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Glory Ultra Cruise Review: 7 Day Western Caribbean


jam19872016
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Hello everyone. I have recently (not really recent anymore) returned from a 7 day Western Caribbean "Ultra" cruise on the Carnival Glory. I love reading other people's cruise reviews while waiting for my next cruise to begin and I hope that by sharing my trip with others, I can help someone else pass the time as well.

 

I have written a few reviews in the past but sadly I used Photobucket and most of the pictures are unreachable now on the early reviews. If you still want to read them you can do so by clicking the links below:

 

Sensation (photos still work, did not use PB)

Sunshine (no photos)

Sunshine Part II. (no photos)

Liberty (no photos) and Spelndor (photos toward the end) Side to Side

Splendor II

Splendor III

 

A couple disclaimers, I LOVE cruising and always have a good time. But I like to be honest in my review. Everything is not perfect on a cruise and I do intend to include the bad with the good. Just because I complain, does not mean I did not have a great time.

 

Also, I may not hit on everything that interests you as a cruiser. I would say from reading many reviews that my cruise style is different from the norm, and that is okay. Please feel free to ask questions about something I do not cover and I will do my best to answer anything that you would like to know about.

 

There might also be gaps of time where I do not update the review. Work is very busy for me right now which is why I am so late starting this review. In order to pay for future cruises, I have to take all the overtime hours I can get :D:D

 

About Me:

I am 30 years old and am lucky enough to live in Florida so taking cruises is more affordable and easier to do than for many people. This was my 14th cruise, 12th time on Carnival and my first time on the Glory.

 

I am cruising this time with my good friend and frequent cruise buddy, M. She is the one who got me into cruising.

 

I mentioned that this was an "Ultra" cruise. For those who don't live in the casino, an Ultra cruise is a special event held in the casino that select high rollers are invited to. Oh, and I got an invite also. Carnival's casino comp program is a mystery to say the least but in general their invite process goes like this:

 

Earn 7,500 points in a rolling 12 month period and get an invite to a "Premiere" cruise.

 

A premiere invite comes with priority boarding, a small discount (very small, like about $40) or a free room for high rollers. Also comes with cash ($200-$1000 depending on your gambling history), a drink card for you and a guest as well as many special drawings in the casino intended to keep you in the casino as much as possible.

 

Earn 7,500 points on a single Premiere cruise and get an invite to the Ultra cruise.

 

An Ultra comes with all of the above, but usually no cash. Instead it comes with a guaranteed prize starting at $300 cash and going up in value from there. More on that later. It also has many more drawings including a drawing for a free cruise every single night that is only open to those invited on the cruise.

 

There is one level higher than Ultra, "Elite". No point requirements but only the top 1-2% get an invite. The perks sound insane, but really with the amount of money these folks are spending, they do it for fun, not for the perks for sure. I could only dream of having a bankroll big enough to enjoy my casino time that hard.

 

Carnival's casino department is nothing if not inconsistent. It seems as if because they know they will continue to get my business, I don't get most of the offers they send out for reduced rate cruises. M on the other hand gets most of them because she does not cruise as often (but typically spends more per cruise than I do). But this time their inconsistency worked out in my favor.

 

As I mentioned, the stated requirement for an invite was 7,500 points on a single premiere cruise. I sailed one premiere during the eligibility period, and got nowhere near that level of points. So imagine my surprise when I checked my offers to see that I had an invite!

 

My excitement soon turned to disappointment though. November and December are blackout months for vacation. There was one Ultra sailing on 11/12 out of New Orleans. The earliest out of Florida was 12/1. Then my excitement returned when I saw they added a couple new dates, including 11/4 on the Glory out of Miami. It was still within the blackout period, but just barely so I took a chance - and it actually was approved!

 

When planning my next cruise, Glory has made it to the final 2 a few different times but always eliminated in favor of the cruise I go on instead. She finally made it to my final choice. I was looking forward to finally checking the Glory off my sailed list.

 

I have heard a lot of positive things about the Ultra cruise. I never expected to get an invite and was pretty exited. But I was cautiously aware of the fact that if I got an invite at my level, there was a possibility it would be watered down over previous years' Ultras. I tried to straddle the line between "expecting to have a bad time, so I had a bad time" and "having too high of expectations, and being let down".

 

This review will not be just for the casino peeps, I will have a full review of the ship as well as a ship tour. I'm not big on excursions so won't have much to offer there. But for those who are casino junkies, I hope this review will give you an idea of what to expect if there is an Ultra cruise in your near future.

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The weeks leading up to this cruise were pretty hectic for me. I tend to be a procrastinator about most things but not when it comes to my cruises, I have my priorities you know. I am usually packed of all but the last minute items weeks before my cruise and completely ready. I got an email from M two days before sailing that I needed to complete my check in so she could print out the paperwork. Oops. I also did not begin my packing until - the morning of my cruise :eek:

 

Among the things I procrastinated on was renewing my drivers license and registration. I had a birthday on 10/30 and both were due. On 10/29 I was online renewing both because I just would not have time to make it to the DMV before they closed unless I took off work. Doing it online was super convenient, but I would probably not have my new items before my cruise. I got lucky and did at least receive my new registration before I left, that way the expired one was not showing. My DL, well as long as I did not get pulled over I should be good. Kinda dumb to travel internationally without a current DL, but I did have a passport.

 

I was pretty tired and working a lot of hours leading up to this cruise. That along with the first cold snaps of the season (Florida cold snaps that is) had me feeling a little under the weather the final days leading up to the cruise - not to mention severely sleep deprived. I was going to drive down to M's who lives in South Florida after work on Friday. But I still had to pack and I really wanted a good nights sleep so I opted to drive down Saturday morning instead and try for a good nights sleep. I was a little uncomfortable driving down the morning of my cruise, but I really wanted to be well rested for my vacation.

 

Day 1: Embarkation - Miami

 

Normally sleeping the night before a cruise just does not happen. The excitement is too much. But that was not the case this time. I went to bed stupid early and slept and slept and slept. I woke up feeling better and ready to get this adventure started. I was packed and on the road by 6:45.

 

I had two goals going into this cruise:

 

1.Not lose a fortune in the casino. (Been on a real rotten streak)

2.Rest and relax and just completely unwind after working nonstop.

 

Umm, I would meet one goal and totally, utterly, miserably fail on the other goal.

 

I arrived at M's around 11 sorta worried about how prepared she was as the usual last minute procrastinator. I was pleasantly surprised that her procrastination transferred to me and she was pretty much ready. Although I had priority boarding, my room would not be ready until 1:30 so there was not really any need to be there super early. Next cruise I will be platinum and I fully intend to turn into a big nag again about getting on the ship ASAP.

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M was mostly packed when I arrived and soon we were on our way to Miami, to board the Glory!

 

But first we had to park. So if you read my last review, and I know that everyone did, you know that we had quite the fiasco with the parking that M booked. I may have made a snarky aside, as I sometimes do, that "I may have to take over parking detail from M in the future". I also threw in an "lol" to convey that it was just a little lighthearted ribbing.

 

M was a little upset by my comment and returned the lighthearted ribbing the way friends do. But yea she was a little upset. So I won't make any comments this time or mention that I will definetly be in charge of parking duty next time. Lol. Sorta.

 

First let me say that I sorta dropped the ball, as I can't recall who we used for parking. That kinda defeats the purpose of a review to not include the name of who you are reviewing. I have asked Uncle Google but he is unable to help me based on the things I remember.

 

The directions we printed indicated that we needed to call about 30 minutes ahead of time so that a shuttle could be scheduled. We did as instructed and the guy on the other end asked where we were. We told him and he seemed confused and said to call back once we were parked. We tried to explain our instructions said to call 30 minutes ahead of time. He had a thick accent and we really could not make out much of what he was saying other than call when we are there.

 

We found our location pretty easily. It was a typical urban parking garage. It was not anything like what I am used to seeing for cruise parking. It was just a standard parking garage, that I guess a third party service provided shuttles to and from the cruise port. Great, except we were required to collect a stub as anybody parking in a parking lot would. The price indicated something like $12 a day. Can't remember the exact price, but it seems as if to leave we would be expected to pay the toll as anyone else using this garage would need to do. M was not worried because she had a "receipt" showing payment (which was really just a printed email from a company that would mean nothing if said company was not real).

 

Anyway, we called to let the guy know we were here and ready to be picked up. He said the shuttle would be there in 30 minutes. Really, isn't that why we called you 30 minutes ahead of time. Overall it was still hard to understand this guy through his thick Indian accent over a cell phone, but from what we could gather he wanted us to wait outside of the garage, on the street, and the shuttle would pick us up there.

 

It was starting to rain so standing on the street was not ideal. But the real problem was where the street was. If you have ever been through downtown Miami, you know that it is a pretty poor area. While waiting we were approached for change or food but only once. It was not a great situation to be in, we were obviously tourists with our suitcases in hand and there were a number of homeless people hanging out nearby. I was not pleased but I stuck it out even when M suggested calling an Uber.

 

Thirty-five minutes into our 30 minute wait as sitting ducks, we called back and were told it would be another 15-20 minutes the driver was running behind. Seriously. Then he mircaously had an idea. He asked if we saw the rental car agency down the street (I wanna say hertz, but maybe it was avis?). We said yes and he told us if we get on their shuttle they will take us to the port for free.

 

This shuttle was for people using their services, but we were pretty desperate at this point and there was a shuttle just pulling up. So we went for it. I mean it was obvious when they saw us walking up the street instead of out of their building that we were "walk-ons" but nothing was said and we were now on our way to board.

 

Not a great experience so far, and truthfully if I had been a paying customer I might mention that the driver of the shuttle was pretty rude. But since it was a free ride (just a tip) I won't complain. Then there was the porters.

 

I have never personally had a porter insinuate that if I don't tip, my bag won't make it on the ship. Strangely though, everyone who has had that happen, says that it was at Port of Miami. If this is not happening, it seems strange that everyone agrees that it is happening at POM. Of course when I used porters, I always tipped so that is a likely reason why I have never gotten that threat. I now prefer to carry-on my own luggage as I have always gotten my luggage delivered with new scratches, dings, and in the final time I used a porter, two crushed suitcases with damaged items inside.

 

Now I carry-on myself. All new dings are from me clunking them down the stairs to my room. At least I know I did it, and I won't be crushing it anytime soon. These guys would not take no for an answer. No less than five times did they insist on taking our luggage and even tried to grab them from us. Finally they laughed at us and said have fun taking them yourself. Wow, what jerks. We got this, thanks.

 

We had a slight run in with a rude security agent but after that I must say this was the quickest embarcation experience to date. POM has sometimes been a pain, but this was impressive and even better organized than Port Canaveral. Kudos to POM.

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Ok, so there has been a wee bit of negativity so far. Embarkation day is always stressful and this was was just extra stressful. It is mostly uphill from here.

 

We were on board just a little after 1:30 so our rooms were ready. Our room was 1243 on the Riviera deck. They had a name tag on our door for the ultra cruise.

 

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Sorry it is a little out of focus, the pictures get better. On the plus side, it saved me editing out my name. It was only engraved with my name on it instead of both of us. When I booked, I booked solo because M did not have the funds to make this trip. Later I invited her to come but I guess they did not get the memo. She wrote her name in in magic marker.

 

Inside the room, we had a goodie bag that included our drink cards in the casino, the list of activities for each day in the casino, and some nifty insulated "water" bottles.

 

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I read on a review of the Ultra on another cruise, that most of the "elderly" people on the sailing hated the gift and were unsure what to do with it. Ummm. It's a cup, you put liquids in it and drink it. The demographic on my trip was also mostly more "seasoned" cruisers and the overall mood was appreciative. It is not practical for pouring your drink into as the opening is too small, but it is a very nice bottle and I saw many many people using it on the cruise. I loved it. For a free gift it was very nice.

 

The back of our drink card told us what time to be in the casino to draw our guaranteed prize.

 

Today's casino events were:

 

5PM: Cocktail Party & Snowball Raffle

11PM: Winner's Wheel

 

This was the only day they did not draw for a free cruise package.

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Once we got settled in we headed off for lunch. The Glory is one of the ships that has the new deli menu. When the new menu was announced I was pretty excited. The new sandwiches all sounded really good and it felt like for once CCL was making a change we could all agree on.

 

Then we found out the sandwiches were pre-made and that did deflate my bubble a little. I also recognized that the mobs of people complaining about it, had not even tried the new menu yet, so I went into with an open mind. The new menu looks very good, and to be honest, the old deli was not very good, it was something I ate when there was nothing else open, because the quality of the meat they use is consistently bad to completely inedible.

 

I wanted to try each of the daily specials but today's was egg and cheese and I was just not feeling breakfasty so I got a turkey breast on pretzel roll and a side of truffle fries.

 

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The fries were not good. The sandwich, however, was phenomenal. I was very very happy with it. It was also a noticeably better quality of turkey they were using. It was pre-made and then warmed up when I ordered it, but it still tasted fresh. There seemed to be as many staff back here as before, and much higher quality meat, so I am not sure we can call this a cost cutting measure. Seems to be an improvement to me. M is a much pickier eater than me, and even she agreed this turkey was way better. But I will continue my research through the week, maybe it was a one off experience for me today?

 

After lunch we explored the ship a little bit. We ended up in the library to check out the board game situation. On the Splendor, there was not a single game available that had all its pieces. I am happy to report that the Glory had dozens of games for us to play with all parts available. Probably the widest selection of "whole" games we've found yet on a cruise ship.

 

We played Sorry!

 

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M dominated me all week. I did not win a single game. We were not done playing when it was time for muster, but as I had literally no way of winning, I conceded the match so we could get this muster thing over with.

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After muster drill, we headed up to the forward observation deck on Deck 10. M tried to join me but the wind was too much for her hair. She has really long hair! So we agreed to meet up in the lounge for the cocktail party while I watched what I could of the sail away.

 

I enjoy sail away in Miami. Of the ports I've sailed from, it is the most scenic with the fancy mansions and yachts and sailing parallel to the highway. The cocktail party at 5 cuts into it and I miss the ending but that was especially the case today. I did not know at the time about the issues with sailing out on time from POM. When I got home and read about it I realized it wasn't my imagination that I normally see more of sail away than this.

 

We were docked right behind the Vista. She told us to kiss her Aft! So we did.

 

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Closeup of the Vista Havana area.

 

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That was as far as I got before it was time to head to the cocktail party. No way was I missing free drinks :D

 

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By the time I arrived, the event had already started. It had started early. M had a drink and some snacks waiting for me. How awesome is that!

 

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Ignore the contraband water in the background, port security did.

 

It was a fun little gathering with food and drinks. The hosts talked to us about what to expect throughout the week and all the prizes up for grabs. I will explain them a little more once we get to the drawings. They also had a singer there, Chuck. He was ummm pretty bad. Like hysterically bad. He played guitar pretty well, but his singing was awful. If you go to see him, I recommend heavy drinking. I was enjoying him lol.

 

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The drinks were flowing very freely throughout this event. I am not a big drinker in fact I only drink on cruises. I was mindful of the fact that on my last cruise, I had a bit too much to drink at this party and tried to not repeat that. I succeeded. I did not have a bit too much to drink. I had WAY too much to drink.

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After the party we headed to the casino. M played but I was going to hold off until after dinner before I started. I watched her play. I have heard in the past that on some Ultra cruises that the bar servers are so overwhelmed that they will allow you to order at the bar instead of from a server. That was not the case on this sailing but it was not needed. This was a pretty slow casino for it to be an Ultra, and they did a great job staffing. There were constantly servers. I heard on the roll call about poor bar service on this cruise, I believe it because they were all in the Casino in their uniforms from the bars they usually work at. Sorry guys, but not really hehe.

 

I watched M play for a while and ordered some more drinks. Nobody really cared that I was not playing I was still able to order drinks on my drink card. I went back to the room for some reason or another and my room had already been turned down.

 

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We had missed the steward and did not have the chance to tell him we needed our beds separated. He never did pop up and we ended up going to guest services later to get it fixed. In the past I have usually just done it myself (it has been right exactly one time out of 12 cruises I have sailed with someone else) but I had far too many liquid refreshments to handle it myself at this point.

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We wondered down to dinner a little after 9. I am sad to say that my inability to recognize my drinking limits left me too impaired to give a proper judgement of my meal or service tonight.

 

Tonight's dinner menu.

 

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The port of call menu was a complete blur, and I was too inebriated too notice and take another pic. Sorry bout that.

 

For my starter I had the chilled Vietnamese roll.

 

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For my main I had the fried chicken and tomato blt from the port of call menu. I love this new item, but didn't really get to enjoy it this time. Next time.

 

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The Glory has the new dessert menu. I was excited for some new items, but a little sad my favorite dessert, the nutella tiramisu was gone.

 

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I ordered the closest thing to it, the tiramisu. I seem to recall it was still frozen in the middle. I don't know, I mean I ate it either way in my drunken state.

 

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It did not come with a cherry. That was from the banana split that M ordered. She does not eat them and they kept coming with them when she said no cherry so she, ummmm gave me her cherry.

 

As I said, I can't give an accurate review of dinner, but we were in and out in under an hour so all must have been good.

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After dinner we made the trip to guest services and they said they would send someone to separate the beds. I was hoping dinner would sober me up, but it did not. I was not feeling well and stayed up long enough to attend the drawing in the casino at 11. After that I went up to go to bed, except someone was there to separate the beds. I took a short walk and returned as he was finishing. Then I crashed.

 

When M came in for the night she ordered room service. As usual, room service is basically unusable. It took an hour and a half before her order arrived (and numerous calls, each time it would only be about 5 more minutes) and true to form, her order was incorrect. I am not sure why room service is so universaly bad across the fleet. I mean I guess I can understand why, manpower issues, but I don't understand why they won't fix the problem. M did say they are also using the better quality turkey on the room service sandwiches.

 

Once this ordeal was over, I went back to sleep. Tomorrow would be a fun day at sea.

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I'm looking forward to your review. I'm interested in the latest on what Ultra has to offer and whether it's worth it.

 

I couldn't get this put up in time to be beneficial to people on this year's Ultras, but I'm glad it can be useful for someone looking into booking an Ultra in the future. Glad to have you along.

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Great review so far! Looking forward to the rest to pass the next few weeks until I get on the Glory!!!

 

Thanks! I love a review for a ship I'm getting ready to sail. Glad to give back. Enjoy your trip on the Glory.

 

I cruise a lot, but don't gamble. It is very interesting to learn about your experiences and an Ultra Cruise.

 

Thanks for reading along. There was a time when it was cheaper to cruise by gambling, but Carnival doesn't need gamblers any more to fill their rooms so there are less price breaks.

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Ship Tour.

 

Before I continue with the review, lets take a quick tour of the ship. Starting at the bottom Decks 1 and 2 are guest cabins.

 

 

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Moving up to the 3rd deck all the way forward is the Amber Palace which is the main show theater.

 

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I liked the different colored tiles.

 

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There is a fun hub terminal just outside the lobby.

 

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Shore excursion desk.

 

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