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Carnival Breeze - 8/14/12 Trip Report with Photos!

Alan M

By Alan M,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

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Alan M

Alan M

Posted
Posted

This is intended to be a full trip report rather than just a ship review and there will be information and pictures on ports of call, shore excursions, life on board, food, entertainment and whatever else comes to mind. I hope you find it interesting and I will try to answer any relevant questions. I will also take the liberty of highlighting tips or hints that I think might help others. If you know this information already please just skip those parts. I am doing this because of the number of people we met on board who paid too much or missed opportunities or were unhappy because perhaps they lacked the right knowledge.

 

About Us

We are a British family living and working in the Middle East. We have only cruised once before, in 2011. In 2011 we tried a short trip with Carnival to Key West and Cozumel on the Imagination out of Miami. We enjoyed it so much we resolved to take a longer trip and the 12-day Mediterranean itinerary on the brand new Carnival Breeze seemed like an ideal choice. We travelled from Dubai to Barcelona for this cruise.

 

Some Background Info and Logistics

We spent a long time planning this trip which we hoped would be an educational, entertaining and exciting experience for our family. Despite having visited most countries in Western Europe several times somehow we had never made it to Italy. Time to put that right!

 

We booked through a Carnival PVP in the USA and were very pleased with the service he provided. Throughout the booking process and subsequent enquiries he was prompt and accurate with his replies, even at weekends! We selected the dates and paid the deposit back in March 2012 selecting the Early Saver option. This option is only available more than three months ahead of your sail date and requires a non-refundable deposit (which I believe can be transferred to another booking should you have to cancel). I selected this option for two reasons: 1) It carried the lowest price and 2) It offered a price guarantee which we ended up taking big advantage of, more about that shortly.

 

Tip
:
The Early Saver option may not always be everybody’s best choice as there are several other deals on offer. It worked for us because we were booking well in advance and after the bad publicity around cruise ships early in the year I had a feeling the price might go down.

While researching our cruise I gained a huge amount of invaluable information from Cruise Critic member posts and I would like to thank everyone who takes the trouble to share their experiences and knowledge. What we learned from other posters helped us to avoid a lot of pitfalls and get the most enjoyment out of our cruise. Another source I found interesting was John Heald’s blog and Facebook page, not so much for hard facts but more for a feel of what the Breeze was like on board. We had saved up enough frequent flier miles to cover our flights to Europe so we felt able to splash out a little and book ourselves an Ocean Suite and a separate inside cabin for our son.

 

Tip:
Carnival’s minors’ policy requires close proximity of minors’ cabins to adults in the party if they will be occupying them alone. The actual distance depends on the age of the minor.

Our 14 year-old was booked in an inside cabin directly across the corridor. The per-head cost worked out almost exactly the same for all three of us due to the single-occupancy cost for the inside cabin against the double-occupancy cost of our suite.

 

In mid-May the balance of our account fell due and on the day I settled (might have been the day after, can’t remember) Carnival announced a sale on Europe cruises. Of particular interest to us was a Past Guest rate which was significantly less than we paid and also carried extra on-board-credit for each passenger. After a little initial confusion my PVP submitted our price claim and a few days later we received OBCs totalling just under $1000. That’s a serious chunk of change, more than enough to cover our pre-paid gratuities and make a nice big dent in the bar bill.

 

Tip
:
If you book an Early Saver deal, no-one from Carnival will actively tell you if or when the price drops. You have to discover it for yourself by checking the prices on the Carnival website or perhaps by hearing about it from other cruisers on a Cruise Critic forum
.

We used Carnival’s Bon Voyage service to order flowers and wine for our room. The prices are outrageous and it is a completely unnecessary extravagance but it does add such a special touch.

We purchased travel and medical insurance from a reputable insurer, AXA International, at a fraction of the cost of the (again) outrageous premiums charged by Carnival.

 

Tip
:
Carnival automatically added insurance to our account without asking. I asked for it to be removed and made my own arrangements. I do not advocate anyone to travel without insurance nor am I making any judgement about Carnival’s offer, just saying that I felt we did better elsewhere with greater cover for less outlay.

That’s about it for the run-up. Sorry if it has been boring but the number of people on our cruise who had never heard of the Early Saver deal amazed me and I felt it worthwhile to talk about it.

 

 

Next ...... Day One - Embarkation

 

2555f723.jpg

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kmc500

kmc500

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Posted

About Us

We are a British family living and working in the Middle East.

We booked through a Carnival PVP in the USA and were very pleased with the service he provided.

 

Great review so far.

 

As an aside, we have family from SA joining us on our next cruise out of Miami in November. They had horrible service from our PVP, as did much of the rest of our family. I find it incredible that a (I assume) commissioned sales person would ignore a sale.

 

I should have known when it took me three emails for him to answer me back. I assumed that it was a SPAM or address issue. As it turned out he was simply not bothering to answer. I know there are some great ones, as we've had them in the past, but we sure struck out with the latest one.

 

Glad you had a good one, I am in the hunt for one of those!

 

Kevin C

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Alan M

Alan M

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Kevin,

 

Sorry to hear about your bad PVP experience. I have to admit that last year the lady we talked to on the phone could not have been more ignorant of the world outside her borders and displayed much of the behaviour you describe. We eventually insisted on dealing with someone with broader horizons.

 

This year we got lucky I am glad to say .....

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pkrchkr

pkrchkr

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Posted
Ahhhh another Breeze review! Excellent! Looking forward to the rest! :D

 

We are SUPER excited and ready to get on the Breeze in November (seems so far off yet). :eek:

Love the Drunk Bee.. with the red frog pub beer......

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Alan M

Alan M

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Day One – Embarkation

 

The Itinerary for this trip was:

 

Aug 14 – Barcelona

Aug 15 – Monaco

Aug 16 – At Sea

Aug 17 – Livorno (Florence/Pisa)

Aug 18 – Olbia (Sardinia)

Aug 19 – Civitavecchia (Rome)

Aug 20 – Naples (Pompeii/Capri)

Aug 21 – Messina (Sicily)

Aug 22 – At Sea

Aug 23 – Dubrovnik

Aug 24 – At Sea

Aug 25 – Venice

Aug 26 – Venice

Aug 27 – Venice (we tagged on an extra night in a hotel)

 

 

Right at the beginning we (that means I) made our biggest mistake. Fortunately, it had no lasting effect but it caused a lot of stress and could have been so easily avoided.

 

Originally we planned to travel to Barcelona at the weekend and stay with friends for a couple of days before the cruise. Those plans fell through and rather than book a hotel in Barcelona (we’d been there before) I decided to rebook our flight on the day of embarkation. I had checked our flight on a flight tracker website and it had over three weeks of excellent schedule performance so I felt justified in flying to Barcelona on departure day. My wife raised an eyebrow but we have always found Emirates to be quite reliable and were not unduly worried.

 

Morning of the 14th and we were up bright and early at 04:30 for a 06:55 departure from Dubai, scheduled to land at 11:50, plenty of time to reach the ship. On board and ready to go, the captain taxied at about 06:45, told us the flight time would only be 5 hours and 45 mins (Huzzah!), lined up, hit the power, started our roll, picked up speed and SLAM! On went the brakes and he aborted take-off. A warning light had come on and that was that.

 

At this point we were seriously close to freaking out, not because of the faulty aircraft but because we only had about 3 hours of slack in our schedule. I had researched ways of getting from Barcelona to Nice/Monaco “just in case” so we had a backup plan if we were delayed but we really didn’t want to have to put it into action. Thankfully the problem was resolved, we took off about 40 minutes late and the pilot made up some of the lost time. With a two-hour time difference we made it into Barcelona at about 12:10 with plenty of time to spare in the end.

Tip
: Sorry to state the obvious but even with travel insurance, a backup transportation plan and all of the planning in the world things can still go unexpectedly wrong. Don’t be tempted to do what we did and travel medium or long-haul on the day, you really don’t need the stress at the start of your vacation. We will never do that again!

Immigration and baggage claim was an absolute breeze, no lines, no delays. Emirates provided transport to the port and we were handing over our bags to the porters by 1:00pm. Security and check-in were ultra-fast and were on board and in our cabins by 1:45pm leaving plenty of time for lunch and exploration.

 

Barcelona Cruise Terminal is clean, modern and spacious and very quick and easy to reach from the airport. We shopped for cokes and water which were available in most of the shops. There was the usual selection of duty-free and gift shops much like what you would see at a small European airport. Porters and security staff were cheerful and helpful. Full marks for Barcelona Cruise Port. Full marks also to Carnival for the check-in and boarding process. Sail and Sign cards were ready and there were no lines. We had VIP check-in due to the suite but it really made no difference, I saw no lines anywhere.

Tip
:
If anyone in your party has VIP status then the whole party is allowed to use the VIP lanes. It made little difference in Barcelona but it might be a bonus elsewhere. Oh yes, and you get to sit down with a cold drink while they issue your S&S cards. Woo-Hoo!

Our room was on Deck 7 (Empress). It was an OS category but we weren’t fooled by the inclusion of the word “suite”, its still just a room with maybe a couple of feet extra. Within moments of arriving our steward, Murantu, came and introduced himself. He was great, more about him later.

 

The room décor was easy on the eye and much more storage and bathroom space than we had expected. It had a flat-screen interactive TV and a falrly well-stocked minibar which we immediately emptied to store our own water, soft drinks and wine. There was a full ice bucket which was replenished more or less daily (sometimes needed a reminder) and two litres of drinking water. The drinking water was not complimentary which I thought was a shame and at $4.50 a bottle made brushing your teeth quite expensive! Free water was available elsewhere so can’t complain too much about it.

9499d355.jpg

fd125494.jpg

87b65871.jpg

Our goodies were delivered by Bon Voyage as ordered. Nice flowers but with a delivery surcharge in Europe of $15 it took the price for a modest buch to $86. (Where did they deliver them from? Miami?) In addition, we took two bottles of wine on board which was within Carnival’s policy limits but from what I could work out, no-one seemed very interested in what bottles you brought on board, they were concentrating more on hazards like irons, hair tongs etc.

 

 

d5a37dae.jpg

The walk-in wardrobe area had two cupboards for hanging plus shelves. There were several other cupboards and drawers around the room plus a digital-lock safe. Plenty of room to unpack all of our stuff and our suitcases fitted easily under the bed.

 

The bathroom had a double sink, toilet and spa bath with a shower attachment and curtain. It was a decent size, on our last cruise we found it difficult to turn around without banging into something!

 

The balcony had two chairs, a sunlounger and a small table. Not really big enough to comfortably spend a sea day on but really nice at night and when arriving/leaving port.

 

 

There were four electrical sockets in total, two 110v American-type and two 230v two-pin European type. The AC had a digital touch control and worked really well throughout our trip. Loads of lights in the room allowed you to illuminate as it suited your mood.

Tip
:
Nowadays most phone/camera chargers and other non-motorised appliances will work happily using a 110v or a 230v supply, it will say somewhere on the device (probably in tiny print) what voltage range it can use. Electric shavers, hairdriers etc. you have to be much more careful about and only use the correct voltage
.

And the bed …… really comfortable with plenty of pillows (choices available), crisp white sheets and a light comforter. Slept very well the whole cruise!

 

Got to go now, more tomorrow …….

 

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PCHENG

PCHENG

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Posted (edited)
Day One – Embarkation

 

The Itinerary for this trip was:

 

Aug 14 – Barcelona

Aug 15 – Monaco

Aug 16 – At Sea

Aug 17 – Livorno (Florence/Pisa)

Aug 18 – Olbia (Sardinia)

Aug 19 – Civitavecchia (Rome)

Aug 20 – Naples (Pompeii/Capri)

Aug 21 – Messina (Sicily)

Aug 22 – At Sea

Aug 23 – Dubrovnik

Aug 24 – At Sea

Aug 25 – Venice

Aug 26 – Venice

Aug 27 – Venice (we tagged on an extra night in a hotel)

 

 

Right at the beginning we (that means I) made our biggest mistake. Fortunately, it had no lasting effect but it caused a lot of stress and could have been so easily avoided.

 

Originally we planned to travel to Barcelona at the weekend and stay with friends for a couple of days before the cruise. Those plans fell through and rather than book a hotel in Barcelona (we’d been there before) I decided to rebook our flight on the day of embarkation. I had checked our flight on a flight tracker website and it had over three weeks of excellent schedule performance so I felt justified in flying to Barcelona on departure day. My wife raised an eyebrow but we have always found Emirates to be quite reliable and were not unduly worried.

 

Morning of the 14th and we were up bright and early at 04:30 for a 06:55 departure from Dubai, scheduled to land at 11:50, plenty of time to reach the ship. On board and ready to go, the captain taxied at about 06:45, told us the flight time would only be 5 hours and 45 mins (Huzzah!), lined up, hit the power, started our roll, picked up speed and SLAM! On went the brakes and he aborted take-off. A warning light had come on and that was that.

 

At this point we were seriously close to freaking out, not because of the faulty aircraft but because we only had about 3 hours of slack in our schedule. I had researched ways of getting from Barcelona to Nice/Monaco “just in case” so we had a backup plan if we were delayed but we really didn’t want to have to put it into action. Thankfully the problem was resolved, we took off about 40 minutes late and the pilot made up some of the lost time. With a two-hour time difference we made it into Barcelona at about 12:10 with plenty of time to spare in the end.

Tip
: Sorry to state the obvious but even with travel insurance, a backup transportation plan and all of the planning in the world things can still go unexpectedly wrong. Don’t be tempted to do what we did and travel medium or long-haul on the day, you really don’t need the stress at the start of your vacation. We will never do that again!

Immigration and baggage claim was an absolute breeze, no lines, no delays. Emirates provided transport to the port and we were handing over our bags to the porters by 1:00pm. Security and check-in were ultra-fast and were on board and in our cabins by 1:45pm leaving plenty of time for lunch and exploration.

 

Barcelona Cruise Terminal is clean, modern and spacious and very quick and easy to reach from the airport. We shopped for cokes and water which were available in most of the shops. There was the usual selection of duty-free and gift shops much like what you would see at a small European airport. Porters and security staff were cheerful and helpful. Full marks for Barcelona Cruise Port. Full marks also to Carnival for the check-in and boarding process. Sail and Sign cards were ready and there were no lines. We had VIP check-in due to the suite but it really made no difference, I saw no lines anywhere.

Tip
:
If anyone in your party has VIP status then the whole party is allowed to use the VIP lanes. It made little difference in Barcelona but it might be a bonus elsewhere. Oh yes, and you get to sit down with a cold drink while they issue your S&S cards. Woo-Hoo!

Our room was on Deck 7 (Empress). It was an OS category but we weren’t fooled by the inclusion of the word “suite”, its still just a room with maybe a couple of feet extra. Within moments of arriving our steward, Murantu, came and introduced himself. He was great, more about him later.

 

The room décor was easy on the eye and much more storage and bathroom space than we had expected. It had a flat-screen interactive TV and a falrly well-stocked minibar which we immediately emptied to store our own water, soft drinks and wine. There was a full ice bucket which was replenished more or less daily (sometimes needed a reminder) and two litres of drinking water. The drinking water was not complimentary which I thought was a shame and at $4.50 a bottle made brushing your teeth quite expensive! Free water was available elsewhere so can’t complain too much about it.

 

 

9499d355.jpg

fd125494.jpg

 

87b65871.jpg

 

Our goodies were delivered by Bon Voyage as ordered. Nice flowers but with a delivery surcharge in Europe of $15 it took the price for a modest buch to $86. (Where did they deliver them from? Miami?) In addition, we took two bottles of wine on board which was within Carnival’s policy limits but from what I could work out, no-one seemed very interested in what bottles you brought on board, they were concentrating more on hazards like irons, hair tongs etc.

 

 

d5a37dae.jpg

The walk-in wardrobe area had two cupboards for hanging plus shelves. There were several other cupboards and drawers around the room plus a digital-lock safe. Plenty of room to unpack all of our stuff and our suitcases fitted easily under the bed.

 

The bathroom had a double sink, toilet and spa bath with a shower attachment and curtain. It was a decent size, on our last cruise we found it difficult to turn around without banging into something!

 

The balcony had two chairs, a sunlounger and a small table. Not really big enough to comfortably spend a sea day on but really nice at night and when arriving/leaving port.

 

 

There were four electrical sockets in total, two 110v American-type and two 230v two-pin European type. The AC had a digital touch control and worked really well throughout our trip. Loads of lights in the room allowed you to illuminate as it suited your mood.

Tip
:
Nowadays most phone/camera chargers and other non-motorised appliances will work happily using a 110v or a 230v supply, it will say somewhere on the device (probably in tiny print) what voltage range it can use. Electric shavers, hairdriers etc. you have to be much more careful about and only use the correct voltage
.

 

And the bed …… really comfortable with plenty of pillows (choices available), crisp white sheets and a light comforter. Slept very well the whole cruise!

 

 

Got to go now, more tomorrow …….

 

 

 

I like the decor of the Breeze in general, but the OS on the current Carnival Ships has a more luxurious and spacious feel with the mirrored walls, the marble countertops and the crown moldings. The OS on the Breeze looks just like any regular cabin except for the larger size. Definitely won't be considering an OS when and if I book my Breeze cruise.

Edited by PCHENG
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