GLORY Review 7/4 -7/11 - WONDERFUL!

[alwayswantedtobekelli]

Tammi,

 

Can I ask where you printed out the signs for your door? I'd love to do that as we're trying to organize a Meet and Greet for our cruise in September.

 

Thanks

Ellen

[tammi0916]

Tammi,

 

Can I ask where you printed out the signs for your door? I'd love to do that as we're trying to organize a Meet and Greet for our cruise in September.

 

Thanks

Ellen

 

 

I made them for everyone - I had people send me their info (names and where they were from) and just brought them to the meet and greet.

 

Happy to send you a copy - they are done in powerpoint. Just send me an email at tnealon@cox.net

 

Tammi:cool:

[tammi0916]

Where did you find the "Snorkel Tube"? I think that is wonderful and would like to get one for my DD (7) for our next trip to Cozumel.

 

Great review and pictures!!!

 

 

IT worked great - I got it at amazon - here is the link:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Sea-Window-Jelly-snorkeling-window/dp/B0006JJCH2/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&s=toys-and-games&qid=1238552126&sr=8-16

 

 

 

Tammi:cool:

[Rochmom]

Keep the great review coming - we're sailing this itinerary in August. We've been on the Glory before, so I'm really interested in hearing about the ports. Great photos, thanks for sharing everything!

[GMIJamie]

Thanks Tammi for the review and the door sign. I was just reliving our cruise this morning by reading your review. Donna keeps calling me and saying "Do you remember what we were doing this time last week?". It was great meeting you and your great family!

[WAcruisers]

Would love to hear the rest! Wonderful pictures. Your daughter is so cute!

[tammi0916]

Thanks Tammi for the review and the door sign. I was just reliving our cruise this morning by reading your review. Donna keeps calling me and saying "Do you remember what we were doing this time last week?". It was great meeting you and your great family!

 

 

Hi Jamie!

I keep reliving it too! It was a great week and really glad that we got to meet you and Donna! Just wish we were able spend more time getting to know you guys (next time - we'll have to plan to be on the next cruise together!)

 

Give our best to Donna and Kayla!

 

Tammi:cool:

[MzOhioLady]

I'm really enjoying the review. You are doing a great j-o-b! The pictures are all lovely!

[BaseballMomof4]

Loving the review Tammi - thanks!! We are sailing on the Glory in December with a different itinerary but are enjoying the pics of the cabin! While we will not be in a suite, we will be in a balcony room on the Empress deck!! Great photos of the public areas as well - it's getting me even more excited!:D :D :D

[notsoonenuf]

Great job Tammi. 3 girlfriends and I will be doing this cruise August 29th. 2 different balcony side by side rooms on the Upper Deck.:) Can't wait----2 of the 4 are first time cruisers and I know at least one of them will be hooked!!!!

 

Can't wait for the capers since I am kinda of in charge of getting everything together and would like to see what all is happening so we can get a good idea of what we want to do!!!!

 

Thanks again!!!

 

Karen:D

[DeDe63]

Great review!!!

Thanks for the info for the snorkel tube too.

[Boatfan]

Great Review!!

We leave Saturday on the Glory, CAN'T WAIT!

We are loving all of your photos and the review is making getting through this week even harder. Our son is 10 so I am very anxious to hear about camp carnival.

THANKS!!

[tammi0916]

Great Review!!

We leave Saturday on the Glory, CAN'T WAIT!

We are loving all of your photos and the review is making getting through this week even harder. Our son is 10 so I am very anxious to hear about camp carnival.

THANKS!!

 

Thanks for the nive comments. I will post my thoughts on Camp Carnival seperately. It wasn't bad but I thought it could be better. Will post later today.

 

Tammi:cool:

[Fraucruiser]

You are doing such a GREAT job! I am LOVING your review! We will be sailing on the 15th of August and we are soooooo excited!

[Hooked On Cruising 4ever]

Great Review!!

We leave Saturday on the Glory, CAN'T WAIT!

We are loving all of your photos and the review is making getting through this week even harder. Our son is 10 so I am very anxious to hear about camp carnival.

THANKS!!

 

Hey...we leave on Saturday too!!! CAN'T WAIT!!!

[tammi0916]

Tuesday, July 7th – St. Thomas USVI

I had been really excited about this stop since I booked our excursion. We decided to book Captain Nautica’s Snorkel Excursion because they stop at Turtle Cove and you get to see the sea turtles, which is something I really wanted to see!

I woke up early and spent time on the balcony watching the ship sail into St. Thomas. It was a beautiful morning and I was excited!

We had breakfast on the Lido Deck and then walked around the ship and watched us sail into port. We really enjoyed the views!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our tour was due to meet at 10:15am so we were down on deck 0 at 9:45 so we could get off the ship – it was packed as they had not gotten the clearance yet once the announcement was made it was like wave of people pushing to get off the ship – you had to move or would get trampled on!

We made it safely off the ship and found our tour operator. We waited with the group until it was time to go. We met a nice family (father and 2 teenage daughters) that was on the same tour and when it was time to walk to the speed boat we chatted with the family so the walk didn’t seem too long. (It really wasn’t that far but the Liberty was docked in front of us so we were at the back end of the dock).

Becca was our deck hand and Capt. Jeff ran the boat. The boats were small inflatable speed boats that seated about 20 people

Once they gave us a brief orientation of the boat and what we would be doing, we put all of our belongings into dry packs and then headed out to Turtle Bay. The boat was SUPER fast and since we were sitting in the front it was really bumpy at times but a lot of fun!.

[tammi0916]

 

Liberty Docked in front of us

 

 

View from balcony after we docked

 

 

 

[tammi0916]

We got to Turtle Bay in about 20 minutes and then got to snorkel for one hour there. We saw several turtles and they were just beautiful in the water. We had one that swam right in front of us as he was going up for air.

We had a really great time in the water and also saw stingrays and a barracuda. We then got back on the boat and were given drinks (soft drinks and water) and fresh fruit (oranges and melons) Becca told us to keep the rhines from fruit to feed the fish at our next snorkel location.

 

 

We then went to Shipwreck Cove where a Ship that had sunk in the harbor was dragged out to this location.

The fish (especially yellow tail fins) were everywhere! They loved the rhines that we fed them and were all around you.

We stayed at this location for another hour and saw a lot of coral at the reef and plenty of fish.

At one point close to the end of time, David and Victoria got back into the boat since she was getting a little tired and was hungry (we had brought a small collapsible cooler with a couple of PB&J sandwiches from room service for her since she gets migraines if she doesn’t eat) so they got on the boat and she started to eat. She does not eat the crusts of sandwiches so David asked Becca if he could feed the crust to the fish – she said that they love peanut butter so he started throwing the crust overboard in small pieces and it was a feeding frenzy! I was snorkeling next to the boat and all of a sudden I must have had 500 fish all around me and started freaking out as they were everywhere!

When our hour was up as we got back on the boat Captain Jeff rinsed us off with a fresh water shower – which was great to get all of the salt water off of you!

 

Becca

Once everyone was back, we got drinks again and shrimp cocktail – very yummy!

Then we headed back to the ship. This was one of the best excursions and would recommend it highly if you like to snorkel. The crew was wonderful and very friendly!

Up next lunch and then shopping….

[tammi0916]

ride back to ship from snorkeling

 

 

The Glory

 

walking back to the ship for lunch

 

[tammi0916]

We went back to the cabin to clean up and ordered room service (BLT was great!)

 

After lunch we decided to do some shopping and pick up some gifts, we opted for an open air taxi and the drive said he would take us to the shopping district for $4.00 per person, they have these really cool open air taxi so we thought the ride would be fun! This was a mistake, as what we did not realize was that the few shops we saw at port was actually a large shopping area that was right outside the ship! We could have just walked to this area instead of going on the taxi ride to another area but they had the same types of shops, but we did enjoy the ride.

 

 

 

After going to a few shops and buying some gifts we decided to go to Paradise Point (the CD had talked about this on this ship so we decided to check it out) it is a cable car that takes you to the top of one of the mountains – (it was 19.00 pp and 10 for Victoria we bought the tix on the ship as it was less than buying them at the place). The cars were extremely hot, but the ride up was very beautiful. Once we got to the top again the view was breath taking but there was not much else to do, there were a few shops (very expensive for the same things in town) and a bar – tried a Bushwacker (tasted like a mudslide) and was very yummy but that was it. I don’t think it was worth the money as the views everywhere in St. Thomas were great.

 

 

 

view from top of paradise point

 

 

 

 

 

 

We walked back to the ship from Paradise Point (and thru the large shopping area that we missed before!)

 

We had plans to go to the Supper Club tonight so we wanted to get back and get ready……

[tammi0916]

 

 

 

local school playing on the walk back to the ship

[RAVI360]

my my my great reveiw

[tammi0916]

We had 6:30 reservations at the Emerald Club for dinner so we got ready for dinner and had a drink in the room before we took Victoria to the Fish & Chips area to join Camp Carnival for dinner and activities as she was not going to dinner with us.

We still had about 20 minutes before we had to be at dinner so we went to the lobby bar for a drink and people watching!

We got to the Supper Club right on time and I was immediately impressed with the area – it is on deck 10 and had large windows to see out of, we were shown our table right away and it was right by a window (loved that) our Waiter Nikoli was fabulous! Once we sat down he introduced himself and asked if we wanted drinks (well of course we did – we’re on vacation!) David had a beer and I had a cosmo…. Then a young lady come over with a cart that had all the different cuts of meat on it and explained everything they had and what type of meat it was.

We then ordered:

I had Caesar Salad, Tiger Shrimp Cocktail, Filet Mignon with baked potato. David chose, mixed greens and some type of soup, Porter House steak with garlic mashed potatoes.

Salads came out first, they made my salad at the table and it was delicious! After the salads, Nikoli brought out some small samples (2) that were “compliments of the chef” for us to try – not sure what they were (he told me but that cosmo was kicking in!) I didn’t like mine – it was a cold green soup of some type but David had something different he said it was good.

Then apps came out and they were really done up and very fancy but most of all they were soooo good!

Although there was a lot of time between courses it did not seem like it as we were enjoying the meal and chatting and laughing at all the people who actually kept putting their face to the outside window to see inside the supper club (it was very funny).

When the main courses came the presentation was wonderful but nothing compared to the taste of the food – it was so delicious!

Dessert was just as good, I had the fresh berries and sherbet and David had Cheesecake.

Mine came out in a giant martini glass with some of the best tasting berries I have ever had and David’s came in a dish with a Chocolate tower standing with a piece of milk, dark, white and hazelnut chocolate (they were yummy as I ate most of them)

We were soooo full before dessert but we couldn’t resist eating dessert by the time it was over, we felt like we were going to bust!

About this time we started to sail away from St. Thomas and it was nice to watch it as we ate dinner.

Nikoli cleared our dessert plates and proceeded to set more plates in front of us???? We said to each other – what is this for???

Well we found out, Nikoli brought out another sampling of desserts “compliments of the chef” there were 4 of them and all 4 were incredible!

Dinner took 2 ½ hours but so worth the time, service was impeccable

I felt like royalty! I know it was another charge of $30 pp but we thought it was worth every penny and the $30 tip we left!

I would say this is a can’t miss event and completely worth it!

After dinner, we went to get Pea (Victoria) we missed the 8:30 show and she (and us) were tired from a busy day and didn’t think we would make it to the 10:30 show – the Illusionist so we made our way back to the room and relaxed and packed our beach back for St. Marteen tomorrow!

This was waiting for us in our room:

 

 

[Cruise_Q]

Nice REVIEW!!! Keep it comin

[tammi0916]

Thoughts on Camp Carnival:

This is just my observations and I know others see things differently but since this is my review these are my thoughts!

Victoria was in the 9-11 group and this group allows the kids to check themselves in and out of Camp Carnival if the parents allow them too. We did not allow this for Victoria, it is a big ship and she is a peanut and a very friendly child so I would not allow her to roam the ship without us.

I felt that the 9-11 group activities were not convenient for us since we did not allow her to sign in and out, they had a lot of unsupervised activities everyday (scavenger hunt on ship – they go out in groups, but still was not comfortable, people bingo sports games) so she could not participate in these activities (unless I went with her)

They were also closed a lot! Every day from 12 -2 they were closed, most days from 5 -6 to prepare for dinner (????) and sometimes for 4-6 or 3:45 to six to prep for talent show.

The last thing that I found difficult was that they moved around all the time to different locations on the ship and it was a lot to keep up with (we got past this but just different).

The times that Pea went to Camp Carnival the activities were good and she had a good time but 2x when we went to pick her up at the designated place and time (we were not late and one time 10 min early) she was the only child there as it seemed that she was the only child that not allowed to come and go as she pleased so she felt like she was left out…. (this was our choice and she knew the reason’s why we did this)

I will also say that some of the kids in her age group were terrors and really behaved badly and I feel that if there parents had to be sign the in and out it would have helped out with this, for example when we were waiting in line for Camp to open at 2;00 on a couple of days, kids that were there waiting to sign themselves in were running and screaming up and down the hallways and trying to weave in and out of the line to cut in front of everyone bumping into other kids and parents and then would continue to make crank calls on the phone outside of the camp. I blame this on the parents who don’t want to deal with their kids and think that they are “mature” enough to be on their own.

So final thoughts:

The activities that Pea went to were good but found the overall program hard to work with.

Really liked the counselers but camp was closed or activities unsupervisored too often.

Tam