Conquest 3-15-09 Sailing Review

[teencruiser09]

Just back from Conquest 3-15-09 sailing! We had a great time! Will try to remember everything for this review.

Embarkation- Very easy. We arrived at pier around 11:30am and were on the boat by 12:00. We were told rooms would not be ready until 1:30pm so we headed up to the Lido for lunch. There were over 3000 people on our cruise, so it became very crowded. After eating, it was time to head down to the rooms.

Parking- We used EZ Cruise parking for first time and were very pleased. They shuttled us with all of our luggage to the pier. No problem.

Stateroom- We had an inside stateroom on Deck 2 midship. First time to ever stay in an interior cabin. We are used to having an outside room, so we had to adjust to not having a window! I would not recommend an inside cabin if you have ever stayed in an outside or balcony. We never knew what time of day it was because it was always dark. I guess that is a good thing, though, if you want to take an afternoon nap.

Fountain Cards- We bought 2 adults and 2 child. The age limit on the child is 17 or under. The adults cost $38.00 and the child cost $28.00. We are heavy soda drinkers so we used up the value of the cards very quickly and feel the cards were a good investment. The only downside to this was that bartenders were hesitant to serve you a drink if they saw you had a soda card. A regular soda cost $1.95.

Renoir Dining Room- Our seating was the Main seating at 6:00pm. We had tables 187 and 195. They were right next to each other. Adults had one table and kids had the other. Our head waiter was Gideon and his assistant was Agus. Both were very polite and entertained the children. The service was excellent and it never took a long time to receive our food as it has been in the past. The food was also the best in the dining room at dinner. The menus had alot of variety, but not many appealing desserts. Most of us had the melting cake every night. The melting cake was the best dessert of the entire cruise. I don't know if this is new or not, but every night at dinner they played dance music like the Cha Cha Slide and the waiters made people get up and dance with them. It was very enjoyable and fun to watch. We have never done anything like this at dinner on the other cruise lines. On the first and last nights the waiters also sang. Our Maitre'd was Jamal. He was the first Maitre'd that we recal that ever visited the tables every night.

Lido Restaurant- We were not very impressed by the selection of food in the Cezanne Restaurant. The best buffet we have ever experienced has been on Holland America and they set the standard high.

Breakfast- Every morning they had the choice of omelet, toast, or french toast/pancakes. (Every other day they had pancakes and on the opposite days they had french toast) The sides for every day was grits, oatmeal, bacon, ham, eggs, and potatoes. There was also a small selection of fruits available.

Lunch-In the Cezanne they had around 5-6 different dishes along with a deli, PC Wok, and Sur Mer. PC Wok had excellent oriental food and Sur Mer had some great seafood dishes. We wish the deli had the option to make your own sandwich. Instead there was a standard menu that you had to order from. We mostly ate pizza and at the pool grill. However, the lines to order pizza and burgers/hotdogs were horrible. The pizza line was at least 20 people long at lunch time. This could have been attributed to this being a spring break cruise, but at any time there was only one person working the counter. While the pizza was excellent, we felt bad to ask for anything other than cheese or pepperoni because the poor guy was so busy. (Also we found out that the pizza is NOT 24 hrs! We tried to get pizza around 8-9am just for the heck of it and they said they were closed!)

Dinner- Since we ate every night at the dining room we never used the Cezanne for dinner. We did walk through there a few times though and noticed that it consisted of some of the items on the menu from the dining room. They also had extra melting cake in case you needed more!

Pool Areas- We liked the set-up of the main pool area and how there are different levels for the deck chairs. We only wished that the pool was a little warmer!

Seaside Theater- We know there have been mixed reviews, but we loved the big screen! We never saw CNN on, so Carnival must have gotten the message. There was mostly just pictures of a beach or a river or something of that sort while various music played. While there was not a live band, they sometimes showed music videos of mostly Disney artists. (??) They also had the Conquest morning show on around 9am and movies were shown during the evening.

Production Shows- They had some great dancers, but others were way off during scenes. Their best dancer was Stacy. She was enjoyable to watch and she had many solo parts. The overall shows were confusing to adults and children. There was no real storyline to either shows. One was about an Internet dating couple and the one was about France and Gay Paris. (There were scenes where the male dancers were prancing around in thongs and dresses slapping each other with play whips! no joke!)

Variety Shows- while the main shows were a flop, we loved Madame Helevi- the magician! It was the best magic show we have ever been to! She was an excellent performer. There was also two comedians. One was from the TV channel CMT and he was pretty funny. The other was from Vegas and he was OK. There was also a woman who sang one night. She had a beautiful voice but the show was just boring and many people just kept getting up and leaving. They should of had some of the dancers behind her dancing while she was singing. There was also a great juggler one night who was amazing. I think his name was Manuel Zuniga? Overall the variety shows were much more enjoyable than others from our previous cruises.

Ship- overall the Conquest is a beautiful ship with a confusing layout at first. You have to take a few days to get used to where everything is. There is also many places that are tucked away and hard to find, unless you are looking for it, you don't notice these.

Debarkation- We opted for the self-disembarkation. This was the easiest disembark we have ever experienced! We were off the ship and on the road by 7:40am. They hadn't even began to call zones yet. We would probably still be waiting now if we had waited. We were originally Zone 25 out of 35.

Various things- This was the last cruise for Cruise Director Kyle Post. He said that his contract is up and he is taking a few months off before pursuing a new contract. We loved the Deck Party. It started off slow at first but we ending up having a blast! There was also a Mexican themed buffet on this night. This was nothing special and the food was not that great! There was also a Chocolate Buffet on Saturday afternoon. This was also not that great. There just seemed to be no flavor or taste to the chocolate.

Shore Excursions- Our ports of call were Key West, Freeport, and Nassau:

Key West,FL: We did not take a Carnival excursion for this port, because we really did need to! We were in port on St. Patrick's day so there were lots of crowds on Duval Street. We all took a taxi ride from the dock to Fort Taylor beach. It is not a very far walk- about 20min.- we just had a small child in our group. This is a state park and also the nicest beach in Key West. There was a small entrance fee to get in- $1.50- but well worth it. We spent about an hour there, and then our group split up. Half went on the Big 3 excursion. My half decided to walk to the Southernmost point, South Beach, then to Duval Street. We walked through a few shops before going back to the boat to change and eat lunch. We then went back and went to Margaritaville, Sloppy Joe's, Fat Tuesday's, and lots of little souvenir shops. This is such an awesome port and I wish we could have stayed longer!

Freeport, Bahamas: We booked the Freeport snorkel tour. We are experienced snorkelers and snorkel basically everywhere we go. We love seeing new types of reefs and fish in different snorkel. It was drizzling when we arrived, but they did not cancel the excursion. After we got to the reef, the waves were 6-8ft and it was raining harder. There were also many people who had gotten sick from the boat being tossed around. There were other boats with snorkelers in the water so some in our group tried to brave the seas. After 10 minutes they were back in the boat, saying they were afraid for their lives. We only spent about 20 minutes at the reef. Most of the time was spent trying to get people back to the boat because the current and waves were very strong. The boat captain also took a slow ride back. I am guessing this was because he did not want to get in trouble with Carnival, or arrive too early so that they would have to give money back. By the time our boat docked, there was a full blown storm going on outside and the boat captain basically told us to get out of the boat and start running to the buses. It was very disorganized and there was a rush of people trying to get on to the bus. Many had to wait for more buses to come. I know the weather was bad, but I would not recommend this excursion. It was not very organized and many said that there was not much to see while snorkeling. Overall, Freeport is more of an industrial port and of you do not book an excursion with Carnival, don't bother getting off the boat. You are docked in a rural part and the only way out is pretty much by a tour bus.

Nassau, Bahamas: We did the Atlantis Beach Day. This was a great tour, for the price. It was $89 per person and allowed us access to everything but the water park. It also included lunch. With the time that you are allowed to spend there, you do not really have time to do the water park anyway due to the lines. Unless you want to spend all your time at the water park, I would recommend this tour. We had plenty of time to spend time on the beach, tour the aquariums, and eat. We also had some time after returning to the pier to walk through some of the shops and buy t-shirts. Overall this was a great port!

Overall- this was a great cruise. It was not the best we have ever been on, but it was not the worst either! :)

-- If you have any questions feel free to ask!:D

[kwbound]

Thanks for posting. Sounds like you had a great time. Did you happen to hear who would be taking over Kyle's job?

[teencruiser09]

They did not announce who would be taking over, but my best guess would be Marcelo- the assistant cruise director- at least for the time being. By the end of the cruise he held most of the activities and responsibilities that the cruise director would traditionally do.

[pearlandmom]

http://johnheald.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/schedule-january-may-2009-cd-schedule.jpg

 

Looks like the new cruise director will be someone named Chris Jefferson.

[*Mach*]

http://johnheald.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/schedule-january-may-2009-cd-schedule.jpg

 

Looks like the new cruise director will be someone named Chris Jefferson.

 

 

Yep... it is, indeed, Chris Jefferson. He seems like a great guy. I've had occasion to chat with him several times recently.

He's outgoing, friendly and has a quick wit... pretty much the correct recipe for a good cruise director!!

:)

[nybumpkin]

Chris Jefferson was the CD on the Valor most recently - we sailed with him last year and he's very good. I hope he'll still be on Conquest when we sail next year!

[sydney dog]

Was mongolian grille open? Did it look like it was just not finished yet or that they are not going to put one in?

[teencruiser09]

There was no Mongolian Grill open. It did not look like they had made plans to create one either. There were grill areas on both sides of the main pool. One had burgers, hotdogs, nachos, ect. The other side was only used at breakfast for people who wanted to eat outside. If they make a Mongolian Grill they will probably put it in that area.

[lynneinmn]

Thanks for the review, we will be leaving in two weeks, cannot wait. Did you have a balcony cabin----what floor and how was it? It is our first balcony and my husband keeps telling me---do not be excited because the balcony is very small but I cannot wait

[Shorty1007]

How were the water temps?? The pools on the ship, at Atlantis (we are going to a different hotel, but figure the water temp would be about the same), and the ocean in the Bahamas. We are leaving next Sunday, doing the same route you did. Did it get cool on the decks at night?

[JNCRUISEBUMS]

Just back from Conquest 3-15-09 sailing! We had a great time! Will try to remember everything for this review.

Embarkation- Very easy. We arrived at pier around 11:30am and were on the boat by 12:00. We were told rooms would not be ready until 1:30pm so we headed up to the Lido for lunch. There were over 3000 people on our cruise, so it became very crowded. After eating, it was time to head down to the rooms.

Parking- We used EZ Cruise parking for first time and were very pleased. They shuttled us with all of our luggage to the pier. No problem.

Stateroom- We had an inside stateroom on Deck 2 midship. First time to ever stay in an interior cabin. We are used to having an outside room, so we had to adjust to not having a window! I would not recommend an inside cabin if you have ever stayed in an outside or balcony. We never knew what time of day it was because it was always dark. I guess that is a good thing, though, if you want to take an afternoon nap.

Fountain Cards- We bought 2 adults and 2 child. The age limit on the child is 17 or under. The adults cost $38.00 and the child cost $28.00. We are heavy soda drinkers so we used up the value of the cards very quickly and feel the cards were a good investment. The only downside to this was that bartenders were hesitant to serve you a drink if they saw you had a soda card. A regular soda cost $1.95.

Renoir Dining Room- Our seating was the Main seating at 6:00pm. We had tables 187 and 195. They were right next to each other. Adults had one table and kids had the other. Our head waiter was Gideon and his assistant was Agus. Both were very polite and entertained the children. The service was excellent and it never took a long time to receive our food as it has been in the past. The food was also the best in the dining room at dinner. The menus had alot of variety, but not many appealing desserts. Most of us had the melting cake every night. The melting cake was the best dessert of the entire cruise. I don't know if this is new or not, but every night at dinner they played dance music like the Cha Cha Slide and the waiters made people get up and dance with them. It was very enjoyable and fun to watch. We have never done anything like this at dinner on the other cruise lines. On the first and last nights the waiters also sang. Our Maitre'd was Jamal. He was the first Maitre'd that we recal that ever visited the tables every night.

Lido Restaurant- We were not very impressed by the selection of food in the Cezanne Restaurant. The best buffet we have ever experienced has been on Holland America and they set the standard high.

Breakfast- Every morning they had the choice of omelet, toast, or french toast/pancakes. (Every other day they had pancakes and on the opposite days they had french toast) The sides for every day was grits, oatmeal, bacon, ham, eggs, and potatoes. There was also a small selection of fruits available.

Lunch-In the Cezanne they had around 5-6 different dishes along with a deli, PC Wok, and Sur Mer. PC Wok had excellent oriental food and Sur Mer had some great seafood dishes. We wish the deli had the option to make your own sandwich. Instead there was a standard menu that you had to order from. We mostly ate pizza and at the pool grill. However, the lines to order pizza and burgers/hotdogs were horrible. The pizza line was at least 20 people long at lunch time. This could have been attributed to this being a spring break cruise, but at any time there was only one person working the counter. While the pizza was excellent, we felt bad to ask for anything other than cheese or pepperoni because the poor guy was so busy. (Also we found out that the pizza is NOT 24 hrs! We tried to get pizza around 8-9am just for the heck of it and they said they were closed!)

Dinner- Since we ate every night at the dining room we never used the Cezanne for dinner. We did walk through there a few times though and noticed that it consisted of some of the items on the menu from the dining room. They also had extra melting cake in case you needed more!

Pool Areas- We liked the set-up of the main pool area and how there are different levels for the deck chairs. We only wished that the pool was a little warmer!

Seaside Theater- We know there have been mixed reviews, but we loved the big screen! We never saw CNN on, so Carnival must have gotten the message. There was mostly just pictures of a beach or a river or something of that sort while various music played. While there was not a live band, they sometimes showed music videos of mostly Disney artists. (??) They also had the Conquest morning show on around 9am and movies were shown during the evening.

Production Shows- They had some great dancers, but others were way off during scenes. Their best dancer was Stacy. She was enjoyable to watch and she had many solo parts. The overall shows were confusing to adults and children. There was no real storyline to either shows. One was about an Internet dating couple and the one was about France and Gay Paris. (There were scenes where the male dancers were prancing around in thongs and dresses slapping each other with play whips! no joke!)

Variety Shows- while the main shows were a flop, we loved Madame Helevi- the magician! It was the best magic show we have ever been to! She was an excellent performer. There was also two comedians. One was from the TV channel CMT and he was pretty funny. The other was from Vegas and he was OK. There was also a woman who sang one night. She had a beautiful voice but the show was just boring and many people just kept getting up and leaving. They should of had some of the dancers behind her dancing while she was singing. There was also a great juggler one night who was amazing. I think his name was Manuel Zuniga? Overall the variety shows were much more enjoyable than others from our previous cruises.

Ship- overall the Conquest is a beautiful ship with a confusing layout at first. You have to take a few days to get used to where everything is. There is also many places that are tucked away and hard to find, unless you are looking for it, you don't notice these.

Debarkation- We opted for the self-disembarkation. This was the easiest disembark we have ever experienced! We were off the ship and on the road by 7:40am. They hadn't even began to call zones yet. We would probably still be waiting now if we had waited. We were originally Zone 25 out of 35.

Various things- This was the last cruise for Cruise Director Kyle Post. He said that his contract is up and he is taking a few months off before pursuing a new contract. We loved the Deck Party. It started off slow at first but we ending up having a blast! There was also a Mexican themed buffet on this night. This was nothing special and the food was not that great! There was also a Chocolate Buffet on Saturday afternoon. This was also not that great. There just seemed to be no flavor or taste to the chocolate.

Shore Excursions- Our ports of call were Key West, Freeport, and Nassau:

Key West,FL: We did not take a Carnival excursion for this port, because we really did need to! We were in port on St. Patrick's day so there were lots of crowds on Duval Street. We all took a taxi ride from the dock to Fort Taylor beach. It is not a very far walk- about 20min.- we just had a small child in our group. This is a state park and also the nicest beach in Key West. There was a small entrance fee to get in- $1.50- but well worth it. We spent about an hour there, and then our group split up. Half went on the Big 3 excursion. My half decided to walk to the Southernmost point, South Beach, then to Duval Street. We walked through a few shops before going back to the boat to change and eat lunch. We then went back and went to Margaritaville, Sloppy Joe's, Fat Tuesday's, and lots of little souvenir shops. This is such an awesome port and I wish we could have stayed longer!

Freeport, Bahamas: We booked the Freeport snorkel tour. We are experienced snorkelers and snorkel basically everywhere we go. We love seeing new types of reefs and fish in different snorkel. It was drizzling when we arrived, but they did not cancel the excursion. After we got to the reef, the waves were 6-8ft and it was raining harder. There were also many people who had gotten sick from the boat being tossed around. There were other boats with snorkelers in the water so some in our group tried to brave the seas. After 10 minutes they were back in the boat, saying they were afraid for their lives. We only spent about 20 minutes at the reef. Most of the time was spent trying to get people back to the boat because the current and waves were very strong. The boat captain also took a slow ride back. I am guessing this was because he did not want to get in trouble with Carnival, or arrive too early so that they would have to give money back. By the time our boat docked, there was a full blown storm going on outside and the boat captain basically told us to get out of the boat and start running to the buses. It was very disorganized and there was a rush of people trying to get on to the bus. Many had to wait for more buses to come. I know the weather was bad, but I would not recommend this excursion. It was not very organized and many said that there was not much to see while snorkeling. Overall, Freeport is more of an industrial port and of you do not book an excursion with Carnival, don't bother getting off the boat. You are docked in a rural part and the only way out is pretty much by a tour bus.

Nassau, Bahamas: We did the Atlantis Beach Day. This was a great tour, for the price. It was $89 per person and allowed us access to everything but the water park. It also included lunch. With the time that you are allowed to spend there, you do not really have time to do the water park anyway due to the lines. Unless you want to spend all your time at the water park, I would recommend this tour. We had plenty of time to spend time on the beach, tour the aquariums, and eat. We also had some time after returning to the pier to walk through some of the shops and buy t-shirts. Overall this was a great port!

Overall- this was a great cruise. It was not the best we have ever been on, but it was not the worst either! :)

-- If you have any questions feel free to ask!:D

What time did you get to go to Atlantis? Thanks! nancie

[teencruiser09]

The water temps were quite chilly! We are from Texas and are used to 80+ degree water temps. The pools on the ships varied from 70-73 degrees depending on which pool you were in. The adults pool was around 72 while the main pool was usually around 70 degrees. The water temperatures at Atlantis and in the Bahamas were around 75 degrees. I think it seemed really cold at the initial touch, but if you just go in head first, the water seemed much warmer!

 

Our tour for Atlantis was supposed to begin at 9:15, but we did not arrive at the resort until 10:00. They then take you on a tour, so you do not actually arrive at the beach until about 10:45am. They have buses that take you back every 30 minutes starting at 1:00pm. The ship leaves at 5:00 so you have to be back on board by 4:30pm. The last complimentary shuttle leaves at 4:00pm.

[teencruiser09]

At night the decks were cool, not from air temperatures, but from the wind. This was probably because the whole cruise we were trying to outrun a cold front! We did not take jackets, though, and we were fine. If you get cold easily, the most I would bring would be a sweater. No need for a heavy jacket. :)

[american classic72]

I'm would like to try and save myself the expense of booking through the cruise ship on the excursions. At the ports, do they have private companies waiting for people like me who at the last minute book through them?

[drivemecrazy]

We were on the same cruise! Unlike you we were unable to get to EZ cruise parking until 12:15 and it was a nightmare. They had just two or three shuttles and two cruise lines to deliver to. We waited an hour, in the rain before half of our group got picked up and then waited 30 more min. before the next shuttle came. But I kept a positive attitude even as the driver tried to deliver us to the wrong ship! After a really wild ride he got us to the right place. But still a positive attitude. And then there was the trainee at the "fun" pass desk. As I watched the terminal building empty as the trainee was walked through the entire process. There were six of us and one by one each came up and looked over my shoulder and wondered what I was laughing about. Positive attitude. This was our 3rd cruise and 2nd on Conquest and my family just loves it and the crew who are so friendly. I was not as thrilled with the Key West - Bahamas thing as I was with the Jamacia - Grand Cayman route. But with my positve attitude it was still great, even playing golf in hurricane conditions in Freeport. The food was everything you would expect. Dining room, delicious. Buffet, well, was a buffet. The only bad thing in the dining room was breakfast on Saturday. I had a Belgium waffle earlier in the week and it was great so I ordered it again and they brought me.......wait for it......an eggo! But with my positve attitude I was able to laugh about it. All in all it was just a great trip with a lot of memorable moments. Fun Fun Fun!

[drivemecrazy]

I'm would like to try and save myself the expense of booking through the cruise ship on the excursions. At the ports, do they have private companies waiting for people like me who at the last minute book through them?

 

I played golf in Freeport through the excursions online but my family just took a taxi and went to the beach by the Sheraton and said it was a great beach and you could do all kinds of water activities except it started raining and they couldn't do any. We did Black Beard's Treasure Hunt snorkel in Nassau. The facilities were okay and the beach was okay but if you want to just look at seaweed and sand then that's the trip for you. We had about an hour of nice weather and then the monsoon came and we froze to death going back to the ship. I think if you really want to see something when you snorkel you need to get out on the water. There were people that would take you you anywhere and unlike Jamacia I think it would be safe also. On Grand Cayman we booked our stingray tour online and saved $. I know you can find most anything once you get off the ship.