Glory review 12/18/04 (Western) - long - part 1

[nc_cruiser1]

Background: Family of four. Parents in standard balcony cabin on deck 7 (Empress), teenage boys (17 and 14) across the hall in an interior cabin.

 

This was our second cruise, first on Carnival. Our first cruise was two years ago on RCL’s Voyager of the Seas, also a western itinerary and also with two deck 7 cabins (balcony and atrium).

 

So, in addition to reviewing the Glory, I will compare this cruise to the earlier one. Since both cruises were on each cruise line’s latest megaship class ships with western itineraries, fully sold out during the holiday season, and we had a very similar cabin arrangement on each one, the comparison is pretty “apples to apples”.

 

Pre-cruise: We arrived by car in Port Canaveral a day early and stayed at the Radisson to take advantage of their parking/shuttle service. On the day of the cruise, we had a few hours to kill before departing on the shuttle, so we drove into Cocoa Beach (about 2.5 miles from the Radisson). It was a beautiful morning, so we parked the car and DW and I had a very pleasant walk on the beach. Later, we took the boys over to the famous Ron Jon Surf Shop, while we bought some bottled water and sodas at a Walgreens Drug Store across the street.

 

Embarkaton: It was a busy day at the Radisson and at the port, with several ships, including Disney’s Magic and HAL’s Zaandam in port along with the Glory, and the holiday crush of people. We had reservation’s on the Radisson’s first Glory shuttle (11:30am), but the shuttles were delayed due to heavy congestion at the port. No big deal; we were only delayed about 20 minutes.

 

We were so glad we did the shuttle thing. There was a very long line of traffic waiting to approach the Glory, but shuttles are allowed to bypass most of it. Inside the terminal, things moved along quickly, and we were on board before 1pm. Since an adult is required to be booked in each cabin, I had booked with one of our boys for the interior cabin, while DW booked with the other boy for the balcony. The plan was for us to request extra keys and swap rooms, just like we did on Voyager. But there was one little glitch. We could not have extra keys made. We were told at the Purser’s desk that we could have a new set of keys made for either cabin, but the security system would deactivate the previous keys. We tried it anyway, and that is exactly what happened. Oh well, I just swapped room keys with DS (our folios were all linked), so I had access to the balcony cabin, and he had access to the interior. We had to swap keys back and forth when we left the ship and returned on excursions. A minor inconvenience.

 

Overall condition of ship: Generally excellent. She sparkles and gleams. Maintenance (e.g. painting) was in evidence on several days. There a few signs of minor, normal wear and tear from the thousands of people running through the ship every day. Everything was clean, but the odor of urine was prevalent in couple of the heavily-used men’s restrooms on the Lido deck (deck 9) near the pool and Red Sail restaurant. The restrooms were very clean, but the odor was there. There was also a less strong urine odor in the aisle outside our cabin for the first couple of days. They put some machinery in the aisle to clean the air and eliminate the odor.

 

Cabins: Comfortable and have lots of storage – more than Voyager, but we had sufficient storage there, too. Bathroom is a bit larger than Voyager. We did not miss Voyager’s innovative round glass shower door, since Glory’s shower is larger. The complimentary basket of toiletries is a nice touch. Our toilet would not flush when we arrived; turns out it was a general problem in our area (but it worked in the boy’s cabin) due to a disembarking passenger flushing something that clogged the system. It was fixed in a couple hours. This happened again later in the cruise and was fixed in short order. Glory’s balcony doors are the patio (hinged / swinging) variety; Voyager’s are sliding. The sliding doors are better, because they are much less prone to slamming. At several times during our cruise, we heard a lot of slamming balcony doors, which was annoying. We brought a bungee cord to hold the balcony door open, and used it extensively.

 

Our cabin was across the hall from a service area, Early in the morning, a couple of times, there was quite a bit of noise from service personnel working in the area. In fact, overall this was a pretty noisy cruise. We had noise on Voyager, too, but not quite as much (more from noisy neighbors). One big factor was the number of kids.

 

Kid’s program: There were a TON of kids on the Glory (we were told over 1,000), but this was to be expected on a family-oriented cruise during the holidays, and not really a problem except for a couple of isolated cases of making noise. At the parent’s orientation for the middle school age group (12-14), they told us that this was the single biggest age group on our cruise (over 350). I thought Carnival did a nice job with this age group. The orientation was well done, and there was a lot of good activities during the whole cruise. In comparison, Voyager’s program was a bit lame. The older teen activities (15-17) were limited, mainly to exclusive use of the teen Ultraviolets club at late hours.

 

Public areas: I really liked this part of the Glory. Various themed clubs are strung together on decks 4 and 5 (mostly 5). The flow works very well and makes it easy to hop around. The teen club is in the middle of it all on deck 5, so you can check up on the kids easily. We did not use the casino, but it is nicely integrated into the flow of things (much more so than Voyager. All of the clubs are unique and attractive. We hung out mostly in the Kaleidoscope and Bar Blue (karaoke), also some in Ebony Cabaret, Cinnabar and Ivory.

 

Holiday decorations were present, but not extensive. Some Christmas trees were around, and especially the atrium and kaleidoscope areas were decorated with garland and sconces. The only lounge with any decoration was the Ivory.

 

The pools and pool decks are nice. There was some lounge chair saving, but you could generally find a suitable spot, whether in the middle of the action, or out of the way. There are many quieter spots away from the action. We liked to set up on deck 10 in the middle, overlooking the main pool.

 

This is a great ship for teens. I think my kids used the water slide more than they used Voyager’s rock climbing wall.

 

Glory’s workout facilities are woefully lacking in comparison to Voyager’s. They just don’t have enough space or equipment. There was a waiting line to use any of the cardio equipment (e.g. treadmills). I liked Glory’s running track better, though. It’s shorter, but wider than Voyager’s, and it is more isolated from the public deck area. Voyager’s track weaves through several areas of deck chairs.

[unica]

Thats is a nice review.

 

We are going on the glory on Januray 15. And it is good to read what people have to say. Good and bad things. Hope to read you second part soon.

[nc_cruiser1]

Part 2 is here: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=114763

[Julia’s Journey’s]

Thanks for the review, we are on the ship for our spring break week and also will probably have lots of kids, looking forward to it though.