seashinesunshine

It's been almost a year since we were last on the Glory. Does anyone know if they still offer free Zumba classes?

 

Also, is Everson Bevelle still the cruise director? I couldn't tell for sure from the list on John Heald's Blog.

 

Thanks! :)

I think he is, can't remember what his name is, but I think he called himself Rev Dr E or something like that. Really annoying with a Chow Chow double Chow on his announcements. He did a good enough job though.

Thanks for sharing. Going on the Glory in April.... I was going to ask what kind of camera you use, but if your DH is a professional photographer, its a mute point. LOL

 

Was there suppose to be a link to the first and 2nd cruise of your B2B? I think they were the same..........just don't want to miss it if there is another one :D

We had 11 cameras with us. My hunny used mostly the Canon 6d and the canon m for these, those are the cameras he carried around the ship. I use a Panasonic FZ70. Everyone here is telling me they can tell which ones are his cuz his are so much better. Oh Well. :D My food ones are the ones that start after the one of the 4 kids sitting at the table in the Guys Burgers area.

I did put the link to the other 2 videos I made but I will put them here again one is from

week one Jan 3rd

then the second week is Jan 10th

I am planning to make a video of our actual video clips too, but that will take longer to edit. I will post on CC when it's done. I love watching other peoples cruise videos.

It all looks good to me. Your photos look like they came out of a food magazine. I agree the short ribs are great and the sea day brunch has become a must do for us.

 

I can pretty much eat anything and my blood pressure, cholesterol and waist all show it.

 

Thanks for posting.

Thanks, my husband is a professional photographer, I am pretty proud of his abilities, of course, he says his are the good one, some of the pics are mine. ;) But when you have such a great subject to shoot, its so much more fun!

Boneless short ribs oh yeah lol.

 

Thank you for explaining the bacon on the side with the mac and cheese, we loved the punch liners breakfast. ;)

 

Yes, I always find something, beef, vegetables, rice and potato.

 

Carnival is great with diet restrictions and my waiter always watches out for what I can and can't have, but I sure wished they made another type of dessert it was always the chocolate melting cake gluten free each night, would be nice even to have something else, but it goes with the territory.

 

hahaha laughing here glad you skipped Guys burger fries, as for having burger or two its a cruise vacation so why not its not that you have them all the time, but for me, my insides be wanting to rip out. lol My sister just loves burgers that the grease runs down her arm lol.

 

Thanks for answering and so glad you had a great cruise.

I think there is always a fruit plate for dessert. That is another option. :) I can't have watermelon so the fruit plate is out for me. Even if my fruit touches watermelon I regret it. Otherwise it looked great!

Have Fun on Your Cruise!

Beautiful work and photos thank you.

 

I do have to admit, the only piece of meat for dinner that looked decent was that one steak appeared to look like a NY strip, the fried chicken, meatloaf, short ribs did't look like anything we would eat how did it taste? The presentation is very well done considering they are serving thousands of people at the same time. Desserts always looked great in fact we found them to be the best over RC desserts.

 

I noticed one photo had the macaroni and cheese and a side order of bacon did you ask for the bacon on the side?

 

Unfortunately I have to be both gluten and dairy free so it appears there isn't much at all for me to eat in the MDR ugh!

 

The portions may look small to many, but that is just enough for us as we eat that much for dinner.

 

I thought the tables looked very nicely varnished and I can understand not having the table cloths.

 

Guys burgers photos got my tummy rumbling I can't even imagine eating that, the fries looked so greasy and the burger ugh...1800 calories and high fat for sure, perhaps that is why people think they tasty, for me, my intestines would twist inside out. lol

The short ribs were amazing! They were boneless and just fell apart when the fork touched them. The filet Mingnon (spelled wrong i'm sure ) was really good. The fried chicken was good, but along the KFC lines, nothing special. I didn't have the meatloaf.

The mac n cheese with the bacon on the side was from the sea day brunch. It still had bacon in it, but I had ordered bacon on the side. The mac n cheese was pretty inconsistent as to how much bacon it had. Some had a lot, some not so much some was mixed in, some was just on top. My kids (age 17 and 19) still drool when they talk about it, they loved it.

Being Gluten and Diary free you should find something every night. There are a lot of choices and there are seafood as well as steaks etc. The veggies were always really good and crisp, not overdone. Make sure you tell your server and they will help you. I don't have a food allergy, but do have some sensitivities and when they brought me something I couldn't eat, my waiter was very quick to change it and checked with me after that every night to make sure I could eat it. We had an awesome waiter our second week.

The portions do look, small but we were stuffed every night. Sometimes the guys asked for and got two entrees.

The Guys burgers are SO good, yes big and greasy and I don't want to know the calorie count, :D But I did skip the fries, I just asked for none, way too much food for me. and the fries were not always as fresh and hot as I would like them.

I don't want to bore people to much but if you are interested here are a few more links to my slide shows of the Glory Cruise. I know when I was waiting for my cruise, I enjoyed watching other videos.

There is so much talk on here about food, esp since the new menus came out. When we were on our b2B Glory cruise Jan 3rd and Jan 10th 2015 we made an effort to take a lot of food pictures to share. Here is a link to the video we made. 10 minutes of food, 2 minutes of towel animals.

Yes, we are geeks for taking food pictures, its ok, we know that. :D Some look like repeats since we were using a few different cameras and we stayed on 2 weeks. It sure was nice the second week to know what was good and what was great! BTW, the short ribs~ WONDERFUL!!!

The towel animals are just so cute! One day, my husband got up early and walked around and came across an entire zoo full of towel animals all around the pool.

Happy Cruising!

while we were on our last cruise, earlier this month, in our home town there was a school bus train accident. My mom had called the cruise line to get us the message before my kids saw it on the news, a friend and a teacher were killed in the accident. The care and compassion we received from Carnival was amazing, they let us call home twice and the rest of the week asked us if we needed anything and if we were ok.

Was there a reason why the ship was late into San Juan and missed Grand Turk?

 

Oops, I mean itinerary

We were not late to San Juan and didn't miss Grand Turk. But I heard people talking about the Sunshine missing a port, maybe that was them?

On our first sea day back we diverted again to San Juan to drop off someone with a medical emergency, I heard it was a 2 year old with a broken arm, it didn't affect us in anyway. A coast guard cutter came out to meet the ship to make the transfer.

Our first week starting the 3rd, we had to divert for about an hour in the middle of the night for a search a rescue after some flares were spotted. The said the coast guard released us from the search after 45 minutes. We were late getting to Grand Cayman that day, but we stayed in port an extra hour to make up for it.

im looking at the port of Miami webcam and I swear I see damage at the front of the ship starboard

I tried to follow this, but got lost. If this helps, we just got off the Glory yesterday Jan 17th, 2014 and there were no incidents that would cause damage, we didn't collide with anyone, and the 2 weeks we were on her were really fun. They were doing some work to the floor however, it seemed like they were redoing some of the floor tiles, not sure what that is all about. :D

Right after we docked in Miami about 715 am or so, there was a code bright star, I believe at the aft, when we went up to the lido to eat, the aft was closed off and there were Miami Dade Police on board. Not sure what that was about but Code Bright Star is a death or medical emergency, so I pray everyone is ok.

My hubby and I will be in San Juan in January and plan on visiting the Forts and Santa Maria Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery. But most importantly we are both foodies! What's your favorite places to experience authentic cuisine? We are hoping to have breakfast, snacks and lunch while in port!

Thanks y'all!

We loved Vaca Brava, not really PR food, but it is an Argentinian type of steakhouse. Really good burgers, about 10$ pp, but they had platters of ribs and stuff that they serve family style that looked amazing!!!! Really cool building too.

And the ice cream type of stuff that the street vendors sell is SO good, I don't usually buy street food, but this is not to miss.

Of course, my daughter's absolutely favorite place in eat in OSJ is the Burger King. :D Its fine for Burger King, but skip that and have that at home.

Thanks so much everyone! My husband was wondering if they would provide one, but I think as you advise, even though sometimes it might work, they may not always have one so we will bring one. I guess we should also go shopping for a new one. Most of our cords are pretty old and should probably be replaced anyway. I will pack it with the machine, just in case someone questions it. I wonder if airlines care about them? I know we are allowed to carry them on and it doesn't count as a carryon, but what about cords, the airlines don't seem to like electronics. I guess we will pack it and if they take it, we will just buy another one.

I did not know they were allowed on Carnival. :) Good to know, just when I think I know it all about cruising, something new come up.

Side subject, you would not believe the dance I had to do to get my insurance to fill my medicine scrip early. It isn't due until Jan 10th and they wouldn't fill it early!!! It's not even that important of a drug. The fourth person my pharm talked to finally came thru and approved a vacation waiver. I mean really what am I supposed to do? Find a place in Mexico to fill it?? Oh well, I got it now. :)

Has anyone had experience with bringing and extension cord for a Cpap machine? I know they don't allow ext cords but since it is needed for the machine will they have to allow it? The machine cord can't reach from the bedside table to the pillow.

TIA

:)

I need a primer for SJ. Never been there.I'm looking at maps, trying to organize my thoughts and plans. Help me get started please.

 

Is OSJ the area around the fort? It looks that way since the roads looks small and close together. And, well, it's near a fort ;)

 

I'm looking at maybe cruising out on the Carnival Valor. Which pier does it use?

 

The flight I'm looking at gets in just after midnight, so I would just go right to a hotel, then spend the next day wandering. What kind of public transportation is available, or should I just stick with a taxi?

 

Oh, and my return flight won't be until the evening. Time for a little more sightseeing?

 

I'm sure I have many more questions. If I could just get some basic info now, I can start building a plan.

Thanks!

Yes, OSJ is the area around the fort and the whole area is easily walkable. The bus system there is easy to use. Hotels in the Condado area are more reasonable and you can take a bus to OSJ for 75 cents. Taxi to return if the busses have stopped for the night would cost around 17$.

Debarkation day you would have time to do some more sightseeing, the issue is what to do with the luggage, but I hear people say there are hotels near the port that will hold your bags for a fee.

The Carnival Valor would embark at the pier right in the center of OSJ which is one reason it's great to take a Carnival cruise out of San Juan. You go on board at noon then it's like having another port day, you can get off the ship and wander til it's time to leave.

Will be in San Juan on a cruise stop beginning of Feb. 2015 from 8 a.m. - 4 p.m. and we've been to PR a few times and have really enjoyed walking around Old San Juan. This time we'd like to venture out and see something we haven't seen before... either Arecibo Observatory, El Yunque Rainforest or something that is doable within that time frame. As long as they drive on the same side of the road as we do in U.S. I would be fine with renting a car. Any suggestions? We love natural beauty and are not lay on the beach types. Thanks in advance!

Sounds like you would like the rain forest. I would not rent a car to do it in that time frame though. You have 8 hours, and you need time to get the car etc, traffic is horrible, even though they do drive on the same side as us, it's nothing like driving in the US. It is about an hour drive there and back and that wouldn't leave you a ton of time at the rainforest. I would want to give myself at least a 2.5 hour cushion to leave the rainforest and get the car returned and get back. I would recommend taking a tour to the rain forest If you aren't interested in the ship tours, there are plenty of private companies you could book with. :)

Thinking of going there in January on our E502 tour. There are four of us and we will take a taxi ($29 one way?) there and back. Are there taxis to take us back? Any other facilities?

 

TIA

 

 

J

I don't know where you got the 80$ taxi fee, I hop it would be that inexpensive. We were quoted a lot more than that, and decided to take the bus. That was fun. :) We were there for about an hour and a half, more time than was needed. It is really pretty but I don't remember anything there other than one table of stuff for sale. No place to rent a chair or anything, but that could have changed. This was 2013.

It is very pretty. Here is some video we shot.

DS and DH are plane freaks so we have to go to Maho beach. I want to snorkel. Is there any place with good snorkeling near Maho?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

I would love to know too. We have been to Maho twice and if we get to St Marten again, I know where we will be. You can't snorkel at Maho, it's too rough, but I hear rumors about being able to walk to some beach near by. Maybe Mullet Beach? Someone let us know. Save me from sitting in the bar keeping an eye on my husbands cameras. :D

I have already been to San Juan twice and I always used the cruise excursions to visit the city (I've been to the main tourist attractions already).

This time I would like to walk from the port to the Old city.

Is it too far from the city? Is it safe to walk in this area during the evening (our ship will arrive 4pm in San Juan)?

Any reccommendations of a nice place to visit close to the port?

 

Thank you for your help! This Forum is great for new and experienced cruisers (This will be my 11th Cruise!)

Your ship will dock in the old city, so the walk is just a few steps, lots to do there, I would recommend walking to the forts first, they close at 6, then being at El Morrow at sunset. I feel very safe there, between the graveyard and the ocean is a bad neighborhood, other than that you will be fine.

I have heard that Sunday and Monday are dead in San Juan with a lot of shops, sites and restaurants closed. We are flying in 2 days early for a cruise and then staying two days post cruise.. Sunday and Monday. Anyone have experience with this? Would it be a good time to take a rainforest tour or similar? Thanks

We have been there many times on Sundays, it's very busy and full of activity. If you go to El Morrow, the families go there to fly kites in the wind. Stay in town, you will have a great time!

Thanks for the review! We board her in a month!!!! I make notes all the time, the one I added tonight is to have my husband order two lobster tails :)

So family members who are on the cruise returning Feb 7th have booked their flight home at 10:45 am. Is this doable from Miami ?

Wow, that's close, possibly doable. I would wait and see if the airline makes any changes to their flights, then they can make one free change. We booked several months ago and have had ou airline (Delta) make about 20 (not kidding) changes to our flights. Then we call and get a better change free.

Wife and I have been to St Thomas several times. We will be there again aboard the Jewel, on the Feb 7th sailing. We think we would like to go to Coki beach. Here is the problem. We have tried to get a taxi just outside the cruise terminal and no one would take just the two of us. They seem to want a group! This happened when we wanted to go to Sapphire beach. Any suggestions?

Understandable why they want to fill it up so they make more money, but can you try to attach to a group? We have found the open air taxis told them where we want to go and they either point us to one filling up for that beach or they find others to fill up ours. You may have to wait a bit, but not usually too long. We are planning to go back there in Jan. Can't wait! :)

I am cruising to St. kitts in February and putting together a custom tour with Buelah Mills. I am planning to visit Brimstone, Romney Manor, bloody point, and the Amazing Grace Experience. Are there any other sites a history and culture nerd must see before leaving the island?

There's the clock tower in town, that's a 2 minute stop, somewhere near Romney our guide showed us some painted rocks that are supposed to be petroglyphs (spelled wrong I know) I somehow doubt they are real, but I would love to be wrong. We really enjoy ending our tour by completing the drive around the island to see the Atlantic side. That's not really history, but it's pretty and all that.

I'll make sure I bring a bag of kitty treats with me :D

:D Let your taxi driver know you are interested in photography. My husband is a professional photographer and sometimes when we get a good taxi driver he will stop along the way to show him something worthy of a photo. One time on the way to Brimstone, the driver noticed a bush with birds on it or something, and stopped so my hunny could shoot it.

Anyone have opinions about the Comfort Inn @ Calle Clemenceau 6 in Condado?

We stayed there in Jan 2013 and really enjoyed it. The location was nice to walk to the beach and other things in the Condado area. The hotel was nice, clean and had a good breakfast. I would stay there again.