Conquest Review 8/10-8/17

[lovebug33]

We were on the same trip as jensing, but our trip was different, so I thought I'd add my two cents worth! I have to start my review by saying this was by far the best TRIP my DH and I have ever taken (that means honeymoon, trailer trips, our last cruise, everything). And, it was the trip during which we had the most problems, which isn't saying much because no matter what type of trip it is, we have problems! Our trip started out as the poster child for why you fly in a day early. We got to the airport around 4:30 a.m. The line was not moving and I was getting more and more freaked out that we were going to miss our plane. Finally, a Frontier representative came out and said our flight was canceled due to the fact that there was a sick flight attendant. At this point, DH and I aren't worried because we were told there were plenty of flights to Denver and plenty from Denver to Houston. After an hour and a half of waiting, we finally get to the counter only to be told that all flights to Denver and all flights to Houston are full :eek:! Still, DH says, "Well, what about the non-stops on Continental?" The lady looks at us and tells us they are full too and we will probably have to leave in the morning. OMG! I almost fainted. There was no way we could take these flights the day of and get to the boat on time. I was actually so upset I had to leave. When I got back, I was told they miraculously found two seats on the 11:10 non-stop to Houston. We found out later that the seats were in first class and they were trying to get us on coach. So, six and a half hours after we arrived at the airport, we got on our plane. I have to say, first class ROCKS! There was food on real plates, we didn't have to pay for our movie, and the seats were downright comfy. It was definitely an experience and I am glad it came on a relatively long flight (it's about 3 1/2 hours from Vegas to Houston). So, even though it started out bad, we did get into Houston at 4:30, three hours later than our scheduled flight. We were able to get our car with no problems and drive to Webster were we stayed in a lovely Days Inn. We were so exhausted after the trials of the day that we ate dinner, stopped at a Target to buy toiletries, put our luggage tags on and passed out around 8:30 :D!

DH and I in first class

[soon to cruise]

Whew.....scary start to a great a great trip. CAnt wait to hear the rest.

[lovebug33]

Embarkation Day: Since we had gone to bed so early, we were up around 6:00, so after we ate breakfast, we drove to Galveston and then drove around the town because the shuttle from the rental car place wasn't able to pick us up until 10:00. Galveston is really pretty. Well, our next glitch came at the rental car place. Apparently, Crash, the rental car driver, had a hernia (he looks to be about a million years old) and no luggage can now go into the rental car shuttle. So, we were supposed to drive to the terminal, drop off our luggage, come back, and he would take DH back to the terminal. That was too much for us because we didn't know where the terminal was, so we called a cab. Best 20 bucks we spent all vacation because it wasn't stressful. When we got to the terminal, the porter took our luggage, and off we went. Since it was 10:30 in the morning, there was no line at all. Then, we were told that the Conquest had come in late, so embarking would be late. We really had to laugh at this point. We were afraid we had brought bad mojo on the ship! But, we got on around 12:15, ate some lunch (the ruben sandwiches are to die for), and wandered around the ship. The rooms weren't ready until 2:00 because of the late embarking. We found our room, which was in the very front of the ship on deck 2. We were really concerned about our room. Now, if you want to sleep in past docking time, forget it. When the boat docked, the noise was so loud, it actually made me scream the first time because I was not prepared. However, we are up and out on port days, so we were not bothered by it. We then went on the ship tour, which was something to pass the time. We had already found most of everything by that point. When we went back to our room, all of our luggage was there, so that was a plus. We then started unpacking until the muster drill, during which I almost turned around and strangled the kid who kept blowing the whistle repeatedly. Then, we went and watched sail away and got ready for dinner. We were really disappointed when we got the dining room and realized we had a two person table. We really wanted the whole cruise dining experience which we hadn't gotten the last time because it was anytime dining. Yes, we could have gone and requested a seat change, but we didn't want to make waves over something trivial, so we stayed there and actually became good friends with the people next to us, so that made it all good. I have no clue what we ate, but it was good. Unfortunately, we didn't like warm chocolate melting cake. DH and I had been looking forward to it and were quite disappointed in ourselves that we didn't like it. I felt like I had disappointed everyone on cruise critic because everybody loved it so much. It still makes me a little sad to think about it :)! Then, we went to the couples dancing class in the lounge. If you want to become famous quick, get up on stage and make fools of yourselves doing the samba. I didn't even think there were that many people in the lounge! For the rest of the week, people kept coming up to us and telling us how good we were. I think they need to have their eyesight checked! Then, I made more of a fool of myself playing game show trivia. I knew none of the answers. And, this is when I became obsessed with winning a ship on a stick. We watched the show and then joined the world tour. That was so much fun. It was nothing more than people following Hennie (assistant cruise director) around while yelling but boy was it fun. On our Princess cruise, if there was anything fun, it was DH, me, and, like, two other people. On Carnival, you did anything remotely fun and there were, like, a hundred people or more who joined. By this point, we were exhausted and couldn't wait for the next day! I will write more tomorrow!

This picture of me makes me laugh everytime. I don't know what happened!

DH and me at Sailaway

[TakeMeAway1001]

You have a great attitude, can't wait to read more :)

[Kace]

Unfortunately, we didn't like warm chocolate melting cake. DH and I had been looking forward to it and were quite disappointed in ourselves that we didn't like it. I felt like I had disappointed everyone on cruise critic because everybody loved it so much.

 

Don't worry about the warm chocolate melting cake! You'll see people rave about it, but not everyone likes it. I had it once on my first cruise, and it was just too much chocolate. Out of our group of 15 on my last cruise, it was only ordered once or twice by a couple of people.

 

Great review! I'm on the Conquest in February. Keep it coming!

[Honeybear1974]

Keep up the wonderful review....we will be on the Conquest in March. :D

[Pistol Packin Mama]

Embarkation Day: Since we had gone to bed so early, we were up around 6:00, so after we ate breakfast, we drove to Galveston and then drove around the town because the shuttle from the rental car place wasn't able to pick us up until 10:00. Galveston is really pretty. Well, our next glitch came at the rental car place. Apparently, Crash, the rental car driver, had a hernia (he looks to be about a million years old) and no luggage can now go into the rental car shuttle. So, we were supposed to drive to the terminal, drop off our luggage, come back, and he would take DH back to the terminal. That was too much for us because we didn't know where the terminal was, so we called a cab. Best 20 bucks we spent all vacation because it wasn't stressful. When we got to the terminal, the porter took our luggage, and off we went. Since it was 10:30 in the morning, there was no line at all. Then, we were told that the Conquest had come in late, so embarking would be late. We really had to laugh at this point. We were afraid we had brought bad mojo on the ship! But, we got on around 12:15, ate some lunch (the ruben sandwiches are to die for), and wandered around the ship. The rooms weren't ready until 2:00 because of the late embarking. We found our room, which was in the very front of the ship on deck 2. We were really concerned about our room. Now, if you want to sleep in past docking time, forget it. When the boat docked, the noise was so loud, it actually made me scream the first time because I was not prepared. However, we are up and out on port days, so we were not bothered by it. We then went on the ship tour, which was something to pass the time. We had already found most of everything by that point. When we went back to our room, all of our luggage was there, so that was a plus. We then started unpacking until the muster drill, during which I almost turned around and strangled the kid who kept blowing the whistle repeatedly. Then, we went and watched sail away and got ready for dinner. We were really disappointed when we got the dining room and realized we had a two person table. We really wanted the whole cruise dining experience which we hadn't gotten the last time because it was anytime dining. Yes, we could have gone and requested a seat change, but we didn't want to make waves over something trivial, so we stayed there and actually became good friends with the people next to us, so that made it all good. I have no clue what we ate, but it was good. Unfortunately, we didn't like warm chocolate melting cake. DH and I had been looking forward to it and were quite disappointed in ourselves that we didn't like it. I felt like I had disappointed everyone on cruise critic because everybody loved it so much. It still makes me a little sad to think about it :)! Then, we went to the couples dancing class in the lounge. If you want to become famous quick, get up on stage and make fools of yourselves doing the samba. I didn't even think there were that many people in the lounge! For the rest of the week, people kept coming up to us and telling us how good we were. I think they need to have their eyesight checked! Then, I made more of a fool of myself playing game show trivia. I knew none of the answers. And, this is when I became obsessed with winning a ship on a stick. We watched the show and then joined the world tour. That was so much fun. It was nothing more than people following Hennie (assistant cruise director) around while yelling but boy was it fun. On our Princess cruise, if there was anything fun, it was DH, me, and, like, two other people. On Carnival, you did anything remotely fun and there were, like, a hundred people or more who joined. By this point, we were exhausted and couldn't wait for the next day! I will write more tomorrow!

This picture of me makes me laugh everytime. I don't know what happened!

DH and me at Sailaway

 

What car agency did you rent from? We were told that the agencies were closed on Sunday and you couldn't return the car. We go in February, looking forward to the rest of the review.

[04acruise]

Great review so far....keep it coming!

[lovebug33]

We rented from Hertz. That was a huge hoo-hah. They do let you return the car, but we had to jump through hoops galore! We called them on Saturday to let them know we would be late to pick up the car and the woman told DH we'd have to pay for two days, so our 110 dollar car would cost 220 dollars. I got on the phone and called Galveston, who informed us that we would only have to pay one day. I was really hoping not to have to make a scene when I got to Houston because I was really wiped out of energy. The rental car is a mess (wait until I get to what happened when we got off the boat!).

[candigirl41]

Can't wait for more.

 

Candi

[alwaysmomof1]

Can't wait to hear the rest! We are not on this ship, but love reading about others.

[Luanne21]

Oh this is good.:)

[lovebug33]

First Sea Day: Okay, like I said, DH and I became famous because of our antics last night and people kept coming up to us all day saying, "I saw you last night." So embarassing! Amazingly, I remind a huge amount of people of somebody they know. I think I am that crazy relative that nobody can decide if she's fun or needs to be committed to the mental institution. However, I did meet a lot of people that way, so that is good! I have to put a word in about the social staff here. Chicken, Sally, Alison, Hennie (ACD), and Jen, the cruise director, were all awesome. When I left, I made sure to thank them for making our trip great. Without them, we never would have had so much fun. Alison and Chicken knew my name and always made sure to ask how we were doing and if we were having fun. My quest for the elusive ship on a stick ended bad in the morning as we did bad at Morning Trivia and the Sudoku challenge. We did go to the travel and adventure talk, which was interesting.Then, we ate lunch. The buffet was insanely busy and we stayed away from it for the rest of the week. We watched the ice carving demo., which was neat. Then, I went to scrapbooking. You have to have pictures, so I spent the time picking pictures to print out, which did not get done until Wednesday, so I didn't get to scrapbook on Monday or Tuesday. HOwever, I got great ideas about what to do and got to know Alison and another scrapbooking passenger well, so it was worth it. We then tried the beatle drive, which is a drinking game without the drinking and trivia again. Lost our ship there, too. Then, we went to our roll call meet and greet. That was fun and it was nice to know people on the cruise. We even learned to play dominoes with one of the ladies and her family and hung out with them a couple of nights, which is nice when you are a family of 2. We then went back and got ready for formal night and took pictures at nearly every back drop. The pictures were so good, we bought like 20 of them over the whole trip. It was insane, but I have great memories. Dinner was good. I have no clue what we ate, but we liked it all except Tuesday night. Then, we went to the show. I agree that the lack of clothing was not necessary. My objection to the whole thing is they kept saying it was "Las Vegas Style." I am from Vegas. Shows are much more classy now. I do get tired of Las Vegas being bashed so much. The shows were good, though. DH and I then met up with our people from the meet and greet and off to bed we went!

Here are DH and I in our formal best!

[lovebug33]

Sea Day Number 2!: We spent much of the morning picking out pictures to buy. Oh, and scrapbooking supplies! They have AWESOME stuff. I got a great scrapbook and a Carnival Caribbean pack of stuff. It was relatively inexpensive: 25 bucks for the scrapbook and 12 bucks for the pack, which had a TON of stuff in it! We played bingo and we lost, which became a pattern for the week, but we did enjoy playing. The next thing we did was the digital scavenger hunt. OMG, that was fun. You got a list of stuff and ran around the ship trying to take pictures of it. We, of course, lost miserably but it was a highlight of our trip. Then, we ate some more (the fish and chips are all they are cracked up to be) and went to WATCH the deck games of doom. This is where our next uber embarassing moment came. Chicken knew my name, so he motioned me over to play for the white team (the white team suffered terribly from us being on it :( ). The first activity wasn't bad: just running around the deck with a ball on a spoon. But, then we had to pass fruit from mouth to mouth. Well, ours fell down, and in my quest to win, I went face down on the deck to get it. Oh, this got caught on tape. It wasn't so bad on the TV's in the rooms, but on the last day at the debarkation talk, my butt was put on the largest screen I have ever seen. My butt was literally a two story building wide. I blame Chicken for this embarassing moment and will never forgive him. We also had to make a towel animal and dress up a guy as a girl. Of course, we lost (that became a pattern!). I went to scrapbooking after this and visited. DH decided to sunbathe without a shirt or sunscreen on, which was a HUGE mistake. We watched the Marriage game show, which was hilarious, and then took a well-deserved nap. We then went to dinner. Here is my one rant about the dress code. They let a family in that every night except formal night the dad and son wore those man tank tops that show half of their side. It was so utterly disgusting. They should have been made to change. And, the maitre'd was in love with their little girl, so he knew how they dressed. It was just gross to look at while we ate. Okay, rant over. After dinner, we went to the show, which was a motown singer who was pretty good. Then, we went to the Mardi Gras Party Hop and Deck Party. OMG! That was the most fun we have had past 10:00 in years. I am going to have one more little rant, though. There was a little girl who was only SEVEN and was there by herself. She glommed onto DH and I and I freaked out when we lost her. Like DH said, that was not a kid party (although there were kids WITH parents, which was fine) and we were not her parents. I did worry about her until I saw her on Friday and know she wasn't kidnapped. But, anyway, back to the party. We loved the whole color thing and really got into going to the different parties and learning dances. It was a blast. The deck party was really fun too, except crowded, so we eventually had to watch from the sidelines. I am only 4'11 and I got knocked in the head twice and smashed in the face with Mardi Gras beads. DH was afraid I'd get trampled, so we bowed out due to safety concerns. We really wanted to see the Rocky Horror Picture show, but we were too tired. Good thing, since we were woken up way early with the docking procedures!

DH and I at the deck party

 

Casual Pictures We Took

[cruznchic]

Great review and LOVE the brown dress you have on in your formal pics!!

[Stircrzy]

Ya'll are too cute! Great review! LOVE your brown dress!

 

But I'm wondering about this from your first sea day section:

 

"The shows were good, though. DH and I then

met up with our people from the meet and greet and off to bed we went!

"

I really need to start going to those meet and greets....:p

[lovebug33]

We went to bed AFTER we played dominoes. It wasn't that kind of cruise! ;) Thanks for the compliments on the brown dress. I got that one, the white patterned one and the blue one you'll see later for 120 bucks at a great sale at Dillard's. It was very exciting!

[lovebug33]

Jamaica: The Good, the Bad, and the really Ugly

If the start to our day in Jamaica was an indication of how it was to end, we should have gotten right back on the ship and hid for the rest of the day. We wanted to go to Sunset Beach. Getting a taxi was darn near impossible. Nobody wanted to take us because they wanted us to go farther. So, after about 10 minutes of standing around, we got a taxi, which cost us 10 bucks with the tip. Sunset Beach started out great. We enjoyed the water park the best. The beach was only so-so and we couldn't take out any of the kayaks or paddle boats because it was windy and there was a current. So, we spent most of our day at the water park. The food here is okay, typical grill food (we didn't eat in the dining room because we didn't want to change). We got there at 10 and went to leave at 1:30. I had been wearing a water wallet and it had been attached to me five minutes before. We went to leave and this is where the bad and ugly parts come in. My water wallet was gone :eek: . I freaked out and told DH to stay with our stuff. I ran all around the pool and couldn't find it. In this thing was our credit card, fountain cards (don't ask why I had those with me), our driver's licenses, and 60 bucks in cash. So, I ran up to a resort worker and told her what happened and asked if she had seen it or where I should go. She looked at me and said, "Don't you see I am busy, mon? Go ask somebody else!" So, I found somebody else and she told me to go to the front desk. When I asked where it was, she didn't respond. So, I find the front desk and I see a woman with my water wallet. Huzzah, right? Half-way right. It has our cards in it, but no money! At this point, I'm relieved until the front desk lady says, "We're not giving you taxi money back to the ship." OMG! I didn't think about that. So, not knowing what to do, I run back to the pool to find DH and at this point have started crying uncontrollably because I am figuring we are stuck in Jamaica (no debit card, no phone, no cash). Apparently, the lady who had taken the wallet from the kids who had stolen it (we are starting to believe she found it, took the money, and fabricated the story about the resort kids who had it), was following me to point out the kids (she never did). I meet DH halfway and he is totally fine. He says we can walk back, no problem:eek: ! I couldn't imagine doing this. So, I'm still crying and I decided begging was not beneath me. I found some peope we had seen on the ship and, God bless them, they were able to give us 20 bucks to get back. What a relief! If the people in 2266 (I never got their names) are reading this, thank you. They were truly guardian angels. Anyway, DH decides that we need to file a report. I just want to go home. So, I am still crying and we go to the front desk. With the comments that were made over the entire hour we deal with them, it became obvious to us that this happens quite frequently at their establishment. So, we are ushered very rudely and quickly back to a room because I am still crying and I don't think they want us to be anywhere near guests. The security guard blames this on us, asking us why we didn't take the locker we were offered. Hello! Never offered a locker and later we found out that the locker was a room with shelves and no door. That would have been safe, huh? We never did file a report because I just wanted to leave and all they were doing was a good job of CTA. I'm not sure exactly what we wanted from Sunset Beach, but some compassion and possibly a cab ride back would have been nice. They didn't give a rat's rear about us and our predicament. So, they usher us off the property and basically boot us out because they didn't want anybody to know what had happened. Then, we got in a taxi and this is where the funny part happens. At this point, I have been crying for an hour, so my eyes are red. My hair was sticking up in ten different directions. I must have looked a sight. We get in the taxi and the guy asks, "What's wrong with her?" to which DH responds: nothing! The guy must have thought I was on drugs or something. He spent the whole trip looking at me in the rear view mirror. So, we get back to the terminal and he says we owe him whatever we paid to get there. I got confused, gave him 20 bucks and asked for 10 bucks in change. He kept looking at us for a while and I don't know if it was because he thought we were on drugs or we ripped him off or what. We finally got back on the ship and, after a shower, a talk with my mom, a nap and new clothes, I started to feel better. We were truly fortunate that we got all of our cards back and 60 bucks isn't terribly much, although DH hopes whoever stole it rots in he!!, which is unusual for him to say. We learned two really important things that day: 1) we will NEVER take a non-ship sponsored shore excursion again. Yes, we could have lost our money anywhere, but at least we would have had transportation back to the ship and 2)NEVER again will we use the Cruise Critic water wallet. It actually got thrown away. When we got it back, it had come apart (probably so it wouldn't strangle you). However, it never came close to strangling me and I think that's how I lost the wallet.

Anyway, after all that excitement, we did have a good evening (once I was able to stop crying, which took a couple of hours). We ate dinner, went to the show (the magic show was AWESOME!), took some more causal pics, went to Chicken Little's b-day party (where DH took part in some strange game that involved him buying a drink for a girl in the end, who I luckily figured out right before DH bought her an alcoholic beverage was not of age to drink alcohol), and saw the x-rated game show, which was hilarious. And, before this becomes a debate about how awful Jamaica is, we will go back to Jamaica at some point. I think this was more how awful Sunset Beach and its employees were. And, we did have a great time there until the incident.

Us at Sunset Beach in happier times

 

 

My absolutely favorite professional pic of DH and I

 

My absolutely favorite pro. pic of just me

[Stircrzy]

I am so sorry for your problems in Jamaica, but I love your review.

 

We're about the same size, so I'm gonna check out Dillards, too!

(where'd you get the purple top?!?)

[lovebug33]

The purple top is from JC Penney, but it's about a year old! I brought that as an emergency top, and I ended up wearing it a couple of times because I didn't want to get all dressed up for dinner.

[Getaway3]

You should be a writer (or maybe you are). Your review is so refreshing. We are looking at this cruise for next spring. I guess you liked the ship. Can't wait to read more, makes me want to call my travel agent TODAY!:eek:

[cjkumbaya]

Great review so far - looking forward to more!

[DMW/LAW]

I would just like to say that, so far, this is so refreshing for me to hear someone who did not let a problem ruin their entire vacation. There are those that will let something so minor ruin their trip and then go on and on about how they will never cruise again....blah, blah, blah.

 

I'll bet people naturally gravitate to you....you would be a blast to cruise with! Looking forward to more of the review!

[lovebug33]

Thank you for the compliments. I am actually a teacher, not a writer. And, people do gravitate to me for some reason. I try to have fun no matter what. I spent three weeks subbing in kindergarten so we could afford this cruise (I normally teach fifth grade). I told DH that no matter what happened, this was going to be the best cruise because kindergarten was he!!. The Jamaica incident, however, came close to ruining my trip. I told DH that I wanted to go home home and he told me if I did, I wouldn't win a ship on a stick and I'd miss the stingrays, and it wasn't worth it over 60 stupid bucks. I realized how stupid I was being when we were having such a wonderful time. And, we were both safe and we got back on the boat. So, things worked out. Although, I am still pretty angry when I think about it!

[lovebug33]

Anyway, on to Grand Cayman. Honestly, after what happened in Jamaica, this could have been the lousiest shore excursion ever and we wouldn't have cared because we were just happy to be safe. We did Stingrays and Rum Point through the ship. Of course, we were woken up WAY early with the dropping of the anchor, but today we were prepared and didn't scream like little girls! I read the tickets wrong and thought the tender ride was 45 minutes long. Imagine my shock when I got on the tender and could see the city. It was only a ten minute ride. Apparently, you are supposed to be on the tender 45 minutes early to guarantee getting there on time! Duh! Well, we went shopping since we got there an hour early. If you want Del Sol stuff, do not stop at the first one you see. There was nothing there and we didn't realize that there was another one. We found the second one after our excursion and it was wiped clean. Thank you Jesus that they had ONE pirate shirt in a kids small because I had promised my 5 yo nephew one and you can't disappoint your overly spoiled nephew!:D Getting to our excursion was quite hilarious. It was a little chaotic at the tender gathering area and people were pushing and shoving as we walked to the bus like they weren't going to get to go on the excursion. DH and I hung back so we wouldn't get trampled in case of a stampede. The bad part is that we were last on the bus and we had to sit in the jump seats of death in the very front of the bus! Oh, well. After a short bus ride, we got to the boat and we got on the boat no problem. There was quite a long boat ride, but the guy entertained us by explaining what was going to happen when we got to the rays. When we got to the rays, we joined the 500 other people there. It doesn't matter if you do Carnival or Captain Marvin or Nativeways, you will all be out there together. You can view this as a plus or minus. There were not enough rays for everybody, so there were no swarming of rays around us, which for us was a plus. Others, it may be a minus. While I enjoyed the rays, the squealing of others was the highlight! Our boat guy had enough squid to feed half of the western hemisphere and was insistent we each get the experience. DH kept dropping the squid on the ground so that he wouldn't have to feed them! I fed the ray, and then it decided that my fingers were squid and sucked them into his mouth. That was an interesting feeling until I pulled them out. I got a stingray hickey on my fingers from the experience! We got to splash around for about a half an hour. Just a suggestion: if you don't make it to 5 feet tall, don't go in with your glasses on. My neck hurt from keeping my head above water so I wouldn't get my glasses wet. I would rather have just been blind. I got a stingray back massage, which was weird and a highlight. After the rays, we went to Rum Point. This was a little disappointing. DH and I had had enough water, so we planned on changing, getting some food, and enjoying the beach. Well, because there were three Nativeways tours coming, there were no seats on the beach and it took us an hour to get our food. So, there wasn't much beach watching. Oh, well. Then, it was back on the boat, where it poured rain (I missed that because I fell asleep, and fell off the bench when a wave hit us. Ouch!). We then got back on the bus and got to the pier at 1:50. So, we had about 45 minutes to shop. Since we got nothing in Jamaica due to the incident, we power shopped. My favorite addition is Sturgis, our stuffed ray. He's rather adorable. Then, we got in the mile long line, got on the tender, showered fast, and took a million and one pictures before dinner. After dinner, we went to Point and Click. It made no sense and we asked Cruise Director Jen about that. Apparently, their screens were not working and thus we didn't get the narration that would have made the show make sense. We still enjoyed it, though. Then, I joined ladies night. That was fun. A bunch of us just ran around the ship, sang some karaoke, took some pictures, etc. Then, DH and I went to the R rated marriage show, which was funny. Then, it was back to sleep because we knew we'd be woken up early.

I don't have any pics of the rays because we had a water camera, but here are some more formal pics of DH and I