SugarStar00

"Clean" Remote

Still old tube tv's. Stupid shelf sticks out and we both hit our heads on it a few times.

Two nightstands!

The room:

We had an obstructed balcony on deck 5, room 5236. It’s a pretty popular room here on CC because it is the “bowling ally” balcony. Obstructed balcony means there’s a life boat that sits just below the balcony, obstructing your view from looking straight down. In our case we had two life boats because our balcony was so long! There was a little spot between the boats that you could see the ocean, but still obstructed by a little platform. We also had to upright chairs, one lounge chair and a little table. For the price I think it was worth it, we don’t use our balcony a whole lot so it was enough to get some fresh air and relax for us. The room itself seemed pretty standard. It was a little larger than our room on the victory, and identical to the Glory. I liked it because it had a mini fridge and TWO nightstands which is important to me. I think the couch pulled out but we didn’t need that. Our bed was comfy enough for me with a little hump in the middle where the two twins were joined. We never met our steward, we may have passed him in the hallway but I don’t know for sure because he never introduced himself to us. We called him the room ninja because he always knew when to sneak in and clean the room and was long gone by the time we returned, no matter how quick we came back. I have no complaints about him, he kept the room clean and stocked. He filled the ice everyday. Nothing above and beyond, but nothing bad. On our last cruise our steward always greeted us by name when we passed, this time I’m not sure which one was even ours! I have two small complaints about the room, first the lighting was horrendous. I’m sure it’s the same on all the ships, but I never really noticed. It’s this gross fluorescent lighting that is very harsh, made putting on makeup for me a real chore because I looked ghastly no matter what I did or what mirror I used. Luckily most of the lighting is dim on the ship so I just prayed I didn’t look as bad as I thought. Second, the balcony door made a terrible whistle most of the time while at sea. The latch for the lock wasn’t quite up to snuff and we had to fiddle with it a lot to make it stop. Some nights when the wind was bad, we couldn’t stop it at all. Also some people had questions about the heat in the room. There was a dial style thermostat on the wall which was very nice, it was chilly in the beginning of the week and warm at the end and we were free to change it as we pleased. We are also big fan people, we have to have the sound of the fan at night to fall asleep, but this room had a constant fan going through the ac system I guess, so we brought our travel fan but never even unpacked it, it was nice for us. There was some sort of storage room or something next to our room, which is why we had the extra long balcony; I heard some muffled banging coming from it a few times but nothing that was disturbing.

Serenity Area

Serenity Pool

Whale Tail

Sun Deck, the first pool to the left uncovered, further back you can see the cover over the second pool next to second set of chairs

One of the few bars open was right here

Buffet Seating

Mermaid's Grill aka the buffet

First Drinks!!

Cheers!!

Entrance to Taj Mahal

Uncovered Lido Pool

Covered pool

The Ship

I was so super excited to be one of the first 50 or so people on board! Our rooms of course were not ready yet so I just took my camera and ran around the ship taking pics of the empty ship. DB was getting cranky cause he was hungry, so we headed up to the lido for lunch. First we stopped at the bar and purchased the Cheers! Program, and ordered our first drinks. I managed to get a few more pictures in before he took my camera away. (j/k). DB ate at the buffet I think it was Italian or something. I’ve never been impressed with the buffet so I decided to try Chopsticks, the Asian food. I really liked it! Their noodles were so thin and delicate, and I was really hungry, so I really enjoyed it. I sampled a few other things from the buffet but didn’t care for it, then we got some dessert which I remember liking, but don’t remember what we got. . We headed out into the sun and layed on the chairs for a bit, with my coat on. Sun still felt amazing. We ventured around the ship some more, than at exactly 1:30 they opened the doors to the rooms and we got to check out our room. It was a little weird because I’ve never been on a ship that had zig-zag hallways, it was always just one looooooong straight hallway. Not sure if it was just our floor or what but we had several z- turns to make. No biggie but just different. We checked out the room and since our luggage hadn’t been delivered yet there wasn’t much to do, so we explored some more. What you’ve read about the décor of this ship is true. Very renaissance. Replicas of Renaissance paintings EVERYWHERE. Lots of naked people, but didn’t bother me, maybe because I was expecting it or maybe because it just doesn’t bother me. A lot of people describe this ship as dark and gloomy, I disagree. As you will see in my pics there’s quite a lot of color and lots of “neat” stuff to look at. I really liked the décor on this ship, it felt more luxurious than some others I’ve been on. The cleanliness of the ship, I believe, was in tip top shape. Some windows and balcony glass was dirty from saltwater, but that is impossible to keep clean when you’re at sea all the time! It’s like washing your car and not expecting it to get dirty again. Some people expect too much I think. They layout of the ship was very easy to navigate, I would only get confused sometimes in the stateroom hallways because there’s no signs that point to forward or aft, just room numbers. The ship was pretty similar to the others I had been on, except it had three pools, I think the others only had two. There’s the uncovered lido deck pool, the covered lido deck pool which is where they have a stage and all the activities and the adults only serenity pool. The lido deck had plenty of food, the buffet, pizza, chopsticks, the Deli, the grill, a coffee bar and the ice cream stations. The ship also has the butterflies lounge which is where the comedy is held, the Taj Mahal main lounge, the piano bar, a sports bar that connected to the casino, another lounge that we never went into, I think it was the karyoke lounge. There’s also a dance club, art auction room, a gym, and I believe mini golf which I never actually saw. I really liked the ship itself, I think it was a little bit smaller than the other ships I went on but I think it was decorated nicer and had pretty good space to crowd ratio.

Atrium elevators and bar, where we embarked ship.

Atrium Stairs

Looking up in the Atrium

so many pretty colors!!

First sighting of her!! Always exciting to see her waiting

Line of cars coming in and dropping off luggage, view from ship

Parking lot around 12:30pm, still lots of room!!

Hotel Room Pics, sorry its messy!

Hotel, Game and Shuttle to Port

We stayed at the Sleep Inn BWI on Belleview Rd, the one closer to the airport. We chose it based on the price, reviews and its location outside of the city. It was right off the highway, super easy to find. It was also directly across from the lightrail station that Baltimore uses which is what we used to get to the game. I hate driving in cities and didn’t want to pay for parking. The light rail station was within walking distance from the hotel but since they had free parking there, we drove over. I think the round trip ticket for the light rail was around $3.50 per person, not bad. It’s just like the “T” in Boston so it was easy for us to use. It was a 10min ride on the lightrail and it dropped us off right in front of Camden Yards. We got there around 6:15. The sun was starting to go down and it was getting COLD!!! We had some ballpark food and drinks and walked around the stadium a few times, it really is a nice stadium. The evening temps were in the mid to high 40’s, we were quite bundled up but still left early because we were just so cold. I think it was around 10pm when we left, we waited almost 30min for the next train to come, so cold! Of course because we were freezing we never even thought about walking around the inner harbor after the game, we just wanted to get warm. I’m really bummed about not seeing that area, I heard it’s really nice.

The hotel itself was really nice, I had read some bad reviews but we had a good experience. By far the best, most normal pre-cruise hotel we’ve ever chosen. LOL we’ve stayed in some strange ones! We checked in and filled out some paperwork for leaving the car, the front desk girls we very friendly and welcoming. The room had a large stand up shower, a fridge, and a flat panel tv. We slept pretty good and got up showered and re-packed up our stuff and headed down to the desk for 9am because that’s when we were told they start the sign ups for the shuttle to the port. (You had to be checked out before you could get on the list for the shuttle.)We had heard previous sailings there were 80 people waiting for the shuttle and we wanted to be on the first one. We were 3rd and 4th on the list and it didn’t appear there was anyone else waiting for the shuttle. They had a nice continental breakfast in the lobby, several tables and space to put our luggage. They had coffee, OJ, cereal, waffles, pancakes, bagels and even some nice breakfast sandwiches that just needed heating in the microwave. We were quite happy with this and started chatting with the other couple waiting for the shuttle. Before we knew it (9:45?) they were calling us for the shuttle. It was just the 4 of us. We headed over to the port chatting the whole way, I think it was a 10min but no more than 15 min drive. We got dropped off and they took our luggage right from the shuttle van. We tipped the shuttle driver and the baggage man and headed on in!

Port of Baltimore

After dropping off our luggage we headed into the building. It was a sunny but chilly day yet again with the high temp set to be in the high 50’s. Still warmer than home but not as warm as we were hoping for. Anyway, we seemed to be the very first people to arrive to the port, they seemed surprised to see us and almost not ready! A nice older gentleman welcomed us and checked our passports and let us in the building. Then another man checked our passports and boarding passes. Then we went through x-ray and metal detector security without issue. This is the first time we didn’t keep ANY carry-on’s, we both felt naked without our baggage! (We each had a 2 pieces of luggage and a duffle bag with water in it, we were worried we couldn’t check that much but they never gave us a second glance.) We then headed over to the long desk where they have 25 or so stations set up to check people in, but only one was ready because we were so early. We had to wait 2 min for someone to open up a second station (our hotel friends were first) and then we got to check in. They checked our documents again and gave us our cards and directed us down to the chairs. We were seated in order of checking in and here is where we sat. I suppose this is a better spot to wait than standing in line waiting to check in, but it seemed like forever!!! I was so excited I could hardly contain myself. We talked with our hotel friends some more, we weren’t allowed to use cameras or phones in this area just like I had read, although I still don’t understand why. The whole check in process for us was about 10min and we were set to be 3rd and 4th on the ship. We sat in the chairs from about 10:15am until just about noon when they started letting people on. We had one wedding that we were waiting for and then the handicapped and VIP people went first, which couldn’t have been more than 20 people at this time, then they kept the order they sat us in and started letting us board! Easy peasy!!

Garbage can that cracked me up

My DB (dear boyfriend) and I are in our early 30’s and live in central Connecticut. This was our fourth cruise, third on Carnival. We became addicted after our first cruise on Princess just four years ago. Although we liked Princess we tried Carnival with some friends for our second cruise and ended up liking it just as much. We’ve stuck with Carnival for three sailings in a row now and after this sailing things seemed to get a bit repetitive. Next year we are looking forward to doing on a 10 day on Princess. That said, we chose this ship and itinerary based mostly on cost-efficiency to save for our big trip next year. I really like the Caribbean and having a warm start to our cruise; in the past we’ve always flown to Florida or San Juan. We wanted to drive to our departure port this year to save on airfare and hotel which left us with either NY or Baltimore. We read that Baltimore was a nice port to leave from and since my DB is only able to take a week off between mid march and first two weeks of April each year, we opted for the latest sailing he could do from Baltimore in hopes for warmer weather. I wasn’t super excited for any of the ports even though we hadn't ever been to the Bahamas, but I was still excited for our annual getaway and to see new places.

Road Trip!

After some research here on the lovely Cruise Critic we figured out that it would cost around $115 to park at the port for the week, but we could get a hotel room Saturday night for only $95 and park there for the week with a free shuttle to and from the port. Even though we were planning on saving money by not doing the hotel, it ended up being cheaper to get one! And, as you know….one thing leads to another…. Since we didn’t have many excursions planned for the cruise we decided to see a little of Baltimore and got tickets to an Orioles game for the Saturday night before the cruise.

So we packed up the car Saturday morning and headed down to Baltimore! Our original plan was to leave our house around 8-830am, with a brief stop at my parents house on the way to drop off DD (Dear Doggie). I didn’t get home from work until 9pm Friday night and my procrastination with packing made us very late and we didn’t actually get on the road until close to 10am. Once DD was having fun with Grandma we got serious and got right on the road. The drive down was mostly smooth, it was a chilly, but sunny day. Just over the CT/NY border I got my first speeding ticket ever. Total bummer, but I stuffed it in the glove box and refused to let it ruin my trip! The rest of the way I was pretty nervous about speeding, sometimes it creeps up on you unintentionally! We stopped for gas and lunch not long after that and ended up getting all turned around in some part of NY, my GPS didn’t put us back on the highway right away, for a while we were taking all backroads. I was starting to get stressed about time, we had planned to get to the hotel for around 3 so we could explore the inner harbor and then head to the game for 7. Finally we got back on an interstate and got to the hotel in just under 6 hours, but not until 5pm. Bummer again. We had to rush a little bit to get to the game and ended up not having time to walk around the harbor at all. It was 600 miles round trip to Baltimore which in my car is two tanks of gas, so about $85.00 and tolls round trip added up to about $65.00!!!! Still cheaper than flying (even if you count the stupid speeding ticket).

All crammed in the car ready to go!!

Delaware Bridge

Anyone seen anything about the 7th floor extended balcony rooms(midship)?

 

We switched from 6 to 7 and are curious if the life boats are in view and if there is a refrigerator in the room?

 

It was snowing again in Michigan so we are all really looking forward to our June 9th trip on the Pride!

I am currently sitting on the pride waiting to disembark. We had an extended balcony on the 5th floor with an obstructed balcony view, meaning the lifeboats were just below us so we couldn't look directly down to the water. Room 5236, not sure if that helps you but I imagine the rooms directly above us have the same obstacle.

I had stateroom 6410 2 years ago. I seem to remember a little bit of bass thumping as well, but nothing that kept us up.

Not a very good one of Guillermo on the Victory, he was in the middle of dancing. BEST waiter ever!

Getting excited, can't wait to find out pricing!

I dont get it, is there a special rate for this? I'd like to go!

thanks so much, great pics! Looking to book on Inspiration and this helped a lot!

had Escargot on Victory week of 3/25 but I thought they were very small, guess I'm happy to have had them at all!

Had them on the Victory a few weeks ago!

just off the Victory and I saw some shipmates at one of the beaches eating fruit and other items they packed in tupperware that they filled at the buffet that morning...meanwhile we were sharing a $17.00 wrap:eek:

never thought of it but its light and you can put stuff inside of it, not a bad idea for next cruise!

Original post was in 2004 and described the rules that existed 8 years ago.

 

Yes, the running track was taken away when the Sanctuary was installed.

oh, ha didnt even notice that. I always assume the threads on the first page are new! my mistake. thanks

I just read a recent review and it said that the running track was replaced by the sanctuary. Not sure if thats after 8am or what...?

I did a search but didn't find anything recent. Has anyone been on the Rhum Runner recently? Im thinking about booking through Princess, just curious if its worth $50pp or if I should just sit on Grande Anse beach for the day instead. I would like to see a bit more of the island than just the beach next to the pier but I dont want to spend money thats not not well spent. thanks!

eeks. I was hoping for atleast a sliver of light or glimpse of the ocean. I'm at the aft of largest tender.... oh well.:(

thanks

Hello! I'm going on my first cruise in March and we got an obstructed view room- E619 on Emerald Princess. It looks like its going to be one of the worst obstructed there is...but I was hoping someone could post a pic of that room or a room close by?

Thanks!!