Conquest 12/13/09-12/20/09

[soccermommie]

Review of our Conquest 12/13/09-12/20/09 cruise:

 

This was the 8th cruise for DH and me (both 37). We have previously sailed Carnival, Princess and Royal Caribbean. We prefer to sail out of Galveston or New Orleans because they are within short driving distance of our home. We chose this cruise because it would provide something new and different to us - 2 of the 3 ports were ones we had not visited on previous cruises, and we had never sailed on Conquest. We also had this cruise booked for spring break 2010 with our kids on the other itinerary and wanted to check out the ship before going on it with them (sounded like a good enough excuse to book another cruise, right?)

 

We drove down to Galveston the day before and stayed at the LaQuinta on Seawall. Usually, we stay the night before at the Hobby Drury in Houston and then drive into Galveston on the day of the cruise and park at EZ Cruise Parking. However, we found that LaQuinta offers a shuttle and allows its guests to park at the hotel for $15/room, so we decided to give them a try. It turned out to be horribly unorganized, and I would not recommend them nor will we stay there again for cruise purposes. You sign up for the shuttle at 0930 the morning of the cruise rather than when you book your room or even when you check in. DH went to the lobby about 10 minutes prior to sign-up time; we ended up being the 26th room (not passengers) on the list. Depending on how many guests were in the 25 rooms ahead of us, we were projected to be in the 5th or 6th shuttle to the port. The shuttle was supposed to start taking passengers to the port at 11:00. At 11:25 the shuttle left with the first group. By 12:45 (yes, an hour and 20 minutes later!) the shuttle had still not returned to pick up the second group. The hotel only has one shuttle bus that carries about 10 or 11, and it is a shared shuttle with the Holiday Inn Express next door. It became evident that there was no way that we would check in by the 2:30 cut-off if we relied on the hotel shuttle. A family waiting next to us came to the same conclusion, so we all decided to share a cab to the port. It was $25 total for all of us. Others were getting irritated and decided to do the same; however, some wanted their money back for the shuttle. The hotel was glad to refund the money, but the guests would not be allowed to park cars at the hotel for the week. We figured it was worth the $15 dollars to park and we’d catch the shuttle back after the cruise. I don’t really know why we thought the return shuttle would be any better. More on that later…

 

We arrived at the terminal about 1:00 and were on the ship by 2:00. We usually arrive at the terminal by 10:30 or 11:00, quickly get through the check-in process and have a short wait before getting on the ship, so we were a bit worried about how long it would take with the increased crowd at the later time. However, the process moved fairly quickly. The biggest delay was self-inflicted. We had a roll-on soft-sided cooler that looks more like normal luggage that we had packed with 24 sodas. It was about an inch bigger than the limit for coolers, but we didn’t think it would be a problem since normal carry-on luggage, including our other 2 carry-on bags, are much larger than this cooler. Let me tell you, they can pick out a cooler, and they very strictly follow the cooler size requirements. We just shifted the sodas and the collapsed cooler to one of our other carry-on bags. No big deal- just much heavier to carry rather than roll on 24 sodas. And it probably took about 10-15 minutes to get everything shifted and get the approval to continue on into the terminal. Next time we’ll just bring a larger roll-on bag as the soda bag. One great thing about arriving later is that our room was already ready, so we were able to drop off our carry-on bags before going to eat lunch and explore the ship.

 

We were in cabin 1037, a 4H interior cabin on Panorama deck. We have had inside, oceanview and balcony cabins before, and we prefer either the inside or balcony. If we can’t get outside on a balcony, we see no reason to ruin the pitch dark of an inside cabin with a window since we like sleeping in and/or taking afternoon naps. About a week prior to sailing, we got an upsell call for a balcony. DH and I had already decided that we would be willing to upgrade to a balcony for a total of $200, and we had been checking a few times daily to see what balconies were still available. They offered a balcony for $300 total, and the room was under the lido grille. No brainer – more than we had agreed to spend and also in a potentially noisy location. We declined and didn’t regret it at all. In fact, after the cruise was over we were quite glad we had not upgraded because the weather had not been conducive to using a balcony much on this cruise.

 

The room had adequate storage space for 2 without needing an over-the-door shoe holder. It has 2 small closets, each with a hanging bar and shoe shelf, and another small closet with 4 or 5 shelves. There was a full length mirror on the inside of this door which was a nice touch. It also had a mini fridge that kept our sodas remarkably cold (we cleared out the mini bar and placed all the items on top of the cabinet holding the fridge – the room steward seemed fine with this storage location of the mini bar items as he didn’t move them or say anything about it.). The bathroom has a shower curtain rather than an enclosure, and there are 3 small glass shelves on either side of the sink. There are 4 drawers beside the vanity, but only 3 are usable since the top one is taken up with the hairdryer and Bible. I must say that this was the loudest cabin we have ever had. We specifically picked this cabin for its convenient location and also because it should have been fairly quiet since it was under the spa, over other cabins and in a dead-end hallway to avoid “through” traffic. We were awakened several times each night by intermittent loud banging and clanging, and we are not light sleepers. The first night we were trying to figure out what in the world the spa people could be doing in the wee hours of the morning to cause such noise, but we soon realized that it was noise from the pipes – sometimes it seemed to be overhead, sometimes behind, sometimes below, etc. – but always the same banging and clanging. We grew more accustomed to it as the week passed, but it still awakened us. We also could clearly hear the conversations of people in the halls and also the people/tv in the cabin next to us. Of course, we don’t know if that was due to thin walls or exceptionally loud people! More likely the latter.

 

Our cabin steward and his assistant were fine. We don’t really expect anything more than clean towels, ice and our capers. Frankly, we wouldn’t even care if they didn’t make the bed because we almost always end up messing it up taking a nap anyway. We got the clean towels and capers every day, but ice was an issue. They just could not seem to remember to fill our ice bucket. The first couple of days, we asked for ice twice when we saw them in the hall after our room had already been cleaned and there was no ice. We aren’t complainers, nor are we the type to hunt someone down or call them to ask them to do something if it really isn’t an emergent need. We just took care of it ourselves by making a quick trip to the lido for cups of ice. Not really a problem since we were one deck away, but we would not have been happy had we been on a much lower deck. The other thing that did get really annoying was that they kept drastically changing the thermostat in the room. I am very cold natured, so I had the heat on. Every time they came in, they changed the thermostat to the coldest temperature setting! I can’t imagine they were really in our room long enough to work up a sweat, but if it was too warm for them, I certainly wouldn’t have minded for them to make it cooler while they cleaned and then return it to our setting when they were finished. The weather on this particular cruise was quite chilly and windy, and the public spaces were quite cold as well. So it was really annoying when I would retreat to our room for some warmth to find it freezing cold. I just learned to make a quick trip by the room after breakfast/lunch and dinner to readjust the thermostat to our liking so the room would be comfortable when we arrived. We did have towel animals and chocolates each night.

 

Neither of us drink alcohol, so we can’t comment or offer any insight on the bar service.

 

The décor of Conquest was much more subdued than other Carnival ships we’ve sailed, and we found it to be quite pleasant. We did have a hard time finding private, smoke-free nooks and crannies with ocean views for quiet reading, wave watching or scrabble. There just always seemed to be people everywhere. We’ve never really encountered this on any of our other cruises, so I don’t know if it was the ship design or that the weather had driven more people indoors than usual. We did not have any difficulty finding loungers near the pools at any time during the day. Smoking, of course, is population-dependent and will vary from cruise to cruise – maybe we just had more smokers than usual on this cruise, but we definitely noticed a lot of smoke. It is a bit inconvenient that you cannot get all the way through certain decks, but we learned alternate routes to our favorite locations. Not a huge deal.

 

The library is quite frankly a joke. The cabinets are locked, so you can only check out books or games when the library is “open” which was only an hour at a time once or twice daily. As I said before, we have booked the Conquest for spring break with our kids, and this will be a real issue for one of our sons. He is an avid reader, literally reading a 300+ page book every single day. We will definitely be visiting a used book store to load him up for this cruise, or he will go crazy for lack of reading material.

 

We chose Your Time dining. We had done this before on RCL, and we love the concept. It fits our needs on many levels. We have 4 kids at home, so when DH and I cruise alone we want to be able to enjoy quality time with each other. When we cruise with the kids, we want to focus on making great family memories and connecting with the kids. Also, and this may sound awful, we really do not enjoy the social aspects of traditional dining. DH and I are both in healthcare, so we have constant interaction with numerous people in our everyday lives. Our jobs leave us kind of “peopled out”, so we like a little peace and quiet on vacation. Also, once people learn what we do, we always get 1 of 2 responses: 1) solicitation of medical advice, or 2) detailed descriptions of every single medical procedure, medication, etc. in their personal history, with special emphasis on every single bad experience they have had (or have ever heard of anyone else having) with healthcare. To avoid this, we sometimes even decide ahead of time what our “occupations” for that cruise will be. I digress - on to the other reasons we like Your Time. We like that the actual meal generally takes less time than traditional dining. We like the flexibility of the availability of varied dining times each day, especially when traveling with our kids. We like that the service is not interrupted by the “shows” given by the wait staff on some evenings (but you can still watch them if you have a good vantage point of the downstairs dining room or choose to stand at the rail to do so). We like that the staff can simply do their jobs without having to feel forced to forge a superficial bond with you based on the hopes of additional tips. If we get the same wait staff each evening, great; if not, fine. We don’t have the need for someone to remember each evening that we are not interested in bar service, drink water with meals and do not drink coffee with dessert. I can easily communicate this information each evening to whatever wait staff I get; it does not diminish my dining experience in the least for them not to already know my preferences when I sit down each evening.

 

Your Time on Conquest – We were fairly pleased with the implementation, though sometimes service was slow or disjointed. The service of some of the wait teams flowed seamlessly while others seemed to have a harder time with the concept. We had different wait staff at least 4 of the 7 nights, so we were able to compare the style of several of the teams. The ones we enjoyed most were the ones who treated their tables as individuals rather than trying to keep their entire section on the same schedule, more as they would in traditional dining. For instance, a few of the teams would get the orders from all of their tables before submitting them or try to keep everyone in their section on the same “course”. This could lead to quite a wait for some tables if other diners tended to talk a lot and take their time either ordering or eating. Other teams would take/deliver orders as the timing of each table dictated. The difference: a 45 minute dinner vs. 1hr and 15minute dinner. Also, we usually didn’t have much trouble getting seated quickly. The first night we arrived at 7:00, requested a table for 2 and were seated immediately. Four of the other nights we arrived at 5:45 or very soon thereafter and were seated at a 2 top immediately. One night we arrived about 6:30 and were offered a table with others. We declined and opted to wait for a table for 2. They were not giving out buzzers and just told us to return about 7:00 or 7:15 to see if a table was available. We waited around in the lobby, and when we noticed several people leaving about 6:50, we returned and were seated right away. The other night we arrived just before 7:00. They knew by then that we did not want to dine with others so it wasn’t offered. They gave us a buzzer, and we were buzzed within 5-10 minutes. We did notice several couples who dined with various people throughout the cruise, so this also seems to be a workable option for those who don’t like to be locked into a dining time but want to meet other people as well.

 

The one major downfall I noted of Your Time dining is the impact on the efficiency of the room stewards. When you have traditional dining, the stewards pretty much know when you will be out of your room each evening and can plan their work accordingly. With Your Time, it may vary from night to night, and they have no way to know when they should do your room. A simple solution to this would be to have “make up room” hang tags similar to the “do not disturb” signs to indicate to the stewards that you are out of the room. We never saw the stewards in the halls when we were leaving for dinner, so we could not indicate to them that we were out of the room. We started putting out the do not disturb sign each time we entered the room and took it off each time we left to try to give the stewards a visual cue of when we were there and when we were not, but this was not effective. In the evenings, it seemed we were usually dodging around the stewards – returning to the room after dinner to find the room not done yet and feeling compelled to leave again so they could do their job. Sometimes we made several trips back to the room before successfully being able to stay and “relax” a bit together.

 

We found the food in the main dining room to be quite good. Neither of us ever received a dish that we did not like – other than the night DH decided to give lobster and shrimp another try even though he doesn’t like seafood. That was strictly a matter of personal preference, not poor food quality or preparation. A couple of nights we didn’t really see anything on the menu that jumped out at us, so we reverted to the flat iron steak. We were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the steak and that they were cooked in accordance with our order (medium and medium well). Of course, it wasn’t top notch steak, but it was very good. Every night, one or both of us ordered the warm chocolate melting cake. I don’t think it was the same on any 2 nights. Some nights it was mostly cake, some nights it was mostly melting chocolate. For those of you from the South, there were a couple of nights when I felt like I should have been eating it accompanied by biscuits because it was much more like chocolate gravy than anything resembling cake. All in all, it was the same taste (very good) if not texture every evening.

 

The dress in the main dining room was quite varied. Every night, including elegant nights, we saw the gamut from jeans and shirts to Sunday dresses to evening gowns and tuxes. We did not, however, see shorts or t-shirts on any night. We always dress in accordance with the cruise line recommendations, but I actually liked the more laid-back atmosphere. It seems that everyone was welcome just as they felt comfortable being, and I think that’s the way it should be, especially since it is getting more and more inconvenient and expensive for those who fly to cruise ports to check multiple bags.

 

We were not at all impressed with the lido buffet. We love breakfast, and we aren’t even demanding about high quality breakfast. McDonald’s, Burger King, Denny’s – it’s all good to us. I mean, how can you mess up breakfast? Well, the Conquest did. The food was cold and was not fresh. It was not appetizing or pleasing at all. Most mornings I didn’t even bother and just skipped breakfast for an early lunch when Paul’s opened at 11:00. One morning I did eat pizza when I couldn’t hold out any longer for Paul’s. Probably the best breakfast we had was the morning we ordered room service and ate cereal, yogurt and danishes. That is just pitiful. On the upside, they did have orange juice and chocolate milk in the lido.

 

For lunch each day, I ate at Paul’s deli. They had really good sandwiches. I did have a problem getting what I ordered, though. Every day I ordered a turkey sandwich on a country roll with mustard, NO mayonnaise. I got what I ordered 2 of the 7 days. The others it either had mayo or a combination of mayo/mustard. One day I was even given 2 (?) sandwiches, one with mayo and one with mayo and mustard! One day I got a toasted turkey sandwich with cheese and mayo! Those sandwich makers are fast, and by the time I was able to get out a reminder of NO mayo when I saw them pick up the mayo spatula, it was already on the bread. They just kind of looked at me with a combination of panic/irritation each time. Since I don’t hate mayo, just trying to make a healthier choice, I just took whatever they made and ate it. It certainly wasn’t enough to ruin my meal, and it kind of became a game to DH and me to see what I would actually get each day.

 

I think DH tried the lunch buffet one day and found it just as bad as the breakfast, so he avoided it as well the rest of the week. He either ate Paul’s, pizza or burgers the rest of the week. He wasn’t terribly impressed with the burgers – they were usually overcooked or not fresh and the buns were hard. The fries were good, however. Also, Conquest had the best pizza either of us have ever had on a cruise ship. Usually, I don’t like ship pizza at all, but I found the pizza on Conquest to be excellent.

 

We didn’t have any cleanliness issues with cups in the lido as others have mentioned, but we did get silverware that was not clean on a few occasions. That is disturbing and can really get a healthcare worker’s mind spinning about other unseen things that may be lurking…There were a few times we tried to get hot chocolate but all the machines were down. Not a big deal, we just waited and got some later when they were operational again. DH likes the ice cream, and he only had one time when all the machines were out of ice cream at the same time. He just shrugged it off and figured he didn’t need another cone right then anyway.

 

This was, of course, the fog cruise. We thought the crew did an exceptional job of keeping us updated about the weather and the implications to the itinerary. We appreciated this very much.

 

This was the 4th time we had cruised on this particular week, and it was the worst weather we had ever encountered on any of our cruises. Obviously, not the fault of the cruise line, just an observation of the odd week we had. It was much more chilly and windy than we had experienced before and, of course, a lot more rainy and foggy too. It never got warm enough for either of us to put on a swimsuit all week; although, we did sit out by the pool for an hour or so a couple of afternoons. The torrential rain in Key West was absolutely astounding. We were informed when we arrived and it was raining that the weather forecast called for clearing about mid-morning. At noon when it had slowed to a sprinkle, we decided to go into town. We had docked at the Navy Pier, so trolleys transported us to a stop near Mallory Square. The crew was selling rain ponchos for $3 at the gangway. They had 1 left when we got there, so my husband was kind enough to give it to me. Once we got into town, the downpour began. We walked around and hung out in shops to avoid the rain for a couple of hours before giving up and heading back to the ship. By that time, we were literally wading across streets in water up to our knees! When I remembered that I had optimistically put on sunscreen that morning, my husband and I began laughing hysterically. Even with the poncho, I looked like a drowned rat, and he was absolutely soaked through and through. People probably thought we were nuts, but what else could we do but laugh? It was just a ridiculous occurrence.

 

We attended all of the shows. The comedian, Marc Rubben, was humorous but not hilarious. His adult comedy show was better than the welcome aboard, family-friendly one. The caliber of the singers and dancers was better than on any other ship we’ve sailed, but neither of us really liked the choreography. It seemed much more geared toward the “shock” value of very suggestive moves by very scantily-clad women than anything else. We don’t think we’ll be taking the boys to the shows in March. The magician/illusionist, Hellevi, was not impressive either. Most of the show consisted of the dancers with bits and pieces of predictable magic in between. It was like she didn’t have enough magic material to make up a whole show, and the dancers didn’t have enough material to make up another show, so they just combined the two. We very much enjoyed the show by Ron Joseph featuring Motown classics. He was a great singer with a great personality and a lot of energy, and he also incorporated the audience in fun and creative ways. They did a holiday show on Saturday afternoon. In addition to the Carnival singers and dancers, they had the kids from Camp Carnival sing some songs, and the cruise director read a Christmas story to them as well before Santa made an appearance for them. It was a very nice show. We didn’t attend the Legends show the last night. We were just too tired – it didn’t start until 10:00.

 

We don’t play bingo or really participate in many of the organized activities. We did trivia a time or two and watched some of the game show mania, marriage, and battle of the sexes games. They were quite enjoyable. The cruise director, Chris Jefferson, has a very pleasant personality, and we really enjoyed his style. He was very funny and personable and did not resort to getting laughs at the expense of the pride of guests as we have seen many other cruise directors do. He genuinely seemed to enjoy his job and the passengers. We were really quite impressed, especially considering how stressful this week had to have been on the staff with the lousy weather and changing itinerary. No doubt there were some cranky passengers as well, but you never would have known it by Chris’ demeanor. We attended karaoke for the first time ever, on or off a ship, and really enjoyed it. We didn’t get up the nerve to participate, but we had a great time watching others perform and figuring out the procedure so we’ll be all set and ready for family karaoke with our kids in March! It was great to see how supportive complete strangers are of each other in such a vulnerable situation. We did not attend the past guest party on Tuesday, so we can’t report on that.

 

We were about 2 ½ hours late returning to Galveston – about an hour after the predicted late arrival time we’d been given. Debarkation was the absolute worst we’ve ever experienced. All the great communication and updates we had received throughout the week absolutely disappeared. We elected to try self-assist debarkation. We got an announcement for self-assist with early flights. Then an announcement that regular self-assist was “about” to begin and then nothing else. About 45 minutes after that announcement, we just decided to join the line to debark. There wasn’t another announcement before we debarked, which was over an hour and a half after the first announcement. The whole process was very chaotic as well. There were people everywhere – blocking the hallways and stairwells, trying to push their way into the middle of established lines. It was just a mess, and there was no direction from staff or crew about where to be. Left to their own devices with no direction, people did what people do – got irritated and pushy. Once we got in the debarkation line, it took us an hour to get off the ship. And there were people who were obviously not self-assist (because they didn’t have any luggage) in the line as well. Just absolutely ridiculous. A vast improvement would be to assign people to a particular waiting area according to their disembarkation process or number, i.e. all self-assist wait in Toulouse Lautrec lounge. All #1 wait in Vincent’s, all #2 wait in Albert’s, etc. And tell people ahead of time that the announcement calling for each group to debark will not be made overhead but will only be made in the assigned waiting area. This would perhaps keep people from congregating in hallways and stairwells and creating the hazards inherent therein and would make for a much smoother debarkation process. The upside, since Key West had been our last port before getting back to Galveston, we did not have to go through customs and immigration at the terminal. We just walked off the ship and outside to a warm, beautiful, sunny day in Galveston. Ironically, it was the only day I did not put on sunscreen and was the only one I really needed it…

 

The trip ended with another long wait for the LaQuinta shuttle. I called the hotel to make sure they knew we had debarked and were ready to be picked up (since we had arrived late into port). I was assured the shuttle was on its way. After waiting over an hour, the shuttle finally arrived to take us back to the hotel. It was 1:30 pm before we got on the road back home.

 

All in all, we had a very nice cruise. It certainly didn’t unfold the way we planned, but we rolled with it and enjoyed the extra time to relax and unwind. We noticed some things that were not to our liking, but nothing that was a deal breaker. We are very interested to compare this cruise experience with the one we have booked on the Conquest in March. I’m hopeful that some of those things will be adjusted by then.

[firefly333]

We arrived at the terminal about 1:00 and were on the ship by 2:00. The biggest delay was self-inflicted. We had a roll-on soft-sided cooler that looks more like normal luggage that we had packed with 24 sodas. It was about an inch bigger than the limit for coolers, but we didn’t think it would be a problem since normal carry-on luggage, including our other 2 carry-on bags, are much larger than this cooler. Let me tell you, they can pick out a cooler, and they very strictly follow the cooler size requirements. We just shifted the sodas and the collapsed cooler to one of our other carry-on bags. No big deal- just much heavier to carry rather than roll on 24 sodas. And it probably took about 10-15 minutes to get everything shifted and get the approval to continue on into the terminal. Next time we’ll just bring a larger roll-on bag as the soda bag. .

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1098329

 

Warning - They were very strict on the size limits for coolers. I had a rolling cooler packed with my water and juice. It was bigger than the 12x12x12 limit (by 3 inches). We had to take the cooler back to the car. It turned out to be no biggie as we had a frig in the room, but the fiasco did slow down our getting on the ship ;)...

 

People tell me all the time to quit mentioning how strict they are regarding coolers, they they got away with it last time, so expect to in the future.

 

Sounds like I wouldnt stay at the La Quinta, thanks for the warning. I stayed at the Howard Johnson's last time who uses the regular shuttle from the parking across the road. Free parking, but the shuttle is $5 pp each way.

 

Doesnt sound like you liked breakfast on the Lido or room service. I missed if you tried the dining room. Uck. I like breakfast usually, so that would be a bummer if it was bad.

 

I wonder about that banging of the pipes in your cabin. I never had a cabin steward who changed the temps, just one who didnt come in for days on Conquest.

 

The magician/illusionist, Hellevi, was not impressive either. Most of the show consisted of the dancers with bits and pieces of predictable magic in between.

 

The Triumph now has a similar magic show, if you dont like it on conquest you wouldnt like it on Triumph.

 

thanks for your review. Always good to get new tips.

[dprg644]

Thanks for a very detailed review. I do see a pattern in reading the numerous reviews which I know are subjective from one person to another. I notice however that there seems to be more complaints about the food quality and service more than anything else. You have to wonder if it will improve over time with the numerous complaints and substandard reviews. Looks like you did enjoy your cruise and made the best of all of it which is the important thing to remember when on vacation.....roll with the punches......

[HoustonTodd]

Thank you for a great review. I'm just over a month away from my next trip on the Conquest, so I am especially fond of getting such detailed reviews. I'll be interested to compare notes when I return.

[krisbtr]

Thanks for the info on the shuttle from the hotels. We are sailing on the Conquest February 14, and are staying at the Holiday Inn Express. Originally we ahd planned to park our cars there and take the shuttle, but after reading your review, I think we'll be better off just using lighthouse or EZ parking. I hate waiting so long for a shuttle just to get back to your car! I am praying the weather isn't as bad as when you sailed, hoping for some warm weather! Thanks for a balanced and well though out review!