Fresh off the Breeze - Dec 15-22 (Incl. Room 2204!)

[swirlofhues]

Hi all! My name is Joya and I live in Santa Barbara, California. I travel a lot with my mother who lives in South Carolina, where I am originally from, and this was our third cruise together, and my fourth cruise total: two on RCI, two on Carnival. I included room 2204 in the title because this and 2203 seem to be elusive! They are the first rooms at the front of deck 2 on the Breeze (and I think her sister ships as well) and because they have no portholes, they are lower priced but they are oddly shaped so they're also huge for 1A staterooms. I couldn't find much about them by searching the forums or the internet, so I wanted to make sure to include the room specifically in my review for others that may be thinking about booking either.

 

We never cruised when I was growing up. I'm not sure why - we are from South Carolina and have Charleston right there and are not too far from many of the Florida ports, but it never seemed like an accessible activity. But now we love it!

 

A (related, I promise) tangent: I was a HUGE fan of the Backstreet Boys growing up, as many 9-12 year old girls were, but my mom was a single parent and BSB was huge, so concert tickets weren't really a thing we could always afford and I only got to see them once. Fast forward to me being a Real Person™ with my own job and disposable income, the Backstreet Boys started doing cruises with their fans. I told myself I'd go and one year to sort of make up for not being able to see them a lot as a kid, and I finally did - on a Mediterranean cruise with BSB on the Brilliance of the Seas. I had the time of my life, of course, but I also wanted to experience a "regular" cruise, so later that year my mom and I did a Western Caribbean on the Rhapsody of the Seas and we enjoyed ourselves. This year I took her on the stateside BSB cruise on the Carnival Sensation, and we decided we liked a lot about Carnival and wanted to try a "regular" cruise with them, and here we are! This is our favorite cruise so far, so I hope you'll all enjoy our journey. Also I did take a bunch of Fun Times with me, I think not all of them, but you'll have to bear with me until I get myself together after all of this travel - just got back to Santa Barbara and have to find all those papers in my suitcase.

 

The ship: We heard so many great things about the Breeze that we had to go with her. Our last two cruises were older/smaller ships and, I know lots of people like the charm of those ships...but I like a big, tech-packed ship, it seems! One of my complaints about the Sensation was that the internet was abysmal. That works for many people because they want to get away from email/social media, but it stresses me out much more to be disconnected from all that and not be able to keep in touch with family, so I was glad that trip was short. I heard that internet is usually better on newer ships so we thought the Breeze would be good for that.

 

The internet: Speaking of - it was great! We bought the value package and it was perfect for communicating through Messenger/WhatApp/iMessage and checking Facebook and Instagram and email. A few urgent work things came through and I was glad I was able to address them, especially since we didn't find decent land-based internet until day 4 in St. Thomas.

 

The food: Food is subjective, so feel free to skip this, but this is one of the ways in which RCI beats Carnival for me as a vegetarian. Don't get me wrong, the food on Carnival is amazing, but both RCI ships had much, much more variety. The Lido buffet is always a random smattering of whatever I can find (which is, again, always delicious, just usually potatoes and salad) and in the dining room I'm limited to two entrees, one of which is always a variation on the same thing (the Indian vegetarian dish) and pretty much a house salad almost every night as an appetizer as every single soup I asked about was made with chicken broth. I couldn't even switch it up and get a kale salad as the kale and romaine caesar salads were pre-made with caesar dressing, which is also not vegetarian (anchovies)! So again, almost everything I ate I loved, I just appreciate that on RCI I have had more to choose from. Don't let me sound like I was starving/unhappy with the food - definitely wasn't! Just enjoy the variety on RCI.

 

Speaking of: does anyone know why there are so many secrets about Carnival food? On the Sensation, I just happened to ask about a veggie burger at Guy's Burgers and they had one, but it's nowhere on the menu. On the Breeze, they told me I had to go back to the deli and get it (although it wasn't on the menu anywhere there either). I also got a taco bowl (not necessarily vegetarian, just hidden) at Blue Iguana that wasn't on the menu, I just happened to see people walking around with it and ask about it. Vegetarianism is common enough that I don't feel I need to list it as a special dietary need in many cases, but maybe if I had they would inform me of their "secrets"?

 

The room: The elusive 2204. You'd better know what you're getting into before you book this room! So my mom tends to get seasick looking at the ocean, as we learned with our first ocean view room, so we go for interior rooms. We aren't there to spend time in the room anyway, so we don't care so much about amenities, we'd rather get the lowest price we can. On the Sensation we had a 1A Upper/Lower, and of course my mom made me climb up into that top bunk. I am 4'11 and it was not fun or easy (especially after several fruity drinks!). So when I noticed that this was priced as a 1A but had a bed and a couch converted into a bed, I decided to go for it. The one thing I could find about it online is that you can get some loud noises from being so far forward and so low and close to breaking waves, but my mother and I consider ourselves Truly Unbotherable™. My mom sleeps like the dead and I sleep with my headphones in so...bring on the noise. And the noise was brought maybe the first two nights and didn't bother us much at all. It was sort of like...a distant cannon going off a couple of times an hour. No problem. The final day, which was a sea day, we sailed into some rough seas. I'm going to try to describe the experience accurately without exaggerating...it was like trying to relax/sleep in an IMAX theater while a movie with constant explosions is playing. I couldn't believe water could make such loud noises! It was unbelievably loud and would shake the room. It sounded like the Hulk was punching the ship every 10-15 seconds - it was truly WILD. That being said, we still plan to book this type of room whenever we can because we loved the space. We ran into bad luck the last day, but I think if it hadn't been a sea day it wouldn't have even been a problem. If we'd been tired from walking around a port all day, we'd probably have slept just fine, but because we'd been relaxing and weren't really tired, it was pretty annoying.

 

Entertainment: Was great. Something for everyone. I thought Carnival would be more kid-friendly than RCI and I thought we'd feel left out since we didn't bring my niece and nephew, but the entertainment was really great for everyone. I do think they're more kid-friendly, but not at the expense of passengers of other ages. The shows were really quite amazing - the performers were incredibly talented. Amazing, versatile voices. We also watched a couple of the 18+ comedy shows. I'm a huge fan of stand-up comedy and I don't really get offended by vulgarity or dark humor, but one guy was just zero percent funny. Just being vulgar for the sake of being vulgar isn't funny to me...the other comedian was actually funny, though. I saw The Quest on the Rhapsody, but it's definitely a lot wilder on Carnival! I can imagine that's not for everyone, but it was hysterical to me. Probably shouldn't have brought my mom...but she mostly laughed in between bouts of shielding her eyes! I also made my mom try out the thrill theater with me. She wasn't very happy because she didn't really know what the thrill theater was and I made her do it after dinner...but I was surprised out how realistic it was! I definitely recommend getting there early and trying to sit in the front row (or even waiting a seating if there are people there before you). You get a bit taken out of it by silhouettes of heads in front of you blocking the screen, but still very fun nonetheless.

 

Cruise Director: Donkey was a ton of fun. We had Patricio Honores on the Rhapsody and we loved him - he was great with crowd interaction. Donkey was also great, but in a different way that I liked more for a person my age (late 20s). He's super funny off the cuff and can work a crowd! I know he is on the Breeze until next April, but hopefully he will be on a ship that works for us next December as we'd love to sail with him again.

 

This was the beginning, I hope (once I figure out how...) to add some pictures into my next post. I'm sort of jumping around as I think of things, so let me know if there's anything specific you'd like to know.

Edited December 28, 2018 by swirlofhues
typos :)

[BoDidly]

Kind of curious about any weather issues between California and South Carolina  .

 

Great start !

 

 

[JaniceB]

Great start, looking forward to more and your pictures.

[Florings]

Looking forward to more as I'm booked on her in fall 2020 for the first time.  Pool and serenity areas.  Spa.  Lido buffet, as far as crowds and the flow of people.   Other food venues?

 

Can hardly wait...

[swirlofhues]

18 hours ago, BoDidly said:

Kind of curious about any weather issues between California and South Carolina  .

 

Great start !

 

 

Oh do you mean as far as differences? I've lived in both Northern and Southern California. I was near Sacramento in NorCal and that's very much like SC, just not humid, very dry heat. Can get pretty cold in the winter - no snow because of the mountains in the way, but I definitely had to scrape ice off my windshield a few weeks. VERY hot in the summer. Once we had a week of 112 F and since I am a chemist and work in a lab, I have to wear long jeans and close-toed shoes every day. That can be difficult! Where I am in SoCal is right on the coast so it's extremely mild. 60-80 F most of the year which I love.

[swirlofhues]

1 hour ago, Florings said:

Looking forward to more as I'm booked on her in fall 2020 for the first time.  Pool and serenity areas.  Spa.  Lido buffet, as far as crowds and the flow of people.   Other food venues?

 

Can hardly wait...

We are pretty boring cruisers to most 🙂 we are truly going to get to the ports and see new places, the ship amenities usually don't matter so much to us so I'm sorry to say I don't have many pictures of those, but I will describe as best I can!

Beach and Tides pools on Lido were only crowded as far as chair space was difficult to find, but I think that's common even on smaller ships. On sea days, not terribly many people actually in/around the pools or even at the bars so if you want to go for a dip or have a drink that would be no problem. Whirlpools were also not super crowded. I only looked at the Serenity area once to check it out, and it did look, indeed, serene! I think there were a few empty chairs up there, but I also think I looked during the sail away party so most people were probably on Lido at that point.

 

Like I mentioned, we're not always into amenities, but because it was my mom's birthday our stateroom attendant gave her a $50 spa gift card so she used it to get a manicure. She forgot it in the room and called me to bring it to her, so I got to see a little of the spa and it really does look heavenly. She was in the relaxation room before her manicure when I brought her the gift card and there was coffee and tea out and I think maybe finger sandwiches? Now I wish I'd gotten something done myself because it looked great. They also used some really great products - my mom washes her hands a lot so her skin is dry, and whatever they used on her skin hydrated her skin for days. They wanted to sell it to her for something like $150 but she found it online much cheaper and bought it.

 

Lido buffet was always crowded at breakfast, but we weren't bothered because the dining area is twice the size it was on the Sensation so we could always find a table. Not always the case on the Sensation for us. Lots of people but the line moves quickly - I would only spend maybe 10 minutes in line. Just make sure you don't stop at the first line you see - go farther back towards the Tides pool and there will be at least one more line serving the same food, just less crowded because many people don't think to to hat far back. I don't think we did Lido buffet for lunch, we usually went to the Deli, Guy's or Blue Iguana. The deli takes a while no matter how many people are in line - I couldn't really figure out their system! The guy would take maybe 5-7 people's orders in a row, but not actually put them together for 10-15 minutes. Everything I ordered was pretty easy (I usually got a grilled cheese, which is pre-assembled and they just stick it in the oven) but for some reason I always waited the longest there. Guy's and Blue Iguana keep it moving at a fast pace and usually have more than one person assembling orders, so don't let a long line deter you from going. We did to Lido buffet once for dinner and even though it's a lot less crowded because most people go to the dining room, it was slow going because of the layout - they put salad ingredients at the beginning of the line and hot food later, so a lot of people were assembling salads at the beginning of the line and I would have felt rude jumping in front of them to get to the hot food since it was all one line. I think they have salad separate at lunch so that's probably less of a problem.

 

My friends who have never been on cruises keep remarking that they think they would feel claustrophobic or like there were too many people on the ship and I absolutely never felt that way on this ship. I'm sure we were close to capacity and I never felt it was overcrowded.

 

 

Edited December 28, 2018 by swirlofhues
Forgot about the spa!