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Glory Review 11/12/05

mikayla73

By mikayla73,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

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mikayla73

mikayla73

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I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who helped me with all my questions before my cruise and I hope this review can help tide some future cruisers over until their trip is here. I know I liked to read all the reviews I could find!

 

Who - My husband and I (early 30's) and my parents (early 50's). We are all first time cruisers and overall had a fabulous time. We were on the Main deck mid-ship port side.

Saturday - Embarkation - We drove to Port Canaveral and arrived around 11am. It was very easy to find the port, everything was clearly marked and there were people directiing traffic. Traffic too was not that bad, we drove around, dropped off our bags, then parked and got in line. They have several lines to go through (security, give them your CC# or $ for S&S Card, pick up the S&S Card, S&S pic, and finally embarkation pic). They moved at an OK pace and were very snake like so even though we were in lines for about an 1 1/2 hours, it seemed like we were moving a lot. When I looked back, there were a lot of people every where, I think we got there just in time. Finally we are on the ship!! We headed to the Lido for food, then to our room to drop off the bags and explore a little before the muster. After the muster we heaed on deck to watch us pulling out of port. We spent the rest of the night eating and exploring. I do have to mention the Platium DR - I had read about vibrating being noticable in that DR. It is and with the ship rocking it seemed to be even more noticable. It did not take away from the experience, but if there was nothing to take your attention away from it, it could get annoying.

Sunday - Nassau - We did the Pearl Island Snorkel excursion. We did have fun, but the actual snorkeling was a BAD IDEA - the sea was getting very rough (it had been getting rough through the night). The side of the island where you go snorkeling was very rough. The water where you get in is shallow (just above my knees) and there are large rocks there. The waves were crashing on you and pushing you down, naturally on the rocks. I stayed in the water for about 5 min and spent 10 min trying to get back out. I got very banged up (my legs were scratched, gouged and bleeding). I can't believe they let people in the water like that. There were several people who had the same problems I had. When my husband finally made it out of the water, we went to the beach (on the other side of the island) and spent the rest of our time swimming. The water was MUCH calmer on that side, although it was still pretty choppy. It was our first time snorkeling and I think I would have loved it, if I had been able to stay in the water for more than 5 min. We went back to the ship and had to hurry back since we left Nassau at 2p. No time for shopping. We did get lots of nice pics though. Sunday night was the first formal night of our trip. We dressed for dinner and had a wonderful evening (desipte my legs hurting). It seemed like it was getting rougher and no one on the ship could walk a straight line. Imagine trying to pose on the stairs in heels for pics when it was difficult to stand up straight!

Monday - Fun Day at Sea - We spent the day exploring, lounging, eating, and relaxing. The ship was a rockin' today. We talked to several people who had been on previous cruises, even the Glory before, and had never saw it this bad. We were lucky and did not get sick from the rocking, but my mom did take the seasick meds she brought.

Tuesday - St. Thomas - We were VERY late getting into port. We did not get off the ship until about 2p (there were A LOT of people that did not make it off until 3 or 3:30 I heard). The weather through the night had caused us the delay. Although CCL can't control the weather, they could have handled the debarkation differently. We got into port ad tied up a little before 12 or so. Most people were in line by 11:30, and we waited and waited. We had already found out that most of the shore excursions were cancelled and had rebooked another (we did ours through CCL). Finally around 1:30 the lines started moving to get us through customs and off the ship. Since we were in the front half of the line we were able to get through earlier than most. As we are dashing off the ship, we see our excursion leaving the pier. We are making a mad dash off the ship to catch them and the CCL photographers are holding up the lines of people trying to get off the ship to take everyones pics! I understand that is what they always do, but I think they should make it a choice and not barricade the exit so you can't get buy without having to tell them no 5 times. Everyone should get their pics if they want them, but they could have them off the gangway so people who don't want them can go on their way. We caught up with our excursion and were off. We were supposed to do the helmet dive at Coral World, since it was cancelled, we decided to go to Coral World anyway to check it out. It was OK, nothing I hadn't already seen at Sea World that was much nicer. Coki Beach is rght next to it, my husband ran down there for a few min (literally) before we had to go and said it was fabulous and we should have just done that. Next time we know. Anyway back to the ship for dinner and relaxing. We got ready for dinner and my husband surprised me with roses for my b-day. My parents got me a cake and all sang happy b-day. We had a nice evening and were very thankful to be still for a while (no rocking) and that the seas were calming down a lot.

 

more to come ....

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BND

BND

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Thanks for the review. We're considering the Glory Eastern Itinerary for our next cruise, maybe next year. We were just on the Fantasy the same time frame you were on Glory (13-17 Nov). We thought Sunday night was rocky leaving Port Canaveral and going through the Gulf Stream. The rest of the trip was very smooth except for a couple of hours on Wed morning. Monday in Freeport all the water excursions were cancelled due to weather. We had some showers and apparently it was choppy. Tuesday in Nassau the weather was gorgeous and nothing was cancelled. I guess because the Fantasy is smaller, everyone just gets off when they want to and there were no backups in either port.

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hill6

hill6

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Nice review so far. I was on the Glory's maiden voyage to the Eastern Caribbean. We had a broken stabilizer and boy can that ship rock and roll and we had some pretty good wind too when we were going towards St. Thomas. Can't wait to read the rest of the review

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cruzn buckeye

cruzn buckeye

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Looking forward to the rest of your review...we will be on our 3rd Glory cruise next year! One thing that we really enjoyed about this ship was the musical group "Music Society"! But....I think they were on the Valor when we were there this past September. Were they on the Glory?

 

Thanks!

Cruzn

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LizaMM

LizaMM

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Love reading your review so far!!!!

 

I can't wait to hear more.....and OH!!! PICTURES!!! Do you have photos to share?!?!?!?!

 

I just booked the Glory for 1/28 and am so enjoying being back on the boards and gobbling up all the info I can possibly find!!!

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mikayla73

mikayla73

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Mikayla, welcome back. Wonderful review so far. Waiting for the rest. Did you have to leave St. Thomas @ 8 or did they give you extra time? Are you gonna share photos?

 

Happy Belated Birthday:)

 

We did get to stay until 8p, but since we were at the early seating and my DH and parents had the flowers and the cake as a surprise for me, we didn't do anything else after the excursion. It was nice to eat in the DR without rocking though :D

 

I do have some pics, and will see if I can post them.

 

Thanks for the b-day wishes!

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mikayla73

mikayla73

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Some of my favroite places to hang out:

 

We had fun in the White Heat Disco and DH really liked the Ebony Caberet.

 

We watched the ship leave port from forward deck 6, there were only a few people there and we had a great view. I also spent some time on forward deck 9, I was the only person there, very peaceful.

 

We did not spend a lot of time on the lido in front of the speakers, it was very loud and distracting. Veryhard to even carry on a conversation without yelling to the other person. Starboard deck 10 were great though.

 

The chairs on deck 5 by the shops and inthe lobby are great places to people watch.

 

We did a lot of walking around too (so my clothes still fit :p ).

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mikayla73

mikayla73

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Looking forward to the rest of your review...we will be on our 3rd Glory cruise next year! One thing that we really enjoyed about this ship was the musical group "Music Society"! But....I think they were on the Valor when we were there this past September. Were they on the Glory?

 

Thanks!

Cruzn

 

They weren't on the Glory that I saw. Although I can't remember the name of who was, that doesn't sound familiar.

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mikayla73

mikayla73

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Wednesday – St. Martin – This was by far my favorite stop. I am not sure if this was due to not having any glitches or not, but I loved it here. We just had a wonderful time. We were already in port when I woke up. We ate breakfast and got ready to go ashore. We went to Divi Little Bay this time. It was a beautiful beach. We relaxed, swam, ate, and did a little shopping. The water was great, perfect temp and clear. Everyone was very friendly and made our time there wonderful. The only person that wasn’t was our van driver, but maybe she was just having a bad day. After our time at Divi, we went back to the ship, dropped off our stuff and did a little shopping. The rest of the night we spent resting.

Thursday and Friday – Fun Days at Sea – We pretty much spent both of these days relaxing. We played the trivia and some other games, but we spent most of the time relaxing. The seas were calmer and it was nice to be able to walk a straight line!

Saturday – Debarkation – We did the self debarkation. We got up early and finished what little packing we had, ate breakfast, then waited. And waited. Even for the self debarkation they call you by decks. They say if you have all of your luggage in your hands then you can go. Don’t believe that. They didn’t call the Main deck until after 8:30a. We waited in our cabin until then, no sense in standing with all that luggage. Anyway, when we got to the lobby, it was packed full of people waiting in line to get off. And there is no way they all had every piece of luggage with them. Some people didn’t have anything in their hands and they were able to get off too. So we waited in line, it was another very long line that snaked around a lot so you kept moving, and didn’t realize how long it really was. We were in our car and on the road by 9:45, so not too bad.

Food – the actual food was pretty good. The only bad food I found was stuff that I wouldn’t like anyway. The desserts are another story. There are some that are fabulous, but a lot of them were just OK. Especially the cakes, a lot of them were very dry and the icing was not sweet at all. But the flourless choc cake and the grand mariner soufflé were oh so good. The Pizzeria, Grille, and Deli were all great! The ice cream was so good and 24 hours a day! Yum!

Crew – 99% of the people that we interacted with were wonderful, very nice and helpful and of course every one has a bad day sometimes. No one was down right rude, we ran in to a person or two that was just not friendly. Room Steward – Was wonderful! I couldn’t say enough good things about him. He has been with CCL for like 17 years or something. DR Team – They were both great. Good service and very friendly.

Ship – Was beautiful. I was on the Main deck where I had read that a lot of people smelled the sewer smell. I never did, not even going up and down the hall to my cabin. And we even had one day for a couple of hours where there was a problem with the toilets not flushing. I was expecting to smell something for sure and never did.

Entertainment – We did a lot of our own thing. The shows that we went to were great (we went to both broadway style shows). They have a lot of things to do, we just chose to do a lot of our own thing. Although we did participate in some things to get some points for our team (we were the red team and we won! yippee!) It was fun to do the competing for points, added something to sweeten the pot :D

That is all I can think of for now ... I will post anything else I think of and fire away any more questions!!

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LizaMM

LizaMM

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Thank you! Great review!!

 

I am hoping that you get some photos posted soon ;) No pressure of course...lol

 

I spent a day at Divi as well and found it to be wonderful! It was one of my favorite days on an Eastern sailing as well.

 

Glad to hear that the Disco was fun! I LOVE to get out there and dance! Did you spend anytime in the piano bar?? And I was also wondering if you noticed any wine tastings during the week??

 

Thanks!!

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mikayla73

mikayla73

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Liza - There were wine tastings a couple times during the week, although I did not do them. We walk through the piano bar, but did not get to spend any time there when there was action going on .. although I wanted to, we just never made it.

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LizaMM

LizaMM

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Liza - There were wine tastings a couple times during the week, although I did not do them. We walk through the piano bar, but did not get to spend any time there when there was action going on .. although I wanted to, we just never made it.

 

I am a "wine person" so I am glad to hear that! There was only 1 wine tasting on the Triumph in April and it was only whites - I drink mostly reds but enjoyed it anyway!

 

Piano Bar has always been one of my favorite hang out night spots on a ship! I usually head there and stay till closing then head for the disco :D This upcoming Glory cruise will actually be my first cruise vacation with a "partner" and my boyfriend and I are very compatible in this department so I am hoping that the piano bar is rocking but I'll settle ;) for some fun on the dance floor in the disco!

 

Off to look at your pics now!!

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