Glory Sept 18 - 25th Observations

[icft]

We got back Sunday from the Glory September 18 – 25^th cruise and thought anyone with an upcoming Glory cruise might be interested in our observations.

 

Embarkation seems to have had a bit of a problem, though it didn’t really have much effect on us. Usually when boarding in New Orleans there is a steady stream of passengers proceeding from the ground entrance then up a floor to the check-in stations then security and finally seating until boarding.

 

This time they held folks at the ground entrance and only let 30 or so go up at a time. We were in the 10am arrival slot and only had about a five minute wait and when we got to the second floor we saw the problem. They had the usual number of check-in stations set up but only half were in use. Our best guess is they could not get enough people to man the other half. While it was a small delay for us it could have been a bigger problem for later arrivals.

 

They started boarding at 10:45 while their normal target in New Orleans is 11am.

 

Ship’s condition is great! Early this year they did a two week wet dock at Freeport. We cruised on Glory just before and just after that and the amount of work they did in that two weeks amazed us. They replaced public area carpets, wall treatments and many ceiling treatments among other things. The last we cruised on Glory was in April and on that cruise we were pleased to see they were constantly painting, and not just throwing paint over rust but using power tools to get the rust off, then priming then painting.

 

On this cruise they were reupholstering the seating along the Promenade deck starboard side and they had obviously recently refinished table tops all over the ship. About the second day I realized I had not seen any rust so I started looking closely. Yes, if you look closely you can find nooks and crannies with touches of rust, but there is no such thing as a ship without some rust, even on its first cruise. Last week’s Glory was the most rust-free ship we have ever sailed.

 

Mid-cruise, maintenance knocked on our door. They were there to replace the screen where the water comes out of the faucet in the bathroom sink. Obviously they are taking routine maintenance seriously on Glory.

 

We have never been fans of the production shows on Carnival and having seen them so many times we haven’t been to one in a while. But this cruise there was something called “Amor Cubano” that we had not seen. We went and found it quite enjoyable. It is billed as sounds of Cuba and is well worth seeing. The amazing thing for us is that most Carnival shows manipulate the sound to boot high and low frequencies and suppress the middle with resulting screeching female vocals and a headache. That was not done for this show and you could actually enjoy the singing voices. If only we understood Spanish… 😁

 

Punchliner comedy shows are very subjective but they only had one comedian the first three nights and two the rest of the cruise. The one for the first three nights did not click with us so overall we felt the comedy was weak this cruise overall but very good the last part of the cruise. They really should have two comedians every night to avoid the “doesn’t click with us” problem.

 

The crew on Carnival ships is always wonderful and this cruise was no exception. It doesn’t seem right to leave how great they are to those few words since they are a major reason that we keep coming back despite management’s cutbacks but it is just something you have to experience.

 

Glory is not immune to the cutbacks that have been widely discussed on this forum, but it is no worse and thanks to the crew probably better than the situation on other ships. So I will leave that discussion to other threads. But I will mention one thing that worked well for us.

 

The Glory is sailing with a full passenger load these days. With the cutbacks that can create lines at the Lido food buffet, deli, etc. We avoided a lot of that by eating breakfast at sea day brunch and dinner in the main dining room. With your time dining and making reservations on the app there was no standing in line or being forced to eat at inconvenient times. We also had no problem getting good food though you might have to improvise or order an additional dish if you one you first ordered wasn’t up to snuff. One evening I ordered several appetizers because the main course offerings did nothing for me. Another evening the main course wasn’t to my taste but the soup that had been one of the appetizers was outstanding. So I sent back the main course, ordered more soup and was quite full and happy by the end of the meal.

 

All-in-all, we had a great time.

[SailingRNC]

My BFF and I were also on this sailing and had a great time.  We arrived at the terminal around 12:30pm, parked in the Erato lot,  the porters took our luggage and we were on board very quickly.   It was one of the fastest embarkations that I've yet to experience with CCL.   

We had a blast and can't wait until the next time !

 

 

[sparks1093]

Thanks for the thoughts! Looking forward to sailing on Glory this April for the second time (last time was 5 years ago or so).

[icft]

6 hours ago, SailingRNC said:

My BFF and I were also on this sailing and had a great time.  We arrived at the terminal around 12:30pm, parked in the Erato lot,  the porters took our luggage and we were on board very quickly.   It was one of the fastest embarkations that I've yet to experience with CCL.   

We had a blast and can't wait until the next time !

 

 

That is good to hear. I guess they were just a tad slow getting folks to their stations early on in the check-in process. New Orleans is almost always great for embarking and disembarking.