Breeze Review (10/11/21 - 10/16/21)

[Nike4000]

Howdy all! Just back from a fantastic 5 day cruise on the Carnival Breeze. It was the first time back on a cruise ship since my wife and I were on the Carnival Dream in January 2020. It was great to be back onboard and enjoying every hospitality Carnival offers. My thoughts on the trip are below, please let me know if you have specific questions!

 

Pre-Cruise Covid Test = We took the Abbott BinaxNOW at home Covid tests on Saturday afternoon. They were super easy, all told took about 25 minutes each to successfully complete. Most stressful part of pre-vacation prep was waiting for the results of our tests. I strongly recommend watching La Lido Loca's helpful video prior to taking the test.

 

Pre-Cruise Lodgings = We drove to Galveston on Sunday and stayed at the Best Western Plus Seawall Inn & Suites By The Beach. It was under $100 for the night. The room was clean and the staff was friendly. I'm not saying I'd want to stay there for a week, but for one night it was perfectly acceptable. 

 

Pre-Cruise Dining = For dinner on Sunday night, we at at Miller's Seawall Grill. It was okay, don't know that we'll head there again for future cruises. Service was pretty poor. Breakfast Monday presented 2 options - the hotel's complimentary breakfast, or heading out into Galveston. We'd read great things about The Sunflower Bakery & Cafe on these forums, so we opted for that. So glad we did! It was terrific! So much food, we wished we could have taken to-go boxes with us. If you're in Galveston - go to The Sunflower and enjoy! We did check out the breakfast at the hotel, it looked like a pretty standard complimentary hotel breakfast. 

 

Parking = Our hotel offered cruise parking, but we always use Galveston Park N Cruise. It's right across from the cruise terminal and the rates are good = $80 for covered, indoor parking for the length of our cruise. 

 

Embarkation = We had an 11-11:30 arrival time and showed up at about 10:45. We walked our luggage over to the drop off and then made our way through the process. By 11am we were onboard getting lunch at Guy's Pig & Anchor. The whole process was so simple and straightforward. We had read all of the documentation Carnival sent pre-cruise and had all of our paperwork ready. The only things they looked at were our boarding passes, passports, and vaccination cards. After the first checkpoint, we stowed our vaccination cards and only needed our passports & boarding passes.

 

Day 1 - Monday = As mentioned, as soon as we got on board we headed to the Pig & Anchor for a BBQ lunch. I got the pulled pork, brisket, potato salad, and mac & cheese. My wife got the chicken, beans, and coleslaw. Her chicken was one of the best things we ate the whole time we were on the ship. It was very tender and moist. Mine was fair to average BBQ and the sides were nothing special. After eating, we made our way to our muster station and got scanned in. We were there for maybe 10 minutes. That whole process is much improved from the past. So easy and quick!  We did a spa tour and booked several treatments. We were in a Spa Stateroom, so we would be crazy to not take advantage of the discounts offered. Dinner was in the Main Dining Room (MDR), food was pretty standard, service was good.

 

Day 2 - Tuesday (at sea) = The spa treatments we booked occupied the morning. For lunch my wife got a lobster roll with a bowl of clam chowder from The Seafood Shack while I waited forever for pizza from Pizza Pirate. The lobster roll was amazing! We highly recommend it! The rest of the food, not so much. The clam chowder was inedible and the pizza had zero sauce and the crust was burnt. The guy working Pizza Pirate had no sense of urgency and were cooking 1 pizza at a time, even though the line was super long. We spent the afternoon in a lounger on the Serenity deck, napping, reading, people watching, etc. It was absolutely heaven! MDR for dinner again.

 

Day 3 - Wednesday (Costa Maya) = We spent the morning in the thalassotherapy pool and thermal rooms before prepping to head into Costa Maya. Our venture into Costa Maya lasted maybe 30 minutes - it was way too hot and crowded, so we headed back to the ship. There were 3 ships in port - ours and 2 Royal Caribbean ships, which seemed overwhelming. Back onboard, we grabbed some yummy burgers at Guy's Burger Joint and made our way to Serenity where we spent our afternoon enjoying frozen drinks, reading, and napping. MDR for dinner again. Had fun watching people racing back to get on the ship before our 7:30pm cast off. For us, it was a great day of relaxing and enjoying the ship.

 

Day 4 - Thursday (Cozumel) = We booked the All Inclusive Isla Pasion by Twister excursion. I did a mini-review of the excursion HERE, so I won't go into detail. Main thing is, we'd do it again and had a wonderful time. After returning to the ship, we hit Guy's Burger Joint again - they were just as good as the previous day - and made our way to the thalassotherapy pool and thermal rooms. I'd had a bit too much fun in the sun (and maybe too many margarita's on Isla Pasion) so I napped until it was time to get ready for dinner. MDR again. 

 

Day 5 - Friday (at sea) = We lazed around, hit the thalassotherapy pool and thermal rooms one last time, read, and just hung out. We tried Bonsai Sushi for lunch and thought it was pretty good. None of the rolls we ordered really jumped out as being outstanding. Once again, MDR for dinner. We did watch the show tonight and found that the female singers were outstanding, while the male singers paled in comparison. The show was just a series of songs from various movies, no real story to follow, and was over super fast. The background imagery was very good.

 

Debarkation = We planned on rolling our suitcases off, however being on deck 12 made this very challenging. It took a good 30 minutes before we found an elevator that had room for 2 people - they were all full from passengers climbing on from the lower decks & just taking the full circuit ride to try and debark. The issue was that of the 10 elevators in the front of the ship, they only had 4 in service and only 1 of those ever made it all the way to deck 12. This part of the process needs to be reviewed, it was absolutely ridiculous and poorly planned. HOWEVER, once we finally got to deck 3 to debark, the process was very smooth. Basically, they kept us walking the whole way through from the ship, across the gangway, through the terminal, and past customs. We only paused occasionally due to someone in front of us stopping to make an adjustment to their load or to take a picture at customs. Super EZ PZ! I will say that the people who didn't have passports looked to be having a more difficult time going through customs. People with birth certificates or driver's licenses had to stop and speak with a customs agent, but that seemed to be moving pretty quick.

[Nike4000]

A few thoughts on specific aspects of the trip:

 

MDR = On these forums I'd read a ton of complaints about slow service the first night in the MDR. We did not experience that at all. The service was extremely consistent throughout the cruise. The only issue we had with the MDR occurred on the first night when they sat us at a table with 6 other people. We called and requested to sit by ourselves prior to the cruise and were assured that our request would be adhered to due to observing social distancing for COVID. Our telephone request was ignored, but easily rectified by a visit to the maître d' who quickly moved us to our own table with a wonderful view off the back of the ship. The MDR was nowhere near half full, and on night we were in Costa Maya, it was maybe 20% capacity.

 

Food = Overall the food was pretty average. Standouts were the lobster roll from the Seafood Shack, the chicken from Pig & Anchor, and the chocolate melting cake in the MDR. After that, nothing really left an impression. We tried all sorts of different options from the menu in the MDR each night, never ordering the same so we could sample more. We visited the buffet a few times during breakfast hours just to get something quick - a bagel, some fruit, etc., but never really did a "meal" there. The food looked okay, but again, we never made that the focus of our dining experience. We did try multiple cakes from the dessert table and they were okay. For example, the raspberry chocolate cake had no raspberry flavor - Shinmin Li would have been very disappointed! 

 

Stateroom = We had a Cloud 9 Spa Balcony Stateroom and it was absolutely wonderful! My wife loves the spa treatments and the discounts on stacking those made it totally worthwhile. We visited the thalassotherapy pool and thermal rooms every day and took full advantage of them. It got to the point where the spa staff knew our names when we walked in, even with our masks on. If you like the spa amenities, please consider a spa stateroom. We also loved the location of our room - deck 12 seemed to be ideal for the things we enjoyed the most - spa treatments (obviously!), Serenity, and quickly getting to the forward elevators to explore the rest of the ship. 

 

The Staff = Simply wonderful staff! They made every effort to greet you by your first name and remember you. Our MDR team, led by lead server Yonathan was exceptional. They had tons of personality and made each dinner an experience. The spa staff was also outstanding, they were so much fun to chat with and provided outstanding services. I usually avoid getting massages because my lower back ends up hurting afterward - even when I warn the masseuse of the issue before we begin. Yulia gave me the best massage of my life and treated my lower back with special care. She didn't ignore my lower back, she worked the muscles with attention and care. It was so enjoyable that I strongly considered getting a second one from her later in the cruise. Elsewhere around the ship, it felt like every crewmember was doing their absolute best to personally ensure that each guest was well looked after and having a good time.

 

The Ship = Per the spa staff, the ship was sailing with about 2,400 guests (capacity is between 3,690 and 4,724 guests per CruiseCritic) and it certainly felt less crowded than any cruise we've ever been on previously. The ship looked to be in good shape and the staff was cleaning things constantly. Before dinner, my wife and I would sit in the unused Piano Bar reading and people watching. I noticed right away that even though the bar was unused, there was a crewmember waiting nearby. As soon as we stood up to go to dinner, the crewmember came over and immediately cleaned the table at the booth where we had been sitting. 

 

Masks = Most people wore masks in the requested areas. I only ever saw one guy push the issue when walking into the buffet. There were tons of signs all over the ship reminding people to wear masks, wash their hands, and use hand sanitizer. Plus, it seemed like every overhead announcement included a reminder to wear masks and wash hands.

 

Overall = We had a wonderful time and are already looking forward to our Royal Caribbean cruise booked in December. The lower capacity made the cruise feel much more intimate and personal. As you can tell, we don't get heavily involved in the ship-led activities, so I can't speak to how good the comedy show or bands were (although we did attempt to listen to the Eagles cover band and it was atrocious). Our focus was on getting away from work and relaxing, which we did. So enjoyable! 

 

Hopefully I've covered a bunch of what interests you. Let me know if you have specific questions!

[Debifluff]

Thanks for the review!   I am booked for a 5 day cruise in a Spa interior in February.     Where in the spa do you have to wear masks?    Are they required in the Thermal Suite?   Or just in the check-in area and treatment rooms?

[princess76021]

thank you for taking the time to post!!

 

i miss cruising so much i live through these reviews!!

 

hopefully will only have to wait till March

hugs

[TexasBrit]

5 hours ago, Nike4000 said:

Howdy all! Just back from a fantastic 5 day cruise on the Carnival Breeze. It was the first time back on a cruise ship since my wife and I were on the Carnival Dream in January 2020. It was great to be back onboard and enjoying every hospitality Carnival offers. My thoughts on the trip are below, please let me know if you have specific questions!

 

Pre-Cruise Covid Test = We took the Abbott BinaxNOW at home Covid tests on Saturday afternoon. They were super easy, all told took about 25 minutes each to successfully complete. Most stressful part of pre-vacation prep was waiting for the results of our tests. I strongly recommend watching La Lido Loca's helpful video prior to taking the test.

 

Pre-Cruise Lodgings = We drove to Galveston on Sunday and stayed at the Best Western Plus Seawall Inn & Suites By The Beach. It was under $100 for the night. The room was clean and the staff was friendly. I'm not saying I'd want to stay there for a week, but for one night it was perfectly acceptable. 

 

Pre-Cruise Dining = For dinner on Sunday night, we at at Miller's Seawall Grill. It was okay, don't know that we'll head there again for future cruises. Service was pretty poor. Breakfast Monday presented 2 options - the hotel's complimentary breakfast, or heading out into Galveston. We'd read great things about The Sunflower Bakery & Cafe on these forums, so we opted for that. So glad we did! It was terrific! So much food, we wished we could have taken to-go boxes with us. If you're in Galveston - go to The Sunflower and enjoy! We did check out the breakfast at the hotel, it looked like a pretty standard complimentary hotel breakfast. 

 

Parking = Our hotel offered cruise parking, but we always use Galveston Park N Cruise. It's right across from the cruise terminal and the rates are good = $80 for covered, indoor parking for the length of our cruise. 

 

Embarkation = We had an 11-11:30 arrival time and showed up at about 10:45. We walked our luggage over to the drop off and then made our way through the process. By 11am we were onboard getting lunch at Guy's Pig & Anchor. The whole process was so simple and straightforward. We had read all of the documentation Carnival sent pre-cruise and had all of our paperwork ready. The only things they looked at were our boarding passes, passports, and vaccination cards. After the first checkpoint, we stowed our vaccination cards and only needed our passports & boarding passes.

 

Day 1 - Monday = As mentioned, as soon as we got on board we headed to the Pig & Anchor for a BBQ lunch. I got the pulled pork, brisket, potato salad, and mac & cheese. My wife got the chicken, beans, and coleslaw. Her chicken was one of the best things we ate the whole time we were on the ship. It was very tender and moist. Mine was fair to average BBQ and the sides were nothing special. After eating, we made our way to our muster station and got scanned in. We were there for maybe 10 minutes. That whole process is much improved from the past. So easy and quick!  We did a spa tour and booked several treatments. We were in a Spa Stateroom, so we would be crazy to not take advantage of the discounts offered. Dinner was in the Main Dining Room (MDR), food was pretty standard, service was good.

 

Day 2 - Tuesday (at sea) = The spa treatments we booked occupied the morning. For lunch my wife got a lobster roll with a bowl of clam chowder from The Seafood Shack while I waited forever for pizza from Pizza Pirate. The lobster roll was amazing! We highly recommend it! The rest of the food, not so much. The clam chowder was inedible and the pizza had zero sauce and the crust was burnt. The guy working Pizza Pirate had no sense of urgency and were cooking 1 pizza at a time, even though the line was super long. We spent the afternoon in a lounger on the Serenity deck, napping, reading, people watching, etc. It was absolutely heaven! MDR for dinner again.

 

Day 3 - Wednesday (Costa Maya) = We spent the morning in the thalassotherapy pool and thermal rooms before prepping to head into Costa Maya. Our venture into Costa Maya lasted maybe 30 minutes - it was way too hot and crowded, so we headed back to the ship. There were 3 ships in port - ours and 2 Royal Caribbean ships, which seemed overwhelming. Back onboard, we grabbed some yummy burgers at Guy's Burger Joint and made our way to Serenity where we spent our afternoon enjoying frozen drinks, reading, and napping. MDR for dinner again. Had fun watching people racing back to get on the ship before our 7:30pm cast off. For us, it was a great day of relaxing and enjoying the ship.

 

Day 4 - Thursday (Cozumel) = We booked the All Inclusive Isla Pasion by Twister excursion. I did a mini-review of the excursion HERE, so I won't go into detail. Main thing is, we'd do it again and had a wonderful time. After returning to the ship, we hit Guy's Burger Joint again - they were just as good as the previous day - and made our way to the thalassotherapy pool and thermal rooms. I'd had a bit too much fun in the sun (and maybe too many margarita's on Isla Pasion) so I napped until it was time to get ready for dinner. MDR again. 

 

Day 5 - Friday (at sea) = We lazed around, hit the thalassotherapy pool and thermal rooms one last time, read, and just hung out. We tried Bonsai Sushi for lunch and thought it was pretty good. None of the rolls we ordered really jumped out as being outstanding. Once again, MDR for dinner. We did watch the show tonight and found that the female singers were outstanding, while the male singers paled in comparison. The show was just a series of songs from various movies, no real story to follow, and was over super fast. The background imagery was very good.

 

Debarkation = We planned on rolling our suitcases off, however being on deck 12 made this very challenging. It took a good 30 minutes before we found an elevator that had room for 2 people - they were all full from passengers climbing on from the lower decks & just taking the full circuit ride to try and debark. The issue was that of the 10 elevators in the front of the ship, they only had 4 in service and only 1 of those ever made it all the way to deck 12. This part of the process needs to be reviewed, it was absolutely ridiculous and poorly planned. HOWEVER, once we finally got to deck 3 to debark, the process was very smooth. Basically, they kept us walking the whole way through from the ship, across the gangway, through the terminal, and past customs. We only paused occasionally due to someone in front of us stopping to make an adjustment to their load or to take a picture at customs. Super EZ PZ! I will say that the people who didn't have passports looked to be having a more difficult time going through customs. People with birth certificates or driver's licenses had to stop and speak with a customs agent, but that seemed to be moving pretty quick.

Thanks for the review.

We go on the same cruise next week so it was helpful to get some very recent information.

First time on Breeze for us although some previous cruises on Magic which is supposed to be the same design and Vista which is somewhat comparable.

 

Our hotel also offers the free parking for cruises; did you not feel it was safe to leave the car there? We have used ParknCruise before but haven't booked it this time. Maybe we should?

[Nike4000]

@Debifluff Moving around the Cloud 9 spa masks were requested (I'd say required, but that's challenging to enforce) as is the case with all indoor areas. We did not wear masks in the thermal rooms or the thalassotherapy pool. When using the workout equipment, masks are not required, but again, moving around they are strongly encouraged. My wife attempted to go to 2 of the yoga classes, but was the only passenger who attended, so they were cancelled. Because of the non-starts, I don't know if masks were required during classes. Plus, during massages or other spa treatments, masks were not required.

 

Quick note - we saw numerous people use the workout equipment and not clean it off even though wipes were readily available. So, we ended up wiping off the machines both before and after use for that extra measure of cleanliness. 

 

@princess76021 Hopefully you can cruise soon! I am addicted to the reviews, although they got harder to enjoy as our cruise countdown got shorter. I think I was tired of living vicariously through others as our date became tantalizingly close. 

@TexasBrit Our family (both sister-in-laws, my dad, etc.)  have all used Galveston Park N Cruise for years, so it's old habit by this point. We book it as soon as we finish booking the cruise itself! Beyond that, no, I would not have felt comfortable leaving my car at that particular hotel for the week. It could be perfectly fine, I just felt $80 for Park N Cruise was an easy tradeoff for a little peace of mind. All that being said, on the cruise we bumped in to 2 ladies who stayed at the same hotel Sunday night & left their car in the lot for the week. They told us that the morning of debarkation, it took them over an hour to get a cab to take them from the hotel to the cruise terminal. They ended up missing their port arrival time and had to wade through the much longer check-in line consisting of people who were early or late to the terminal. As with all things, YMMV.

[angiem0217]

So you disembark on deck 3? I thought it was deck 6. What tome were you back in port. We have an 11:15 flight that I am nervous on getting back to the airport in time. 

[Nike4000]

@angiem0217 We had the option of of deck 3 or 4, but it seemed like everyone was at deck 3. In fact, when our forward elevator stopped at deck 4 that morning, there was a big crowd of people waiting to get on with luggage. So, yeah.

 

Priority groups were able to get off the ship around 8:15, which was earlier than expected. The paperwork we got was that debarkation wouldn't start until 8:45 with the priority groups. After that, people walking off with luggage were released by muster group. We were in one of the very first muster groups and were off the ship by 8:30. If you're checking your luggage, I honestly don't know when you'll get off the ship, I'd recommend walking off with it. 

 

Also, you might have a tough time getting to the airport in Houston in time. We hit tons of traffic in Houston on Saturday morning. You'll "probably" make the flight, but you might be running to the gate. Someone who has flown out of Houston will be able to provide better guidance on that situation since we've always driven.

[TexasBrit]

21 hours ago, Nike4000 said:

 

@TexasBrit Our family (both sister-in-laws, my dad, etc.)  have all used Galveston Park N Cruise for years, so it's old habit by this point. We book it as soon as we finish booking the cruise itself! Beyond that, no, I would not have felt comfortable leaving my car at that particular hotel for the week. It could be perfectly fine, I just felt $80 for Park N Cruise was an easy tradeoff for a little peace of mind. All that being said, on the cruise we bumped in to 2 ladies who stayed at the same hotel Sunday night & left their car in the lot for the week. They told us that the morning of debarkation, it took them over an hour to get a cab to take them from the hotel to the cruise terminal. They ended up missing their port arrival time and had to wade through the much longer check-in line consisting of people who were early or late to the terminal. As with all things, YMMV.

Thanks for the response.

Based on your comments, I decided to book a parking slot (not ParkNCruise which was sold out). I figured about $20 each way for the Uber or cab (including tips) so just another $30 extra for the secure parking without worrying about cab availability or the situation at the hotel.

[Nike4000]

@TexasBrit Seems like an easy tradeoff, plus it puts you in complete control of when you arrive at the terminal. I'd rather spend an extra $30 than be standing in front of the hotel waiting for a cab or Uber to arrive. I don't like waiting! 😁

[nlktx49]

Really enjoyed and appreciated your review, well-written and nicely organized. My husband and I have our first B2B on the Breeze in February. We've cruised on her before many years ago, don't remember much about her so it was nice to have the refresher you provided!

[Nike4000]

@nlktx49 Thanks for the kind words, I tried to keep my review focused on the important details, not the minutia. I'm so jealous that you're doing a B2B, I still have to convince my wife to try that. 

 

Honestly, I was worried that the ship was going to feel a bit old and tired, which was the complete opposite of my experience. Everything looked great and, like I said, the crew was constantly cleaning. On all of the cruises I've been on, I've never seen anyone clean the walls in the hallways, but on the Breeze, I saw someone wiping them down every day. 

 

Let me know if you have any specific questions, I'll do my best to answer!

 

BTW - my wife is going through serious withdrawals. All day long she's been telling me, "Last Monday at this time we were..." and relating it to the cruise.

[luckybecky]

Nike4000, thanks so much for your review! We were on this cruise with you. We had a wonderful time! I'm working on a detailed photo review, almost done writing the review and sorting my photos and will try to start posting soon. It's interesting to see your perspective. 

 

I completely agree with you about Galveston Park N Cruise. They offer gated outdoor, or completely secure indoor parking and are so convenient. We always use them and feel that our vehicle is completely safe.

 

We also noted how they had crew cleaning constantly. We were always seeing crew wiping down handrails, etc. 

 

I did have a different perspective from you on the masks. My feeling was that many people were ignoring the requirement in the theater, casino, and other indoor areas. And I never saw a crew member asking anyone to don a mask (although they did make generic announcements about wearing masks). 

 

Lastly, I agree with you about how wonderful the staff were! Absolutely amazing. Can't say enough good things about them. Just as one example, I went to the atrium bar on deck 3 for the first time a few days into our cruise and ordered a cabernet sauvignon. The bartender was a lady with bleached blond hair in a ponytail. A day or two later, I walked up and before I even opened my mouth, she said, "Cabernet sauvignon?" How the heck did she remember that?! LOL 

 

I'm glad you had a great time. We did too. Thanks again for sharing!

Edited October 20, 2021 by luckybecky

[Nike4000]

@luckybecky I'll look forward to reading your review and am glad you guys had a great time as well! 

 

Interesting about the difference in perspective on masks! My memory might be tainted because every time I stepped into the Cloud 9 spa to make my way to the thalassotherapy pool without a mask, Marko  or Abigail would remind me to put one on. I also witnessed a confrontation between a passenger and crewmember about wearing masks at the entrance to the buffet, so there were definite instances where crew were reminding passengers.

[Izena]

On 10/18/2021 at 3:41 PM, angiem0217 said:

So you disembark on deck 3? I thought it was deck 6. What tome were you back in port. We have an 11:15 flight that I am nervous on getting back to the airport in time. 

I’m a nervous Nelli.  It will take at least an hour to drive to Hobby add another 45 min for Bush/IAH.   There is a lot of construction at IAH.   I would recommend getting a later flight.   IAH - once through security could take  30 min or longer to get to gate .    Boarding is earlier and doors have to be closed  for a min before departing.   I don’t go to Hobby  no idea of time restraints. Good luck

[zoiebear]

On 10/17/2021 at 12:05 PM, Nike4000 said:

Howdy all! Just back from a fantastic 5 day cruise on the Carnival Breeze. It was the first time back on a cruise ship since my wife and I were on the Carnival Dream in January 2020. It was great to be back onboard and enjoying every hospitality Carnival offers. My thoughts on the trip are below, please let me know if you have specific questions!

 

Pre-Cruise Covid Test = We took the Abbott BinaxNOW at home Covid tests on Saturday afternoon. They were super easy, all told took about 25 minutes each to successfully complete. Most stressful part of pre-vacation prep was waiting for the results of our tests. I strongly recommend watching La Lido Loca's helpful video prior to taking the test.

 

Pre-Cruise Lodgings = We drove to Galveston on Sunday and stayed at the Best Western Plus Seawall Inn & Suites By The Beach. It was under $100 for the night. The room was clean and the staff was friendly. I'm not saying I'd want to stay there for a week, but for one night it was perfectly acceptable. 

 

Pre-Cruise Dining = For dinner on Sunday night, we at at Miller's Seawall Grill. It was okay, don't know that we'll head there again for future cruises. Service was pretty poor. Breakfast Monday presented 2 options - the hotel's complimentary breakfast, or heading out into Galveston. We'd read great things about The Sunflower Bakery & Cafe on these forums, so we opted for that. So glad we did! It was terrific! So much food, we wished we could have taken to-go boxes with us. If you're in Galveston - go to The Sunflower and enjoy! We did check out the breakfast at the hotel, it looked like a pretty standard complimentary hotel breakfast. 

 

Parking = Our hotel offered cruise parking, but we always use Galveston Park N Cruise. It's right across from the cruise terminal and the rates are good = $80 for covered, indoor parking for the length of our cruise. 

 

Embarkation = We had an 11-11:30 arrival time and showed up at about 10:45. We walked our luggage over to the drop off and then made our way through the process. By 11am we were onboard getting lunch at Guy's Pig & Anchor. The whole process was so simple and straightforward. We had read all of the documentation Carnival sent pre-cruise and had all of our paperwork ready. The only things they looked at were our boarding passes, passports, and vaccination cards. After the first checkpoint, we stowed our vaccination cards and only needed our passports & boarding passes.

 

Day 1 - Monday = As mentioned, as soon as we got on board we headed to the Pig & Anchor for a BBQ lunch. I got the pulled pork, brisket, potato salad, and mac & cheese. My wife got the chicken, beans, and coleslaw. Her chicken was one of the best things we ate the whole time we were on the ship. It was very tender and moist. Mine was fair to average BBQ and the sides were nothing special. After eating, we made our way to our muster station and got scanned in. We were there for maybe 10 minutes. That whole process is much improved from the past. So easy and quick!  We did a spa tour and booked several treatments. We were in a Spa Stateroom, so we would be crazy to not take advantage of the discounts offered. Dinner was in the Main Dining Room (MDR), food was pretty standard, service was good.

 

Day 2 - Tuesday (at sea) = The spa treatments we booked occupied the morning. For lunch my wife got a lobster roll with a bowl of clam chowder from The Seafood Shack while I waited forever for pizza from Pizza Pirate. The lobster roll was amazing! We highly recommend it! The rest of the food, not so much. The clam chowder was inedible and the pizza had zero sauce and the crust was burnt. The guy working Pizza Pirate had no sense of urgency and were cooking 1 pizza at a time, even though the line was super long. We spent the afternoon in a lounger on the Serenity deck, napping, reading, people watching, etc. It was absolutely heaven! MDR for dinner again.

 

Day 3 - Wednesday (Costa Maya) = We spent the morning in the thalassotherapy pool and thermal rooms before prepping to head into Costa Maya. Our venture into Costa Maya lasted maybe 30 minutes - it was way too hot and crowded, so we headed back to the ship. There were 3 ships in port - ours and 2 Royal Caribbean ships, which seemed overwhelming. Back onboard, we grabbed some yummy burgers at Guy's Burger Joint and made our way to Serenity where we spent our afternoon enjoying frozen drinks, reading, and napping. MDR for dinner again. Had fun watching people racing back to get on the ship before our 7:30pm cast off. For us, it was a great day of relaxing and enjoying the ship.

 

Day 4 - Thursday (Cozumel) = We booked the All Inclusive Isla Pasion by Twister excursion. I did a mini-review of the excursion HERE, so I won't go into detail. Main thing is, we'd do it again and had a wonderful time. After returning to the ship, we hit Guy's Burger Joint again - they were just as good as the previous day - and made our way to the thalassotherapy pool and thermal rooms. I'd had a bit too much fun in the sun (and maybe too many margarita's on Isla Pasion) so I napped until it was time to get ready for dinner. MDR again. 

 

Day 5 - Friday (at sea) = We lazed around, hit the thalassotherapy pool and thermal rooms one last time, read, and just hung out. We tried Bonsai Sushi for lunch and thought it was pretty good. None of the rolls we ordered really jumped out as being outstanding. Once again, MDR for dinner. We did watch the show tonight and found that the female singers were outstanding, while the male singers paled in comparison. The show was just a series of songs from various movies, no real story to follow, and was over super fast. The background imagery was very good.

 

Debarkation = We planned on rolling our suitcases off, however being on deck 12 made this very challenging. It took a good 30 minutes before we found an elevator that had room for 2 people - they were all full from passengers climbing on from the lower decks & just taking the full circuit ride to try and debark. The issue was that of the 10 elevators in the front of the ship, they only had 4 in service and only 1 of those ever made it all the way to deck 12. This part of the process needs to be reviewed, it was absolutely ridiculous and poorly planned. HOWEVER, once we finally got to deck 3 to debark, the process was very smooth. Basically, they kept us walking the whole way through from the ship, across the gangway, through the terminal, and past customs. We only paused occasionally due to someone in front of us stopping to make an adjustment to their load or to take a picture at customs. Super EZ PZ! I will say that the people who didn't have passports looked to be having a more difficult time going through customs. People with birth certificates or driver's licenses had to stop and speak with a customs agent, but that seemed to be moving pretty quick.

Thanks for the review! We have a spa balcony booked for our upcoming cruise in November....first time in a spa room and first time using the spa at all! So I have been trying to figure out the discounts for a spa room....is it best to wait till we are on board to book spa treatments,  mainly massages? Are the prices different than what I see on my online planner if I booked online?? Thanks!

[bury me at sea]

Thank you for your review.  After three cruises cancelled by Carnival our next booked one is on the Breeze in March.

 

We are still wavering but your positive review made us feel better.

 

I couldn't agree more about Carnival crew.  Definitely Carnival's biggest asset.  Also Park N Cruise.  I was afraid they might have gone out of business.

 

[Nike4000]

@zoiebear The spa discounts are 20% off your first service, 30% off your second, and 40% off your third. All have to be booked onboard. Also, the person we booked with, Yulia, took the 40% off of the most expensive service my wife had and 20% off the cheapest, which was very cool.

 

Two things to note about the spa discounts:

1. Discounts are per person. So my massage did not count towards her discount or vice versa.
2. The discounts are based off of the total price of each service. For example, we took a spa tour after doing our muster drill (very important, get that taken care of right away!) and as they introduced us to various people offering different services, they would say, "This treatment is normally $199, but if you book today it will be $149" or similar. The 20, 30, or 40% discounts are off of the $199 price.

Do the spa tour on day 1 to see what services are available. There is a bit of a hard sell going on, but I didn't think it was any worse than the people pushing the drink package on the Lido deck.

 

Take advantage of the thalassotherapy pool and thermal rooms. They are absolutely fantastic!

 

@bury me at sea I hope you guys "Breeze it up" in March and have a wonderful time. Leading up to the cruise, my wife and I were a bit nervous. Turns out we had nothing to be nervous about. Everything was wonderful - although I agree with @luckybecky's review of this same sailing that the buffet was not good. After your March cruise, you'll have to let us know if it's improved any.

Edited October 22, 2021 by Nike4000

[txgal08]

Thanks for the review. I booked the cheapest room and then bought the spa pass so I can use the thalassotherapy pool and thermal rooms. I cannot wait!!! I will be on the Breeze in early Nov and the Valor for Thanksgiving and Horizon for Christmas. So happy to be cruising again