for the most part until the fall. I will still lurk these boards to see what I can learn. Come the fall I will still have a good 500 days to plan so that should be enough.....

You don't want to procrastinate:D:D:D

We booked the cruise we're going on next week over a year ago. At first the time goes very slowly, but that's OK 'cause I don't want to wish my life away. However, the last three months, when you're making the list of what goes in the suitcase, and what arrangements you need to make for the house/cat sitters, and what you have to shift over to someone else at work, fly by like Christmas morning. Suddenly, it's two days before you leave and you think you might have a heart attack from the anticipation, the excitement, and the "What am I going to forget???" worries. But vacations with your kids make such awesome memories. I'm sure you're all going to have blast!

 

That's one thing I made sure to do when my kids were growing up... take them on vacations, short and long, spontaneous and well-planned. We called them "adventures." Sometimes our adventures were a few hours long, sometimes a week or two. They were not always grand or expensive, but they were time together seeing new places and doing new things and being goofy together. Eventually, I bought a timeshare so we'd pretty much have to take a "real" one week vacation each year, even if it was to spend a week on the beach that was 20 minutes away. We also took vacations where we spent a night here, a night there, and worked our way through a few neighboring states by staying at cheap (sometimes a little scary, ha-ha!) motels. We've done cars, trains, planes, and some years ago, I took them on their first cruise. We have so many wonderful memories, and it's fun to reminisce about the places we've been, the things we've seen, and funny things that have happened on our vacations. They can still crack me up when they talk about the "mustard drill" [sic] on their first cruise. Just make sure to take lots and lots of photos... not just the posed photos, but also the casual, candid shots when you can capture the kids in wonder of what they're seeing and experiencing. A tip on this... the scenery shots seem really cool at the time, but they've been taken a million times by a million people, and other than posting them on FB to make others jealous, they don't mean a whole lot later on. Make sure that most of your pics have someone in your family in them. Those shots make much better memories.

 

Great family adventures (vacations) can really plant the seed for inspiring future adventures as the kids grow up and on their own. Warning: You may be creating future cruise addicts, ha-ha! My kids were definitely bitten by the travel bug. One majored in Hospitality Management in college and is the general manager of a timeshare resort. The other quit her job as a high school counselor and has been traveling the world with her husband (a sci-fi writer) as a travel blogger. Right now, they're on a Viking River cruise along Portugal. Wonder if they had a "mustard drill" before they left port....

Good stuff! I think of family vacations as investments, and the incredible memories are the dividends down the road. The other day I decided to keep a journal of our vacations, and I listed everything that we'd done over the years, or at least I thought I had. It seems that I had forgotten the overnight and weekend trips--and they were very valuable in the minds of my kids! My kids are 17 and 19 now, and we're about 6 weeks from the empty nest, so my advice is to make memories with them while you can!

Hey canadaman111, I can't tell you how much I love this post! I'm the planner and I tend to overplan, and I love your spirit! Drive or fly, the point is getting there, and even with the worst case scenario and there's a storm, you seem to have plenty of time built in to overcome such a thing.

Regarding the best place to do the ocean, honestly I'd probably do a beach day at both Montego Bay and Cozumel. I wouldn't try to do Dunn's River Falls from MoBay, simply because you're looking at riding a bus for a couple hours, and after your drive to the port and then being on the ship for 2 days, your tribe is going to want to get in that sea they've been looking at for a couple days! Doctor's Cave Beach in MoBay is really nice, safe, and it's easy to access. There are busses that go directly from the port to that beach, and it costs $6 or $7 per person each direction. Dunn River Fall's is really nice if you get rerouted to Ocho Rios, which is what my October cruise did, but I wouldn't try doing that from the other side of the island.

Good luck, I can't wait to follow your ramblings!

I love this post so much! I'm a frugal traveler myself--which is the only reason I'm able to travel--and a m confident you'll make the connections with your attitude. The worst case if the airline craps out on you, you can jump in cars and 13 hours later you'll be in The Big Easy! Good luck and be sure to report upon your return.

You have to want to see your neighbors, it's pretty private. You mostly see them if you're both hanging over the rail at the same time.

We had the exact same experience with breakfast on the Grand Cayman day, except that we arrived exactly at 9:00, and they wouldn't seat us! Kind of odd I thought...

I was just on the Liberty and I purchased the Value plan, $60 for all week, and there's no way it would have been anywhere close to fast enough for streaming anything. A couple times I was able to do FaceTime, but it was spotty.

We always do late dining, and I don't feel like we miss much--if anything. On the Liberty, the first comedy show is at 7:30, so almost every night we would go to comedy and then directly to dinner. Our Love and Marriage show was at 10:15, so it wasn't a problem making it. The movies started at 10:00, so it was perfect to go from dinner to the movies. I've thought about Any Time Dining, but I don't want to wait, and I like the same servers every night...it just depends on your personal style.

Hey Stormy, I'm sorry I never met you on the cruise, but I'm glad to see that you're reviewing it. I'll look forward to see how your perspective differed from mine. So far, I agree about the ship being beautiful and the American Table being good--I love the water! I also saw the dolphins--very cool! Our opinion about the comedians was exactly as yours, although yours is stated more graciously...we thought a couple of them sucked! Our dinner service was pretty quick, we had late seating in the Gold dining room. Following along.

Just off the Liberty for 8 day was $60 for value, and $99 for the premium, both for all week. My cabin was all the way at the front of the ship, and it barely worked there. Pretty good in the Library and the Sport's Bar. I was able to switch easily between my iPhone, iPad, and Macbook.

Remember this is all of Carnival Corp's cruise lines. And while to us the $$$ look like a lot it's only 1% below 2014. And folks it's the fuel costs, not the cutbacks, driving the lower expenses. Plus, despite all "The Bern's" ranting and finger shaking, profits are good. They aren't "greed". They typically get plowed back into the company or distributed to shareholders (like your pension funds and 401k funds).

True story!

So BigA from Arkansas....who are you pulling for?

I'm a new Arkansan, originally from Indianapolis, so I'm going for the Big 10 (or 14) champions INDIANA HOOSIERS!!!

Yes they show the games.

Yes they have TBS and TNT.

DH prefers to watch a lot in our cabin but sometimes goes to the sports bar if he feels his teams are winning and wants go root for them in a crowd.

Cool, thanks! Does anyone know if they ever have any tournament related pools going onboard?

I'm booked on the Liberty leaving the first Friday of the NCAA Tournament and I'm wondering if they'll be showing the games in the Sport's Bar. I know that I've watched NFL games on CBS in there before, so I'm hoping they'll at least have the CBS games. I've never seen TBS or TNT on there, does anyone know if they ever have those channels? We have two straight sea days, so I'm really crossing my fingers that I can watch hoops!