Carnival Glory June 25th to July 2nd Review

[DebbieMo]

We got back from our first Carnival cruise on the Glory 3 weeks ago and I was hoping to get this review started right away but we had visitors and it just didn't happen. This is my first review and i'm not really into writing reviews but i'm going to attempt it because i've gotten so much useful information from this board in the last few months.

 

I'm including pictures of the Funtimes, Camp Carnival ages 6-8 & 9-11 activites, Room service menu, Dining room wine menu, pictures of our oceanview cabin #2407 and pictures from our seadays & ports which were Half Moon Cay, St. Thomas, San Juan & Grand Turk. We embarked from Miami and I have a few pictures from there as well.

 

Pictures are located here http://s1378.photobucket.com/user/debbiemo1/library/Carnival%20Glory?sort=3&page=1. There are subfolders within the album.

 

So as I said, this was our first Carnival cruise. Hubby and I cruised on Grand Princess 13 years ago almost to the day but it was the first cruise for our 4 kids ages 6-12. We also had some family members meeting us for the trip which made our party a total of 15. Some have cruised before and it was the first for others.

 

We are from the Orlando area and decided to drive down to Miami on embarkation day. We left home at 4am and arrived in Miami around 7:30am which was way earlier than we expected. Since we were so early we decided to drive into the port area to check out where we would be going since it was our first time leaving from Miami.

 

Our first glimpse of the ship and we were all sooo excited!!

 

 

Our check in time was 10:30am so we decided to go grab some breakfast and stretch our legs for a bit. After breakfast at McDonalds (not too many options in the area) we came across Bayfront Park which wasn't too far from the port and I was hoping we could see our ship from there. It is a very pretty park but there were alot of homeless people there.

 

Bayfront Park

 

A little yoga in the park going on

 

We left the park and headed to the port which took about 4 minutes. Hubby let us and the luggage out then went to park the car. It was about 10:00am at this point and I knew about the staggered check in from CC so we stood with our luggage and waited but then I figured even if we can't check in we could check our luggage so we went looking for where to check the luggage in and there were a lot of people around to tell you where you needed to go. We found the guy taking the luggage for Glory and handed them off. It's about 10:15 at this point and I noticed there wasn't anyone on the check in line and asked if they would let us check in even though we were 15 minutes early and they did. You need to have your boarding pass out because it is checked a few times before you get to the first counter.

 

At the first counter they checked our travel documents and then we went through the metal detectors. For whatever reason they kept passing my toiletries carry on through the machine but wouldn't tell me why but after about 4 passes they let us through without having to open it.

 

The actual check in took a while because there was 6 of us and my mom. It took about 45 minutes if not longer. Hubby and I have passport cards and the kids had their birth certificates and it was all taken with no issues. What took the longest were the 9 Carnival gift cards we had because they had to enter all the numbers manually and process them all separately. She entered one, printed the receipt, we both sign then she moved onto the next. At one point the computer froze for about 5 minutes. This is probably still the best place to have them entered otherwise you would need to go to guest services and that line was crazy long!

 

After we were all checked in we sat in the boarding area waiting for our # to be called, we had #3. We ended up boarding with #5 because we waited with some family members so we could all board together.

 

We got on board around 12:30pm. We entered through the Atrium on Deck 3 and it was busy!! We had no idea where we were going or should go! We found the stairs and decided to check if the room was ready so we can drop off our luggage. It wasn't ready :( so we headed to Lido for some lunch. I had it all planned where I would go straight to Guys for a burger once we got on the ship but there were so many people everywhere and I had no idea where I was going so we just joined the line at the buffet and searched for a couple of tables together that would accommodate the 10 of us that boarded together.

 

The food at the buffet was pretty good, better than I expected from reading posts here on CC.

[DebbieMo]

After lunch about 1:30pm we checked again to see if the cabin was ready so we could drop off our carry on but it was not. The steward did let us leave our luggage though.

 

Cabin (actually taken the night before we debarked)

 

The cabin was great, no complaints except for these drawers that didn't close properly. Nothing major though.

 

 

I read on here about leaving the door to the minibar open so it will cool the drinks better but our cabinet had vents (seen in this pic) so there was no reason to leave the door ajar. Our minibar came stocked which was confusing since i'd read on JH FB and on CC that all the refrigerators will be empty. We asked the steward to empty it for us and he said he wasn't allowed to take the drinks out of the cabin and if we wanted he could put them in the drawers or on top of the counter but hubby said he would do it. We removed the sodas to replace with the ones we brought on board but left the liquor. Our drinks stayed nice and cool.

 

 

My parents cabin and ours were connecting and 2 of our kids roomed with them and 2 with us. The rooms were identical but mirrored. I'm standing in their cabin to take this pic of ours.

 

 

The connecting door

[DebbieMo]

We loved the oceanview room!! Will share pics of the view later in the review.

 

 

There were a lot of closet space and I was able to unpack everyones clothes so we could store the luggage under the bed.

 

 

I took a bunch of used up gift cards to use for the safe and it worked out great! Great tip I got here on CC.

 

[DebbieMo]

All the little shelves in the bathroom were great! I took a hanging shoe organizer for little items and some of our shoes but never needed it. We had clothes and shoes for 6 people for 7 days and yes I over packed and still we didn't need any additional storage. The cabin was big enough and had lots of storage.

 

 

Will take a break here, hopefully i'll get some more of the review up later tonight.

[DebbieMo]

I wanted to set spending limits on the kids sign & sail so I headed to guest services and the line was still super long. I remembered reading on here that this is something I could do from the kiosk and there was a kiosk right by customer service but it wouldn’t allow me to set limits for my 2 kids that were rooming with my parents even though they were linked to my sign & sail account. I finally tracked down my dad and got his folio # but when I signed into his account it wouldn’t let me change the spending limits of the kids either. Unfortunately, I would have to do this at guest services. I ended up going to GS at 9:30 and there was still a line but a much shorter one. How it works though is that you set the limit, in my case $10 per child but once they get through that you would have to go back to GS to add to it. I thought it would be a daily spending limit which automatically let them spend up to $10.

 

My kids didn’t spend any $ on their S&S but I liked having the spending limit just in case they loose their card.

 

So the dreaded muster drill was upon us and it was super hot out! Our muster station was outside and we were one of the first people there. We stood along the wall and waited and waited and waited. As we were getting close to the actual instructions they moved everyone closer to the wall behind a line they had on the floor. Everyone was soo close together and it was just so hot out. The kids were miserable and wanted to sit down but we weren’t allowed to sit. Muster took about 45 minutes from the time they called us to our muster stations to the time we were allowed to leave. The actual drill took about 3 minutes but people looked like they were in no hurry to get to their stations and this is what took forever. While the crew were in the middle of the instructions people were still strolling by going to their stations.

 

With that over with we headed up for sail away!

 

[SMSACE6]

DebbieMo, thank you for your review. I am cruising soon out of Miami, not on Glory, but she is a ship that I would sail on gladly. Loving the photos. Looking forward to more review.:)

[Clarea]

Thanks for this, following.:)

[DebbieMo]

We have early seating at dinner so we headed back to our cabin so we could get ready. We planned to eat dinner in the dining room every night as a way for our group to catch up on our day and just spend some time together since for the most part we would be doing our own thing.

 

It's 5:30pm and none of our luggage showed up yet. 5:50 and still no luggage then as we were walking out the door to go to dinner which was right above us on deck 3 one of our luggage was dropped off. It was the kids clothes which was great because they were all in basketball shorts. Got them changed really quick and headed to dinner. The rest of our luggage was there when we got back to the cabin well after dinner.

 

Lesson for next time is to pack a change of clothes for dinner in the carry on!

 

Our group had 2 round tables that were beside eachother. I was really hoping we would have 1 big table or tables that connected but that didn't happen. We were split 6 & 9. There were 4 people from my side of the family and 5 from hubbys so one night 2 of the kids will sit with us and my inlaws and 2 will sit with my parents then the next night they would switch so both sides of the family got to have dinner with them. It was a bit of a pain but it worked.

 

We had an amazing serving team. Our head waiter was just the best and always took time to give extra attention to the kids and he was amazing with my 6yr old who was picky at dinner every night.

 

It's amazing how hard the dining staff works and always with a smile on their faces. I have to admit that I felt bad that they would be going crazy serving everyone then they would have to stop to do the dinner entertainment then jump right back into serving. They did a great job with the entertaining but on those nights everything was rushed. We never felt like we were rushed but it was just different on those nights. Our waiter did tell us that 2nd service is much more relaxed.

 

I honestly don't remember what I ate and I really wanted to get pictures of the menus but couldn't get good ones at dinner. I went to the dining room the last day on off hours to see if I could take pictures of them but was told that they are not stored there and only out for that specific day. Someone comes daily and changes them out and takes the others away.

 

A couple of time during the week I did have the Chocolate melting cake which was delicious but you have to have it with the ice cream. The first time I had it I was stuffed and gave the ice cream to one of my kids but it wasn't as good but so much better when I finally had it with ice cream mixed in.

 

 

My 8 year old had this for his appetizer every single night!

 

 

 

Every night after this I forgot to take pics of the food before starting to eat :(

[DebbieMo]

After dinner we headed up to Lido for a bit, was so windy out.

 

 

Oops forgot this one..

 

And our very first towel animal. The kids loved it!

 

We had a great first 1/2 a day and everyone was having a great time!

 

We ended the night with 1/2 of our group by pizza pirate chatting, drinking late night coffee and just relaxing. We did try the pizza and while I found it way too thin and not much flavor, the kids liked it and had it a bunch of times throughout the week.

 

Before I end day 1 I just remembered that the very first thing my 8yr old ate on board was a chocolate ice cream cone from the machine we passed heading to the buffet line. This was his first of many on our trip. The ice cream machine was a huge hit.

 

Thats it for day 1, tomorrow we will be in beautiful Half Moon Cay!!

Edited July 22, 2016 by DebbieMo

[cincicruisers]

Enjoying your review.

[Vrybusy]

Thanks for the review. Sounds like you had a great time! We're sailing on the Glory next weekend!

[DebbieMo]

DebbieMo, thank you for your review. I am cruising soon out of Miami, not on Glory, but she is a ship that I would sail on gladly. Loving the photos. Looking forward to more review.:)

 

 

Thank you!. Hope your have a great trip!!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

[DebbieMo]

Enjoying your review.

 

 

Thank you :)

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

[DebbieMo]

Thanks for the review. Sounds like you had a great time! We're sailing on the Glory next weekend!

 

 

Ahhh how exciting!!. My kids are begging to go on another cruise and they want to go back on Glory specifically, it was that good!

 

Have a wonderful trip [emoji568]

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

[DebbieMo]

Thanks for this, following.:)

 

 

Thank you for following [emoji3]

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

[Gglisa2318]

Thank you for posting. Going on the Glory in August. Very excited! Looking forward to more of your vacation photos and post.

[Keith1010]

Enjoying your posts.

Keith

[cmptrwiz]

Keep up the good work Debbie!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

[sparks1093]

Looking good so far!! Love that big screen on the pool deck.

[rjl1977]

Im enjoying your review so far. I will be on the Glory in September.

[It's a Ship!!!]

Great start! I'll be on the Glory later this year on the same itinerary, so it's great to read a review on her.

[pghsteelerfan]

We were on Glory in 2010, same itinerary you were and also out of Miami. We really loved Glory and the itinerary, so I'm actually looking forward to reliving our cruise thought your review. You are off to a great start and I'm really enjoying it. Thank you for taking the time to do one.

Edited July 23, 2016 by pghsteelerfan

[cruzin2010]

I'm enjoying your review so far, thanks for taking the time to write. We will be on the Glory for Christmas, so will be happy for any tips, thoughts, impressions you care to give. I can't wait for my turn:):)

[Cricket551]

Great review so far!

[trogmd]

Hi great pictures. Thanks for doing this review. :)