Just off the Maiden voyage of Breeze this morning (6/15)...ask if you have questions

[emily rose]

Can you tell me if the pools are salt water or not ?

[DEL67]

Any tours (ship or private) that you would highly reccomend?

[bassmaster150]

Q: Can you tell me if the pools are salt water or not ?

 

A: I believe that they are, but we didn't use them, so I cannot confirm.

 

Interesting thing about this cruise in the Med is that the port calls are EXTREMELY intense (Florence and Pisa in one day, Rome in one day, Athens and Temple of Poseidon in one day, etc). Therefore, we slept late on sea days, and used those sea days to recover. One interesting thing about our cruse was that the day we were supposed to call into Livorno (Florence and Pisa) was the day after Rome. The port authority there did not honor their poer reservation with Carnival, and therefore they had to ad an extra sea day as we could not enter into the port of Livorno. Now, some would probably be mad that they were losing one port because of this (we lost Marseilles), but my wife and I were extremely happy because we needed that sea day to recover after Rome.

[bassmaster150]

Q: Any tours (ship or private) that you would highly recommend?

 

A: Hands down best of all - Ancient Ephesus in Turkey (Carnival does not stop here regularly, I believe they only go here on maiden voyages (look at itinerary for Sunshine next April....prob best ever)). I cannot even begin to speak as to how awesome they are......ok.....check out some of my photos if that will help....

 

 

Not sure what this was

 

 

Celsius Library at Ephesus

 

 

 

Theater where the Apostle Paul attempted to preach before he was arrested

 

[bassmaster150]

The Vatican did come in a close second. There is a tremendous amount of world history in that place.

[gobucks_43228]

Way awesome!!! Thanks for sharing :)

[Rawkhopper]

Wait, you did a drive past Stomboli? I thought they weren't going to do that anymore.

[SenatorsFan]

Q: Wondering if there is still afternoon tea on sea days?

 

A: Didn't know they even had this, so I never looked for it.

 

Q: And is there still a free bottle of wine in the steakhouse on the first night?

 

A: I believe there is. We ate on the third night, and we do not drink, so I do not have that answer for you.

 

Q: Did you try a Guy's burger?

 

A: Yes, twice......and I liked them.....I only had two because I have been watching my weight, and based on how they cook them, etc...they are loaded with calories......but if you have to indulge, it is a good way to indulge.

 

Thanks so much! We don't always do the tea, but when we have it's always enjoyable. It's usually in one of the dining rooms and they wheel around carts with sandwiches (love the smoked salmon :D), desserts you don't typically see elsewhere on board and a choice of teas. As to a Guy's burger, I shall close my eyes to the calories as I feel I must try one after all that's been said about them. Your pictures were great, too.:)

Heather

[bassmaster150]

Q: Wait, you did a drive past Stomboli? I thought they weren't going to do that anymore

 

A: Apparently the boat used to sail a lot closer than it does now. I would say we were about three miles off the coast of Stromboli. See below

 

 

 

Now, can anyone explain to me exactly why anyone would live on this island since it is a giant volcano? And what do they do? The small white things you see at the bottom of the island are homes.

[blackpool belle]

Where did the ship dock in Venice & how much was the transfer to St Marc's Square?

 

Thanks!

[Angelsea57]

Q: What did you do as far as finding a shuttle from the airport to hotel

hotel to the port?? (reasonable??)

 

A: Cruise started in Venice, so we used Venicelink.com to get agualinia from airport to our hotel, and hotel to pier. About 40 euros from airport for two, and 8 euros from hotel to pier one way. Used an excursion from carnival (Montserrat) to get us to our hotel. Will take a cab in the morning to airport.

 

Q: Any hotels that provide both??

 

A: I am sure it depends on where you sail out of

 

Q: Do you feel safe in the Barcelona area??

 

A: We are in the Diagonal Mar area which is quite new.....we feel VERY SAFE

 

Q: Jet lag. How many days ahead should we travel before and after a cruise??

 

A: So get to the location (overnight flight). Then make sure that you stay up ALL DAY, and do not take a nap. Go to sleep at the normal dark time (i.e. 10:00pm) and sleep until you wake up. This will help you adjust. We flew in two days before to take in all of Venice that we could. I have one recovery day before I have to go back to work so we will see how I last.

 

Q: We were on Carnival Dream Dec. 2010. We like the ship, the only thing we did not like was the lay out of the buffet line, poorly design, did they change it on the Carnival Breeze???

 

A: The new Lido marketplace is the bomb. lines move very fast, and the design is more open and friendly.

bassmaster150,

Thank you so much for taking your time to answer the questions and to

share those amazing pictures. It looks like they put more thought into the planing of

Carnival Breeze, So beautiful!! Thanks for the other info too, very helpful.

All those places visited look so gorgeous, hope we can visit someday too.

Enjoy your time there and have a safe trip home.

Thanks again. :)

[happy tink]

Thank you so much for kindly answering our questions.

 

Yesterday John Heald posted something on facebook about debarking the 1,000 pasengers. Were there only 1,000 pasengers? Did you sail full? And did you feel the ship was crowded?

 

Thanks again. :D

[NJDeb2]

Thank you for posting so quickly after returning and for answering so many questions...We are sailing on June 27th and couldnt wait for someone to post!! Sounds like a great ship and a great time....

 

Thanks again

Deb

[bassmaster150]

Q: Where did the ship dock in Venice & how much was the transfer to St Marc's Square?

 

A: The main pier in Venice. However, please note that the cruise actually started in Venice, so we flew in two days before. We stayed at the Hilton Stucky Molino on Guidecco Island. The transfer from there to the Cruise ship terminal was very short.....as a matter of fact, we were the next to last stop to getting to the pier, so it was 8 euro per person for us. If you go to http://www.venicelink.com, you should be able to see the pricing for the Agualinia transfer service that can get you to St Mark's Square faster than the vaperetto.

[bassmaster150]

Q: Yesterday John Heald posted something on facebook about debarking the 1,000 pasengers. Were there only 1,000 pasengers? Did you sail full? And did you feel the ship was crowded?

 

A: The ships capacity is like 3610 persons. We sailed with 4002 persons (not including crew) which means that many rooms had three or four guests to them. Did we feel the ship was crowded....believe it or not....never. We never had a problem waiting in line for lunch, ATD, etc. We always found seats in the theater. The process to get people off the ship for shore excursions was handled extremely well. And every time we ate in Lido, we had the exact same table except for once. I didn't notice the pools crowded at all either. Now, again that may be because the port calls were so intense that when we did have a sea day, maybe everyone was resting like us. The Med is an amazing place to cruise (this was our first time) but you will need a vacation from the vacation when you return home. :-)

[bassmaster150]

To give you an idea of how intense this itinerary was......we were on board for 12 days, and we did eat a lot.....Guy's burgers, pasta, three times in the steakhouse, lots of bread and butter (at least for me since I tend to watch my weight I normally stay away, but I did indulge on this cruise), lots of chicken and fish, snacks on all of the excursions.....on excursions were lunch was provided, they were multiple course Italian dishes with pasta as a starter, then a main course of meat with roasted potatoes, and then a rather large helping of Terra Messiu (or however you spell it) .I did eat way more than normal, and as I just weighed myself, I only gained 1.5 lbs.......you WALK ALOT on these excursions.

[pinkboots]

Thanks so much for all the information; I was going to ask some questions here, but as I read through I see all my questions have already been asked and answered!

[Shipbound]

Where there any live bands on the ship or just DJ's

 

Gary

[bassmaster150]

Q: Where there any live bands on the ship or just DJ's

 

A: Both....the DJ's were REALLY good...I think he was a more famous DJ because he has his own website, but I can't remember his name.

[blackpool belle]

Q: Where did the ship dock in Venice & how much was the transfer to St Marc's Square?

 

A: The main pier in Venice. However, please note that the cruise actually started in Venice, so we flew in two days before. We stayed at the Hilton Stucky Molino on Guidecco Island. The transfer from there to the Cruise ship terminal was very short.....as a matter of fact, we were the next to last stop to getting to the pier, so it was 8 euro per person for us. If you go to www.venicelink.com, you should be able to see the pricing for the Agualinia transfer service that can get you to St Mark's Square faster than the vaperetto.

 

 

Brilliant!!! thanks very much.

[Jimmy Geegitz]

Thanks for posting! Can't wait to see more pics.

[Big Tiger Fan]

Hi, Bassmaster. Thanks for your wonderful information on the Breeze.

I did not see any comments on the entertainment on the ship. What types of venues did they have and what was the quality?

Last time we were in the Mediterranean we thought the quality was better than most.

Thanks so much for taking the time to post!!

Becky

[run2cruise]

The movie choices on Thrill Theater every time we had the time to go were children's movies, so we did not go....maybe someone else can answer that.

 

Keep asking.....

 

Was there a schedule of shows for the entire cruise available or were the shows listed each day in the Fun Times or did you just have to go to the Theater to find out what was showing.

[kruiseaddik]

Q: How much is the fee for the Thrill Theater? I heard $7.95 per show or $14.95 unlimited.

 

Q: Were there a lot of kids under 8 in the cruise?

 

Q: Which ports did you have to tender?

 

Q: You mentioned weather is colder than expected... 70s? 80s?

 

Q: Aside from Vatican, where else do they a dress code? I'm trying to figure out which ports we should make sure not to wear shorts.

 

Q: Cable car in Montserrat takes 5 mins to go up... Do you know how long it takes the rack train to go up?

 

Q: Aside from Montserrat, where else is a good day trip from Barcelona?

[tanner2]

Did you go in the casino ? where can you smoke in their? you may not no the answer to that but just asking .