Glory 3/20-3/27 LONG

[SugarStar00]

My boyfriend and I are 33, and 31 from CT. We traveled with another couple the same age. This was our second cruise, the first being on Princess. We wanted to try out Carnival and my friend has sailed with them several times so she was in agreement. My bf and I had a balcony on deck 6, room 6410. Our ports of call were Cozumel, Belize, Roatan and Grand Cayman, leaving from the Port of Miami. This review is to share our experiences to help guide others, and I will be comparing to princess a bit as well.

Sat 3/19 We flew down from CT on Delta airlines without incident and stayed in Motel Bianco in Miami for the night. Even though I purchased travel insurance (Travelex- $60pp) I still like to leave a day early to insure not missing the ship. Our friends stayed in a hotel closer to the port for about $120, Continental Downtown Bayside, which was across the street from the Bayside Market. The area was a busy city atmosphere, but felt safe. The room was small, kinda grubby carpet and outdated tiny bathroom, but had a great location. Overall they seemed ok with their stay. We took a cab from the airport to their hotel (about $25) dropped our stuff and walked across the street and had dinner at Bubba Gumps. It was a nice night and we ate on the patio, had plenty to drink and started getting in vacation mode. We grabbed our stuff and caught a cab outside their hotel almost immediately and headed to our motel. The Motel Bianco got great reviews on trip advisor and had great pictures and was only $79 for the night. It was a bit further from the airport and POM than I had expected, about $25 cab ride from Bayside market. It was out of the big city area, in an area which I guess is being... refurbished..? I didnt feel as safe here, but we still walked about half a block to a liquor store to pick up our wine for the ship. Our room wasn't what I would call cozy, it was clean with tile floor and an attempt at modern decor, but the tile floor and half hearted renovations just weren't welcoming enough for me. Bed was clean and comfy and I slept ok, the bathroom was actually the best part. Brand new everything and very clean and nicely done. I'd rate this motel about a 5. There's no amenities, no breakfast, no phone in the room. We asked the front desk to call us a cab and they handed us the phone and said we had to do it. Whatever. So another $25 or so to the Port in the morning and we arrived about 11:30 am.

Sun 3/20 - Embarkation Day. As I said we arrived around 11:30am and met up with our other couple. Porters took our main luggage but we carried on 2 bags each. The terminal area was much more appealing than Port Everglades where we sailed out of on Princess, it was indoors and well organized, vs outdoors and then entering what felt like a giant warehouse in Port Everglades. Got through customs with no problems, probably waited in like for 20min or so. The next step was to do a self check in with their kiosks. I feel this would go faster if a person would check you in, no one really seems to know what they are doing and the process is a bit slow. After to do your computer check in you head over to a person who hands you your sail and sign cards. Then you are on your way up to the gangway. Overall pretty smooth process, and fairly quick. I believe we were on the ship by 12:45. We wanted to first head to our rooms but the doors to the cabins were all closed saying they'd be open at 1:30. So we headed up to deck 9 for lunch! (still with carry ons, not the easiest to do). We ate at the buffet, food was decent, lines were long and tables hard to find. To be expected since no one can go to their rooms. They opened the cabin hallways promptly at 1:30 and dropped our stuff off and checked out the room, fun times and just relaxed a bit. Our bags were delivered about 2pm and we unpacked and headed to the muster drill. (started about 30min late around 3:45) and sail away was supposed to be at 4. After finally getting out of that, we headed up to the deck to get a drink in time for the first movement, but were not able to make it. Oh well, still enjoyed sail away and stayed on deck until sunset. We made our first staff member friend Fransisco, a drink waiter on the deck, he remembered all of our names right off the bat and never forgot us the whole trip.

Dining -We had late dining- 8:15 in the Golden dining room, upper. Domenic was our waiter and Agusti the assisant, both very nice but not overly friendly. Our food orders were messed up the first night, we actually goy to try some stuff we wouldnt have ordered and ended up liking. The rest of the nights were fine, got everything correct. The dining room compared to Princess was much more casual. An elegant night on Carnival was like a regular night on Princess. I wore a dress every night to dinner and felt a bit overdressed, people around me were wearing jeans and t-shirts with baseball hats. I was a little disappointed in this, but I guess thats part of why people like Carnival. The waitstaff did a little show each night, singing and dancing, which when I heard of this before the cruise I thought it was tacky, but it turned out that it was funny and entertaining. The food was very good but Princess's was better, tastier, more elegant, and.. well just better in my opinion. In addition to our waiter and assistant waiter, we had a bar waitress which to me was unnessessary and confusing. Sometimes we ordered drinks with the waiter then she would come along and seem upset that we didnt order from her, but she didnt come until after we ordered dinner. Her name was Samantha and she was also good about remembering us throughout the ship at different events, however she stopped taking our cards because she thought she knew our number, but we realized one night she charged the wrong persons account. I believe in karma, so we pointed it out and she corrected it, but just beware and watch your folios!

The Ship- I liked the Glory very much, the decor was modern and very fun and colorful. Everything sparkled and changed color, and was very clean. I liked the decor of the Glory much better than Emerald Princess, which was overly gaudy to me. Personal preference. The rooms however were a bit tacky with the pink awing-like light covers going almost around the room, but the room was a good size, compareable to the oceanview we had on Princess. Bathroom was almost exactly the same. The shower has two dispensers for shampoo and body wash, which I think everyone brings anyway, so the space would be better utilized as a little shelf for the things needed in the shower. I use a lot of products! The ship was a bit difficult to navigate, you have to go up or down to get front to back, annoying when you are in a rush and have no clue where you are going! The Emerald Princess was the same way, although I hear not every ship is like that, guess I'm just lucky! SMOKING- We are not smokers and a HUGE downside to Carnival in my opinion is the smoking on the ship. Smoking is allowed in every bar, the casino, on deck etc. Almost everywhere you went. I found this very frustrating. Princess had a very few designated areas for smokers, even the casino had non-smoking nights so that everyone could enjoy a smoke free night if they wished. It's a shame that you have to smell like an ashtry if you want to go to the casino or any bar or the dance club. Or if you get a seat next to a smoker on the lido! Hopefully Carnival does something about this soon. Its probably the biggest problem I have with Carnival and might very well keep me from sailing with them again.

Entertainment- For a FUN ship, I was a bit disappointed. There really wasnt much to do at all. A few Comedy shows that repeated for several days, which were held in a tiny room and filled up very early. A magic show that I wasnt expecting much but turned out to be a really good upbeat dance/magic show. The Carnival dancer show was entertaining for one night. And the hypnotist was funny for a few minutes but I almost fell asleep during it. The dance club was dead until after midnight and then when people starting coming in it got so smoke filled I had to leave. Plus there was very little seating if you didnt want to dance. Princess's club was smoke free and had plenty of seating. At sea days there were a few pool games, hairy chest contest etc that were mildly entertaining, same as Princess. The Casino was much larger than on Princess, plenty of slots and tables with $5 min bets. I worked up enough courage to play roulette for the first time, they make you comforatable and explain things to you if you've never played before, not like the big Casinos here in Connecticut! We also did the slot tournament both at Sea days, you pay $20 and play the slots for a timed 5min and the 8 highest scores plus a wildcard get to play a final round to win $500. We didn't do very well but it was fun. We visited the Piano bar a few nights, Peter was playing. He was loveable, but after stopping in a few nights in a row it seems he was playing the same requested songs over and over again, and one night he let one woman sing a duet with him and then everyone wanted to sing a song..it almost turned into karyoke, I felt a little bad for him! Eventhough I think Princess had a bit more to offer, we still managed to find stuff to do every night and had a good time.

Cozumel- We arranged before the trip to spend the day at Mr. Sanchos. All inclusive for $45 pp. A $15 (scary!!)cab ride each way and about a 10min drive. Just like everyone on here said, you get a table with an umbrella and there are plently of lounge chairs available nearby. Hector was our waiter and he did a great job. We all ordered every drink on the menu just about and he kept 'em coming! We tried several food items also and everything was delicious. They have a water toy park for an additional $12 and of course after about 6 drinks my friend and I had to do it. Let me warn you, these "toys" are EXTREMELY hard to get onto. I was only able to hoist myself onto the smallest trampoline. I spent an hour struggling to get ontop of everything else with no success. I ended up exhausted and bruised all over! I work out and consider myself in shape, but i couldnt for the life of me climb those things. Its all arm strength. UGH! waste of money for that part. I really wanted to parasail here, I heard people say they had it, but there was none to be seen, so that was a bit of a bummer. All in all, we enjoyed Mr. Sanchos and made sure we ate and drank our money's worth!

Belize- We seperated from our friends and my bf and I did Cave Tubing through Carnival. First you have to meet real early in the lounge to get a sticker which gets you on one of the first tenders. Then you tender over in a huge boat compared to princess's small tenders that they carry on the sides of the ship. Once there you're funneled through a little mall area and off to some buses. You take a 90min bus ride EACH WAY to the caves. I have no idea when I signed up for this that i'd be spending half my day on a bus. An informative ride through Belize to get there, but way too long. One there you get off your coach bus and pile onto a school bus to take you on a 5min journey up over a hill and then you get off. Divide into groups and get life vests, helmets with lights on them, and your tube. You are required to wear water shoes, which Carnvial also fails to tell you, so if you dont bring your own you have to pay to rent them. (luckily I brought mine!) so then you go off and treck across the river and up into the woods. About a 30min hike, slight incline. Was very easy for me and my bf but some larger out of shape people seemed very winded. The water shoes aren't the best for hiking but it was ok. Now you come back to the river. I was expecting this to be a sort of a thrill ride down the river. I guess I misunderstood, because you hop into your tube and link up with the rest of your group members so you are in a chain. Your tour guide pulls you down the river and through pitch black caves. (Thank goodness for our miner's helmets!) It was very beautiful and we saw amazing formations. Tour guide did a good job explaning things, but half way through I was ready to fall asleep in my tube. I didnt bring a camera cause I thought it was going to be a fast river and I might lose it, regretting not brining it because I ended up paying $30 for a disc of pics that they took of us. The ride down the river was about 45 min long. Some useful info for those thinking of doing cave tubing that carnival doesnt share:

1. Wear a bathing suit and bring water shoes and a towel

2. You can rent a locker at the site for $5 and rent water shoes for $5

3. You will spend half your day on a coach bus, 90min each way

4. You will hike in your watershoes about 30min slight incline

5. This is not a thrill ride, its a very slow leasurely float down the river

6. Bring a camera, you should be able to keep it dry no problem.

I think that covers it. I'm happy we did it, but wouldnt do it again.

Roatan- Ship docks at Mahogany Bay, which I believe is a fairly new port. Only two ships can dock at a time, so not super croweded. Its a very lush and beautiful place. We walked over to the beach right next to the ships. Free chairs, palms to sit under and a bar close by with waiters who came to you. Nice sandy beach with warm water. Not good snorkeling at this beach, if you want to snorkel I believe you have to take a cab to a beach farther away. It was a low key relaxing day which is exactly what I wanted. You can rent floats for $6 but some people left early and let me use theirs for the rest of the day. Also you can rent paddle boats and water bikes, not sure how much. Very nice day.

Grand Cayman- We did the Carnival Turtle Farm, Hell and Stingray experience. You take a short tender ride over to the island and get onto a little bus. We stopped at Hell first, which was a post office, gift shop and the famous rocks. You spend about 20min here and then get back on the bus and head to the rum cake store. you get to sample the different cakes and then purchase various sized ones if you want. they also have delicious Jamaican pastries for a snack if you're hungry. Next stop was the Turtle farm. Much smaller than I was expecting, there's several pools with various aged/sized sea turtles to see and you can hold and pet a few of them. I was really nervous about someone dropping a turtle and hurting it so I didnt enjoy this stop as much as I should have. I love animals and the people were just grabbing then and some that were very heavy and too large to be held. I was a nervous wreck. Next stop, stingray sandbar. You take your bus 10min away to a boat that holds about 25-30 people and travel about 45 min out into the ocean to a sandbar. There's music, water, juice and a bathroom on the boat, so it was enjoyable. Once there, you hop into the water and start swimming with the rays. Our tour guide explained to us about the rays and showed us how to hold them. He was able to catch them and everyone got a chance to hold one and give it a kiss. they are really friendly to people, because you get to feed them pieces of squid. The water was clear blue with white sand. You can do a little snorkeling but there's not much to see since the water is so clear. I saw a few conch's and fish and a lot of human feet! It was an amazing experience, the rays are gigantic! You spend about an hour there and then head back. A really nice day, I enjoyed this excursion very much. And Grand Cayman is beautiful and more modern than some of the other islands, I really think I could live there and be right at home!

I think its time to wrap this up...even longer than I expected!

Debarkation- Again, Carnival should communicate this a little better for newbies. We had a 12:30 flight out of Miami and were a tad nervous about making it. We found out we were in line to get out at 10am which was too late, so we asked for an early slot and without hestiation she handed us tickets for zone 2 which was to leave around 9. Our friends decided to do the carry your own luggage off the ship because they thought those people got off first. They talked us into this option, and were proved wrong. They call by zones and floors regardless of if you carry your own bags. Zone 2 (our original zone) was actually called before floor 6 carry your own was called. Ha, oh well. We were still off the ship by 9am with plenty of time to spare. Carrying your own bags really isnt that big of a deal, it doesnt save you that much work. Customs was quick again and no problems to report. We took a cab to airport for about $25 again and flew home Delta without incident again..whohoo!

Sorry so long, hopefully someone found something useful in this. Let me know if you have any questions.

Some things I forgot to mention:

Carnival is more liberal in the dining room regarding drinks, I carried wine in from my room glass several times with no problem, and the last night they opened our champange we won on the ship without any problem or cost. Princess charges you a corking fee I believe do bring any liquor into the dining room.

Smuggling: My friends attempted to bring in two large bottles of hard liquor and it was taken from them. We brought on two bottles of wine per policy with no problems.

Picking up Liquor: If you buy liquor in a port or have it taken at embarkation, you must pick it up the morning of debarkation, it is NOT delivered. Princess delivered to your room the night before, much easier!

Beer Buckets: I believe this is fairly new, but you can't have glass bottles on deck anymore, so if you get a bucket of beer is has to be either in cans or aluminum bottles. Limits your selection a lot.

Towel Animals: LOVE THEM! Princess doesnt do them, and they really are quite enjoyable to come home at night to. =)

Chocolate buffet: They had a wonderful buffet of desserts and chocolate last day at sea for lunch, only open two hours and not at night. I missed out and was really bummed.

Photos: They really need to come up with something better. Just like Princess they take a dozen pics of you and then hang them in a huge jumble for you to play hide and seek. We couldnt find half of ours. They'd probably make so much more money if people could find their pics! I know theres a better system, baseball parks, amusment parks, disney, etc give you a ticket to look up your all your DIGITAL pics all at once and let you pick what you want. No hide and seek and no waste. Come on cruiselines...get with it!!

Ok if you are still with me thanks for reading!

[cancun_sam]

Nice review! My wife and I will be on the Glory next week with the kids for spring break with much of her family. We have previously cruised Princess (Crown/Emerald) just the two of us. I have cruised CCL in the past with my parents. I am not a huge fan of Carnival due to their relaxed smoking policies and they cater to a defined element. I think it's inappropriate to allow hats/jeans in the MDR for dinner but hey, it's spring break and 35% of the passengers will under 25.

[rnvattes]

Thanks for the very thorough review!

 

My hubby and i are traveling on Glory 2/19/12 doing the western itinerary you have done. We are really looking forward to it, and hope to do one of the cave tubing excursions. But we are looking really closely at the descriptions and finding that, as you experienced, the tubing itself is a fraction of the travel time to/from the location. Seems like a huge rip-off; the excursions are not cheap! Loved reading your Cayman trip; the rays were not on our "ray"dar :p but maybe we'll consider it since it sounded so great!

 

Any pics to share?

[SugarStar00]

A few pics:

 

Mr. Sanchos

 

 

Cave tubing

 

[SugarStar00]

Roatan:

 

Grand Cayman

 

Balcony Room 6410

 

 

Lido Deck

[sarahleebones]

Great review! Thanks so much. We will be doing the same itinerary on the Glory May 1st. This will be our first cruise!

[ErikNYC]

Nice review! I will be on the Glory in about three weeks. I can't wait...:D

[Snoozeman]

Nice review. We just did a B2B on Glory. Review on my blog if anyone is interested. (link in sig)

 

I think your friends missed the call for self debarkation. It is ALWAYS before regular debark. It also starts very early.

 

So would you do Princess or Carnival on your next cruise?

[jusplainsh0rty]

So excited, ill be on the Glory week of April 24th (this will b my 2nd time on this ship!) i am SOOO ready!! <3 :cool:

[jzygail]

Oh, I'm glad you posted; I'm traveling on Glory Dec 11, that same agenda. Sounds like fun! :)

[spideyfam]

Great review! Thanks. Loved your pictures.

[maxxedout2]

Thanks.

The only concern I now have about my (first) upcoming

Carnival cruise is the SMOKE. However I'm never in bars

or casinos so shouldn't be too bad.

:cool::cool:

[redcruzer]

Great review. Next year I am getting married on the glory with about 20 people joining us, then right after we get off of that , 2 days later, we are going on the emerald for 20 days by ourselves. We ha e been on princess( not the emerald) but never on carnival.

Looking forward to carnival except for all the smoking. YUCK!!!!

 

How are the balconies on carnival. See, a bit narrow.

[redcruzer]

One more question.... How was ten spring break college kid crowd on the glory??

We like to party sometimes too,but hoping it isn't a drunk fest with a bunch of idiots running around.certainly don't get that crowd or feeling on princess....one of the things we love about it!!

[SugarStar00]

I'd probably do Princess again if I had to pick, but to be honest I want to try Royal Caribbean too. Don't get any past guest rates with them tho...Princess is owned by Carnival so I got a past guest rate on this trip.

 

The balcony was about what I was expecting, I didnt have a balcony on Princess so I really can't compare. It was big enough for the amount of time we spent on it. 2 upright chairs and little table. The door is a swinging door, alot of people letting them slam shut, a tad annoying. Ours stayed open if you pushed it all the way back, dont think we were supposed to but we left it open a lot.

 

I was worried about the spring breakers too, thats actually why we chose Princess last year. I don't know if we got lucky but you really wouldnt even know it was spring break. The first at sea day we had a group of like 12 "kids" who were a bit loud and obviously drunk, but I don't think they were that bad, and then I never saw them again. I would say the average age was mid 30's- 40's?

[SugarStar00]

Oh and one more thing, the seas last week were extremely rough. The captain said 7-8 foot waves were why the ship was rocking so bad. Every minute of the day you felt a lot of rocking. I take bonine for motion sickness once every morning, and I never got sick. I highly recommend it, even if you dont normally get motion sick, my friends had to leave dinner early one night (lobster night!) and went to be early another night because they felt sick. I had a hard time one night also but never got sick. Might be the same way the next few weeks?? They sell the Bonine in the gift shop if you should find you need it. :)

[SSM0120]

Thanks for this review, we leave on Sunday!!!! For the same itinerary.

 

I'm not a bit worried about the smoking as I'm not a fan of it and with most places going smoke free around us, I've forgotten what it's like.

 

Hopefully it won't be too bad for us.

[Cruising Dreamer]

I think the smoking is supposed to be on only one side of the ship on the outer decks. So at least you can get away from it then.

[Scarlett824]

I was on this same cruise. :cool:

 

Good review. If I get time I may write up a review from my POV. Just wanted to mention though that when it came to smoking, I thought that this cruise was the least smoky Carnival cruise I'd ever taken (9 so far). Sure the piano bar was smoky (it always is) but the casino wasn't that bad. Not half as bad as the Miracle was last May. I can't vouch for the disco because I didn't even step foot in it. The starboard side of the Lido deck is the smoking side and even that wasn't too bad. The only time it annoyed me was when some brain surgeon was standing at the railing and flicking his ashes overboard instead of putting them in an ashtray. They ended up blowing back and landing on me. :rolleyes: There were a bunch of inconsiderate people on board, I'll save it for my review if I post it. I didn't let any of it get under my skin though. And I didn't say anything to anybody until the last night... I just couldn't help myself. :p

[Poohbeck]

SugarStar00,

Thanks so much for your review. Actually my nephew and his Bride were on your ship on their Honeymoon. They had an amazing time and loved every minute.

 

We are sailing on Glory's sister ship Valor in just 16 days :eek: and I'm starting to pack. Not that I'm happy to see folks don't dress up too much, but, it will help me figure out what to pack for my DS12 and DS14. I guess I can go a bit casual for them on the regular dining nights (instead of ties we will go with polos)! They have suits for the formal nights. They will be happy with that.

 

Thanks again!

[mikel24m]

SugarStar00,

Thanks so much for your review. Actually my nephew and his Bride were on your ship on their Honeymoon. They had an amazing time and loved every minute.

 

We are sailing on Glory's sister ship Valor in just 16 days :eek: and I'm starting to pack. Not that I'm happy to see folks don't dress up too much, but, it will help me figure out what to pack for my DS12 and DS14. I guess I can go a bit casual for them on the regular dining nights (instead of ties we will go with polos)! They have suits for the formal nights. They will be happy with that.

 

Thanks again!

 

By any chance is your nephews name David ?We were on last week to and met new friends on there honeymoon .You guys will all have a blast ,this was my favorite cruise and ship ever.We got engaged in the MDR the second night

[Dulin79]

Great Review. Me and my Wife will be celebrating our 10 Year Anniversary on the Glory. We are sailing on April 24th. We can't wait.

[KatyAnn]

We were on the same cruise. We had a great time. In my POV the smoke was not bad in most areas. I am an ex smoker so I am sensitive to this. I will say the piano bar was very smoky and I was not able to stay in there. There is a non smoking side on the Lido Deck so that alleviated that problem.

 

I was in the disco several nights and didn't think the smoke was bad there and there are some smoke free clubs.

 

As for the comedy shows, we went everynight and saw no repeats. There were 5 shows a night with the last 2 late ones being the same so everyone had a chance to see it.

[scrapycruiser]

What are the smoke-free clubs ??

 

Do they ever have a smoke-free casino night ??

[SugarStar00]

there were no smoke free nights when I was on board, but that might change with their new smoking policy. I dont think any of the clubs were smoke free either, but I didnt visit every single one. The piano bar will be smoke free in the future...