Toddler meet Turkey, our Destiny Thanksgiving

[Dizzkitty]

Thank you so much for this review! We will be sailing in March on the Miracle with our 2 year old so hearing about your experience helps a ton!! The cribs they gave you, were they full size or mini's?

[SarahGT]

Thank you so much for this review! We will be sailing in March on the Miracle with our 2 year old so hearing about your experience helps a ton!! The cribs they gave you, were they full size or mini's?

 

I'm not sure, but it seemed a little smaller than our crib at home. Here's a photo of our room with the crib in it and it definitely looks smaller - Samara doesn't take up this much room in her crib at home. I don't know if they offer pack-and-plays as well, or what type of cribs the Miracle may have.

 

 

Have a great time on your cruise!

Sarah

[SarahGT]

Samara woke up very early this morning (before the buffet even opened up), so I popped her in the stroller and we explored some of the ship. She really liked taking the elevators overlooking the atrium that were all lit up with lights.

 

We went to the buffet for breakfast, since they were open the earliest and managed to catch the sunrise.

 

 

Then we went to one of the side decks off the lobby on Deck 3 to look at the ocean. Samara really enjoyed letting us know that there was water outside our window/the railing/wherever. She is a master of the obvious right now.

 

Samara stretching her legs

 

We met back up with my husband and had a lazy morning, taking an early nap to prepare for our day in Cozumel. We woke up just before we docked. Samara had a good view of the workers mooring the ship since we were on the lowest deck.

 

My husband and I had stopped in Cozumel on our very first cruise, and had an excursion to Tulum with a brief lunch stop at a private beach. We didn’t think that our toddler would handle the ferry ride to the mainland or the long bus ride very well, so we looked at other options. I booked a day for us at Nachi Cocom. There was no Carnival excursion to this beach club, so I booked it independently through their website. I chose Nacchi Cocom because it looked like a nice, relaxing beach. We weren’t looking for a beach with lots of stuff going on, we just wanted a place with sun, sand, and relaxation. Since our ship was docking so late, this beach club also had extended hours for those on board, so we’d be able to stay later than at the other beach clubs or ship-based excursions. I had also pre-booked a snorkeling excursion for my husband. There were lots of other beach clubs that I’m sure would be loads of fun, but Nacchi Cocom definitely fit the bill for us on this vacation.

 

After we docked, we had no problems getting off the ship. We didn’t bring the stroller, as we weren’t planning on doing much walking, so we just carried Samara when she didn’t feel like walking.

 

It was a 10-minute walk or so through a shopping area to the taxi stand. I’d looked at other trip reports for Nacchi Cocom and knew the fare should be $10-$15. We paid $15 for our ride down there (we agreed on it before leaving). I think it took 15-20 minutes to get there. The road was fine, no problems.

 

Here are some general photos of the beach club, I’ll post more photos and details in the following installment.

 

In the distance in the photo, you can just barely make out the inflatable water toys at Mr. Sanchos - another beach club just up the road from Nacchi Cocom. This photo also shows the maximum number of people who were here when we were here. After this, the crowds diminished.

 

 

[SarahGT]

Once we arrived, we checked in, had a touristy photo taken (sombreros everyone) and had a brief upsell attempt. This wasn’t really a problem, we just politely said we weren’t interested, and that was all.

 

We settled into our lounge chairs (under a palm umbrella) and walked along the shore. The water was cold when you first walked in, but was fine when you went in again. The beach was rather rocky and there was a kind of steep drop-off in the water.

 

 

This is one of the few pictures of myself I have from this vacation

 

Samara getting ready for her close-up

 

Samara wanted nothing to do with the ocean - it was likely too cold for her. So we tried the pool - nope, nothing doing. So, we settled back into our lounge chairs and ordered some drinks (I was impressed that they had milk for Samara. Her dad and I ordered soda and beer, and some nachos).

 

Soon it was time for my husband’s snorkeling adventure. I’d booked him on the 3 pm trip, since we were docking at 1 ish. He was the only one on this excursion - there was a guide and a captain for the boat. He’s never snorkeled before, and it took some time to adjust to always biting down on the mouthpiece, but he got the hang of it. It didn’t sound like the reef was amazing, but did have a good amount of fish and it was a good excursion.

 

Samara and I had waved good-bye to him and tried to relax on the beach. She was not the most pleasant of toddlers after her dad left. She only wanted me to walk with her (while carrying her) or to watch the Mexican raccoons in the woods nearby. Toddlers.

 

She was back to her normal happy self when her dad came back, and we ordered some dinner/late lunch. It was fantastic. We had grouper meuniere and grilled shrimp. Finally something besides pasta that Samara would eat. She ate most of the first plate of shrimp and a good portion of the second. The food was so, so good. Better than anything we'd had so far on the trip.

 

Dinner!

 

By now, the sun was setting and we were totally relaxed. The sun began to set and most of the other guests had left for the day. We ventured out to take some sunset pictures and enjoy the warm breeze (Samara also liked looking through the holes in the dock to the water below).

 

Samara at sunset

 

The staff weren’t rushing us out the door, but were straightening the chairs and cleaning up, so it was obvious that we'd need to be leaving soon.

 

They called us a taxi and we agreed on $15 to take us back to the taxi stand. No problems with the ride back or the walk to the ship. No line this time! I did think the forced walk through the duty-free shop after we’d passed through Customs was a little annoying - hadn't we just walked through a large outdoor shopping area between the taxi stand and the dock? - but oh well.

 

Here’s the view of the Destiny as we left the shopping area:

 

 

Then off to bed after a wonderful day.

 

Thanks for reading along so far.

[SarahGT]

Today was our only sea day on this cruise. My husband and I were looking forward to having Samara enjoy some time in Camp Carnival so we could have some adult fun. Other than that, we hoped to hit a trivia contest and my husband wanted to try out the water slide.

 

Once we were all awake, we went to the buffet for breakfast. Nothing great, nothing horrible. Then, off to the water slide!

 

This was one of the features I thought was pretty cool on this ship. This morning was overcast and a little breezy, but not chilly. We were on the lido deck by 9 am - and it was empty!

 

 

 

Which also means, there was no line for the water slide! Repeat, repeat, repeat!

 

 

 

 

Seriously, there was nobody else using the water slide. And this was on a boat filled with children - did they all get their fill of it earlier in the cruise? My husband went down it (continually trying to perfect his splash-down) until he had too much saltwater in his eyes, and then he relaxed in a hot tub for a while, and then more slide-sliding.

[crusinpsychRN]

Thanks for the review! That's a long walk in Key West. In the Hemingway house was there still a paper mache Picasso cat on the dresser in the bedroom?

[SarahGT]

In the Hemingway house was there still a paper mache Picasso cat on the dresser in the bedroom?

 

I don't have any specific pictures of the Picasso cat, but if you look in the very upper left corner of this photo, I think you can see it's paws on the top of the dresser.

 

 

Sarah

[SarahGT]

While my husband was slip-sliding away, I made my ill-fated attempt to drop Samara off at Camp Carnival (the full recap of this mis-adventure is earlier in this review). In summary - she wouldn’t let me leave her there, her daddy had a chat with her, and she stayed and had a good time.

 

So, what did my husband and I do with our 1.5 hours of child-free time, until Camp Carnival closed for lunch? We picked up some adult beverages, grabbed a crossword puzzle, and headed to the decks on Deck 3 (where Samara and I had explored the morning before). We each had a Mai Tai (man, those were strong), and needless to say, the second crossword puzzle took more time to complete than the first.

 

 

 

After picking up Samara, we went to lunch in the Universe dining room. We had a good lunch here - I think we enjoyed dining here more than the buffet. Service was a little spotty, but the waiters made several origami animals to help amuse Samara.

 

Here’s one of the bigger gripes I had about this ship - sometimes, you couldn’t get there from here. It’s likely my fault - should have figured it out by this time, but I kept forgetting that on deck 3, you couldn’t access all parts of the ship (several times I went up the aft stairs [nearest our stateroom], intending to head to the Galaxy Dining Room - oops - can’t do that). I don’t remember having that problem on our last cruise on the Allure of the Seas. And, not all parts of the ship were accessible with a stroller - several mornings, I would have liked to take Samara up on the jogging track, but couldn’t do so in her stroller, although I’m sure that the other walkers/runners appreciated not having a stroller to work around. These weren’t deal-breakers, just slap-your-forehead-duh annoyances.

 

After lunch it was nap time. And then we would do trivia, darn it! Before Samara was born, we would do a weekly trivia night with friends, and we’ve missed it. The trivia contest here was not much fun. Maybe it was just the session we went to, but it was difficult to find the location (we walked all over the lido deck trying to find it), the staff member leading it seemed grumpy (although he did have to talk over the football game playing on the pool TV), and it just wasn’t fun (although all of this is my opinion).

 

In getting dressed for dinner, Samara wanted to show off the tattoo she got at Camp Carnival this morning. She enjoyed showing it to her teachers and classmates back home until it finally wore off.

 

 

 

Our final dinner was good. We caught up with our table mates on what they had done in Cozumel. One family went to another beach club and the other did the Amazing Race - which sounded like a lot of fun (maybe not with a toddler in tow, though).

 

Once Samara was asleep, I finished packing things up and my husband went off to karaoke - something he is fabulous at (really, he is - David Allan Coe’s “You Never Even Call Me By My Name” or the Kinks’ “Lola” are specialties).

 

The next morning went very smoothly. We were off the ship by 8:30 am, and in an hour had been through customs, taken a taxi to the airport ($24 flat fee between the airport and port - I wish I would have known this earlier, as we might have taken the hotel shuttle to the airport and then snagged a taxi - it would have been cheaper), checked in for our flight, and were in line for security. Things were going good - too good? The line for security seemed long, but we were in a family line that moved quicker than the others, so it’s still good. We had lunch at a Cuban restaurant, and it was all fine until we got on the plane.

 

Samara did not want to sit by herself. We held her down in her seat to fasten the seat belt and then proceeded to hold her down as she screamed because she didn’t want to sit by herself. She had just turned two, and so needed a seat of her own, but how does one explain FAA rules to a frustrated toddler? It was getting near nap time. A flight attendant took pity on us after a while (it seemed like forever, but probably only 10 minutes), and said that she could sit on my lap. Samara stopped crying immediately and slept on my lap for most of the flight.

 

The trip through the airport and to home went fine. Everything was good when we got back - our cats were happy to see us.

 

We had a good time on this cruise vacation.

 

Was it an impressively elegant affair? Um, nope, but the price was definitely right.

 

Was it perfect? Nope, but none of our vacations have been, and it had it's splendid moments.

 

Would I recommend the Carnival Destiny (pre-Sunshine conversion) (or Carnival in general) to a fellow traveler? With caveats.

 

But we got to see new places, meet new people, and enjoy ourselves. Isn't that what vacations are about?

 

I'm sorry that it took so long to finish this - I was distracted:

 

 

Thanks for reading along and happy travels!

Sarah

[kajiglite]

Thank you so much for this review. I am taking my 17 month old on the Fascination soon and really appreciated your tips and insights.