Glory review - 7/7/12

[Rob&Bonnie]

Demographics

We are in our 50’s and this was our 8th Carnival cruise. We’ve also cruised with Princess and Royal Carribean. This was our first New England cruise.

Embarkation

We received an email from Carnival telling us to delay our arrival at the port until 1:30. As we knew the Glory had arrived by 7 that morning, we took the chance and headed to the pier early anyway. Arrived at 11:00 am and were onboard by 11:05. We had the entire aft pool area to ourselves for at least an hour – awesome! Room was ready as promised at 1:30, and luggage arrived safely early in the afternoon. A great start to our cruise.

Stateroom

We booked an inside stateroom on the Main deck, 2299. Location for this room was excellent, quick walk to the main elevators and port debarkation was one deck up, very convenient. This was our first inside cabin in many, many years and I have to say I’m rethinking paying more for balcony or suites. Inside rooms are dark – we slept great, and we spend so little time in the room it seems a waste to spend the extra dollars.

Room was clean and quiet, with plenty of storage space. The Glory does have refrigerators in the inside cabins, which was great. Our room steward was good, she managed to keep the room taken care of and the bucket filled with ice (without asking) and had a knack for knowing when we wouldn’t be there.

[Rob&Bonnie]

Food

We chose to eat at the steakhouse on the first night. For those of you selecting the first night for the free bottle of wine, the wine is not all that good. The rest of the meal was fabulous! We started with shrimp cocktail and baked onion soup, followed with a spinach salad, chose the Cowboy steak (DH) and the ribeye (me) with baked potato, mushrooms and creamed spinach as the sides. We did not have dessert (way too full!), but the cheesecake served to the tables around us looked really good. The only (minor) problem with the meal was that the side dishes came about 5 minutes after the steak was served – something that they seem to consistently have a problem with from talking to other passengers on the ship. We liked the steakhouse so much, we went back for our last night on board as well. The changes to our selections were – crab cake appetizer (good – not great) and surf & turf – filet was outstanding, lobster was good (nothing beats fresh Maine lobster, I’m spoiled).

 

We had anytime dining for the other 3 nights. The staff seemed to have problems getting people seated, so there was a line every night for that. It didn’t help that, as usual, the photographers set up shop in a way that blocks the entrance to the dining room making it hard to navigate. That said, after a few minutes wait in the line, we were seated and service was good. We had over the trip prime rib – not good, lobster – good, short ribs – OK, flat iron steak – good, pork chop – OK. Overall we were not impressed with the MDR food, we’ve seen a noticeable decline over the years. DH has this theory that this is the cruise lines way of pushing people to the specialty restaurants – serve marginal food in the MDR so people will pay $70 over the cruise fare to eat better quality food in the steakhouse.

 

Breakfast was saved by the omelet station. The buffet was not that good (IMHO), and we did not have a chance to get to the dining room.

[Rob&Bonnie]

Ship

 

The Glory seemed well kept to us. The ship was clean, and the staff was hard at work trying to keep it that way. We sailed the Inspiration last year, and that was uninspiring to say the least. We were happy to see the Glory was in much better shape!

 

One thing we did not care for on the Glory was the big screen playing non stop on the Lido deck. We love to people watch, so typically choose the Lido deck over the aft (adult) area so we can watch the goings on. The non stop big screen drove us out of the Lido area after the first morning. Josh the CD did this ‘talk show’ thing in the mornings that was like being bombarded with an infomercial, selling everything from the steak house to the Spa. When they started projecting the port talk from the theater to the big screen we decided enough was enough. Had we wanted to hear the talk, we would have gone to the theater or watched on the TV in our room.

 

Kudos to the Glory staff for enforcing the rules! For the first time in 11 cruises (3 lines) we saw someone shut off at the bar – not once, but twice. This ‘gentleman’ was clearly drunk and pretty obnoxious, so it was nice to see the bar staff tell him he’d had enough. The pool staff also told a family that they could not bring their 4 children in the adult only pool. The family was not happy, but staff did not back down and the family did eventually leave the pool. Passengers were turned away from the dining room in flip flops and sleeveless t-shirts, and one man was told shorts were not allowed in the steakhouse.

 

CHOGS, well, you can’t have everything. The Chair hogs were alive and well on the Glory. As we are early birds, we are on deck watching the CHOGS each morning as they slink in all sleepy eyed to stake out their chairs, not to be seen again for several hours. DH & I laughed when on the first day there was a group that put their SUITCASES on 5 loungers at the aft pool and then left to explore the ship. Yup, 1 suitcase per lounger, then disappear for 4 plus hours. When they returned it was to take the suitcases and leave the area – they did not even use the loungers after tying them up for the entire afternoon.

 

Entertainment

 

We were not impressed with the entertainment on the Glory. There really was not a lot that interested us. The shows are not our thing, but we did try to watch the illusionist. It was OK, and we left before it was over. The comedian was not so funny and Karaoke was all kids (adult time was much later). There was one group in the casino area bar that was really good (the singer ROCKED Adele), but we couldn’t find them again.

[funinthesun1964]

Thanks for sharing this information! Will be on Glory in less than two weeks for the five day Canada cruise.

 

I received an e-mail a couple of weeks ago telling me to arrive later, then I wondered what I was going to do to fill in time since our flight arrives at Logan around 9:30? Guess I will just head on over anyway!!!

 

I'll be checking back for any additions! Thanks again!

[Rob&Bonnie]

Ports

 

This trip for us was about relaxing, not ports. That said, we did take a private excursion in Saint John’s that was OK. We were not overly impressed by this port, everything is so spread out that you spend a lot of time driving from one thing to another, which can be a bit boring. The reversing falls was interesting.

 

We loved Halifax. The port area is very nice and an easy walk – even for a couple of couch potatoes like DH & I. We took the Harbour Hopper, which was very informative and fun. We had lunch at Murphy’s on the boardwalk, and the lobster roll was good (it would have been great with a grilled roll like we use in New England). When the local people found out we were from Massachusetts, they told us how thankful they were for the help given when an explosion destroyed most of the city in 1917. Every year Halifax sends a Christmas tree to Boston as a thanks for that help, and the story is passed along from generation to generation.

 

Debarkation

 

We were scheduled to arrive in Boston at 8 am, but were early coming in. At 6:30 am (while I was in the shower), they started announcing decks for debarkation. As we had chosen self-assist, we hurried and put our things together and were off the ship and on the turnpike home by 7:30. I personally think the port security was a little too easy - going through the tunnel from the ship to the port building we were told to put our passports away, we wouldn’t need them.

 

Final thoughts

 

Overall, we thought the Glory was a nice ship and would not hesitate to sail on her again. The crew was outstanding – they work hard and it shows. Food could be improved and entertainment could be better.