Just off the Paradise 8/23-8/27 - Review

[tapdancemom]

My hubby and I were with a group of 40 of my dancers and their parents and our TA Robin. I have a dance studio in Portland and the girls got to perform on the main stage Thursday afternoon.

 

Hubby and I flew on Jet Blue (love that airline) arriving in Long Beach and stayed over Sunday night at the Downtown Hilton. Got the $94 Carnival rate. It's a lovely hotel with friendly, helpful staff. Odd, but we didn't see many people at all in the lobby, resaurant or anywhere else on the property.

 

The shuttle driver took us to Shoreline Village on the water and we had dinner at Tequila Jack's. Gary and I both had shrimp "wet burritos", really good. So were the margaritas. We were both tired and headed back to the hotel. The rooms are large and beautiful, we had a nice view of the city. The beds were too soft for hubby. Lovely bedding and giant high def wide screen TV.

 

We decided to have breakfast in the restaurant, should have had room service, they prices were the same. The ham, cheese, onion & tomatoe omlette was really very good but the rest of the buffet items were just so-so.

 

We went to get on our shuttle and found out the driver wasn't available that day (what?) but they prepaid our cab so that was fine.

 

I'll write about embarkation (after doing some laundry). I have some pictures, but can't figure out how to get them up :confused:. Any help?

[tapdancemom]

We got to the ship at about 11:00am and did early check in at the Queen Mary, but by the time we made it back to the ship they were doing regular check with no waiting at all. We were on before noon,the quickest we've ever got on board.

 

We had one carry on with us and went up to the Lido deck. We had a late breakfast and weren't ready to eat again so we sat out on the deck. We were bombarded by waiters trying to sell drinks, not ready for cocktails that early in the day. I did order a wine package, $98 for three bottles, so we did save money over purchasing them one at a time. Interesting story about that later.

 

I started meeting up with my group and ended up going to the Paris anyway and getting some iced tea.

 

Gary and I got to our cabins at 1:30 and we unpacked a little. The cabin was not as spacious as the balconey cabin we had on the Splendor but enough room for us.

 

We checked out all of our friends cabins and some were not set up for 3, only as doubles. Our steward said it would all be finished shortly and it was done by the time the muster drill was done.

 

Since we skipped lunch we headed up the the buffet a little before three and had some dessert and coffee. Figured that would hold us untill dinner.

 

The drill began in a sitting area outside the Rex Disco and we moved to outside on the Lido deck to finish, waited a long time and then we were let go. No one checked us in like usual, seems like you could have missed it completly and they wouldn't have known.