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Review: Breeze Southern 7/4-7/12

Gopherpharm

By Gopherpharm,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

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Gopherpharm

Gopherpharm

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About me:

I'm a twenty-something lady who traveled with her best friend. Coincidentally we are both named Lisa, which will become relevant at many points during this review. We are repeat Carnival cruisers and I became gold on this cruise. We have cruised together previously, although we had a group of 4 ladies the last two times we cruised. We chose this cruise because of both the itinerary (Aruba and Curaçao had been on our list for a few years) and the ship (been eying the Breeze since she was built). Our cruise style is best described as relaxed/engaged - we both can spend the bulk of a sea day happily reading, but love to try new activities and have adventures in port! Lastly, we look forward to our vacations too much to let anything small get us down. I feel fortunate to be able to vacation, and I don't expect the ship/port/etc to cater to me at this price point. Carnival is an affordable vacation option and I think my expectations reflect that.

 

About this review:

I will honest and sarcastic :)

 

Coming attractions:

Flying in "day of" success - how we managed the impossible

Sea days - in which I unwindulax

Grand Turk - did Blue Water Divers deliver on our private snorkel excursion?

La Romana - spoiler alert: we liked it!

Curaçao - if you don't like unlimited beer, get off the bus

Aruba - snorkel part 2 and squishy sand

My first spa interior cabin - would I do it again?

Breeze food parade - getting my nom on

Entertainment - trivia, comedy, Playlist Productions, and more

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js

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Welcome back! Hope you planned another cruise to get rid of your withdrawls.

 

We sail Breeze end of January.

 

My mom, who swore to never sail Carnival is taking my dd-22 and me and I choose the ship with a little bit of nudging since the price is great for an 8 night sailing. We have a Spa Balcony. My mom is a NCL Haven and RCCL cruiser with DCL Concierge thrown in the mix. It looks like a great ship for a first-time Carnival sailer to try.

 

Ive been on the Fasicination and Dream.

 

Welcome back and I cant wait to read your review and pictures.

 

Did you have the beverage package. I think we will be getting that and making good use with it lol

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Gopherpharm

Gopherpharm

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Looking forward to this one! My family sets sail with this ship and itinerary October 24th.

 

You'll have an awesome time. I've never cruised in October, but it sounds like a great time for a Caribbean cruise!

 

Welcome back! Hope you planned another cruise to get rid of your withdrawls.

 

We sail Breeze end of January.

 

My mom, who swore to never sail Carnival is taking my dd-22 and me and I choose the ship with a little bit of nudging since the price is great for an 8 night sailing. We have a Spa Balcony. My mom is a NCL Haven and RCCL cruiser with DCL Concierge thrown in the mix. It looks like a great ship for a first-time Carnival sailer to try.

 

Ive been on the Fasicination and Dream.

 

Welcome back and I cant wait to read your review and pictures.

 

Did you have the beverage package. I think we will be getting that and making good use with it lol

 

Thanks! Luckily my honeymoon is a Med cruise in October, so I have that to look forward to. Also there may be a girls trip upcoming to celebrate a certain age milestone we're fast approaching...perhaps next year!

 

I think you will LOVE the spa balcony. That would be my pick if I went again and had the funds. It's a great ship.

 

We didn't do the beverage package. I plan on a full analysis of my drink spending in the next few days, but am pretty sure I ended up averaging ~4 drinks/day. My travel companion is not much of a drinker (i.e. lightweight!) and couldn't get her money's worth, so it wasn't really an option for us this time around. I would consider it in the future though!

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Gopherpharm

Gopherpharm

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My family and I were on this cruise with you. We had a great time and weather was perfect. I look forward to reading your opinions of the week

 

Awesome! We really enjoyed ourselves and were pleasantly surprised that it wasn't horribly hot, with it being July and all. Being Midwesterners our heat tolerance is pretty low...that sea breeze really helps!

 

Looking forward to your review! DH and I are going to be on this cruise in 19 days!

 

Thank you! You'll have a great time!

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Gopherpharm

Gopherpharm

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Ugh, being home sucks. Although my fiancé is happy to see me and is cooking steak salad, which we will eat on our porch, so I really shouldn't complain :)

 

My best friend and I (we? I never know) went to school together, and our classmates quickly determined a good way to distinguish between us. My best friend Lisa is under 5’ and was therefore called “Little Lisa” which was subsequently shortened to “Little”. I retained the original “Lisa”. I’ll just refer to her as Little from here on out.

 

So, embarkation day. We were flying to Florida from different airports and had a place to stay in Fort Lauderdale, which we took into account when making travel plans. I have previously flown in the day of and used Carnival transfers from MIA with no problem. I just finished residency training and was pretty flexible with flights, but didn’t really feel like hanging out in Florida without her. Turns out the prices on day of flights were drastically cheaper for Little, so we decided to live dangerously: fly in that morning, and use Carnival transfers. I opted for travel insurance in this situation while Little did not.

 

Friday night I didn’t sleep a wink! Too excited. I got a ride from a grumpy fiancé to the airport and confirmed Little was also en route. Our flights arrived at 10:45 and 11:15 am, with me arriving first. I proceeded to baggage claim, found my bag, and saw the nearby Carnival check in. When Little landed, she said her baggage claim # was 20-something…I was over at 5! She also said there was a Carnival check in near her baggage claim. Since I already had my bag, I took a detour through the parking garage and successfully made it across flamingo and dolphin parking with my luggage! It was quite warm and upon arrival at baggage claim 20-something, I was certainly glistening. See image below for exact scenario.

 

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We waited in line at the Carnival check in for about 10 minutes, had our photos taken and received our sail & sign cards. We waited another 10 minutes for our transport to port and arrived at the cruise terminal by 12:45 pm. Another 10 minutes in line for security, then up the escalator! We noticed people waiting with “zones” in the terminal but were directed to the next escalator and right onto the ship. The “ding” of the sign and sail card is a such a lovely sound!

 

I think upon embarkation we were given a letter explaining that some kind of cleaning needed to take place, so we weren’t leaving Miami until 6-7 pm instead of the scheduled 4 pm. It assured us that we’d arrive to our first port, Grand Turk, on time…so this was nothing that impacted us.

Since it was about 1 pm, we decided to see if our room was ready. We headed up to deck 11 to check out our spa interior for the first time. Sadly it wasn’t quite ready…we hemmed and hawed and ended up putting a couple heavy items (Little’s CPAP) in the closet. We saw our room steward, Kadek, who greeted us on the way out. We didn’t mention we left some things in the room.

 

Next up…ship exploration, dinner, and getting our lay of the land.

 

P.S. Hopefully my photo works...

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Gopherpharm

Gopherpharm

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Thanks for sharing.

 

Thanks for following along! I hope you enjoy!

 

Congratulations on the end of your residency training :)

 

I am looking forward to the rest of your review since I am sailing Breeze next month!

 

Thank you! It's been a long road but a great one. I can't believe I finally get to have a "real" job!

 

You will love the Breeze! It's a terrific ship.

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Gopherpharm

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Our first view of the atrium!

 

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I immediately liked the color scheme and relaxing feel of the décor. I don’t particularly mind the Farcus-ed ships, but didn’t really miss the Vegas-ness either.

 

Looking down onto the lobby, you can see the area for the band to set up (deck 4) directly off the circular stairs. The bar is below (deck 3). The entrances to the Sapphire Restaurant are on deck 3 (your time dining) and deck 4 (traditional dining).

 

an1lhv.jpg

 

The Serenity area is right by The Waterworks. Looking past the slides, you can see deck 11 and the whale tail.

 

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I was especially excited for lunch because I wanted to try Blue Iguana Cantina! I was starving, and the burrito line wasn’t long, but I wanted to got fish tacos. They were delicious. Next, I had my first drink, my cruise tradition - Miami Vice. However, I spiced it up (literally) with a rum floater added for $2. I liked the added rum, and have been unable to revert to the non-floater version of this cocktail. Well played, Carnival.

 

Per the Fun Times, the muster was to be held at 3:30 pm…3:30 pm came and went. I asked a crew member if it was pushed back because of the late departure from Miami, and he said it might be. In any case, the announcement came around 3:45 pm and the muster drill started at 4:00 pm. It was nice to have the muster drill in the Ovation Theater – I don’t miss standing on deck!

 

After muster, we headed back to the room to unpack a bit. We checked out our spa slippers which were almost the right size for Little ;)

 

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Next we headed to dinner. My first impression of American Table was that I liked the bread plates.

 

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Our wait staff was good, the food was basically the same as I remember (good!). I didn’t really miss the white tablecloths. There are always good choices and I liked nearly everything I had. At the end of the day, if food was my main reason for cruising, I would probably choose a different cruise line. One change I did notice was that the regular waitstaff takes your drink order. This was actually a big deal, because on the Imagination in particular, you pretty much had to physically accost a bar waiter to order a drink. And even then, you might not get it before your main course arrived. Now, the regular waitstaff takes the order, and bar waiter delivers it…and it showed up prior to appetizers nearly every night! Way to go, Carnival!

 

After dinner we wandered around for a bit, guessed the price of the painting, and declared ourselves worn out. We’d both been up since ~4 am and basically passed out around 9:30 pm. Yes, we’re actually in our 70s, we just pretend to be young…and do a pretty bad job at it! The spa room comes with a pillow spray that I’m sure is just lavender essential oil and water, but you know what? It’s a lovely scent and I’m a believer.

 

Up next… Lisas do Sea Days!

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