Thanksgiving Cruise on the Conquest

[dfmeeks]

Sometime in May, DH announced that he was stressed & wanted to know when & where I had planned our next vacation. You don’t have to ask me that question twice so, after about 4 hours of online research, DH, DD & I were booked ES on the Carnival Conquest in a balcony stateroom. Woo hoo!

For me, part of the fun is all of the planning & anticipation. It sort of expands my vacation from 1 week to several months. So, needless to say, I spent many hours pouring over Cruise Critic reviews, boards, etc. I googled other sites but CC is truly the gold standard over all the others.

Because we booked under ES, I spent a great deal of time checking rate changes. Though my rate dropped slightly, & I realized that small savings, we discovered something much more important. If we booked our DD in an inside stateroom & brought her BFF on the cruise, it would cost only about $500 more & we’d have our stateroom all to ourselves. Tess will be turning 16 in early January so we haven’t had a romantic vacation in 16 years. Our honeymoon was a cruise from NY to Bermuda so I reframed adding the extra expense as securing a second honeymoon. Well worth the money! So, arrangements were made for Anna to spend Thanksgiving & her 16th birthday with us.

 

I'll continue tomorrow once I research & learn how to add photos. But, in general, it was a fantastic cruise!

[MichelleChell]

LOL With all these Thanksgiving reviews from our trip I may not do one. LOL Well maybe I will do one with info on how we handled our little ones for people.

[dfmeeks]

I'm going to make an attempt at posting photos.

DH & I woke up around 5 am & scrambled to feed the horses, finish packing, & make sure everything was in order for our pet/house sitters. We have 4 horses, 5 dogs, 3 indoor cats, & 8 barn cats so going away for overnight trips is always a huge production. In the past, we've returned from vacation to find our pasture flooded, gates unlocked & our horses in our front yard, & mud tracks throughout our house from the sitter's great dane. We finally found a responsible college student so leaving our pets has become less stressful. Anyway, the girls stayed up all night so they were ready to go as soon as we woke up.

We left Stillwater about 7:45 AM & made it to Galveston about 4 PM. I attended University of Houston in the late 70's so it was so exciting to drive through the city.

I reserved 2 hotel rooms through Orbitz at Country Inn & Suites overlooking the gulf for $122 in total for both rooms. The hotel was clean, with an exercise roon & indoor pool, included a continental breakfast & free wifi, with a location that suited our needs. After checking in, we were able to walk on the beach, walk to dinner, &, the next morning, DH & I trekked about 3 miles round trip at 5:30 AM to watch the Conquest sail into Galveston. Dinner was reasonably priced & delicious at The Spot. I ordered the blackened Mahi Mahi sandwich & the others ordered burgers. Not one complaint about the food was heard. They offer incredible looking desserts but we declined :( probably because we were so full. Anyway, I highly recommend The Spot.

 

 

 

 

After dinner, the girls exercised & swam in the pool. DH was exhausted & fell asleep but I was much too excited to sleep!! I'm going on a cruise in less than 12 hours!!

[txskier]

Ready for more!!

we love the Conquest, 3rd time will be May 1:D

[MicksMom]

Can't wait for more. Have our 4th time on the Conquest booked!

[*Mach*]

The picture of the Flagship is so sad... She was once quite a grand lady...

I'll be on the Conquest for her final seven day sailing from Galveston next year... me and about 150 Crazies. This will be my seventh sailing on that lovely ship...

:)

[dfmeeks]

LOL With all these Thanksgiving reviews from our trip I may not do one. LOL Well maybe I will do one with info on how we handled our little ones for people.

 

I hope you do write one! I think reading other peoples' perspectives is so interesting.

[dfmeeks]

The picture of the Flagship is so sad... She was once quite a grand lady...

 

I'll be on the Conquest for her final seven day sailing from Galveston next year... me and about 150 Crazies. This will be my seventh sailing on that lovely ship...

 

:)

 

 

At first, we didn't realize the Flagship was closed. What a pity! I bet she was once quite beautiful. Certainly, her view was outstanding.

[dfmeeks]

Sunday morning was finally here! I got up at 5 AM, & checked the galveston.com cruise web to see if the Conquest docked yet. She didn't so I woke up DH, quickly drank a coffee & we headed down to the pier to watch her sail in. We made it just in time to see her off in the distance slowly making her way home. As we waited, we noticed several dolphins playing in the water. Lovely! Within a short time, the Conquest floated before us & then somehow the Captain managed to spin her around facing the direction she'd be sailing out of Galveston. Truely amazing to watch.

After the "show" we took our time walking back to our hotel, ate a light breakfast & headed to the pier with the girls. I had made advanced reservations at a fenced in parking area across the street from the pier for $45. DH dropped me, the girls & all of our luggage at the pier while he parked. Our luggage was immediately wisked away not to be seen again until around 5 PM. Within minutes DH returned & we went through a swift & easy embarkation process. I'd say Dave dropped us at the pier at about 10:30 & we were eating lunch at about 11:45.

Lunch was delicious!! I chose a bowl of bouliabase (sp) & it was fresh, seasoned well, served hot, & delicious! During the week, I enjoyed the pizza & hamburgers several times. However, I didn't care for the hot foods on the buffet for either lunch or dinner. I recall the buffet food on the Liberty having more taste & more variety. One evening, after returning from Grand Cayman, we were too tired to eat in the dining room so we grabbed dinner at the buffet. I couldn't eat my pork chop or baked potato. Both were cold & hard. No problem! I love pizza!! That said, my husband loved the buffet food but agrees that the Liberty had more choices. Also, I ordered a pastrami on rye from the deli. Yuck! Please keep in mind that I lived most of my life in & around NYC, & I'm half Jewish so I'm use to good Jewish deli. I was not impressed. They slice the meat too thick & served it luke warm. I couldn't eat it & it turned me off the deli the rest of the cruise. DD & BFF, however, loved the turkey sandwiches. I guess my point is it's all a matter of personal preference so, those of you cruising on Carnival for the first time, don't be discouraged if you read negatives about the food. Judge for yourself. And, I must say, I didn't starve! I returned 5 lbs heavier.

[douglinc@msn.com]

Glad you had a good cruise, we were on her a couple of weeks ago.

 

Doug

[dfmeeks]

Looking down on the lobby

Club for 15-17 yr olds

I don't remember which club this is

 

Blues Club

[dfmeeks]

Ths is one of the many beautiful stained glass windows lining the hall of the promenade deck

 

 

 

Latour Wine Bar

 

 

Yummy desserts at the Cafe

 

 

 

More yummy desserts

 

 

Looking down the hall of the promenade deck

 

 

Painting on lobby ceiling

[MichelleChell]

Maybe I will get working on one Monday. LOL

[Luluwa]

Thanks for the review..... I'd like to hear more and see more pics.

Thanks, Luluwa

[boaterette]

Very very nice.

[Meyer2]

Great start to your review!!!

[travelingtriumphess]

A wonderful review so far. I have enjoyed it thoroughly. I will be checking back to read more :D

[dogbert's mom]

Great review so far. I'm addicted to the turkey sandwiches from the deli. Its always my first meal on the ship. The last cruise I went on I didn't have one meal at the buffet.

[liuyuehehua]

Sometime in May, DH announced that he was stressed & wanted to know when & where I had planned our next vacation. You don’t have to ask me that question twice so, after about 4 hours of online research, DH, DD & I were booked ES on the Carnival Conquest in a balcony stateroom. Woo hoo!

For me, part of the fun is all of the planning & anticipation. It sort of expands my vacation from 1 week to several months. So, needless to say, I spent many hours pouring over Cruise Critic reviews, boards, etc. I googled other sites but CC is truly the gold standard over all the others.

Because we booked under ES, I spent a great deal of time checking rate changes. Though my rate dropped slightly, & I realized that small savings, we discovered something much more important. If we booked our DD in an inside stateroom & brought her BFF on the cruise, it would cost only about $500 more & we’d have our stateroom all to ourselves. Tess will be turning 16 in early January so we haven’t had a romantic vacation in 16 years. Our honeymoon was a cruise from NY to Bermuda so I reframed adding the extra expense as securing a second honeymoon. Well worth the money! So, arrangements were made for Anna to spend Thanksgiving & her 16th birthday with us.

 

I'll continue tomorrow once I research & learn how to add photos. But, in general, it was a fantastic cruise!

Hi,

I am so glad to find someone like you, who just came back from Carnival Conquest trip. My husband and I will sail with the same ship next Sunday. Since this is our first time with Conquest, would you please give me some suggestions of what we should do in Jamaica and Cayman island?

Thanks a lot!

[dfmeeks]

Hi,

I am so glad to find someone like you, who just came back from Carnival Conquest trip. My husband and I will sail with the same ship next Sunday. Since this is our first time with Conquest, would you please give me some suggestions of what we should do in Jamaica and Cayman island?

Thanks a lot!

 

I'm so jealous! I wish I were sailing again next Sunday!

We allowed our 15 yr old & her bff to choose excursions since we were celebrating their 16th birthdays. However, I collected the excursion info from various sources. First, I printed Carnival's excursions in order to get ideas of what's available. Next, I visited the tourism websites of each port. Finally, I read reviews on the specific POC boards on CC.

We didn't reserve any of Carnival's excursions because I knew I could pretty much duplicate the excursion for less money. Some people are uncomfortable doing that because they feel safer going through Carnival &, if you're late returning, Carnival will not set sail if you're on one of their excursions. If I had time concerns, for example if we traveled to Tulum Ruins while in Cozumel, I would choose Carnival's excursion. We probably would have chosen a Carnival excursion in Mo-Bay if our transportation didn't pick us up right at the pier.

DD chose a sail & snorkel excursion which also brought us to Doctors Cave Beach. That specific excursion was brought to our attention through someone on our roll call & the entire tour consisted of Conquest guests. In the Cayman's, they wanted beach so we just hailed a cab & spent the day at Sea Grape Beach on Seen Mile Beach. We chose that area because the girls wanted water sports availability (water trykes, parasailing, etc).

So, in summary, I would say research all of your options & choose your excursions by your comfort level (to use Carnival for excursions or not to use them) & your interests.

By the way, I brought back all of the Fun Times as well as many of the inserts offering bargains, etc. I'll scan them this week. If someone can instruct me on how to attach them to my posts I will do so. Otherwise, I can send them in email form to whomever wants them.

[dfmeeks]

At 1:30 sharp they opened the doors allowing us to enter our rooms. I immediately ran to my balcony because, to me, that was where I'd be spending most of my time.

 

 

I cruised with my parents on the Oceanic when I was 13 (I'm 52). For my honeymoon in 1988, we cruised from NY to Bermuda on RCCL's Song of Norway. For my 50th birthday & my parents; 65th anniversary we cruised to Panama, Costa Rica, & Cozumel on the Carnival Liberty. I'm really not a cruise fan. I prefer resorts & we typically stay at an AI in Mexico each year but my DD loves cruises so for her 16th birthday....well, you know. Anyway, on our last cruise I swore I wouldn't cruise again because I returned exhausted. I was on spring break from working on my MBA full time while working as a manager in community mental health full time, not to mention being a mom to an active teen & a wife. Because my parents were on the cruise, I felt like I had to participate in as much as possible with them. Don't get me wrong. I'm blessed to have that wonderful time with my parents & we spent a long weekend with them again this year in NOLA to celebrate mom's 90th birthday. But, I finally figured out that this cruise would be different. I would not participate in anything that I didn't want to. Even though we may have planned to see a late show, if we didn't feel like it when the time came, we wouldn't. Consequently, the majority of my time was spent on my balcony. Now I'm a huge cruise fan! AI in Mexico? What's that? I'm already in the process of scheming, I mean planning, for our next cruise.

Anyway, I look to the right.....

 

 

To the left I see a RCCL ship

The girls' room before.....

 

 

Within an hour.......

 

 

And it got worse from there as the week progressed. Needless to say, we left an additional tip on top of our pre-paid tip!

[dfmeeks]

I pre-ordered champagne for our cabin, & cake for the girls' cabin. My dad & mom sent them candy.

 

 

 

Funny story about the cake. So the girls immediately cut into it, as you can see, & thought it tasted ok but not as yummy as the rest of the desserts on the cruise. I tasted it & found it bland. I originally ordered the chocolate cake but later heard Tess comment that too much chocolate is too rich for her tastes (I'm thinking the hospital may have given me someone else's child) so I called the Bon Voyage department & they changed it to strawberry mousse. Anyway, towards the end of the week, the girls asked DH & I if we've been coming into their room & eating cake. We weren't. But each day, there was another sliver of cake removed &, finally, the knife marks were replaced on one side by fingers! We were hysterical! One time, we returned to the room in time to see the steward leaving & he wiped his lip. We were all joking that he was wiping icing off! I know some readers may get angry because it sounds like we're making accusations. And some people will get upset due to the possibility of germs. I don't know what was going on. I'm not accusing anyone & the girls no longer wanted the cake anyway. So, we chose to treat the entire incident as a comical moment. Perhaps I would have felt different if the girls loed the cake but, honestly, if they loved it it would have been finished by the second day.

Anyway, after the muster drill we had sail away. The girls chose to participate in the deck party while DH & I sat on our balcony with a bottle of red & watched the world go by us.

 

 

 

Later that evening, we enjoyed a delicious dinner in the Renoir Dining Room. I don't remember what we ate, with the exception of my chocolate melting cake with 2 ice creams:p. Then, early to bed so I can rise early to see what's outside my window!!

[Cruise_Dreaming]

Loving your review and pictures. Want to hear more.

[MichelleChell]

I thought our Jamaica excursion was GREAT!! I wish I had gotten to talk to and meet more of our Roll Call since we were all on the boat! LOL

[QLUVS2CRUZ]

I'm sad I've come to the end of the review for now! I'm not even sailing this ship, but I can't wait to hear more and see the pics...

 

Plus I know anyone who lives in Stillwater has good taste...having lived there myself once upon a college degree!