Conquest Review- 10/25/09- 11/1/09

[marilole]

Embarkation: since we had arrived to Galveston the day before, we were very well rested so on Sunday morning we took time to walk on the Galveston beach, and we even drove around Galveston Island, killing some time. We parked in Lighthouse Parking at 10am, by the way, amazing service these guys gave us, I highly recommend them. By 10:30, we were in the Port, and immediately found a guy to take care of our bags, as we stood in line. The line was not moving at first, but then moved fast. We were in line just like half hour, by 12 noon, we were inside the ship eating in the Lido deck, very easy process.

 

We were on Cabin 9252 on the Lido deck, very nice location, no noise from anywhere and you cant hardly feel the ship movement, except for the last two days that we encountered a cold front and the sea was really choppy, then we could really feel the rocking. Our cabin steward Reinze and his assistants Yoman and Agus did a wonderful job taking care of us. We never lacked on fresh towel, ice in our ice chest, and they kept our cabin spic and span. We requested maintenance service fro our a/c and was promptly done. I was impressed. The bed was hard as a rock, I asked Reinze for a pad and he did put it on, but didn’t helped much. I was expecting more cushiony beds. Lets say I was glad to sleep on my bed when I came back

 

We were seating in table 173 at the Renoir Restaurant. Let me tell you, we had the best service anyone can have. Our waiter Wilton and his assistant Ever made our dining an Experience, instead of a simple dining. I wish I could had brought them home back with me.

 

Now, our cruise director Chris.. ~sigh~ what can I say? It was wrong in so many aspects. He hardly mingled with the passengers, the activities planned had a lot of idle moments, for example, there were times that there was nothing interesting to do and there were other times that all the good stuff was scheduled at the same time, making you have to choose between what to do and what not to do. And his whiney voice! I wanted to jump overboard everytime he decided to come on on the PA. It was like nail on the chalkboard. I was NOT impressed with him. All others from the crew did a wonderful job.

 

We were cruising with the Gayribbean group, let me tell you, these people are amazing! They did our cruise wayyy much more fun, we had paid to go to their shows and activities and we made very good friends with them. They had the drag queens show… simple the best! And we also had lots of fun in their Halloween party. I will cruise with them again because they are a lot of fun and have very much respect to other passengers.

 

Shows: Point and Click … it was just OK.. nothing to rave about. Comedian John Wesley Austin, in charge of the R-rated comedy show.. AMAZING.. hilarious, very funny and entertaining. The magic and Illusion of Lady Hellevi.. she is awesome.. enjoyed her show very, very much. Marc Rubben and his puppets.. again, just so-so.. nothing to brag about. And last but not least.. Legends.. it was nice to see some guests imitating their favorite singers.

 

Ports:

Jamaica: We decided to go to the Sunset Beach Resort.. well worth the money, free drinks and free food, excellent food. We did some snorkeling, we used the pool and after lunch, we enjoyed a couple’s massage.. worth every penny. For 45 minutes we had these girls giving us the best massage on earth, from head to toe. So relaxing! After we finished the massage, we headed back to the ship, did some shopping at the post and we were on the ship by 4pm, enough time to spare. The weather was very nice, except almost getting on the ship it rained. Not much.

 

Grand Cayman: We had booked the stingray swim, snorkeling and Rum Point Beach with Native Way. Highly recommend them! We took our tender from the ship and we were on shore by 8am, so we did a bit of shopping in the port. By 8:30 we were on the bus that would take us to the private boat from Nativeways. The group was not big, so we we not like sardines on a can. We went to the sandbar and the stingrays were ready for us.. I love these creatures.. they are soft and huge! Like kitty cats rubbing against you. One of them gave me a hickey on my arm after one of the guys pour some calamari juice on my arm. Lol.. after that we went to snorkel in open sea, in a coral bed.. it was cool but I could not hadle it, got a panic attack as soon as I felt I was drifting away, so immediately I went back to the boat. Then we were taken to the gorgeous Rum Point Beach for lunch and a relaxing swim for about an hour and a half. They took us back to the dock promptly with time to spare and do some shopping. Our last tender was at 3pm, but we were back on the ship before 3pm. Grad Cayman water are crystal clear. I loved it.

 

Cozumel: We had decided to go to Chankannab park to swim with the dophins. The dolphin company is Dolphin Discovery. Again, if you want to have a great time and fun, book with these people. I did online booking and prepaid my picture package and was wayyy cheaper than to book with Carnival. The package I took even had taxi fare included. Swimming with the dolphins was the highlight of our trip. These amazing creatures are so intelligent and adorable at the same time. We did the royal swim and that experience is etched on my brain forever. They kiss you, shake your hand, you can cradle them as a baby, and also they push you by your feet and lift you in the air like superman. Also you can hold the fins of top of their bodies and they will bring you back to the base.

We bought the picts and the video. After swimming with the dolphins, Andy did some snorkeling, again, I was overwhelmed by the the rough currents so I decided not to go for it. So I sat outside and got myself a nice tan. We were back on time, but of course there were others running at the last moment, not to miss the ship. We were on the 9th floor clapping and screaming at them. They were lucky that we had two emergencies on board and the ship had to wait for the ambulance to take two passengers off the ship.

That night was our Halloween party, we were super exhausted, but we did the Halloween party. That night we went to bed around 2am.

 

Saturday morning we had booked the Behind the Fun tour in the ship.. basically is a very cool tour around the ship and they take you to places that noone else can go, like the crew living quarters, their dining room, the captain dining table, the laundry, the three galleys (main, crew and Supper Club), the engine control room and the bridge, among other places. It is a very thorough, 3.5 walking tour. Very interesting too. We really enjoyed it a lot. It’s a little pricey but they give you a lot of goodies and even give you 3- 8x10 picts. So is well worth it. If you decide to do this, please bring comfy shoes..closed toes, or you will pay dearly with pain in your feet.

 

That day we encountered a cold front and the water was very rough.. I was walking like a drunk woman, even though I had not drank a drop that day, I looked like a pin ball from side to side.. very rocky ride that morning. In the afternoon, we had another emergency on board, our brilliant cruise director came on the PA and announced that he needed the cooperation of everybody, not to go to deck 9 and 10 cause they were going to do an air lift with the coast guard helicopter, also said not to take picts… Well guess where everybody went? (including me of course) to the 9th, 10th and 11th deck to watch the airlift. It was very impressive how these people maneuver this helicopter in such high winds. After about 1.5 hours, the passenger was successfully air lifted to a New Orleans Hospital.

 

Debarkation a.k.a Chaos! We were going to be delayed due to the air lift on Saturday, We arrived to Galveston around 8am, and I think everybody had decided to do self debarkation… arghhhh!! We decided to put our bags out the night before, we got out of the ship around 11:30am, grabbed our bags and a got a porter, he took us out in a jiffy.. versus all the people that decided not to take the porter and had to do the long line. We were in our car about noon.

 

Other comments: food was good in the main dining room, in the buffet on the Lido deck it was just so-so.. kind of like Furrs Cafeteria. Pizza, burgers and Hot dogs, chicken nuggets and fries were very good. Sur Mer: over rated, soggy, greasy fish, nothing to brag about. The sandwich place.. had decent sandwiches. Chocolate buffet on the last day, everything looked yummy but when you tried it, again, so-so.. tasted bland. I tried to order room service but when the girl told me that I had to wait 45 mins to an hour, I cancelled the order. The coffee shop sells a very good cheesecake, carrot cake and cookies. Also good coffee for those of you coffee addicts. Cakes and cookies were very good price, coffees were pricey though.

 

To resume we had a wonderful time, the Conquest is a beautiful ship. Will do again to the eastern Caribbean. And Will stay again in the Lido deck. Service was amazing.. cruise director could do much better.

[MicksMom]

Thanks for the great review!!! We were on the Conquest in January & will be again in January. Can't decide between Sandals & Sunset Beach in MoBay. Big price difference so leaning towards Sunset.

 

Thanks again! (we are just west of you in Fredericksburg)

[unicorngoddess]

I did Sunset Beach also...they messed up our ride back to the cruise terminal but it actually worked out in our favor. They put us on one of their tours and we got a tour of Montego Bay along with a couple of stops for shopping and the driver dropped us off at the cruise terminal at 5:00 so we were back on the ship in time. They have a very nice staff there.

[unicorngoddess]

Also, I overheard from a couple of other passengers one reason for the debarkation delay was a couple of the passengers ended up being escourted off the ship in handcuffs by customs. Don't know if it's true or not but I heard it a couple of different times from different people.

[JimCo]

We were on the same cruise, just not ambitious enough to write a full review. I will second your comments about Sur Mer. We ran up there right after boarding for lunch because so many people said that everyone is on Lido on the first day and haven't yet figured out where it is. This was true as there were hardly any people up there but we were not impressed.

 

The boullliabasse was bland at best, the calamari was nothing but stringy fried batter and the tuna was a tiny dried up cube with a piece of watermelon.

 

The pizza was incredible and the burgers and hot dogs were great as well, especially good when smothered with their chili. The fries were sort of the grocery store Ore-Ida variety but I just poured chili and cheese over them as well and then they were fine.

 

We ate breakfast once in the dining room and the service was so slow we opted for room service or Lido the other days. Room service was great (bagels, lox, cream cheese and a big pot of coffee on the balcony) and the lido breakfast was hit and miss.

 

Loved the made to order fried eggs at the omlette station but some things like the sausage gravy and hash browns were cold. The orange juice was ok some days and thin other days.

 

We ate dinner at Monet in the aft DR and the service was horrible our first night. A tablemate complained and the rest of the week the service was ok but never great or even good by any means.

 

Supper club was incredible and well worth the $30. We did it on our last night and had the whole DR to ourselves most of the evening. Service was excellent there as well. Loved our server.

 

We also cruised with Gayribbean and were very impressed with them as well. I hope they keep the same entertainers for next year.

[JimCo]

Now, our cruise director Chris.. ~sigh~ what can I say? It was wrong in so many aspects. He hardly mingled with the passengers, the activities planned had a lot of idle moments, for example, there were times that there was nothing interesting to do and there were other times that all the good stuff was scheduled at the same time, making you have to choose between what to do and what not to do. And his whiney voice! I wanted to jump overboard everytime he decided to come on on the PA. It was like nail on the chalkboard.

I had to laugh at that comment. My partner said the same thing, his voice drove him crazy every time he got on the PA.

I also agree with your scheduling comment. Every time they offered Bingo it conflicted with dinner, a show, or something else. They had all the interesting things to do like wine tasting at the same time and then other times your choices were between the Austin Powers dance class or chess challenge.

 

Not knocking those activities by any means for those that enjoy them, but it did seem like the things that we were interested in were scheduled at the same time.

[astros fan]

Micksmom-

We will be on the Conquest in January as well. Which week are you traveling?

We are just a stones throw from you in Bandera.

[MicksMom]

Micksmom-

We will be on the Conquest in January as well. Which week are you traveling?

We are just a stones throw from you in Bandera.

 

 

January 3, 2010 - we did the same week this past January, worked out great for DD in college. Get back & she still has a couple days to get back to school, which ironically is right between us at Schreiner! :)