Review- CCL Destiny 1/7-1/12, long with photos

[mumtopugs]

It was Katie’s birthday. She got a personalized card under her door in the morning. When they were at breakfast I snuck into her room and decorated it with balloons, a banner and confetti. I think it was her best birthday yet. She opened her birthday cards and received money for her new iPod (long story). Just what she wanted!









It was a sea day and we took our time getting up and about. We slept in and then breakfast on the Lido buffet. We didn’t do breakfast or lunch in the MDR at all. The breakfast buffet was great. There was a huge selection of fruit, cereal, and hot choices. The eggs are powdered, yes. They were icky and I didn’t eat them. However, at the end of the buffet, there is an omelet station. You can get omelets or fresh eggs made to order. I am not sure if this is true on other ships, but if so, I don’t understand all the controversy over powdered eggs? I usually chose the fruit and either pancakes or French toast. David had an omelet every day. We grabbed a couple little boxes of cereal to have for snack later.

[mumtopugs]

The kids did some swimming and we went through the shops. We explored the ships some more. We spent a fair amount of time on the balcony on the sea day. I got a new Kindle Paperwhite. It was a fantastic investment. I found lots of free and near-free books so I read a lot on the balcony- usually with a glass of wine or a “mimosa” with juice form room service.













Apparently vacation means a vacation from shaving too!






The Kindle:







We all took a nap sea day. We took bonine pills (Walgreen's brand) for motion sickness and it made us feel sluggish and tired. I am sure they did a great job keeping away the motion sickness, but we didn’t take it the last day or so and felt a huge difference. We could always feel the motion of the ship, but none of us felt sick or nauseous. I would probably try the patch or something similar.

[monakayk]

Enjoying your review of the Destiny....looking forward to reading more! Thanks for sharing all the photos.

[mumtopugs]

As I mentioned before, we are not dress up sort of people so we skipped elegant night. Could we have gone in jeans and polos? Probably. We didn’t want to take anything away from those who like to dress up though. The only bad thing about this was that it was Katie’s 15th birthday. I had ordered a cake from Bon Voyage online before we left. It was $8 and the perfect size for 5-6 people. They had vanilla with a strawberry layer- both her favorite flavors. However, I forgot this was elegant night and we weren’t in the dining room. The next night was the one night we didn’t have the kids come to dinner with us (they all asked to hang out with their friends and we didn’t mind). Our wait staff asked about the birthday cake and said they missed us on elegant night. We told them we would be sure to have Kate with us the next night and that seemed fine with them. That night I think we all had a different dish- a combination of grill, deli, pizza and buffet. There was never a lack of food options.

This night we went to the show in the theater. It was called Nightclub Express. It went through a few genres of music through last century. The show was worth our time on a sea day. The male singer, Rudy was very good. The dancers were pretty good, too. They weren’t Vegas or Broadway, but really, let’s be honest. I am not paying $100 a ticket either. The only thing I thought was pretty bad was this big talking couch. It was “hosting” the show. I have no idea what this was about. It was weird and out of place. Other than that it was cool.

The kids spent most of the day with us, but we did allow them to have a fair amount of free time. All of the kids spent time with new found friends. Jake and Katie stayed in the same group even though at home they really don’t spend a lot of time together. We laid down all the rules well before the cruise and only once Jake did not meet us when he was supposed to. We encountered them and their friends on several occasions and they weren’t running, yelling, or encroaching on others’ personal space. They stayed in public areas and we were able to find them when we needed to. Lizzie, at her age, spent a lot more time with us than the teens. This is partly her age and partly her personality. Either way they all seemed to function within the rules and gave me no reason not to trust them.

That night we had an elephant towel animal. Super cute. I am probably the only grown woman who sleeps with her baby blanket every night. I didn't realize I left the baby blanket on the bed until the steward had laid it out for me. I wonder what he thought when he saw this raggedy thing held together with floss!!

[mumtopugs]

Travel Day 5, Cruise Day 3:

This day was Grand Turk. Based on the reviews here, I reserved two golf carts from Nathan via e-mail. nathanandlinda@tciway.tc Because of the delay in our confirmation of the cruise, I thought I might not make the reservation in time. However, I e-mailed Nathan. I didn’t get a response within about 5 days so I went ahead and e-mailed again. 2 days later he e-mailed me back and we had a reservation. Nathan asked for my credit card over e-mail or telephone and my car was charged within about a week.

When we arrived in Grand Turk, we got off the ship within about 45 minutes of the time we docked. We went off the ship, down the dock, through the ships and took a left out of the shop area. Nathan’s area is directly outside of the port. On the left hand side is bikes to rent. On the right were vehicles and gold carts. We initially went to the left but it turns out we need to be on the right. There was a woman in the car who set us up with the golf carts. I saw on the board where someone had a golf cart and they didn’t have one available and offered them a jeep. The golf carts were in bad shape. It was part of the charm of the island, though. Maybe it’s because we have a golf cart and I was comfortable using one as-is or I had a 6’5 285 lb David and a 6’3 Jake or David is the world’s best mechanic, but I wasn’t worried about the carts leaving me stranded. Honestly, it was funny. I had to play with the choke on my golf cart to get it going every time. Dave and Jake’s golf cart backfired all the time and didn’t go up the hills well. Oh, well. Again, it was funny and a fun part of the story.





Regarding the photos- yes, Katie wears jeans to a tropical paradise. She is fortunately the most modest 15 year old that was!

[txmom11]

LOL, he probably didn't think anything about your blanket. They have seen everything. I bring my old down pillow with me, and they always just fluff it (or bless their hearts try to fluff it) and put it on top of the other pillows.

Love your review. We stopped at South of the Border once when we drove from Stafford down to Ft. Lauderdale for a cruise. It was pretty gross. Now that we are back home in Texas, we stop at Bucee's on our way to Galveston. Traditions are fun.

Loving your review.

[re-re]

Loving your review, I was on the Destiny a few months ago and and a great cruise, thanks for bringing back great memories. Can't wait for more.

[luvtovaca]

Please come back and post some more!

[PathfinderEss]

Enjoying your review, looking forward to the rest of it.

[Coolcruise02]

Great review and pictures!

[amberdc87]

Great review!! Can't wait to hear more. BTW...what book were you reading on your kindle in the pic? Lol I read that one page and it looked interesting.

[chipq]

Thanks for sharing.

http://luv2cruise.blogspot.com

[mumtopugs]

Slow going here- back to real life!

We rode the entire island- a whopping 7 miles wide, I think. The island is really pretty poor. It is absolutely beautiful and all of the people are rich in kindness and personality, but it is certainly not what most Americans have seen. I am glad my kids are exposed to the way other people live outside of our privileged life. We are not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but we are probably wealthier than almost ALL of the inhabitants of the island. Most of the homes have hurricane damage. You can see it is from multiple storms as well- some of the repairs are recent and some are old.



The view from the golf carts looking back at the terminal:







The golf carts:







We drove out of the terminal in the direction of the lighthouse. The island is left hand drive. I did really well except for the roundabout in the center of the island. As a claims adjuster, I know roundabouts on the right side of the road are a problem… the left side thing baffled me here. Fortunately, there wasn’t much traffic and we made it okay. We stopped briefly down at “Columbus Landing Beach.” It was a left turn after the signs for Governors Beach. There was no one else here at that time. The entrance into the beach here is somewhat rocky, but it makes for nice little waves. The water is clear and amazing. We saw some little whitish/clear fish in the pools that gather in the rocks. There were fossilized sea urchins and other weird prints in the rocks here.

[mumtopugs]

More of the beautiful, serene beach...

[mumtopugs]

The lighthouse is on the opposite end of the island from the cruise terminal. The lighthouse is still in pretty good shape. We enjoyed the write up about it. They said that when the lighthouse was first put up that they would purposely turn it off and when the ships crashed, they would have a salvage crew mysteriously ready to help the crew pick up the pieces. FUNNY! The lighthouse is in an elevated area from the water but there are trails going in either direction from it. They looked like they might make it down to the water. You can’t go up in the lighthouse, but it is still a great view.

[mumtopugs]

Amber, the book is called "Abducted: the Lizzy Gardner Series." It was one of my $2 Kindle purchases. Well worth that :-) my family calls them "dead people books." I also like "dead people shows." Haha

[luvtovaca]

Please come back and finish your trip report!!

[rick&james]

When did they update the room decor?