Solo Glory Christmas Cruise

[jt1602sd]

Great review! It's fun and informative. I've been doing my cruises solo too, and wouldn't have it any other way. Tell us how you liked new MDR menus and the "no tablecloths" look.

 

Thanks for reading! I agree with you.. It's the best to just be able to do what you want, when you want to do it!

 

As far as the new MDR goes, the lack of tablecloths on casual nights really didn't bother me, but I'm pretty easy to please. Give me some good company and some decent food and drinks and I could really care less whether there is a cloth on the table. I was actually pretty surprised that some people got so worked up over that.. If that's a big complaint, life is pretty good (in my opinion). The menus had far fewer choices than the traditional menus, which in a way was good for me, because I was not tempted to eat too much. The fact that you order sides separately didn't really bother me much either, but that's partially due to my diet anyway. I was never "forced" to share out of a community dish with anyone, though one night a tablemate and I elected to share a Caesar salad. As I mentioned before, I wasn't crazy about it as compared to the traditional menus, but it in no way ruined my experience. I will offer one warning.. I absolutely LOVE crème brûlée, but it was awful this trip. The custard had broke so it was curdled and watery.. I was so sad :( And I also missed the cheese plate, but when put into perspective of an overall awesome trip, these were very minor grievances.

 

If you have any other questions regarding the new dining concept, feel free to ask!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

[wantocruisemore]

Which Olympus tough do you have? The photos are gorgeous and the underwater pictures look very true colors. I just got the Olympus tough 830 and can't wait to try it out underwater.

[jt1602sd]

Which Olympus tough do you have? The photos are gorgeous and the underwater pictures look very true colors. I just got the Olympus tough 830 and can't wait to try it out underwater.

 

Thanks! It's the TG-620 :)

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

[jt1602sd]

Day 3- Costa Maya

 

As previously mentioned, I had a late night the night before, and hadn't drank nearly enough water, so wasn't feeling too hot and decided to stay on the ship. I hadn't booked anything for Costa Maya, but was going to tag along with some people from the roll call that were going to Tropicante. I did wake up early and was able to get some pretty good pictures when we were pulling up to the pier, but that's about all I saw of Costa Maya. (Yet another plus to cruising solo- I wasn't obligated to do anything with someone I came with so I was able to be lazy, guilt-free!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

I almost considered getting of the ship and checking out the port area, but that pier was sooooooo long! I decided to admire it from afar...

 

[jt1602sd]

One last Costa Maya Picture

 

 

It was beautiful there, but I had to remind myself that I was on vacation and needed to take some time to rest as well, so I didn't feel bad at all for staying on the ship. I watched a couple movies, ordered some room service, got a snack on the Lido, soaked up a little sun, and had a very enjoyable day. For anyone that is interested, those that went to Tropicante really seemed to enjoy it, so I'm passing along their recommendation.

 

This was Christmas Day, so I got ready for dinner a little early (I had the late seating, by the way- I like the flexibility that it gives me in the afternoon, and I could always grab a snack if I got hungry before dinner). In the atrium they were handing out jingle bells to everyone, and there was a Christmas song sing-a-long. There was also an ugly sweater contest, and supposedly Santa made an appearance, but it wasn't before I had to head out for dinner.

 

 

 

I went to the adult comedy again that night after dinner, which featured the same comedians, but luckily they were doing new sets Once again, it was very funny! I wandered into the piano bar for a bit, but by that time I was over the Christmas songs, so I didn't stick around too long. I headed to bed shortly after that, as we had an early arrival into Roatan the next morning.

[jt1602sd]

Day 5- Roatan

 

In Roatan I had booked the Fun-n-Sun tour through Victor Bodden. In the email instructions, he states that the tour will leave one hour from the time the ship was scheduled to arrive so I planned to get off the ship as soon as I could. I had scheduled to have my usual smoked salmon, fruit, tomato juice, orange juice and coffee to be delivered at 6:30, and it was right on time. I was ready to get off the ship at 7, but didn't actually make it off the ship until about 7:30, which would give me 30 minutes to get to the non-sponsored tour area, outside the cruise port area.

 

Sunrise over Roatan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A friend from the roll call and her son had also booked the same tour, so we met up and made it to the tour area with time to spare. A bit of advice here: Victor is kind enough to not make you pay a deposit when you book a tour through him, and gives you multiple numbers to call him at if you aren't going to make your tour. If you schedule a tour with him and decide not to go, PLEASE CALL HIM!! We were 30 minutes late leaving for our tour, because a group didn't show up. We were only on Roatan from 7-3, so that basically took away 30 minutes from our beach time. It's just the polite thing to do!! (OK, rant over)

 

Next up: The tour and fun with monkeys!

[seannyice81]

Great review!

 

I really liked your photos from the water taxi in Ft. Lauderdale. Those were some pretty impressive boats and properties! The expense of flying into and staying in Miami is crazy these days. I saved $100 per trip on airfare by just flying into FLL instead for my Glory cruise (I cheated and used hotel points to stay in Miami though, haha). Its cool sharing the ports with Legend. I ran into a cool group of people from that ship a couple times.

 

Stinks you had to cancel your Valor cruise. Like GAPearl said though, you should really consider the Nov 1st, Splendor cruise. It also leaves from San Juan and stops in some of the less visited ports. Its going to be a blast! :cool:

 

Thank you for your service!

[jt1602sd]

Oops.. Costa Maya was Day 4, not 3. I don't think you're allowed to edit your posts... or at least I can't figure out how! :confused: Haha

[jt1602sd]

Great review!

 

I really liked your photos from the water taxi in Ft. Lauderdale. Those were some pretty impressive boats and properties! The expense of flying into and staying in Miami is crazy these days. I saved $100 per trip on airfare by just flying into FLL instead for my Glory cruise (I cheated and used hotel points to stay in Miami though, haha). Its cool sharing the ports with Legend. I ran into a cool group of people from that ship a couple times.

 

Stinks you had to cancel your Valor cruise. Like GAPearl said though, you should really consider the Nov 1st, Splendor cruise. It also leaves from San Juan and stops in some of the less visited ports. Its going to be a blast! :cool:

 

Thank you for your service!

 

I saved about $300 by flying into Fort Lauderdale! Crazy!

 

Why do I get the feeling that I'm going to end up on that Splendor cruise....?? :rolleyes:

[WAHMto5]

Great review, thanks for sharing!

[jt1602sd]

Roatan Continued-

 

There were 7 people in our group, so we all piled into a van and headed out. This tour included a tour of the island, time at Victor Bodden's "ranch" and a tour of the small zoo he has there, and 1-2 hours at the Bananarama resort, which includes a beach chair. The cost of the tour was around $30, and I would have paid that just to play with the monkeys alone! The whole tour was worth every penny! We started out by driving through some of the villages, and got to see how life on the island is for the locals.

 

 

The Governor's Mansion

 

 

 

Our tour guide then took us to a number of scenic overlooks. At each of these overlooks were locals selling jewelry and mahogany products, but I didn't feel as if they were overly pushy- if you just told them 'no thank you', they would leave you alone.

 

 

 

[jt1602sd]

After driving around the island for a bit, we headed to Victor's to pay for the tour and too see the monkeys! (Ok, so there were other animals too, but I was mostly excited to see the monkeys!)

 

They assign you a tour guide who takes you through the area, which is small, but we were there early enough that it wasn't too crowded yet. I can imagine that place gets pretty busy though!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jt1602sd]

You were able to get into the cages with the little monkeys, but not the spider monkey pictured earlier. Also, we were warned to make sure that we didn't have any sunglasses or anything he could grab, cause apparently he likes to snatch things away from people, and you will not get it back! lol

 

 

You could also get in the cage and hold the big parrots, but I chose not to do that as I 1.) Didn't want to get pooped on, and 2.) Am not really a fan of those big birds!

 

 

I did hold a little one tho!

 

 

 

The little lemur things were super cute too. You couldn't hold them though.. look at those claws!!

 

 

Home, home on the range..

 

[jt1602sd]

After that, we headed to the beach. As I mentioned, our tour included admission to the Bananarama resort, which was a typical tourist resort- nothing to really write home about. I did have some awesome chips and dip there (called the Roatan dip or something like that) and they had 2 for $5 rum punches which were delicious!! I had brought my own snorkeling gear, so my roll call buddy and I headed over to the snorkel area, but the waves were pretty rough and you couldn't see a whole lot. The coral is also really sharp.. I scraped my foot pretty good on it by acccident!

 

 

 

 

 

And that's when my camera died. I don't know what I was thinking, but I hadn't put it on the charger since it seemed to be holding a charge so well. Apparently it goes from like 60%-0% very quickly.

 

We had to be back on board at 2:30, so we headed back and went up to the lido for an awesome burrito and a cocktail, and tried to find a good spot to watch for runners. Sure enough, they started calling for people over the PA, and a short while later I saw my first pier runners!! There was actually a few of them, and it was fun to watch them running.. I can only imagine what was going through their heads! Haha!

 

I decided to try my hand at some trivia, but I think people were not so honorable about the honor system- when the same person keeps getting all the answers right, it kinda makes yo go hmmmm... I headed to my room and to get ready for dinner, and headed out early so I could finally try out the Alchemy Bar. Oh my goodness.. I was so sad I hadn't visited that place sooner!! I ordered on of their cocktails (something with cucumber), and they gave me a little tray of olives, cheese and nuts. It was perfect before dinner. Later, some of my tablemates and I went back to the Alchemy Bar, and they actually invented a new drink (a variation on the cucumber drink I'd had before, but with just cucumbers, vodka, and a touch of lime juice shaken and strained over ice), and from that point on I think we were all known as the cucumber drink people. Haha! Yeah.... we had A LOT of them! I went to the club for a little bit again that night, and called it a night probably around 2 or so.

 

Coming up- Grand Cayman- My favorite port!!

[jakeT]

What did they do for breakfast,brunch, lunch. Same no tablecloth, water on the table.?

[jt1602sd]

What did they do for breakfast,brunch, lunch. Same no tablecloth, water on the table.?

 

I never made it to breakfast in the MDR, but I assume that there were no changes. For brunch the tablecloths were on the table and there was not water in the table. I think those changes only applied to dinner.

[kpatrick74]

Great review...I am doing the Eastern on Glory in June and love reading your review. One question though about the dinner menus...do they still offer the "everyday menu"?

[jt1602sd]

Great review...I am doing the Eastern on Glory in June and love reading your review. One question though about the dinner menus...do they still offer the "everyday menu"?

 

Sorry for the late reply- they do have a version of the 'everyday menu', but there were only like 4 items on it.

[jt1602sd]

I just realized that I haven't been able to get back to this for a while, so while I had a bit of time, I figured I'd try and finish this up! So where were we...?

 

Oh yes, Grand Cayman! I had nothing planned for this port, so I was just going to take a cab to one of the resorts and see about renting a chair and just chilling out for the day. I had wanted to find something all-inclusive, but I guess those couldn't be booked last minute- or at least no one could point me in the right direction.

 

Pulling up to Grand Cayman

 

 

Tenders pulling up to the ship

 

 

The Glory from the tender

 

 

It didn't take me very long to get on a tender, even though I wasn't up bright and early- I think it helped that I was solo, as they didn't have to worry about finding room for a whole crew (woo! another advantage to solo cruising!). Once in the port area I stopped off to have a drink with some shipmates, and off I went to find a taxi. I think I paid $5-10 for the ride to the resort, and I honestly didn't pay attention to the name of the resort I was at. I think it was the first one I came to, and since all I wanted was a chair and a place to enjoy some cold drinks, I wasn't very picky. I ended up paying $7 to rent a chair- probably the best $7 I spent all trip!! I loved the beach there, but it was HOT!! I had to keep jumping in the water to keep cool, but I was certainly not complaining!!

 

The resort

 

 

[jt1602sd]

Some more Grand Cayman pictures:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I spent the whole day on the beach had a blast meeting new people and just relaxing. It was the perfect way to spend my last port day. I headed back to the ship to take a quick nap and get ready for dinner. That night all the sun and fun got to me though, and I wasn't feeling well at dinner, so I called it an early night.

 

Well, my lunch break is about over. I'll try and finish up tonight or tomorrow. Next up, last day at sea!! (sad face)

[wb3690]

I've enjoyed reading this we're going on the glory next month and there aren't as many reviews about this ship. thanks for it! great pictures!!