Just off the Breeze 10/8 - 10/15 (Sorry, no pics)

[cruisenewbie1]

Wonderful review, just a few questions?

Did they have a band playing each night, usually Carnival has but I heard they are going from 3-6 piece bands down to 1-2 just curious?

Did you go play any slots, have any luck? My other half always has luck in the slots on Carnival, but I never am.

 

Mongolian, just can't understand why people love it so much, the quality of the meat the give you is passable human grade, sorry my opinion, but the veggies you can't go wrong, but when cruising on a Carnival ship that doesn't have the Mongolian I never miss it.

 

I hate the scrambled eggs on all cruise ships do believe they are liquid...I stick to omelets or I ask for fried eggs or take hard boiled eggs and make myself a bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich, and I never have any problem in being limited to the bacon.

 

Agree with Pig and Anchor tried it on each cruise that had it, sides ugh, but maybe because we are not BBQ people lol

 

All our past cruises we been taking the past four to five years, we don't eat in the MDR unless a ship doesn't have the Steakhouse such as the Fascination, we dine overnight at the steakhouse, overall always excellent! So glad you tried it!

This is the wife replying by the way! Slots looked fun but the smoke was so bad, I couldn't stay long. We budgeted $50 to play and $40 of that went in about two minutes so no winning. But I did get $25 back in one of those quarters machines. I saw a $25 bundle near the edge and thought I might be able to get it so I gave it a shot with my remaining $10. Got it!

I liked the scrambled eggs if I remembered to take from the top. The bottom was always really wet. But the tasted and texture was fine. Kids ate it like it was chocolate.

I thought the food was ok but not as good as our last cruise. Husband thought it was better. It didn't matter though. We had a fabulous time!

[cruisenewbie1]

Alright: Time for the continuing adventures of Cruisenewbie1, DW and the dorklings

 

Entertainment: I don't have the fun times here in front of me so please forgive me if I don't remember the names of the shows perfectly. We didn't do anything on Embarkation day other than go to bed at 9 or so. We were wored out. Monday night was the first show we attended. We saw the Motor City show on Monday night and thought that they did a wonderful job. Tuesday, we attended the country show (the name escapes both DW and myself). I will be honest here, it wasn't our favorite. Neither of us is up on our country music and while we appreciated the performances, it didn't seem to suit them. The lead singer's vocal range just didn't suit the songs. Wednesday night was 88 keys and we both really enjoyed it. We got our dd to attend this show and she was a dancing fool. The final thing we saw was Flick. That day I had met one of the cast members, Dan and told him we enjoyed his performance and he sent a gift to our stateroom. We thought that was very nice of him. Very nice guy. We tried to get both kids to the show that night but ds got bored and I took him to the kids club. I ended up seeing the show later on my own. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Got my pic taken with the cast later.

Mike Pack was a great Cruise director. His high energy and enthusiasm was contagious. He was very friendly.

In the central atrium is a little platform over the bar. From there they have musicians playing throughout the day. It was usually 2 or 3 people up there. Not a big space. I am normally not a huge fan of live music but I would frequently stop by there and listen. At no time did I hear any bad music. The acoustics were great. Only complaint is that it was too loud at times.

Casino: I didn't gamble but DW did. She enjoyed it but the smoke was too pervasive and didn't enjoy spending much time in there. I wish I had more information for you on this. Personal Rant: I don't know why or how but in this day and age you would think that it would be easier to expel the cigarette smoke from the casino. The casino's in Vegas know how to. I have a hard time walking through the casino on the ship without coughing. Even 50 ft down the hall it was bad. Okay, Rant over

Pixels: DW wanted formal pictures on this trip and so we knew we were going to get them. We were on a limited budget so we knew we didn't want or couldn't afford a huge number of pictures. We finally narrowed it down to 14 pictures. We went to one of the Pixel galleries and were going to put the pictures on a flash drive rather than printing them out but Francois in the gallery suggested downloading them to our phones. He showed us how and it worked beautifully. Saved us almost $60. Thanks again sir.

Seaside Theater: I wanted to call it MUTS but then I remembered that was Princess. They were playing a variety of shows and movies on the screen at night. Sunday night was a football game. It was a little loud in my opinion but fun to watch. Another night we caught the end of Spider Man Homecoming and then I stayed and watched Wonder Woman. It was nice laying in the recliner and watching the film. Popcorn stinketh by the way.You ever hear of butter dudes?

Circle C: Now these folks were wonderful. They realllly seemed to enjoy their jobs and took great care of our children. Our kids didn't want to leave unless we were taking them to the water slides. The person I remember the most was miss Kupcake (Kris). She was so helpful. They had tons of activities. We pulled the kids out for lunch but for dinner for 4 of the 6 nights the dorks ate with the other kids. 2 nights they were closed or had other activities in the club until dinner time so we met them on the lido deck right before 6 where they had food for the kids. I never once worried about my children while there. My kids are very social and as a result make friends wherever they go. In this environment, they thrived.

Bars: Again, on a budget so I can't tell you anything about the different drink specials. I think that between DW and I, we ordered 3 drinks on the ship. I thought about the soda package but realized that I wasn't drinking very many sodas and therefore it would be a waste for us. Now here is where the bars did shine. Frequently I would be at a location other than lido such as the Atrium bar or the Serenity Deck bar and the bartenders were always willing to fill my water glass with ice water. Very nice people.

Water Park: After the refit everything is working great. The big bucket was splashing everyone. The orange slide was great. My kids got me on it, don't ask me how. I never did try the yellow slide. One day when we were out there it was down due to the lack of water pressure. The lines never seemed long. The kids had a blast. I found a great spot up on the Serenity deck that allowed me to watch them. They have these hard plastic chairs with ottomans surrounding the water park that while they look weird are actually somewhat comfortable.

Pools/Hot Tubs: I only got into the pool once and the hot tubs once. The kids weren't fond of the salt water pools. Make sure that you warn your kids first. On the last sea day I found the Serenity deck hot tub and loved it. Warm water, great view, no kids. The aft pool hot tubs were always full of kids. The pools really are too small.

[jst]

Enjoying your review, do you by any chance remember if there was a Latin Band on board and their name? we are Latin dancers and our friend Pablo is supposed to be on board.:)

[cruisenewbie1]

jst, I do remember a latin duo that played in the atrium. They were both very good.

 

Enjoying your review, do you by any chance remember if there was a Latin Band on board and their name? we are Latin dancers and our friend Pablo is supposed to be on board.:)

[cruisenewbie1]

Sorry that it has taken so long to come back. Been busy

 

Excursions:

Our first stop was Cozumel. There were already 2 ships docked, One was the Liberty of the Seas and the Other the Harmony. We already knew that we were going to be going to Nachi Cocom. If you don't know the resort. it is down the hwy about 15 minutes. It is a private resort that allows approximately 120 people per day. You have to book in advance and leave a deposit. The remainder is due upon arrival.

Once we got off the ship, took the obligatory pictures (yes we bought a couple) we went through the incredibly cold duty free store and then into the shopping area. We got a taxi and we really liked the driver. He talked and was having a good time. Safe driver. I realllly wish I could remember his name.

Once we got there, they took our picture in these beautiful sombreros and escorted us to check in. They asked where we wanted to be. DW said right by the pool. Me (namely the idiot who wanted under the palapas) poo-pooed the idea and off we went. Immediately I regreted it but could I say so, nope. The resort is beautiful. The people great. The only downside is their sand. It is thick, It is hard walking and when you are fluffy, it is harder still.

Joseph was our waiter. he brought our drinks but either my taste buds were out of whack or they weren't that good. Well we went into the ocean and the kids said NOPE, ain't having none of this. They didn't like the sea water. (Think that I would have learned when they didn't like it on the ship) Off they went to the pool. DW and I followed. Drum roll please (dramatic moment to follow) As we were about to get to the pool area, there is a little area to wash the sand off of your feet. Nice touch huh? Well dummy me, I looked up right before I got there and didn't lift my foot high enough and tripped. I landed on my right knee, elbow and hip. cut myself up pretty good. Bleeding like a stuck pig. They wanted to call a paramedic but we vetoed that. An employee doctored me up and I was good to go. I was finally able to get into the pool a couple of hours later.

In the meantime we had a great lunch in the dining area. Warning: They don't have cheese dip. Sorry. Their guacamole was delicious. For dessert we had ice cream which the kids devoured. They came around offering the picture from our arrival for sale and we wanted it but they print it up in a large format and we really don't like them that big. They do have a souvenir shop there and we ended up purchasing a couple of small things. (remember that whole being on a budget thing?)

Did I mention Joseph? he was great. Very friendly and after a while, very chatty. He and numerous other people had been there for many years. Caught a taxi back. This driver, not so safe, I think he was trying to huff the exhaust from the bus ahead of us, he was that close. He asked twice where we were going and both times we said Carnival Breeze. Well for some reason he heard Royal Caribbean and took us there. Sorry bub. He was ticked at us for telling him the wrong location and let us know it too. Not a way to get the best tip. all I am sayin.

We got back on board, cleaned up and then dropped the dorks off at kids club and went shopping. A couple of people back home wanted some vanilla and DW had seen some earlier. I wanted some bigger bandages to cover the wounds. Got everything bought and climbed back on board.

Overall: We really like Nachi Cocom, great people, next time though we will stay by the pool. We learned this the hard way. Men, listen to your DW.

[cruisenewbie1]

Belize:

Stayed on the ship. This was due to a variety of reasons. they are in no particular order, Cost, tender length, distance to travel to excursions, availability of kid friendly excursions, wanted the ship to ourselves. We had a great day. Kids loved playing on the slides with almost no lines.

[cruisenewbie1]

Roatan:

This is where everything was great. I had taken over an excursion originally organized on another site after the original organizer had to cancel the cruise. I eventually had 93 people organized to go. I wish that I could say I knew how many showed up. I should have followed up with that though. I was in contact with the resort and kept them apprised of the number of people coming. They told me where to go. I kept everyone informed I hope.

On the way out of the terminal, we had decided to take a taxi to the excursion buses which was my first smart decision of the day. We met another couple along the way and we shared the taxi/bus out of the port.

Once we got to the busses we boarded a small van for the 15 min drive to Frenchy's 44, the island side of the resort. We checked in and boarded the pontoon boat for our ride out to the island. They did forget to give us our wristbands but they did give us our drink cards and meal tickets. We met George as soon as we got there. He gave us a quick tour of the island and we asked him for the best spot to park our backsides. George was AWESOME. He kept us supplied with liquor, organized us when we were ready to eat. He kept constantly checking on us. I have noticed other people mentioning him on their posts too.

After we were there for a while it started raining. It was a light drizzle at first but then for a short time it came down hard. We moved our stuff indoors but not before it got a little wet. DS found the platform to jump off. It is about 12' off of the water. He was fearless while his chicken dad only did it once. (That was enough, it tore off my watch but I didn't notice until much later).

DD took to the paddle board like a champ and DS was her equal on the kayak. They had a blast.

Word to the wise here, wear water shoes. The ocean floor is rough and has coral and rocks.

Monkey LaLa: George got me and DW hooked on these. They were so good. It was all I could do not to drink more than my fair share. We will definitely be back again.

We left late in the day, tired, sore and got on the ship. quickly took showers and watched for pier runners and were rewarded with one. Everyone cheered.

[Clarea]

I've enjoyed your well-written and very thorough review!

[cruisenewbie1]

Thank you very much. I know I am a bit wordy. We didn't take that many pictures otherwise I would try to figure out how to add those. DW always says I am more focused on the viewfinder vs the view so I backed off this trip.

I've enjoyed your well-written and very thorough review!

[engrdad]

Would you mind sharing what type of electrical plugs were available? I have seen pics that show one 110V plug like in the U.S. and one 220V European plug with two round prongs. Also seen pics with two 110V plugs. We will be sailing on the Breeze in November. Thanks in advance.

[LHARTWICK]

Good review , We to are from Little Rock , We leave for our 3rd time on the Breeze in Dec , This will be our tenth cruise ,and we turn platinum on this cruise ! The Breeze is the best ship Carnival has

 

We are also from the Little Rock area (Benton). We did exactly what the OP did on 10/6: drove to Nacogdoches and stayed there for the night. We sailed out on 10/7 on the Freedom. We turned Platinum on this cruise - you'll get to enjoy the benefits of being Platinum on this cruise instead of having to wait until the next cruise like other lines. :) We will be on the Breeze again on 12/10/17. Loved her so much last year that we rebooked for the same week this year. Same cabin, too. OP: Try Lighthouse Parking next time - have used them several times and love them!

[LHARTWICK]

Pools/Hot Tubs: I only got into the pool once and the hot tubs once. The kids weren't fond of the salt water pools. Make sure that you warn your kids first. On the last sea day I found the Serenity deck hot tub and loved it. Warm water, great view, no kids. The aft pool hot tubs were always full of kids. The pools really are too small.

 

Agreed! For this size ship too few pools and those that do exist are way too small. There should also be an adults only pool. Probably my only complaint about the Breeze. :(

[cruisenewbie1]

engrad,

I wish I could be of more assistance. I remember seeing the 2 plugs on the desk area. The next thing I knew is that the stateroom steward had put an extension cord in one. The remaining one was 110v. I do know that. Not sure what the one with the extension cord was. I never followed up to look. I think it was the 220v plug but I can't swear to it. Sorry

 

Would you mind sharing what type of electrical plugs were available? I have seen pics that show one 110V plug like in the U.S. and one 220V European plug with two round prongs. Also seen pics with two 110V plugs. We will be sailing on the Breeze in November. Thanks in advance.

[cruisenewbie1]

Alrighty Peoply, here we go:

 

Am I a Carnival Cheerleader :hearteyes:, you dang skippy I am. for what I paid, I believe that I received a good value. Do I think that everything is all sunshine and roses. Nope, I don't. :eek:

 

We all had a wonderful cruise, was it perfect? No it wasn't but I will do it again in a heartbeat. I am about to start spewing forth things that I remember but didn't affect my cruise

 

The embarkation process. We had a decent experience here since we had purchased FTTF. However, have your paperwork ready to go. They try to shoehorn you into these lines and into spaces and they need rope lines. They put all these people checking you in together but the space isn't big enough to handle it all. With all of the doors being open and all the people, it is hotter than a blue blazes. Once we got upstairs to put cash on the sail and sign it was better but getting to that point was uncomfortable. It didn't help that we were dragging 2 kids and 2 pieces of carry on luggage. I wish they would invest in re-designing the terminal.

Debarkation: Since we are still at the terminal I will now proceed to the sorrow that was debarkation. They do want you out of the stateroom in time to turn it over for the next guest. I respect and understand that. No biggie. We got the dorks up to Lido for breakfast. Since we had FTTF, they had delivered tags stating we should meet in the Ovation theater at 8:15. Well we are eating in Lido on 10 and have to get to 3. We have 2 tired, cranky dorks and 2 pieces of luggage. Think I am going to get an elevator. Nope. For some reason they have closed the 4 lobby elevators further complicating the procedure. Finally after waiting for a while, I told the family, we is walking down. I volunteered for the heavy luggage since I am the manly man (yeah, I am an idiot. I know but I sure wasn't going to ask DW who has bad knees to carry it). Anyway we finally make it down to deck 3 after a few days and they say we can get right off. Wowzers. We proceed off the ship and follow a bunch of ramps down to luggage. I find our luggage pretty quickly. I park the family and go get a porter. you have to get in a separate line for that. Once I have him corralled I go and collect the luggage and family. Last time we cruised the porters had their own lines, not any more it seems. We did wait though no more than 15 minutes. Here is where the rope lines would have come in handy. They had a lot of immigration desks open and were doing a wonderful job I might add, but the lines weren't clearly defined. Nothing major but I wanted to point it out. Debarkation, much more smooth than embarkation, more space. One nice thing you don't have to fill out the dreaded customs form any more. It does help and speeds things up if you have a passport but it does work with birth certificates.

[cruisenewbie1]

Other observations:

The floors in the lido can be very slick. Please be very careful. The same goes for some of the wet areas on deck.

There were a lot of kids in the hot tubs, yes, including mine. The biggest issue is they would jump in and out constantly.

The pools: a lot of people are lamenting the removal of the adults only pool in the stern. I understand why they did this. Despite the years and overall increase in size of the ships, the pools aren't that much bigger. Confining all the kids to the lido pool isn't the best. The adults have the Serenity. That aft pool is available, make it for the use of everyone. Overall there weren't a lot of kids in the pools that I saw. Most of the kids loved the waterworks area.

Waterworks area - The seating they have there is weird. They have these hard plastic chairs with ottomans. They aren't bad but seem a weird choice. (Personal opinion by the way)

 

Was there rust, sure, everywhere. It is a metal ship in the most corrosive environment for a ship. Yes, there is going to be rust. Were they working on it, of course. I did not allow this to affect me and my vacation.

 

The upper hinge on the door covering the refrigerator was broken when we boarded.This did bother me but no big deal. Disclaimer: I never mentioned it to anyone or ask to have it fixed so I take responsibility here.

 

Between beach towels and shower towels, our family of 4 went through them. I tried to hang them up but it would take about 24 hours for them to dry off. Usually they all ended up on the floor where there wasn't much space. i wish there was a laundry chute or basket where we could drop them off. Twice, I exchanged my wet beach towels up on lido so that was nice. I really did like the towels. They were big and comfy. I really did hate leaving them in that mess for Enrico

 

The check in/out procedure for Camp Ocean is a pain but not much choice in the matter. I do have this piece of advice. Every person in your family doesn't need to come pick up junior. Send 1 person. There is a little area to stand and everyone wants in there. They don't let you in the room to collect your kids. There is this gated area in which you stand while they verify that you are taking your child. It is just inside the room and only enough space for 4 or so people. Also, the kids name badges, the storage areas for those are in this little space. Word of advice is to keep them in the room themselves.

 

That is all that I can remember for now. Minor stuff, I know but they are observations. As I think of more, I will jot them down. Thank you all for reading my review.

 

Jeff

[LHARTWICK]

Thanks for taking the time to post a review - I love your writing style! :)

[tammyjw305]

Thank you for the review!

[Shaded Lady]

Thanks Cruisenewbie- we were on the Breeze a couple weeks before you and you were spot on with all your observations, in my opinion!

 

Except one thing- those scrambled eggs are the worst on the Lido deck! Instead I lined up at the omelet station, got the mushroom omelet for DH and asked them to scramble some real eggs for me there... first time the guy looked at me weird, someone behind me pointed out that they have 'scrambled eggs right over there' to which I politely disagreed. He pointed out that I was holding up the line for something already available. But people all around him quickly jumped to my defense, agreeing that the powdered things in the big silver bin across the way were definitely not 'eggs'! In fact, several other people decided to do the same!

 

I agree with you on each of your show assessments- glad to know our likes and dislikes weren't too quirky!

 

We're cruising next time with our grandson who will be 10, so I appreciated your insights to Camp Ocean!

 

Thanks in all for the great review!

[cruisenewbie1]

Thank you very much for your thoughts. I should put in a but when talking about eggs. I can't eat just a bite of eggs. Nope, I have to have something on my fork with it, whether it be a piece of sausage, potato or whatever. It is a mental thing, I admit. That may be the reason for my opinion of the eggs. I am glad that I remembered that.

One of the things about our kids is that they are very outgoing and love to play. They haven't met someone they didn't like. If they had been introverts, I don't know how well they would have liked it.

 

Thanks Cruisenewbie- we were on the Breeze a couple weeks before you and you were spot on with all your observations, in my opinion!

 

Except one thing- those scrambled eggs are the worst on the Lido deck! Instead I lined up at the omelet station, got the mushroom omelet for DH and asked them to scramble some real eggs for me there... first time the guy looked at me weird, someone behind me pointed out that they have 'scrambled eggs right over there' to which I politely disagreed. He pointed out that I was holding up the line for something already available. But people all around him quickly jumped to my defense, agreeing that the powdered things in the big silver bin across the way were definitely not 'eggs'! In fact, several other people decided to do the same!

 

I agree with you on each of your show assessments- glad to know our likes and dislikes weren't too quirky!

 

We're cruising next time with our grandson who will be 10, so I appreciated your insights to Camp Ocean!

 

Thanks in all for the great review!

[cruisenewbie1]

Mrs. H,

Thank you for reading my review. I was hoping for hundreds of people responding and multiple pages. Guess i am not as interesting as I had hoped. We are looking at the Vista in 2019 (as soon as they open it up, that is) and we would do the same thing.Nacogdoches was a good mid point for the trip. BTW, I am very jealous of your signature.

We are also from the Little Rock area (Benton). We did exactly what the OP did on 10/6: drove to Nacogdoches and stayed there for the night. We sailed out on 10/7 on the Freedom. We turned Platinum on this cruise - you'll get to enjoy the benefits of being Platinum on this cruise instead of having to wait until the next cruise like other lines. :) We will be on the Breeze again on 12/10/17. Loved her so much last year that we rebooked for the same week this year. Same cabin, too. OP: Try Lighthouse Parking next time - have used them several times and love them!

[robin16ak]

Thank you for posting. We are taking our three dorks on the Breeze in March and your review was helpful!

[cruisenewbie1]

robin16ak, if you have any specific questions concering the Breeze, I will be more than happy to answer . Jeff

Thank you for posting. We are taking our three dorks on the Breeze in March and your review was helpful!

[dkhcpa]

Great review. We were on the Breeze 2 years ago and have booked a 14 day cruise on her in November. My favorite Carnival ship!

[northernrose]

Thanks for all the great tips about the Breeze.

[riclop]

Thanks for the review.