Glory Review ~ Eastern Caribbean ~ May 16-23 w/pics

Hello fellow cruisers!! I am back with my second review!

This time around it was my mommy/wife/daily grind/girls getaway where we sailed out Miami and visited Half Moon Cay, St. Thomas, Puerto Rico and Grand Turk!!

There will be as much information that I can cram into here so I can pass along any information and also to relive this pretty epic vacation along with helping my PCD (Post Cruise Depression)

Need to get my test picture out of the way to make sure everything is going to talk to each other and play nice.

Subscribed already! I'm looking into doing this same exact itinerary in March! This would be my first ever Caribbean cruise, and second cruise! I live in California so I have only sailed to the Mexican Riviera and that was in this past March, I suffered horrible PCD after so I know your pain right now, especially going through all the pictures haha!

Yay!!!! Cannot wait for more!!!!

Loved your last review!:D:D:D

I am looking forward to this review as I'll be doing the same itinerary on the same ship in August. :)

Ok so that first post worked so lets get cracka-lackin!

So sort of going along how I did my review last year, I am going to write as if I was just hanging out chatting with you. Also I will put as much information as I can remember to help future cruisers with their plans. I am back to the daily grind and will try and get this bad boy done in a timely manner but I will be gone for a week in NYC for another trip in June as well. (will be about a week of no posts). If you have any questions along the way I will also try and answer in a timely manner.

Here we go:

My name is Barbara (36 now.. woo!) and I took this wonderful cruise with 2 other fabulous ladies that I met on my Splendor cruise last year, Ann and Jennifer. This was cruise #5 for me originally was going to do this cruise last year but the Splendor won.

How this cruise came to be:

I will try and make it short and sweet as possible. Once I got back home from my Splendor cruise I did what all us cruisers do and start looking for another.. but this time I knew I wanted to do a girls trip. I had never done one before, never planned one before, let along cruise with some ladies I just met on a cruise and talk to over the internet. But I am always up for adventure and trying something new. So I had this cruise picked out, put some feelers out there to see who wanted to go with. Originally we had 5 in our party but this trip just ended up being the 3 of us which ended up working out perfect!! Now you must be asking how does a cabin work with 3 females in a cabin... you get a balcony.. lol. We originally started out in interior cabin on Empress deck but as it got closer we decided to bump up to a balcony where we ended up in cabin 9257 (more on this cabin later). That was a wise move and plus we all love a balcony.

With our deposits made on 7/31/2014, let the planning, researching, setting up countdown timers and making a roll call commence!! Woo my favorite things to do!!

We dubbed ourselves the "Glory Gals" Ann (L) Me (Center) and Jennie ®

Again this time around my in laws took lil dude who is now 5 for the duration of my lil escape. She told me what dates and those dates they would take him again. yay! All three of us got a break from each other this time around. Hubs originally had a road trip planned with his buddy but that ended up falling to the wayside so he just did a staycation where it was just him and the pooches. He asked what he should do and I was like "whatever you wanna do.. I wont be here so....".. but he is a good hubs and knows that does not mean "do whatever you wanna do". he ended up going camping and basically be a married bachelor for the week. He is a stay at home dad so he needed a break because he has a long summer ahead of him.

Subscribed already! I'm looking into doing this same exact itinerary in March! This would be my first ever Caribbean cruise, and second cruise! I live in California so I have only sailed to the Mexican Riviera and that was in this past March, I suffered horrible PCD after so I know your pain right now, especially going through all the pictures haha!

Girl I hear ya! Funny because hubs wants to do Mexico again which I might give into since we will be taking lil dude on his first one next year. a) save on airfare b)it will be lil dudes first big vacation with us

But it will be on a different class ship which would be neat and its still a cruise under my belt.. my hubs wants me to get to platinum.. lol.. now I am 14 days ahead of him.

Yay!!!! Cannot wait for more!!!!

Loved your last review!:D:D:D

Welcome back! Thanks for tagging along!

I am looking forward to this review as I'll be doing the same itinerary on the same ship in August. :)

Welcome! I loved this itinerary a bunch! Especially since it didn't stop in Nassau! lol

Greedily reading everything about the Glory. This is our itinerary as well so bring it on!

Great start, keep it coming!

Nice start. Now post about 2 hours worth to keep me occupied for my tomorrow :p haha just kidding. You know I love ya. Can't wait to follow along

Looking forward to this review. Will be doing the same on Glory in November. Will be me and three of my female granddaughters - another kind of girls trip. If you have a lot of pix of HMC please post them. I have rented a cabana and am trying to see which one would be best to try to get. Can't wait to read the rest. Thanks for doing this.

I'm subscribing...thanks for taking us along on your trip. Loving your writing style.

Looking forward to this review. Will be doing the same on Glory in November. Will be me and three of my female granddaughters - another kind of girls trip. If you have a lot of pix of HMC please post them. I have rented a cabana and am trying to see which one would be best to try to get. Can't wait to read the rest. Thanks for doing this.

yay for girls trip!

hang tight.. after pre-trip and embarkation that is our first port and I have pics and information. its my favorite port!

Hiya Babs, we are leaving this Saturday on the Glory doing the same itinerary. Can't wait!!! Anxiously awaiting more of your review and pics.

Yay, subscribing! We sail on this itinerary on the Glory next October.

We will be on her in Sept; can't wait to read more!

So after agonizing countdowns on roll call and phone apps, the time was here to get going!

(All my pictures were taken with my fabulous iphone 6 because it was the easiest thing to tote around. No fancy schmancy gear, just point and shoot baby and I apologize if they are humungus but resizing takes foreva)

I ALWAYS like to arrive a day or so early since I am usually flying in to catch my ship. Finally after watching airfares and flights I decided on a red eye flight out of my hometown on Thursday 5/14/15 7pm PST and would put me into Ft. Lauderdale Friday morning 5/15/15 around 9:25 as my cruising partners in crime were flying into Miami on Friday morning about the same time. I have never done a red eye before so that was a new experience for sure. It was not as bad as people made it out to be but I do what I gotta do to get a to a cruise ship. It was also nice to have the whole morning and afternoon to finish up everything. I even got to sleep in til 9 which was GLORIOUS! That includes packing.. lol.. hey, I had to wait til my human 5 year old hurricane was not present to be able to pack!

FINALLY ABLE TO PRINT OFF THESE BAD BOYS!! (I am a oober planner and printed all of ours just in case)

Can't forget luggage tags! Printed them out and ran (more like drive) to Office Depot to laminate them.

Miss Ann was worried about the weather the week before so I sent this to her to ease her mind a little bit.

I finished packing, boarding passes printed, luggage tags done, shoot I even had time to cut out some door decorations on my cricut machine while my toe polish was drying. Then it was time to load up and have the hubs take me to the airport! woo hoo!!! We have a smaller airport so checking in and TSA is a breeze. I killed about an hour in the terminal then it was time to board my first flight.

First trip all by myself! Let's do this!

I love Oregon, isn't she beautiful?

That flat hill area is called Table Rock. A lot of people like to hike it and the views are breathtaking.. I personally don't hike (unless its from one end of the ship to the other) but I like this view from the air!

Another view of Table Rock and beautiful area where I live

I love Alaska Air.. not only a choice of soda but you could get a cup of beer or wine.. guess what I chose?

Why not enjoy a beer at thousands of feet in the air? Cheers!!

Landed safe in PDX airport and their famous carpet so I had to do my obligatory feet shot.

When I arrived to my next terminal there was a beautiful sunset happening and since I was by myself and no one rushing me around I decided to just sit there and enjoy it.. cause I could.

After enjoying my sunset, I was hungry for some dinner so walked back down the terminal, ordered a bite to eat then walked back to where I was sitting because I noticed there was a power charging station to juice up my phone while I eat hot food. When you are a parent you don't get hot meals anymore.. so that in itself was pretty epic.

Before I knew it they were calling us to board the plane for Charlotte. That 2 hour layover happened fast.. lol

On my way again for my first red eye..Catch ya on the flip side! (yes there are a lot of selfies this trip)

After a smooth overnight flight, landed safely in Charlotte first thing on my agenda.. COFFEE STAT..

I love how my name got spelled... I think they purposely misspell them?

As I sat in a daze in the terminal trying to either wake up or stay awake since I snoozed off and on through the last flight... before I knew it, time to board my final flight there..yay!!

After a short 2 hour flight we landed safely in Ft. Lauderdale. The reason I had to fly into there was because it was cheaper.

Now, it took forever for me to figure out how to get from Ft. Lauderdale to Miami but about a week before I left someone told me about Uber. It's an app you can download on your phone, you sign up and when you are ready you request an uber... this seriously was AWESOME!!! After I got my luggage, I requested my Uber and literally 2 minutes later someone called me and then was there in about 5 minutes. Very nice gentleman helped load my bags and off we went in a new honda crv... easy schmeezy!

Welcome to Miami! I forget it's so...... um.. flat here... way different from home that is for sure! Original plan was to meet the girls at the Miami airport but they had already got to the hotel and dropped off their bags so I had to change at last second for him to bring me there.. but no problem!

Fantastic start - and dont tell my family, but a solo Mommy trip is a little fantasy of mine. Love my hubs and kids but te idea of travelling just me - oooh!

Thanks for sharing!

Fantastic start - and dont tell my family, but a solo Mommy trip is a little fantasy of mine. Love my hubs and kids but te idea of travelling just me - oooh!

 

 

Thanks for sharing!

It was a fantasy of mine too and when my hubs told me to go ahead and book a girls cruise I was on it! Don't have to tell me twice. Please if you get a chance, do it.. you will love it. It's a little strange at first and dont get me wrong I missed them but we as mommies do a bunch all the time and we deserve to have some non kid time.. (that includes the hubby too). :D

you are welcome and thanks for tagging along!

How much was the ride from FLL to MIA? We are considering flying into FLL because it's about 200$ and still haven't figured out how to get to MIA.

How much was the ride from FLL to MIA? We are considering flying into FLL because it's about 200$ and still haven't figured out how to get to MIA.

After my discount code of $20 bucks it was $23 total from FLL to MIA