Trip Report From the Glory Oct 10th-17th Lots of Pictures to Come

[leapdaymom]

What is the name of the store where you purchased the purse...or directions to the store? We leave on Sat

[TeknikDC2]

Sorry for your disappointment in St. Maarten! I haven't been there yet, but will be in 14 months! So you have talked me out of shopping there, but you said that many people were walking around with large boxes, I'm assuming electronics. Did you see any stores that sold cameras? If you did and remember the store names, I may be able to find them online to see if it would be cheaper to purchase a camera in St. Maarten or at home! Thanks for the help, can't wait to see the rest of the review.

 

haha sorry don't let my review of St. Maarten mislead you. It wasn't a disappointment at all. Infact it was our 2nd favorite Island of the cruise. We only regreted not doing anything else there other then shop since we were low on money and over our budget. The Island is very pretty so we wish we would have toured it and seen the culture of the french side of the Island. But it was far from a dissapointment. Also the shopping is very good here. Don't get me wrong. If your in the market for Electronics or Diamonds, or anything nice then St. Maarten is the shopping destination for you. Its the cheap knockoff type stuff like purses and sunglasses and cheap novelty type stuff that I found there was a better selection of in Nassau.

 

As far as camera shops go they were eveywhere. Probably every 3rd store sold cameras in St. Maarten. I will pass on the advice the cruise director gave us though. By your camera from an actual electronics or camera shop. Not one that also sells Jewelry and Liqure. I guess you will tend to get better deals and products by actually buying from a shop that specializes only in Electronics or Cameras. And seriously there are hundreds of shops that will sell everything together. Unfortunatly I don't remember any of the shops names. But yes many of the boxes I saw people carrying onto the water taxi were electronics. Also many strollers and luggage.

 

What is the name of the store where you purchased the purse...or directions to the store? We leave on Sat

 

I unfortunatly don't remember the name of the shop. Infact I never even saw a name. To get to it once get off the water taxi and walk strait off the dock into the city turn left at the first main street you come to. I belive this street was called Front street and its one of the 2 main streets where all the shops are located. The purse shop will be on the left had side probably 1/4 to 1/2 mile down the road. In the photo below you can see the outside of the shop in the lower left hand side of the photo. Its the one with the red, yellow, and green outlining the windows. The shop actually has 2 levels. But you wouldn't expect them to be the same shop because they are not on top of one another. I hope this helps. Let me know if I can explain it any better:

 

[TeknikDC2]

Day 9: Second Full Day at Sea

 

With our last port done with for the cruise we were now on our return route back to Port Canaveral. Because we were on the return route our final two days of the cruise would only be sea days. And as I pointed out in the post about our first full day at sea i'm not one who cares for sea days at all. So I just tried to make the best of it. As with the last recap of a sea day this one will be short as I didn't take many pictures. In fact this day I took the least amount of photos then any other day.

 

Because this was another day at sea we slept in again tell around 11ish. Something that we would repeat each sea day haha. We got up and grabbed some breakfast/lunch and then headed out by the main pool where we were lucky enough to find some good seats near the stage where the band played. I don't know why but it seemed to be unbareably hot this day. Even though we were at sea the sun seemed to be much hotter then it had been all the other times we had laid out. Because of the heat we didn't stay out for very long. Not that I was complaining cause I was pretty much at my laying out limit anyways.

 

 

After grabbing another small lunch we retired back to our cabin where we watched a movie and relaxed before getting ready for the evening. Tonight would be our second and last formal night so it took sometime getting ready for that. We soon meet up with Tyler and Rachael for the first time this day and headed down to the main dinning room for another excellent dinner and the crew put on another excellent show for us.

 

[TeknikDC2]

 

We are not ones who like to stay in our formal clothes all night like so many other people do. So as soon as dinner was over we headed back to our cabins so we could change back into our casual clothes.

 

 

After changing for the night we meet up with Tyler and Rachael again and grabbed some ice cream before the main show that evening. The show this evening was the "just rock" show that Carnival seems to do on most there ships as I remembered this one from the Pride as well. It was a good show as many great eras in Music History were well represented by the performers.

 

 

After the show we had some time to kill still before the finaly showings of the Comedy Club that night. So we decided to head back up to Lido and grab some more Ice Cream. We were really suprised to find once we got up there that they had the roof closed over the pool area. We thought that was kind of odd as it wasn't raining. At least not at the time. I guess maybe they closed it if it was raining earlier in the night. Because we had time to chill we just grabbed some loungers and relaxed by the pool talking with one another to kill some time before the Comedy Club would start.

 

[TeknikDC2]

 

We got to the comedy club early this night and because of such we were some of the first groups let into the lounge. So because of this we were able to get a table very close to the stage. The comedian tonight wasn't funny at all. Yeah he had a few good lines and for the most part his show was pretty clean but man none of it was funny. You could even tell he was struggling up there. I don't know maybe he doesn't do many R rated shows. Maybe his PG ones were better. I don't know but it was just kind of a downer to end the Comedy Club on that note. After the show Rachael wanted to stay again for the Comediean that we saw the night before. I told her that he would do the exact same show almost word for word again but she said she wanted to see for herself. So after she was kind enough to help scratch Kieras toe that itched so bad from the sea urchint sting Kiera and I left as Tyler reluctantly stayed to watch the show with his wife Rachael.

 

 

Kiera and I decided to head back to our room after the show. Of course not until we got our typical Midnight Pizza and Ice Cream though. Today was a nice carefree lazy day. And we had one more ahead of us as tomorrow would be our final full day aboard the Carnival Glory. Stay tuned as the update of our final day at sea will have many picture as well as a tour of the ship.

[TeknikDC2]

Hey everyone. I just wanted to bump this to let you know I havn't forgoten about it. After a crazy and long Thanksgiving week (I work Retail) and a weekend of putting up christmas lights and decorations I finally have time to continue writing this trip report. Expect the next installment to be up tomorrow as there are only 3 more installments left tell this will be finished. Thanks again to those who continue to read and follow my report.

[markkw]

Hey everyone. I just wanted to bump this to let you know I havn't forgoten about it. After a crazy and long Thanksgiving week (I work Retail) and a weekend of putting up christmas lights and decorations I finally have time to continue writing this trip report. Expect the next installment to be up tomorrow as there are only 3 more installments left tell this will be finished. Thanks again to those who continue to read and follow my report.

 

 

Sounds good!..Def looking forward to the conclusion of this sweet review.

Thanks again, for taking the time and effort to post such a detailed review.

[rzyjzq]

I've enjoyed your review. Great pics, too!!

[TeknikDC2]

As I promised here I am back with the latest installment of my trip report. As always questions and comments are very welcomed and I will try to answer any as quickly as I can. Anyways enjoy this recap of our final day on the ship.

 

Day 10: Third Full Day at Sea

 

Our final day of the cruise had finally arrived. It would be another full day at sea so of course not a whole lot would be happening. Kiera and I slept in late again before grabbing some lunch (yeah we slept in that late) and then we went and meet up with Tyler and Rachael for some more laying out and sun tanning. Once I reached my limit I decided to leave the group and go take some photos around the ship. This is something I like to do so that we always remember what the ship looked like. It took me around an hour to snap all the photos but here they are below. Sorry there won't be alot of text following these pictures.

 

I love the water of the Caribbean. Even out in the middle of the ocean it was very pretty and looked like we were in a big puddle of windex.

 

Looking out over the main pool area towards the back of the ship:

 

Looking out over the front of the ship. I must admit this view was much better on the Pride then it was on the Glory:

 

The Empty Amber Palace:

[TeknikDC2]

This was outside the Amber Palace:

 

The Atrium:

 

The Shops:

 

On the side deck:

[TeknikDC2]

The Casino:

 

Walk area of Promenade:

 

The Arcade:

 

Piano Bar and Walk way:

[TeknikDC2]

 

Platnum Dining Room:

 

One of the Lounges:

 

Red Sail Restaurant:

 

We were very suprised by our cabin. On our last cruise we had a balcony so we thought an Inside cabin would be way small. But it was fairly large and worked out great for us on this cruise.

[TeknikDC2]

 

The rear pool area:

[TeknikDC2]

 

Looking over the main pool area towards the front of the ship:

 

The sporting area of the ship:

[TeknikDC2]

 

Will that concludes the tour of the ship. Although i've only been on two cruises so far the designs and theme of the Glory have been our favorite of the two. We prefered the bright vibrant colors theme of the Glory to the darker Rennasaunce theme of the Pride. The one thing we didn't care for with the pride was its layout though. We thought the Pride had a much better and easier to navagate Layout then the Glory did.

 

After I finished with taking photos around the ship I rejoined Kiera, Tyler, and Rachael where we layed out a little longer before returning to our rooms to get ready for dinner and prepair for our final evening aboard the Glory.

 

 

We quickly got ready because Kieras sting on her toe was really starting to swell and bother her. We tried to avoid the ships doctors at all costs because it was very expensive to them look at you. Like $80 for the doctor and $40 for the nurse or something like that. But Kiera was really starting to worry so we decided to go down there and chance it. The nurse there was very nice. We just asked her what we could do to help a sea urchin sting. She looked at it real quick and just told us to ice it and the swelling would go away in a few days. She was very nice about it and was even nicer to not charge us for looking at Kieras sting.

 

Our final dinner was very good as always. It was sad to think this was our last dinner of the cruise. We showed how sad we were and enjoyed the final performance from our dinning crew.

 

[TeknikDC2]

 

After dinner we walked up to the gift shop to grap some final gifts before the cruise was over. Kiera and I have a tradition of getting a christmas ornament to represent the main point of the vacation we are on. So we found a good one and also grabbed some post cards then made our way back to our rooms. We couldn't help to take a few pictures on the way back though.

 

 

Once we got to the room it was time for probably the most depressing part of a cruise. Packing up our luggage so it could be set out that night. This is when reality starts to sink in that the cruise will soon be over. But we were happy to find our most favorite towel animal of the cruise. When we first walked in we thought we didn't get one this night but soon found this little guy hanging on the wall.

 

[TeknikDC2]

After getting our luggage packed set it out and meet up with Tyler and Rachael to head to the Amber palace for the shows and events taking place that evening. Tonight the main show would be the Carnival Legends show where passengers addition for parts and perform the show. But before that were a few other things. We went down there early to watch Game Show. Tyler and Rachael put there names in the box and Tyler happened to get his name drawn to participate in the second game. And he ended up winning. His prize? Another bottle of champaign. So now both of us couples had a bottle of champaign and nether of us drink Alcohol lol.

 

 

After Game Show they did there final game of bingo of the cruise. We didn't want to lose our good seats so we waited and watched thm play. We took a picture of Kieras foot where you could start to see the swelling from the Sea Urchant sting.

 

[TeknikDC2]

After bingo they did the Carnival Colors Celebration or something like that where they announced who won the Carnival Colors Competition. Well Kiera and I are now 2 for 2 on our cruise as we were on the winning team again. This time it was the White team.

 

 

Finally the Carnival Legends show started. The first two performers were really good. We were suprised cause the show on the Pride everyone sucked. Well that changed after those first two as it went downhill from there. I don't know if we will go to this show or not when we do another cruise.

 

 

When we got done in the Amber Palace for the evening we discussed what we wanted to do for the rest of the night. It was now pretty late so we decided to go get Kiera bottle of champaign so we could find someone to give them to.

 

 

We went up to the Lido deck where we would get our usual late night Ice Cream and Pizza. We found 2 groups to give our Champaign to as a gift and both groups didn't understand why we didn't want it or why we didn't drink lol. Untill we told them we were from Utah and they they understood lol. Ether way we were glad we could make there nights by giving them free Alcohol hahaha.

 

The cover was closed over the pool area again as it was storming pretty badly at this time. We grabbed our Ice Cream and noticed that the ship was leaning really badly to one side of the ship. We didn't know why it was doing this at the time. We had our ideas but we had no real idea. We watched the lightning from inside and it was quite the site to behold. it was pretty amazing to watch this natural occurance. Tyler and I went up to the top deck to watch it outside. The girls didn't want to go up cause it seemed like it was raining still. While up top we found that it wasn't raining anymore and the night was farely warm still so it was nice to watch the lightning up there. Tyler and I then saw a red light fire up out in the distance. We thought that was kind of odd. It looked like a flair. We were very intrigued so we went back down and told the girls that it wasn't raining and to come up as well to see this mysterious red light we saw.

 

[TeknikDC2]

We got back up to the top deck just as the red light burned out. We continued looking out towards where the light came from speculating what it might have been. Then the spotlight on the front of the Glory lit up shinning out towards where the red light came from. We figured it had to be a stranded boat or something so we ran to the middle of the ship to get a better view. Right when we got there the red light lit up again. Verifing that it was a flare and the spotlight on the glory was able to zero in and find this stranded ship.

 

 

We watched intently as we now realized why the ship was turning. They must have spot them and turned the ship around to go rescue them. We also realized that the glory had stopped and was probably preparing a crew to go out and rescue them. All we could tell was that the boat was very small. It looked like a 20 foot fishing boat. Since it was stormy this night the small boat was being tossed around like a rag doll. The few of us hopped they could get the rescue crew out to them as soon as possible. The cruise director then came over the intercoms and announced what was going on and that we were going to start rescue efforts. At the time of the announcement there were only around 8 or 9 people on the deck around us. After people came from all over and it was so packed you could barely move. Lucky for us we were there to witness it from almost the beginning.

 

[TeknikDC2]

 

We watched and wondered when the rescue would take place. THe glory continued to just sit and circle the small ship. We had been watching for over an hour. Finally we saw a life boat come out from around the front of the ship. The rescue was on. We watched as the life boat itself even got tossed around badly in the storm. But it eventually made it out to the small boat to rescue the people on board.

 

 

The crew rescued the men abandoing there small boat and brought them back to the ship. We ran to the other side of the ship to see the life boat pulling back up to the glory. So we decided to run down to the lower side decks to watch the lifeboat come back up.

 

[TeknikDC2]

This is where we got really frustrated with the layout of the glory. Because of the Golden Dinning room being in the center of the ship we had to go way around in order to get to the atrium and then outside to the decks. By the time we got there the life boat had already been pulled up and the crew and those rescued were already pulled off. It was interesting talking to a crew member there who was guiding traffic. He explained how the rescue proceding take place and how there are specific life boats that can be emnuvered for rescues where the majority of the lifeboats will only go strait. He also mentioned that in his 6 years of working on a carnival ship that he had never seen a rescue of this nature take place. This was litterally a once in a lifetime event that we witnessed happen.

 

 

Info on what happened with this rescue was the first thing I looked up as soon as we got back to Port Canaveral on my Blackberry. From what little info was out there this is what I was able to find out. There were 3 men aboard the small fishing boat. 2 from the Bahamas and 1 U.S. Citizen. They were on a fishing trip when the boat experianced an engine falure of some sort and got drifted out to sea. Supposidly they had been lost out at sea for about 5 days when the Glory found them. I'm glad we were able to rescue them as many of us were praying for there safty. One person on this site even mentioned that he saw the boat capsize not long after they were rescued. God was diffenitly watching over these men and we were very happy that they were safe. From what I heard the coast guard took them off the ship as soon as we were back in US waters.

 

Anyways after nearly 2 hous of watching the rescue efforts it was now around 2 in the morning. We would have to be out of our rooms early so we figured maybe we should go to bed. But I couldn't go without having my final night of pizza.

 

 

After our pizza we headed to bed. When we wake up we will likely be back in Port Canaveral and our cruise will soon be over.

[Quampapetet]

Nice lightning shots!

 

From your photos, it looks like certain areas of the ships are really bright with different colors, neons, etc. Are they super bright? Or does the camera just make them appear super bright?

[shebring02lx]

I LOVED your review. Looks like everyone had a great time!!!

[tandtmk04]

I loved your review... it was almost like being on the Glory again! I, like you never figured the ship layout though. I did get alittle better towards the end of the cruise but I was always getting turned around. I felt like I was walking around in circles alot!:eek: When I found the main lobby then I was ok but it was the finding the lobby that was confusing! haha But, I loved it and I sooooo have Cruise Fever! Thanks for the review, I have enjoyed reading it! Again, THANK-YOU for the picture of Megan's Bay, I have it as my wallpaper on my Blackberry!:)

[giddy2travel]

thanks for your review I'm heading on my first cruise next week and it was a lot of fun to see the ship before I go..I really enjoyed the rescue stuff I'm glad they were safe..

thanks again it was great:)