Carnival Glory April 18-25- Review including lots of pictures!

[Alliwanttodoiscruise]

We docked at 11am in Grand Turk. There were long lines and congestion getting off the ship. I think when you dock later everyone tries to get off at the same time. We had a lot planned for the short time we would be here (11-530). The Carnival Conquest was already docked. I believe they were there much earlier than us as they were gone by 230.

 

They had someone dressed up as a towel animal at the gangway. They had that at all the ports on this cruise. One had a Mr. Potato Head - I think it may have been Puerto Rico. I'm not sure what Mr. Potato Head has to do with Puerto Rico?! At some ports they had pirates.

 

Anyways here is a few pictures of our arrival in Grand Turk:

 

 

 

 

 

[campdaan]

Awesome Review !

 

Doing this itinerary in 10 months. 3rd time sailing on the Glory.

 

Can't wait. :D

[Alliwanttodoiscruise]

We had a tour booked on Grand Turk for 1230. So we decided to walk around Margaritaville until it was time to go. My kids really wanted to do the Flow Rider. We went and signed them up for the 3pm session. It was $39.99 for 1.5 hours.

 

At that time in the morning, the Carnival Conquest was in port as well. Margaritaville was packed! And the drinks were flowing and it wasn't even noon!

 

 

 

 

[Alliwanttodoiscruise]

Awesome Review !

 

Doing this itinerary in 10 months. 3rd time sailing on the Glory.

 

Can't wait. :D

 

Thanks! I'm Glad you are enjoying it.

[bakersdozen12]

I love your review! I hope you have more to post. I'll be spending my 40th birthday next year on the Glory.

[Alliwanttodoiscruise]

We booked a tour through Carnival. We wanted to see the island and not just spend the whole day at Margaritaville or on the beach. It was a little pricey but we like the insurance of knowing the ship won't leave without us.

 

So we went out to the cruise center at 12:15 to wait for our tour guide. As it turned out many people were taking this excursion. I believe there were about 3 or 4 "cattle trucks" full of people. Our tour guide was Conrad, who was actually from Jamaica but seem quite knowledgeable about Grand Turk. He provided continuous dialogue through the tour. We were also given cold pop or water on two different stops during the 2.5 hour tour which was nice because it was very hot.

 

Here is a picture of our Safari Bus:

[Alliwanttodoiscruise]

I love your review! I hope you have more to post. I'll be spending my 40th birthday next year on the Glory.

 

Thats awesome. Thats what I was celebrating on this trip!!!

[Alliwanttodoiscruise]

Grand Turk was not what I expected. It is a very poor island. And not really very pretty. The word barren comes to mind. It is also quite flat. The only place I really saw beautiful palm trees was down at the beach by the Cruise Center.

 

They suffered severe hurricane damage in 2008 and the island has never really recovered. They are still rebuilding 7 years later! We actually saw flattened buildings that have been removed! I'm sorry I didn't get any pictures of them. I think I was videoing.

 

Our first stop was to see the Space Capsule. We were not able to get out though. He just stopped long enough for us to take pictures out the window.

 

After that we drove by a giant salt pond.

 

[Alliwanttodoiscruise]

I meant to say there were flattened buildings that had NOT been removed.

[Alliwanttodoiscruise]

Our first stop was at some souvenir shops. They weren't that interesting so we took our free cokes and walked out on the end of the dock across the road to enjoy the views of the Atlantic Ocean.

 

 

 

[bakersdozen12]

Thats awesome. Thats what I was celebrating on this trip!!!

 

 

Nice! Happy Belated Birthday!!! :-)

[Alliwanttodoiscruise]

Our second stop on the tour was the best part. And we almost missed it! I had read reviews about this tour where people had said that they had stopped at an inlet where the tour guide had sea creatures collected in a kayak or something. However, when we arrived, Conrad just stood by the cattle truck and didn't give any kind of tour or show us anything. Then another truck arrived and their tour guide waded right into the water and picked up a jelly fish and flipped it over! I had never seen a jellyfish before in my life and had no idea that all those blobs were jellyfish. Then he picked up some other creatures for us to see and take pictures of including a sea urchin and a conch. I'm sorry I didn't get his name as I would recommend if you take this tour that you get on his truck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[lukesmom1019]

LOVING your review!! We are sailing on this itinerary in 29 days!

[nimiq]

Great review so far loving it :-)

Sea ya

 

Eric

[Alliwanttodoiscruise]

Our third and final stop of the tour was the Grand Turk Lighthouse.

 

The ride down to the inlet with the sea creatures and back up the hill to the lighthouse was a little wild :eek:. Not only do they drive on the wrong side of the road in Grand Turk, but the roads are not maintained well. And the road up to the lighthouse was not paved. I'm not even sure it was gravel at times. I know going down to the inlet we drove off road on sand. And we weren't going slow.

 

Anyways we made it. We saw some donkeys along the way. When we arrived at the lighthouse there was tons of them roaming around.

 

 

 

[Alliwanttodoiscruise]

We survived the ride back to the cruise center. It was time for the kids to do the Flow Rider. They really enjoyed it. It was their favorite part of the trip. They spent an hour and a half surfing, first on their bellies and then they graduated to standing up and surfing. They did a lot better than I thought they would.

 

While they surfed, the adults enjoyed some Strawberry Daiquiris (I know we were at Margaritaville...why didn't we have Margaritas?...I don't have the answer to that. My husband went and came back with the drinks ($22 each :eek:). They were very good and there was lots of liquor in it.

 

When we arrived back from our tour the Carnival Conquest was gone and it was fairly quiet in Margaritaville compared to when we left. It was a nice, relaxing way to end the day in Grand Turk.

 

The Flow Rider session was from 3-430. We had to be back on the ship at 5. My mother was panicking because she swore up and down that the ship was leaving at 5. I tried to reassure here that we could see the ship and it wasn't going to leave without us!

 

 

[Anthomaniac]

Yup grand turk is truly a "Desert Island" there is even a native cactus called the "Turk's Cap"

[Alliwanttodoiscruise]

So Monday night was the first formal night. We knew we weren't going to be back on the ship until 5 so we had not planned to attend formal night. Too rushed....dress clothes had to be ironed and stuff. The downside of missing the first formal night was that I missed the Lobster. They didn't serve it at the second formal night later in the week.

 

We went to the taste bar before going for supper on the lido. They were serving some pumpkin bisque and some kind of breaded sparerib meat if I recall correctly. I do remember that it tasted good!

 

[Alliwanttodoiscruise]

Yup grand turk is truly a "Desert Island" there is even a native cactus called the "Turk's Cap"

 

Thank-you, I have a picture of those cactuses but couldn't remember what he said about them.

 

[Alliwanttodoiscruise]

I don't recall what I ate that night for dinner and that's probably because it wasn't very good. As I may have already mentioned, I was less than impressed with Lido Buffet. One of very few complaints about this trip. Actually I think I ended up with a Guys Burger now that I think about it.

 

I found the hours of operation of the food venues very limited on this cruise. Lunch didn't start on the Lido until 12. Guys, Fish and Chips and Blue Iguana didn't start lunch until 12. Fish and chips was only open 12-2. The deli was only open 11-2. If you wanted to eat outside of those times your choices were pretty limited. After dinner, the only option was the 24 hr pizza or room service. My husband was very disappointed as one of his favorite memories of our Freedom cruise was evening sandwiches from the deli.

 

One more point about strange hours of operation. Later in the evening, we usually took the kids to have some ice cream up on the lido. The only soft serve station open after 9 is the one at the aft adult only pool area!? So the only place for kids to get ice cream is the adults only deck. Not sure how that makes any sense.

 

One more thing...yes I know I'm bordering on whining. The adult hot tub closes at 8 pm! I KNOW on our last cruise we went up there later at night and had drinks in there.

[Anthomaniac]

Named because the cap resembles a fez that the turks used to wear :)

[Alliwanttodoiscruise]

Monday evening we attended the two PG comedy shows with our kids. The first one was called "White Show" Happy Cole. It was pretty good. My kids laughed a lot. The second was "Forever Young" with Scotty K. It was also pretty funny.

[Alliwanttodoiscruise]

Tuesday was our Puerto Rico today. However, we weren't scheduled to dock until 1pm.

 

After breakfast, Mom and I decided to check out the casino in hopes that maybe the smokers were still in bed. The boys went to the arcade.

 

The smokers were indeed still in bed or smoking elsewhere! We got on some 1 cent machines and played for about an hour and walked out with more money than we started with so can't complain. We probably would have kept playing but we wanted to go to the Cooking Demonstration at the Steakhouse.

 

The cooking demonstration was quite impressive. I never expected to get free samples of everything they made. And the samples were quite generous too. And absolutely delicious! Almost convinced me to make a reservation, which of course is their ultimate goal. But the cheap little monster inside me reared her ugly head and said "no you already paid to eat in the main dining room". :rolleyes:

 

The Mushroom Soup

 

Spinach Salad with Blue Cheese

 

Chicken on a bed of mac and cheese

 

Tiramisu

[smurfm69]

Our cruise is 4 weeks away and this review is getting me more excited to go!!

[Sunburns]

Our cruise is 4 weeks away and this review is getting me more excited to go!!

 

Me, too! lol