sonicbuffalo

Carnival decorated pretty good today with the palm tree balloons and all since it was the big day for the naming ceremony and the Godmother of the ship ceremony.

Our first stop was to get upstairs and grab something to eat since it was 1:00 pm and all we had since this morning was the standard continental breakfast. This was what walking through the Lido Marketplace looked like with the sun-brellas, which brightened up the day a little.

The pool deck as we were trying to find Guy's Burgers. we finally gave up and ate at the Blue Iguana Cantina, which, we found out later, was on the far side of Guy's Burgers. What the heck did we know?

Looking down at the Atrium decorative lamps from the 11th or 12th deck

We drove down to Ft. Lauderdale a few days before the cruise and stayed pre-cruise and parked for the duration at La Quinta Inn near the Miami Airport. We had nice rooms, but I didn't take any pictures of the property or rooms. We figured it was a great place to stay since we could park for free and leave our car there for free for the duration. With that being said, here is the free shuttle ride driver taking us to the port on Saturday morning.

Downtown Miami with the sun peaking through the buildings.

Our first view of the Breeze as we headed to the port

It was a busy day inside the terminal as it was the day for the VIP's to board for the naming ceremony. We received our sail & sign cards right away, and as you will see, Ginny held onto our zone 6 card for boarding. We were there at the terminal at around 11:00 and onboard closer to 1:00 pm.

The lines at the counters never got too long considering the amount of guests sailing today.

This is my third attempt at posting the Breeze review. To make a long story short, I didn't like the size of the pictures using shutterbug, and ran out of space using Photobucket and deleted some pictures to make room for more.

This was before I decided to bite the bullet, since I'm a novice, and pay the $29.99 for 1 year of 20 GB storage. Now, thanks to Gambee, who published a brilliant review on the Allure that I read, I know how to downsize my own photos and will never have to pay the $29.99 again. Thanks Gambee for all your coaching me along the way. You are a bright star and I look forward to your review on your upcoming Norwegian Breakaway cruise.

Now, with all that out of the way, I just want to apologize, and you shouldn't have any problems viewing this review. Please bear with me as I got a little burned out the last 2 days doing the review the 2nd time. Thanks for all the compliments and I will now start posting.

My wife and I are both in our mid 50's, and this was our 4th cruise, all on Carnival, which you can see by my signature. We booked this cruise about 14 months in advance, and booked an aft extended balcony cabin. Now for the pictures.

Thanks for sharing your trips, itineraris and photos! We just celebrated our 20th, so most of our travel still includes our kids, (although we are lucky to have been able to do "just couple" trips also. I certainly hope we can travel like you and Ginny when we are celebrating 30 or more years! You are obviously so happy and enjoy your travelling times together...and your upcoming grandchild (maybe a grandkids cruise is in your future?!)

We'd love to do a grandkids cruise together....we're still trying to get our son to go with us on a cruise. We're hoping he'll change his mind and go with us but it's tough since he's in the Army. He's been in for 15 years and has 5 more to go to retirement.

Enjoying your multi cruise review. Your pictures are wonderful.

Thanks Melodie.....appreciate your compliments....might have to review this again with photobucket as the pictures are much larger.....considering it.

My Dear MIL has warned us about Cartegena and said she was scared the whole time she was there. She advised not to take a cruise that stops there. Is there any truth to this? Thanks!

We are going on the Dream Eastern It. in March so love your pictures. We have also been on the Miracle & Dream Western Itin. so really loved your pictures of the Miracle. Best wishes to you and your wife and hope you continue to celebrate your anniversary by cruising. We also took the 11 day trip you are taking on NCL but with some different ports. You all will really enjoy this cruise. We were on the NCL Dawn but on our very first cruise we were on the NCL Sun. Also agree with you about Bernard's tours in St. Maarten. We will be on his tour in March (3rd time) and he has the best tours in the Caribbean. Thanks for sharing with us. ;)

I appreciate your comments. You are so kind. It seems you really liked the Sun. It's still a difficult choice between the Sun and the Allure, but my wife loves Aruba and Curacao, so she wins! ;0

I really enjoyed your review....been to some of the islands, and lived in Puerto Rico for a year on the other side of the island from San Juan. Your pictures were great and I loved the fact that your camera was found. Here's hoping that you get to cruise a lot in the future as I can tell you really love it.

TY for the great review and the Wonderful pictures!! I saw some of the most

beautiful places thru you and Ginny! I was so happy to see

pictures of Grand Turk. Looks like it will be a fun beach day!

TY Purple Haze....loved Grand Turk...great day for relaxin'.....and here's hoping you have a wonderful time on your upcoming Breeze cruise....you'll love it.

Wish we were going again....but that's one reason we going on NCL next year.. so we can go to Aruba, Curacao, St. Thomas, St. Martin, and a new port for us in Cartagena.....we want to do it again we liked it so much!

Thank you for taking the time to post this. Really enjoying all your photos! We love the Miracle (were on her past 2 years) and also love all the islands you visited. I just relived some of my past cruises!:D Your wife is adorable! Glad you both enjoyed your vacation.

Thanks for the compliments! I'll tell Ginny she's adorable.....she really is a sweetheart! Glad you enjoyed the pictures and were able to travel on the Miracle too!

Awesome review! Love the picures! We are looking at these ports for a future cruise. Thanks so much for posting!

you really can't beat the ports we've been to unless you spend the big bucks and go to Hawai...we've seen most of the ports on the eastern and southern routes.....i would definitely recommend St Lucia and St. Martin.

Thanks for the review!

no problem Kirk.....thanks for checking this out!

Great start! Looking forward to the rest of your review and photos.

Thanks...........hope you got to come back and see the rest of the review(s).

I believe that's the old Celebrity Zenith (you can still just make out the "X" on the funnel); now just Zenith since she got transferred to Pullmantur. They are a small Spanish subsidiary of Royal Caribbean. Most of the outgoing RCI and Celebrity ships spend some time with them before being sold off for good.

Thanks Darth.....good info....appreciate it!

Loved the pictures and your comments. I agree that the Miracle is one of my favorite Carnival ships because of the whimsical decor.

 

Did you rob the cradle....can't believe you and your wife have been married for 35 years:eek: Congratulations

Believe it or not...we're the same age....she's always looked younger than her age....I just got lucky to have found her....she's an awesome lady.... thanks for reading....The Miracle is definitely our favorite ship although we liked the Dream and Breeze too because they're bigger and more room to walk around on deck 5. Ginny get's scared at night in the front of the ship while we're walking outside and there is no lights, which I'm sure is to help the bridge see the dark better (lol). More than anything we liked the itineraries the Miracle had to offer....ports we hadn't been to the 2nd time around. We also loved the Mad Hatter's Ball Room, and the Phantom Theater...with it's statues all around. The Breeze is pretty boring and is definitely NOT a WOW ship. Nothing at all really wow'ed me. It was new and going to a few places we hadn't been to though. I'm not going to complain, we pretty much got our money's worth. The Breeze is NOT our favorite ship though, by a long shot.

Final thoughts....we have enjoyed every one of our cruises...all for different reasons. Cruises are what you make them, and nothing could be farther from the truth. We've met people who we're still friends with...right Eileen? and Bob & Zelle, and Don & Jo?

That being said, I think I enjoyed our first cruise the best. The Miracle definitely had a wow factor, and the Dream did too. If we hadn't sailed on the Dream and Breeze, we wouldn't have had anything to compare the Miracle to. I love the Miracle, but have had enough of her for a while. We're ready to try different things. What we liked about the first tour was watching the islands lights at night on our balcony, and going to St. Lucia, St. Kitts, and St. Martin. Our favorite island is probably St. Martin, but we've loved them all. Curacao is one of our favorites because it just brightens up your day to see all the buildings in such rich colors. Ginny also loved shopping in Curacao, and I had to warn her not to miss the ship....she was getting carried away. I bought Ginny a sapphire and diamond 14k white gold ring for Christmas this year so now St. Thomas will have a special place in our hearts. We also loved Megan's Bay, and all the snorkeling adventures in Grand Turk, and especially Tortolla. In Antigua, we went snorkeling and did a little shopping but was disappointed in the shopping area. We probably just didn't go to the right spots.

Overall, we have just loved our cruises, and I would like to stop cruising, but I can't. We are expecting a grandchild in May, so we may be spending just a little bit more time on land going to see our grandson in El Paso. It's expensive to fly there, and so we might have to cut back on cruising as often. We've been lucky to go to most of the more attractive Southern and Eastern Caribbean islands, and if you can plan it that way, do it. We have, for the most part, cruised for the itineraries, and not so much the ships. We have just been lucky to have been able to go on the newest Carnival has had to offer. We will take an Eastern itinerary Allure of The Seas cruise in 2014, since we were originally going to do that this year until I found the 11 day NCL cruise going back to Aruba, Curacao, Cartagena, Columbia, where we've never been, and St. Thomas, and St. Martin, which we love.

My best wishes to all and I hope you find the cruises you're looking for. It's been my pleasure to have posted all these pictures, and I've loved going back through them. We've really been fortunate to have been to the places we've been.

If you have any questions about any of the ships, please ask, and I will respond. I will do my best to tell you about anything I have learned while researching our ports of call also. Take care, and I'll write and post more later. Thanks for taking the time to look at and read my posts and pictures.

Chris

A Memorial for Veteran's Day

Bob & Zelle, who we still stay in contact with via e-mail....great tablemates, and we loved having them eat with us every night. They were terrific!

stunning.....what a sunset!!

leaving Curacao and headed back to Ft. Lauderdale

this bartender was from St. Lucia

more shopping in Curacao

another busy day in port

Curacao and some beach time

what a mansion!

inside the Blue Curacao distillery

nice looking neighborhood...

look at the detail....in the carvings....you'd never find that nowadays...

a newer cemetery

walking into the distillery

we were driven down through an old Jewish neighborhood where the government was giving the owners so much money to renovate the old historical mansions. There were some overwhelming mansions that was magnificent