Glory Be 03/30 Review

[jenjay1210]

Well it looks like it's been a while since a Glory review was posted so I will post one. My name is Jen and I sailed with my husband Jay and my kids Trevor 16 and Erika 14. We had sailed together two years ago on the Liberty, and I had cruised in college.

[jenjay1210]

We picked the Glory for a couple different reasons. First, we'd decided to cruise for my 40th birthday which was March 22. However, the kids school break was the following week and I couldn't see taking them out of school for a week, then having break so we celebrated my birthday a little late. We wanted to cruise out of Miami because my husband's aunt lives in Pompano and it gives a reason to visit her, and finally, because we wanted to do the Western route since we had done the Eastern Route last time. This narrowed our search quite a bit!

 

We live near Cinci, but the flight rates were outrageous so we flew out of Columbus on the 29th. Our plane was late due to de-icing and snow which made me even happier to be headed south. I think half the folks on the plane were cruising one line or another. For the four of us, our round trip tix were 1600 total and I booked early. Anyone who says cruising isn't expensive either doesn't have kids, or lives closer to a port than we do :-)

 

My photos are loading to photobucket, but here is a pic of our family from Roatan. I'll talk more about that in the review.

 

[jenjay1210]

Looks like my photos are taking a while to upload so I'm going to finish this review tomorrow

[champagne123]

Looks like my photos are taking a while to upload so I'm going to finish this review tomorrow

 

Looking forward to it Jen. I have wonderful memories of the Glory...:)

[cruisin chef]

looking forward to this review. Sailing on the Glory in 15 days :)

[jenjay1210]

I travel a fair amount for work and have built up loyalty points with IHG - Holiday Inn. When I first booked my room there were none available in the Port of Miami Holiday Inn. I checked about a week before the trip and some rooms had opened up for rewards points. So I changed our reservation to the Port Holiday Inn. I thought it would be cool to stay downtown.

 

I booked a car with SAS transportation to take us from the airport to the hotel. Since our flight was late, we got what the curbside guy called his last car. I would have been upset if we had missed, since we had prepaid for the car and they had our flight info to know it was running late, but all's well that ends well.

 

There was a music festival downtown and it took us more than an hour to get to the hotel, and even then, we had to walk from a couple blocks away because the roads were closed. So the four of us and all our luggage, plus hundreds of at best tired and at worst wasted teens and twenty-somethings walking the streets of Miami at one a.m. Alrighty then.

 

My husband and son were hungry because we had not eaten in Columbus - small airport and one restaurant was closed and the other was so packed we did not get served in over an hour and had to get on our flight. I was not comfortable with them heading out in the middle of the night, and because of the festival there was no room service, so we attacked the vending machines.

 

The hotel room itself was just ok, a little aged compared to more modern recently built Holiday Inn's. But, when I woke up in the morning, I could see the Port Terminals and that was cool!

 

[oneboysmom]

Hi Jen,

 

We pulled up along side of you in Cozumel on the Wednesday. I was on the Ecstasy! Looking at the glory for next year, so am looking forward to your review! Any chance your kids went to the kids club? If so, do they have any impressions?

Thanks!

[jenjay1210]

I realize now my pics were small, here's a better picture of our hotel view~

 

[CruiserJul]

Thanks for doing this review! We will be on the Glory May 31! :D

 

Anxious to see how you liked the new menu...

[jenjay1210]

So let me say first that I'm not a big fan of the Sunday-Sunday Cruise. I think because I've always tried to do a Sat-Sat vacation and recover on Sunday before back to work. My whole week felt a little off.

 

Now that this is out of the way, there is a CVS a couple blocks down from the Holiday Inn and we walked down Sunday morning while the kids slept to get some soda and water. I rarely drink soda, and my daughter does not at all, so we also got water. I got one cheap bottle of wine and we got my son some of the Dew energy drinks he likes. I had brought a couple reusable shopping backs for my loot to bring on board.

 

We had FTTF so we took a cab to the port early and were checked in by 10:00. We waited about a half hour with everyone else before they called platinum. The lady in the terminal saw we were FTTF and let us board with the platinum folks. :p We went directly to our rooms and offloaded our gear. We were so early on the ship that our bags weren't there yet, and I was ok with this.

 

We booked for ourselves cabin 8448 which is an Aft Wrap and the kids across the hall in 8446 interior. This was a treat to me for my birthday. Our previous cruise we had all shared one balcony cabin. I did not take a lot of pictures of the cabin/balcony because there are many here on CC already, but we LOVED THIS CABIN. The only negative is that it may have ruined any other type of cabin for us ever.

 

The interior cabin for the kids was small but it worked good for them and they could use our balcony whenever they wanted.

[jenjay1210]

When we got on board we were starving-we'd missed dinner the night before, so I felt a little guilty but we made our way to Guys. Why Guilty? Because we had lunch plans for a very special meet and greet.

 

My high school friend lives in Miami and her husband works for Carnival. They were able to get passes to come on board and have lunch with us and tour the ship. But I couldn't wait for lunch and thought we'll I'll just have a Guys and have a light lunch with Shell....yeah she texted she was on board when I took my first bite :-)

 

But Guys was delicious and we enjoyed our visit with Shelley and Rob. The kids came over and introduced themselves and did their own thing, and we walked around the ship and relaxed. Rob and Shelley have cruised more than us and gave us some tips for this route, and we hung out on the wrap balcony and overlooked Miami.

 

[jenjay1210]

After the safety briefing we went down to guest services and got extra keys made so we could access eachother's cabins. FTTF came in handy. Seemed like all week there was a line at guest services but we were able to use the FTTF line and hardly had a wait.

 

We registered the kids for the kids programs and then had dinner. A word about the kids programs -

 

Last cruise, kids were 12 and 14 and both in Circle C and the cruise had a lot of kids. The kids met up the first night with a few kids there age and enjoyed the rest of the week, either in CC activities or just hanging out. This time, my son was O2 and my daughter CC.

 

We filled out the registration forms and the lady told me to put both kids on one form. After dinner, the kids head to the activities and Erika finds us a couple hours later and says I didn't do the forms right, they dont' have her registered. We walk down and I talk to the Circle C guy and he does have her form but had overlooked it. There were about 6 girls in there, all younger than Erika and screaming while playing the dance game. My daughter is a bookworm and felt like a fish out of water. I encouraged her to stay for a while, but she never found a good friend to hand with this cruise and didn't have as good a time. I was bummed, so was she. My son met up with some other kids but they didn't really do anything with the o2 crowd...the boys would meet up and play ball or video games. So he had a better experience than my daughter.

 

I don't blame Carnival for this, it's luck of the draw with the mix of kids that will be on a cruise or in the activities.

[wb3690]

We sailed on the glory March 23-30. I also wasn't a fan of Sunday to Sunday. It was hard to get back into the swing of things. My husband was smart enough to take Monday off, but last week felt off all week.

[Lulu01]

Looking forward to reading on , thanks .

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[jenjay1210]

The first night our dinner took 90 mins, but I expected a longer time for the first night. We had a booth in the lower floor of the Platinum dining room, aft. Other nights took less than an hour to 1:15 and I never felt like we waited too long.

 

Now I know from Heald's blog and here that folks have a lot of opinions about the new menu's and water at the table blah blah blah and I will disappoint those folks because food is not a focus of my cruise. My comments below will be pretty much all I'll post about it for the rest of the review.

 

American table....somehow, lacking a tablecloth on casual nights did not ruin my vacation. I thought having extra water on the table was a nice touch because I try to drink a lot of water on trips. The American table menu's are oversized which may be fashionable but was awkward at a booth for four - I nearly tipped my water a couple times. In general, I did not like sitting at a booth on a formal night but again, it didn't ruin my trip :). The first night I got the pork chop and it was tough, that was the only meal I had that I would rank less than OK. Everything else was OK to very good and I gained weight over the cruise. I also have swollen on both cruises, my hands and feet, which is either due to a higher salt content or MSG, I avoid both at home when possible.

 

 

Pre-Breakfast - coffee and fruit to our room, every morning via room service, thank you. What a wakeup call to enjoy a coffee and the balcony before waking up the kids. Usually we were able to watch us pull into port, or just enjoy the quiet of the aft portion of the ship and the wake. We only used room service in the mornings and it was awesome. I'm wondering who will bring me coffee and fruit this weekend?

 

Breakfast - did the buffet everyday, and got an omelet everyday. Omelets always good, buffet was decent depending on what you got. I wish Carnival would offer three types of coffee in the main area, decaf, regular, and strong. Other than that, it's as good as a buffet breakfast can be.

 

Lunch - Guys a couple times, or snacking from the buffet line. My daughter tried fish and chips and thought it was greasy, I tried the deli and that sandwich was OK. There is no shortage of volume of food, for sure.

 

Dinner - I never struggled to find something to eat at dinner. The Caesar shared salad was yummy. That's the only shared app we had. One night we all got mac and cheese for a side and that came in a large dish....which worked out great as I only wanted a little and my son enjoyed extra. I got a stuffed poblano one night that was excellent. I don't eat Lobster, but the family gave a rating of "not bad" which is saying something because we are Native Mainers and used to the best lobster dinners in the world. The prime rib was cooked correctly but was not hot, but I liked the flavor.

 

Dessert - we prefer the choc melting cake more cooked than others, and while we would request this what we got was a mix. We had a couple other desserts too and they were good. Is there any such thing as a bad dessert?

 

Snacks - we visited the ice cream machines plenty. I wish they had a sherbet offered, but I like the mixed soft serve. I would barely fill a cone so I could snack more. My husband stopped by these machines several times and kids too. We also tried the pizza a few times, but it's not our preferred style so didn't have it a lot. The pizza is thin crust - some like it more than others.

 

Overall - food is plentiful, and a person can eat healthy, crappy, or a mix as they wish. I cruise for the ports, not the food and find that I am well fed and have excellent service all week.

 

Drinks - we only had a couple alcohol drinks all week. We are social drinkers, but not heavy drinkers and it's expensive.

 

Gambling - we gambled more this trip before and spent 700 between my husband and I. Maybe we should have drank more! :rolleyes: Since this was our second cruise, some of the entertainment, like the ventriloquist was a repeat and I wasn't as interested, so I would sit at the slots and listen to the band. Whoops. And we had no luck this time. NO LUCK. Oh well.

 

Now, on to the cruise, tonight I will post about first sea day and Grand Cayman. Below is our sail away selfie...

 

[meatloafsfan]

Can I ask - did you get the FTTF for both cabins?

 

I'm travelling solo with my parents next year on the Pride repositioning cruise and would like to get them FTTF so they have earlier access to their cabin, can drop off their carry ons, etc. My mom is in a wheelchair and I normally push her but she's in the cabin with my father and I don't want to split up with them on boarding but I don't really need the access to my cabin, etc. Tendering is a moot point because with the wheelchair, my mom can't tender so it's really the beginning of the trip. I think it would be worth the $50 for their cabin but not for me.

 

My only concern is not being able to embark with them.

[jenjay1210]

We did purchase FTTF for both cabins. I think we could have just done one though, especially with our other cabin being for kids. Nobody ever checked our cards for us to show that we were FTTF except for when we first boarded.

 

But, it's only 50 bucks so to avoid anxiety over it, I would just grab this if still available.

[jenjay1210]

We spent the first sea day exploring the ship, including walking deck 3 outside and the secret forward decks. The afternoon we napped/read/listened to music on our balcony and I spent some time watching my son play basketball with the other teens.

 

We dressed and went to formal night dinner, here are a couple selfies and the pics we bought from carnival.

 

 

[jenjay1210]

We got back to our cabin in time for a couple pretty good sunset shots. All of our pics were with a Panasonic Lumix shock and waterproof camera.

 

 

 

[DeanDeeDee]

Enjoying your review. We are sailing on the Glory, but not until December.

[Dibleyboy]

I am enjoying this review. We leave in 16 days. We booked about 18 months ago and I have been planning ever since.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

[jenjay1210]

Our first port was Grand Cayman and an early day. Honestly, pulling into Grand Cayman in the a.m. it is not much to see...it's flat topography isn't as interesting as other islands and the water hasn't taken on the bright color it gets later in the day.

 

We had no trouble getting an early tender and I don't recall that we used our FTTF passes for this, I think we just walked right on the tender boat.

 

It was windy and a little choppy but the tender ride is short. I cruised into Cayman 20 years ago and we tendered to port, and here we are again. I don't understand why they don't build a pier.

 

 

 

We walked to the meeting point for our excursion and we had about an hour to wait, so we waited for a couple shops to open and got a coffee and water. It was quiet in Cayman. A website had said only the Glory would be in port, but there was one other ship that day. I've seen and heard of Cayman being really crowded and it was nice that it was not.

 

[jenjay1210]

We had booked Stingray City and Rum Point Beach by jet ski with Island Marketing. My son knew we were going to Stingray City but jet skiing was a surprise to him. We booked three skis, my daughter was not old enough to ride alone. We took about a 20 minute van ride to a Holiday Inn Grand Caymanian resort on the north side of the island, opposite seven mile beach.

 

We finished paying and donned our life vests, we walked over a coral-rock entry onto the jetski's. Wear swim shoes if you do this excursion, we did not and my feet were not happy about this.

 

I had my daughter on my ski. The ride over to Stingray City was about four miles. It took a bit of time because the water was so choppy and with the weight of the two of us on the ski, we were getting splashed a lot and this was my eyes first exposure to salt water on the trip, and it stung. I had to keep stopping to clear my eyes so I could see. It's a wonder we didn't tip.

 

You can see in this picture my son is 6' and he's standing at Stingray City. So the tide was high and with the waves it was not as much fun there as others have had, but we made the best of it :)

 

 

 

[jenjay1210]

I wasn't sure coming in how I would do at Stingray City if I would be nervous or whatever. I was ok but got a good surprise when one slid across my legs underwater and I hadn't seen it coming! My husband was the first of us to hold a ray and he fed it, my daughter warmed up and held them quite a bit. My son, oddly was apprehensive and I held one for a few seconds but was content to watch the others.

 

 

 

The guide had brought squid and my husband fed one of the rays. My daughter has good luck coming her way from a stingray smooch. The guide did not have a camera, these pics were from our camera. The waves were pushing us around a bit, and the guide was trying to keep everyone close by. On other reviews, I know they've offered to take group photos etc but that wasn't going to happen today, mother nature had spoken.

 

We got back on our skis - no small feat and my arse needed a boost- and we were off to Rum Point Beach!

[jenjay1210]

If you have seen pics of Rum Point Beach and thought, it can't be that pretty - those pictures are photo-shopped or enhanced, you would be wrong. This is not a big beach but it has to rank as about the prettiest site I've seen and I've been blessed to travel a lot. It's gorgeous. We only had about 20 mins there, so we really just stretched our legs and soaked in the site of this beautiful place.

 

I apologize that my lens was a little wet. This is a waterproof camera so I had strapped my wrist strap to my lifejacket to take pics when I wanted, and I was definitely testing the waterproof reliability!