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Just off the Conquest

Yayamama77

By Yayamama77,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

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Yayamama77

Yayamama77

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Well, I just came back from my first cruise I had such a great time! My daughter and I flew from Maryland to Fort Lauderdale the day before and booked a room at Rodeway Inn. Even though it's an older hotel, it was clean, the bed was comfortable, it had a lovely, heated pool and there was a restraunt on site. There are no elevators so you may want to request a ground floor room. The grounds were attractive and there is a small gift shop with some necessary last minute items available. Free shuttle from the airport and to the port was included with free continental breakfast. The breakfast was quite crowded and the food selection was limited and not replenished in a timely manner when items ran out. Upon arrival at the airport I called a number and the shuttle arrived promptly to take us to the hotel. The shuttle to the port was poorly organized. There were a lot of us and it was pretty much first come, first served. The first group left and we waited for what seemed like a long time for the shuttle to return for us. My daughter and I ended up calling a cab to take us to the port.

This is where I advise you to buy Faster to the Fun if at all possible. Port Everglades leaves something to be desired as far as efficiency goes. But because we had FTTF, we went through an express line and were at the counter immediately. The other line snaked around and around for quite a ways. Make sure you fill out all your paperwork on line ahead of time. Since we did this, all we needed to do was present our passport and Heath assessment and get our picture taken for our sail and sign card. We then walked over to the lobby area where many, many people waited. We were only there for about 10 minutes before they called the FTTF people to board the ship! There were only a handful of us and my daughter and I walked around the ship and hardly saw another person. I got some great pictures during this time. Because we had FTTF our cabin was ready when we boarded. Our luggage was supposed to be there but probably took another two hours to arrive.

One of the very few downsides to this cruise was the muster drill. I was so looking forward to the sail away from the port but everyone missed it entirely. We were stuck at our drill station for close to an hour because about 30 people decided that the drill was not mandatory for them and we could not start it until they showed up and were accounted for. The deck where our muster station was located was the same one where the life boats are. They blocked any view of the outside world. While standing packed like sardines, the boat started moving and by the time we were allowed to leave the drill, Fort Lauderdale was going, going, gone!

We had booked dinner at the Point Steakhouse the first night. The food was presented beautifully and was delicious. I feel it was worth the extra $35 to dine here.

We chose My Time Dining and were assigned to the Renoir restaurant. We usually had to wait between 15 and 30 minutes for a table but just got a drink and sat in the lobby until our beeper went off and enjoyed people watching. Most nights we got a table for two by the window in the same section. After the first time we requested to be seated where our server, Assadee, was stationed. She was wonderful and really made our dinner every night. After the first time she remembered our beverage preferences and our names!

The food was delicious and beautifully prepared. There was not a thing I did not enjoy.

Our cabin steward, Pande, came in twice a day and cleaned our room, made the beds, replenished our towels and left us an adorable towel animal every night. I really never saw him much but he did a great job.

Well, I've been at this for too long. I will try to figure out how to return here and tell you more tomorrow.

 

 

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ethanhunt123

ethanhunt123

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Well, I just came back from my first cruise I had such a great time! My daughter and I flew from Maryland to Fort Lauderdale the day before and booked a room at Rodeway Inn. Even though it's an older hotel, it was clean, the bed was comfortable, it had a lovely, heated pool and there was a restraunt on site. There are no elevators so you may want to request a ground floor room. The grounds were attractive and there is a small gift shop with some necessary last minute items available. Free shuttle from the airport and to the port was included with free continental breakfast. The breakfast was quite crowded and the food selection was limited and not replenished in a timely manner when items ran out. Upon arrival at the airport I called a number and the shuttle arrived promptly to take us to the hotel. The shuttle to the port was poorly organized. There were a lot of us and it was pretty much first come, first served. The first group left and we waited for what seemed like a long time for the shuttle to return for us. My daughter and I ended up calling a cab to take us to the port.

This is where I advise you to buy Faster to the Fun if at all possible. Port Everglades leaves something to be desired as far as efficiency goes. But because we had FTTF, we went through an express line and were at the counter immediately. The other line snaked around and around for quite a ways. Make sure you fill out all your paperwork on line ahead of time. Since we did this, all we needed to do was present our passport and Heath assessment and get our picture taken for our sail and sign card. We then walked over to the lobby area where many, many people waited. We were only there for about 10 minutes before they called the FTTF people to board the ship! There were only a handful of us and my daughter and I walked around the ship and hardly saw another person. I got some great pictures during this time. Because we had FTTF our cabin was ready when we boarded. Our luggage was supposed to be there but probably took another two hours to arrive.

One of the very few downsides to this cruise was the muster drill. I was so looking forward to the sail away from the port but everyone missed it entirely. We were stuck at our drill station for close to an hour because about 30 people decided that the drill was not mandatory for them and we could not start it until they showed up and were accounted for. The deck where our muster station was located was the same one where the life boats are. They blocked any view of the outside world. While standing packed like sardines, the boat started moving and by the time we were allowed to leave the drill, Fort Lauderdale was going, going, gone!

We had booked dinner at the Point Steakhouse the first night. The food was presented beautifully and was delicious. I feel it was worth the extra $35 to dine here.

We chose My Time Dining and were assigned to the Renoir restaurant. We usually had to wait between 15 and 30 minutes for a table but just got a drink and sat in the lobby until our beeper went off and enjoyed people watching. Most nights we got a table for two by the window in the same section. After the first time we requested to be seated where our server, Assadee, was stationed. She was wonderful and really made our dinner every night. After the first time she remembered our beverage preferences and our names!

The food was delicious and beautifully prepared. There was not a thing I did not enjoy.

Our cabin steward, Pande, came in twice a day and cleaned our room, made the beds, replenished our towels and left us an adorable towel animal every night. I really never saw him much but he did a great job.

Well, I've been at this for too long. I will try to figure out how to return here and tell you more tomorrow.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

 

what time did you arrive at the port?

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Yayamama77

Yayamama77

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Continuing my story...

Some of the activities I chose to do were the movies outside by the pool. It was nice. You could get free popcorn and lots of people had ice cream cones from the machine that was nearby. I found an empty lounge chair without much effort for the earlier movie but they were pretty filled up when went to the later one. They also made you get out of the pool and hot tub around 10 pm so if the movie went later you may have a problem finding a chair.

I also tried bingo. It was a little hard to see in the dark of the lounge but they went at an acceptable speed. The tickets were sold in the lounge right before bingo went on.

I went to the marriage show. That was hysterical! The cruise director, Josh, really played it up but the one couple who had been married 52 years stole the show! Not something that the younger crowd should hear though.

I also enjoyed listening to a young man named Andre who played guitar in the casino then in the Blues lounge. He was quite talented.

I went to one of the adult comedy shows. I can't remember the comedians name but I found his routine lacking. He was replaced by someone else but I never got to see that person.

There was always a lot of action in the casino. I don't smoke so I expected to be really bothered by the smoking but it was tolerable.

I also watched the Hasbro Game Show. It was entertaining and I got a few good laughs out of it.

The first night on the ship we went to the adult pool area and hot tub. It was nice and quiet and right next to the pizza place.

One evening we sat a the lobby bar and played a game of trivia. There was usually always something going on in the lobby. Trivia, info talks, musical groups, singers. A lot of things to watch. Guest services is also in the lobby. This is another area where Faster to the Fun comes in handy. I had a question I needed answered and instead of having to wait in the line that had about 20 people in it I was able to use the FTTF line and only had one person in front of me.

No matter where you find yourself on the ship there will be servers wandering around asking you if you would like a drink so you shouldn't have to wait long for refills. It was nice.

We ate at both of the sea day brunches and the food was good. We were seated with between five and eight other people. It was a nice surprise to have pleasant conversation with strangers while dining.

The High tea was disappointing. It was held in the balcony area of the Monet restaurant and it was very warm. There were only two choices for tea, Lipton and green tea bags. There were several choices for little tea desserts but the few I tasted weren't too tasty. They had a string quartet playing but they were kind of hard to hear.

The Pizza Pirate pizza place made good pizza and Guys Burgers were always fantastic. I only ate a few things at the buffet. They were good enough but couldn't compare to the main dining room meals.

I'll return later with more info.

 

 

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Yvonne

Yvonne

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Glad you enjoyed your cruise. We liked our Conquest cruise too. That's too bad you missed sail away completely. We've had it where the muster drill was just finishing up when the ship started to move, but have never missed it completely because of it lasting too long because of thoughtless people not showing up. Seems like they could do something about that. It isn't fair to make people that showed up on time keep waiting and waiting like you had to.

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Florings

Florings

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Looking forward to more...

 

Conquest is my favorite ship so far! Loved the evening movies, popcorn and icecream too. Can't think of a single thing I didn't like about that cruise. Great ship, good food, great service and wonderful vibes!

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ChipFire

ChipFire

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Continuing my story...

Some of the activities I chose to do were the movies outside by the pool. It was nice. You could get free popcorn and lots of people had ice cream cones from the machine that was nearby. I found an empty lounge chair without much effort for the earlier movie but they were pretty filled up when went to the later one. They also made you get out of the pool and hot tub around 10 pm so if the movie went later you may have a problem finding a chair.

I also tried bingo. It was a little hard to see in the dark of the lounge but they went at an acceptable speed. The tickets were sold in the lounge right before bingo went on.

I went to the marriage show. That was hysterical! The cruise director, Josh, really played it up but the one couple who had been married 52 years stole the show! Not something that the younger crowd should hear though.

I also enjoyed listening to a young man named Andre who played guitar in the casino then in the Blues lounge. He was quite talented.

I went to one of the adult comedy shows. I can't remember the comedians name but I found his routine lacking. He was replaced by someone else but I never got to see that person.

There was always a lot of action in the casino. I don't smoke so I expected to be really bothered by the smoking but it was tolerable.

I also watched the Hasbro Game Show. It was entertaining and I got a few good laughs out of it.

The first night on the ship we went to the adult pool area and hot tub. It was nice and quiet and right next to the pizza place.

One evening we sat a the lobby bar and played a game of trivia. There was usually always something going on in the lobby. Trivia, info talks, musical groups, singers. A lot of things to watch. Guest services is also in the lobby. This is another area where Faster to the Fun comes in handy. I had a question I needed answered and instead of having to wait in the line that had about 20 people in it I was able to use the FTTF line and only had one person in front of me.

No matter where you find yourself on the ship there will be servers wandering around asking you if you would like a drink so you shouldn't have to wait long for refills. It was nice.

We ate at both of the sea day brunches and the food was good. We were seated with between five and eight other people. It was a nice surprise to have pleasant conversation with strangers while dining.

The High tea was disappointing. It was held in the balcony area of the Monet restaurant and it was very warm. There were only two choices for tea, Lipton and green tea bags. There were several choices for little tea desserts but the few I tasted weren't too tasty. They had a string quartet playing but they were kind of hard to hear.

The Pizza Pirate pizza place made good pizza and Guys Burgers were always fantastic. I only ate a few things at the buffet. They were good enough but couldn't compare to the main dining room meals.

I'll return later with more info.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

glad you had a great time we had josh (Big Sexy)on the pride he was allsome I hope he will be there we sail aug.20
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sierra821

sierra821

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Posted (edited)

We were on the June 25th sailing and missed sail away. Was that the one you were on? never mind, you had to have been because of the couple on the marriage show...Bobby was the mans name. They were cute :)

Edited by sierra821
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Yayamama77

Yayamama77

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Back again with more info. Sorry its intermittent but life gets in the way.

Yes, we did get a free bottle of wine for dining in the state counts the first Steve. I believe there was a choice between a red or a white wine. My daughter picked the Merlot. I don't care for wine unless they're very sweet so I did not taste any and cannot comment on that.

And to answer the question about the cost of the taxi from our hotel to the port, we used the app Lyft and it cost about $11.

There are many lounges and bars throughout the ship. Some are small and others are larger venues. I believe I tried to hit most of them. The Alchemy bar had an interesting list of drinks. They were quite unusual and they have it down to a real science. I enjoy the sweet, frozen cocktails the most. I believe my favorite drink was called A Kiss on the Lips. I believe it was a mixture of peach and mango. I also had something called a Twilight Zone and that was pretty good also. They also had a pretty good moscato called Castello del poggio. Since I had the cheers program I also tried the 20 some dollars a glass of champagne but I was not very impressed with that.

We ordered room service one morning and it came on time. There was nothing outstanding about the selection or the quality of that food. We ate at the buffet on the Lido deck a few times. There was nothing outstanding or derogatory to say about it. Some of it was tasty but all of it was adequate. We never had a hard time trying to find a table to eat at.

Now I will speak about the excursions that we chose to take on port days. We did not book any of them through Carnival. I did a lot of research which really paid off in some instances.

For Cozumel, I booked an excursion to a place called Chankanaab. It was a beach park where you could snorkel, swim with dolphins, watch a sealion show or use their pool with swim up bar. I found a two dollar off coupon online so the admission to the park itself was $19 with the coupon. If you wanted to use their snorkeling outfit or swim with dolphins all that was extra. I believe the cab ride was about six dollars per person each way. We brought our own snorkel gear and just used their snorkel area. The grounds were lovely as was the beach. There was an attentive beach waiter that came around from time to time. The snorkeling was rather disappointing, however I did not take a snorkeling tour. Maybe it was better farther out.

I did not watch the sea lion show either. I did spend some time in the pool. I felt it could have been cleaner but I guess that's hard when there are numerous people in and out all the time. The pool was probably only chest high at the deepest. It did have some lounge chairs and quite a few table and chairs with umbrellas that overlooked the area where people were swimming with dolphins. There were also a few outside shower spouts where you could rinse off after getting out of the pool. While I enjoyed my time on the beach I probably would not return here.

Next stop was Belize. I had booked a cave tubing excursion online through an outfit called Cavetubing.bz through Vitalino Reyes. They were an excellent outfit and I would highly recommend them. Out of all the cave tubing outfits, there were only two that made sure you did not have to carry your own tubes through the sweaty jungle. This fact alone is extremely important. The cost was $50 per person and it included lunch and rum punch. We were met after we got off the tender and had to walk a short distance to several passenger vans which were air-conditioned. The drive took about 45 minutes. During that time our guides, Roberto and Jr. We're very entertaining. They pointed out different things during the ride and kept us entertained with stories. When we arrived at the area, there are bathrooms and changing rooms where you could change into your bathing suit if you had not worn it. We then began our trek through the jungle after being outfitted with life jackets and helmets. Along the way we would stop and learned some interesting facts about animal and plant life in the jungle. At one point there was a rope stretched across the river that we had to hold onto to get to the other side to continue our trek. During our walk there were at least three or four other tubing outfits that passed us. These poor people had to lug their awkward, heavy tubes for themselves. We were spared this. You could also tell how legitimate some of these outfits were by the quality of their tubes or the lack there of.

After about half an hour we reached the mouth of the cave. There were three or four other groups from other tubing businesses there. Each group lashed their tubes together and everyone hopped on. Along the way our guides would steer and direct the tubes. The guides would point out interesting facts about the caves as we passed. At one point with all the guides from all the different outfits yelling and the echoing in the caves it made it hard to hear. But at this point our guides pushed our tubes to the side of the cave and let everyone pass. When they were out of sight we leisurely continued on our way. It was much more enjoyable. When we got to the end of the cave all the other groups got out and started lugging their tubes through the jungle and back towards the parking lot. Ours was the only outfit that leisurely continued to float down the river for another 15 or 20 minutes taking in the sights. As we approached the initial place where we had crossed holding onto the rope, we were allowed to get out and swim if we wanted to. The river was quite deep as I could not even touch the bottom. At this point when we got out we did have to carry our tubes back to the parking lot but this was only for about 10 minutes at most. After we got back we were loaded back into the vans and drove back to where their offices were where we were fed a yummy lunch of chicken and rice and rum punch.

It was one of my favorite parts of the entire cruise and I would highly recommend it.

Our third port stop was in Roatan. I booked an excursion to a place called Little French Key. I cannot begin to recommend this excursion enough. This place was a piece of heaven. There are different packages you can choose. I picked the one for $88 per person which gave you full use of their facilities, kayaks, paddle boards, ect, lunch and two drinks. We drove through Rotan for about 20 minutes where we hopped on a small boat and were ferried across the water to the island. The island was small enough that I was able to kayak around it. The grounds were beautiful and manicured, even to the point of them raking the sand. There were lots of little lagoon alcoves with shaded palapas tables in the water. There were secluded lounging areas all along the edges of the island. There were hammocks under the palm trees. There was a swim up bar with swings. It was as close as I've been to heaven this side of earth. Lunch was different types of seafood, beef and rice. They have an alcoholic drink called a Monkey La La. It tastes somewhat like a chocolate milkshake and is now my favorite drink of all time.

They also have a small zoo like area. And while I am not a huge fan of zoos, these animals have been rescued and are lovingly taken care of here to live out their lives in some semblance of peace. I could have spent weeks here. I hope I get to return.

Our last port day was in Grand Cayman. I booked an excursion to Cayman Spirits Distillery. I had read many good reviews. The cost was about $17. There was a small booth at the tender port where we waited for a driver to take us there. The ride took about 10 minutes. We met Moises who owns the place. He was very nice and made you feel very welcome. He started by lining up about 10 different bottles of their alcohol on the bar. He would then talk about the product some of its history and interesting facts about it. He would then pour a taste of it in your shot glass and continue with each bottle. Now I'm not a big drinker and I never drink alcohol straight but all of these products were so smooth and each one was more delicious than the next. He then took us into the other half of the building, which was small and showed us the different equipment that was used to make the products. He would explain each process and we could even sample things at different stages. After the tour we went back to the bar area where we were allowed to drink and sample as much of each and every product that we cared too. We just poured it for ourselves. Needless to say you could leave the tour feeling pretty darn good. There were also gifts that you could buy such as rum infused coffee and candies as well as soap, perfume and T-shirts. You could also buy any of their liquor. It turned out to be a fun, informative and enjoyable time. After about two hours the tour guide returned for us and drove us back to the port area. From here my daughter and I walked to a lovely place where we had lunch. We then walked down the street to a place called Eden Rock. It is a dive shop but has free water access to snorkel if you'd like. We brought our own snorkel gear and went into the water. The snorkeling was fairly decent and there were only two or three other people there so it was very leisurely and uncrowded. They did have lockers if you cared to rent them and there was an outdoor shower you could rinse off. When we were done we just walked back to the tender.

My first cruise turned out to be a wonderful experience. I can't continue to say enough good things about Carnival and the Conquest and the excursions that I took. I hope everyone that reads this enjoys their cruise as much as I did.

 

 

 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
HeyJut

HeyJut

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Enjoyed your post. Thanks for taking the time to include so many details. Have never done a b2b but was curious how that worked and found it very interesting. I'm going on a short cruise next week-a 4 day Bahama's. Been on 7 or 8 cruises the longest being 2 weeks through the Panama Canal. It was great but 2 weeks is a long time in my opinion.

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