Carnival Glory Review 3/28/09

[boocicle]

We just got back from our 7 day cruise on the Glory. I wanted to make sure and post a review this time because of all the time I have spent on here without contributing.

 

This was our 4th cruise but our first on CCL. We have been on the Sun and the Sky with NCL. We also have been on the Navigator of the Sea with RCCL. This is the first time we have been on a cruise with our daughter (she is 2).

 

So I will try and remember everything I can and post each day one by one. I wish I would have made notes about everything but of course when you are on vacation you don't think about these things.

 

Pre Cruise and Embarkation:

 

We live in Richmond, VA and we booked late so we decided to drive. We left on Friday afternoon and got into Jacksonville FL late Friday night. The trip took about 10 hours because of weather and traffic. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Airport in Jacksonville. We booked through Priceline and got a rate of $55 including taxes and fees. The room was perfect for what we needed and that was a place to sleep. I will not waste your time writing about the hotel. The drive down from Jax was nice. It took about 2.5 hrs to get to the port. Getting to the port was very easy and easy to find. It was cool crossing the bridge and seeing this huge ship rising up on the horizon. We pulled into the port loading area around 11am. There were several people already there and the lines seemed about normal with what we had seen in the past. We waited maybe 5-10 mins in line to pull our car into place to unload. Our porter helped us unload our bags and asked for our stateroom info and took our bags. We went to the parking deck and parked the car. Parking cost $105 bucks and we had no issues finding a spot.

 

We headed back to the cruise port and got in line. We took two backpacks with our usual stuff in them and our stroller. We had went back and forth on whether to take the stroller or not all week. Actually we went back and forth on the issue as late as pulling it out of the back to the car. So, we got in line and got ready for a wait. A nice lady walked up to us and directed us to the VIP check in. We walked up to the much shorter line and the Attendent asked if we were VIPs. We explained that we were told to come to this line and she said that was because we had a stroller. So I guess it worked out in our advatage this time. We were able to go through much faster and we were taken to the upper level to check in. At this point we may have been in line 5 mins. Everyone was really friendly and professional. After checking in we were taken to the gangway.

 

I will say that it was kinda confusing if not for the nice attendents showing us the way the entire time. Our Sign and Sail cards misprinted and only showed the top part of our name making hard to tell what was printed on the card. The security people encouraged us to go back and get them reprinted, but at this point we were almost on the ship. We elected to not bother and boarded the ship. We should have because it caused several issues later but everyone dealt with it really well and we never had any major problems. We got on board about 1145am. We were welcomed by the CCL staff. The paper we were given said to go to the Lido deck and wait until 1:30pm to go to our room. So we went up and started checking out the ship. We finally decided to head to our room ahead of the 1:30pm time and the room was made up and ready for us. We dropped off our bags and stroller got our swimsuits (our daughter calls her's, her "diving suit". She isn't really doing a lot of diving these days).

 

We went to the Lido deck and had lunch at the Red Sail. The food was really good for buffet food and the views from the table were just what we needed. One of the Disney ships was in port. Like with anything Disney it looked really elegant and traditional. I was actually glad to be on the Glory. We finished lunch and went to the room around 1:30pm to find some of our bags outside. This was much earlier than past cruises. So we started to unpack our bags. The rest would show up within the next 30-45 mins.

 

I think I will stop for the night and pick up the rest of the day later. I hope this will help someone and that you guys enjoy reading.

[LindaJSteele]

My husband, daughter, and stepmom were on this same cruise. I am interested to see what you think. Perhaps after that I will put in my 2 cents.

[kcep02]

I can't wait to hear more......

[Lady_Jag]

Woo hoo! I can't wait! I'll be on the Glory in one month. Looking forward to reading more.

[LindaJSteele]

Hey, Lady Jag! Do you live in Jacksonville? I am a Jags season ticket holder and a member of the Champions Club.

[Lady_Jag]

Hey, Lady Jag! Do you live in Jacksonville? I am a Jags season ticket holder and a member of the Champions Club.

 

Hey, Linda! We had season tickets for 10 years (nose bleed section), then DD came along, and the price of each seat on our account increased by 300% :eek:, so we decided to replace our Jags season passes with Disney ones.

 

The people who say having a baby changes everything are right. LOL! Our cruise next month will be our first one in 5 years!

[Dem&Mag]

Me and the DW were on this cruise as well, I am going to start on my review later today but the trip was fantastic from our POV.

 

Sam

[WAcruisers]

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

[tandtmk04]

Will be on the GLORY in September.... hope you write more!:)

[tammi0916]

We will be there the 4th of July so I too am waiting for more.....

[boocicle]

Sorry, I haven't been able to finish the first day. I hope that I am not making this too long. I will try and be brief.

 

So we played in the pools and hot tub for a few minutes. The pool water was very cold and we did not stay in the pool very long. We got into the hot tub and it was better. It was like bath water which was perfect for my daughter and me for that matter. I will say that I was disappointed by the pools on the Glory. I liked the adult only pool on the Navigator and NCL had two pools in the center with 4 hot tubs. Not that big of a deal but on days at sea it was tough to avoid the kids (a lot of spring break kids). It was pointless to try and get into the hot tubs because they were overrun with children jumping and playing. We did get in a few times but got out pretty soon. Later we realized that the back two hot tubs were for adults only. The CCL staff did remove any children from the adult only hot tubs.

 

Finally 4:30 came and it was time for the muster drill. We went to our station and most of the people were there already. Cavrnival had a much more laid back attitude about the muster drill. On past cruises we where check off by name and cabin number. The drill did not end until all passagers where accounted for. They just kinda went through the motions until the "all clear was given". They also told us that our daughter didn't need to put her lifejacket on if she didn't want to. She didn't want to and to be honest neither did I but hey you got to do what you got to do. I can't say that I minded their laid back attitude LOL.

 

We got cleaned up and finished unpacking until our dinner time. Dinner for us was the late seating in the Golden Dining room. We decided to get our daughter some food before dinner because she eats at 6pm not 8:15pm. We dressed casually for the first night and heading for our table. We were seated with a Man and his 2 teenage children. Also at our table was a mother and daughter that was a teenager. That would be the only night we would see them. The other family was there only a couple of times. So we sat at our table just the 3 of us most night.

 

Golden Dining Room:

 

I will say that the food was better than other cruises in the dinning room. I would also say the service as also very good. Igusti (sp?) and Antoinio were our servers. They were both very good to us and our daughter. Igusti was very nice and always had something for our daughter. He would make neat little napkin animals and she just loved it. If we ever asked for anything he would provide.

 

We were seated on the 4th floor and it was OK. I would have preferred being seated on the 3rd floor. It seemed more grand and elegant than the 4th floor. I thought the Chocolate Melting Cake was really good. I had it most nights because it was one of the few things on the desert menu. Don't make the mistake of ordering from the Diet menu. That stuff was awful. Especially the Pumpkin pie. I had one bite and asked for the Melting Cake.

 

We enjoyed every meal in the Dining Room. Like I said the service was really good and I finished almost every plate. We didn't care for the main dining room on either NCL ship and the food was good on the Navigator I think the Glory was just a little better.

 

I said that I would keep it brief but that hasn't happened. I will pick it up later. Hopefully this is helpful.

[cruisinsly]

Great so far, cant wait for the rest!!

[tammi0916]

don't be brief! I want the details!!!:cool:

[Lady_Jag]

Great review! I am eating it up like melting cake! ;)

[bluehenfan]

I will be on the Glory in late Sept. so I am really enjoying your review. Pls. don't skip anything!

[firefly4423]

Thanks for the review! :)

[boocicle]

I will post pictures when I get them downloaded to the computer and put them in the thread.

 

One thing I wanted to add and see if anyone else has an opionion was how they welcomed you on the ship. On NCL they had people waiting for you when you boarded to take you to your stateroom and answer any questions. To be honest I cannot remember on RCCL if they do this or not. I thought this was a really nice touch and I was kinda lost at first trying to figure out what to do. I think most would say that this is not a reason to cruise on one ship vs. the other but it would have been nice.

 

Now back to the day. I left out the fact that we went to the Camp Carnival orientation. They did this around 6:15 or so. It was held in one of the lounges but I don't remember which one. There you signed up your child and they introduced staff, went over rules and told parents what to expect. I happened to notice the breakdown on the number of children on the cruise and it was close to 1000. Not sure if that is a lot but it seemed that way. Our daughter was in the 2-5 yr old group. I think they had 90+.

 

To be honest I can not remember what we did the first night but I know we kept our daughter up way too late that night. I will post a pic of the towel animal and you guys can tell me what it is. My wife and I both tried to figure it out. We finally got to bed around 11:30pm and missed most of the activities the first night. This would be a theme throughout the cruise. That is what happens when you take your children. It stops being about you. The bed was comfortable but our daughter would not sleep on the pull down bed. The bed pulls down from the ceiling and is comfortable enough. It hangs over the lower king bed and makes it hard to move on that side of the bed. You probably have about 4- 4.5' clearence below the pull down bed. Our room could accomadate 4 with two pull down beds. We just had to tell our room steward what we needed.

 

This reminds me, I thought our room stewards did a good job. The room was always made up nicely and early enough each day and night. However, one of the guys was not all that friendly. No one ever said hello unless you said Hi first. They would stand facing away doing their thing and if you didn't say anything they would just continue what they were doing. Which is fine, they are very busy and they are not a Wal-Mart greeter. I only found this odd because past cruises they were crazy friendly. I did ask for ice in our cooler a few times and wine glasses and they took care of any need we had. I guess that is the bottom line so no complaints.

 

I left out the fact that we took one suitcase with bottle water, ginger ale, two bottles of wine and a couple of mini bottles of Maker's Mark on board and it made it fine. I would suggest taking some water bottles for convience and maybe a few sodas. I noticed another CC member post a pic of his liquor stash and it was impressive. Might have been 20 liters of various bottles. We didn't want to try something like that, mainly because I didn't need to drink that much and I would hate to ruin it for others. I applaude them for being able to get away with it but really does anyone need that much liquor in 7 days? LOL The mini fridge has sodas, beer, and a few mini bottles of liquor. They are replaced each day and the prices seemed to be in line with what you would find at the bars and lounges. I think I noticed that you would be charged a 15% re-stocking fee (they get you with the gratuity or re-stocking fee either way).

 

Well, first day down...Nassau next!

[Lady_Jag]

Keep it coming! I can't wait to see what happens next!

[boocicle]

Some quick thoughts.

 

Our room was right under the stage area of the theatre. Each night during the show it was very loud. The "Thump-Thump" of the speakers was tough to take. Make sure you are in the theatre watching the show and not trying to sleep if you book this room. Only really effected us a couple of nights.

 

The other is, deck 2 smelled like someone took a "#2" in the hallway all week. When they would open the doors to the galley the smell was nasty. I didn't really notice this in the room but did anyone else notice this smell on their floors?

 

Others wrote about having issues getting around the ship. Being in the front of the boat and near the elevators we never really had any issues finding our way. The elevators are slow and at times tough to get, but we were on vacation so we really had no where to go. I think the people that dine in the Platinum Room may have a harder time finding their way than those in the Golden because of the design of the ship. Any thoughts from those that dined in the Platinum?

[spanisheyes]

Which cabin were you in. My group are all on Main deck at the front, starting to worry now about the noise and the smell.

[LindaJSteele]

A couple of thoughts -

 

My DH and I were on Deck 7, but our other party was on Deck 2 - no smell, no noise, no anything for them - very pleasant. Maybe they were on a different part of the deck - they were aft.

 

We dined in the Platinum on the second level. I love that dining room and had NO problems finding it; it was very easy. Go to the back of the ship on deck 5 and walk down; it's right there.

 

I disagree on the diet desserts. I had a few of them (not the pumpkin pie, though), and they were excellent!

[grhawki]

When i was on the Glory a couple years ago they had staff stationed at the elevators for the first couple of days to direct passengers how to get around. Did they not have the staff there on this cruise? Greg

[The Engineer]

I was on this cruise as well and I must say the elevators were a bit quirky on this cruise, at least the ones in the front. My family and I would stand there on deck 4 after dinner waiting for an "up" elevator, and most of the time the elevators passed right by our floor and didn't stop. We finally decided to take a "down" elevator and then ride down one floor just so we could ride up to our cabin on deck 10! This never got fixed even though I heard people say that maintenance people were looking into it. Weird.

 

We were in 1065 and had the horrible smells in the hallway and out of our bathroom too, and I didn't cause them I swear!!! :D At one point they opened up the glass doors out to the Lido deck (literally 15 feet from our cabin door) to air it out. Maybe there's some sort of pumping station in the front of the ship? Who knows!

 

These were the only "quirks" I had on the ship, everything else was an absolute blast! Keep going on the review boocicle!

[jdbmga]

Great review! I am looking forward to reading the rest. We are on the Glory in July.

[boocicle]

we were in 2224. Like I said the smell was pretty bad but to be honest we never had any issues in the room. Only the walk down the hall. If you are going to go to the shows then I would go to the late show that way you will not have the noise issue. It seemed to only be the bass in the speakers. we couldn't hear the music otherwise.

 

As far as the diet deserts...I guess I just need all that sugar and fat LOL.