!!!_Carnival Breeze Trip Report_!!! //6-Day Western Caribbean Cruise\\

!!THE QUEST FOR 20 ICE CREAMS || A 6-DAY CARIBBEAN CRUISE TRIP REPORT/TRAVEL REVIEW!!

*I did not take this picture

Hello Fellow Cruisers! This is my first review on the boards so I will most likely make a few mistakes with the postings but… This is a review/ Travel Report of the January 24th,2016 sailing on the Carnival Breeze to Ocho Rios, Jamaica, Georgetown, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel, Mexico.

Side note: I will try to upload these once one section is done and then upload the entire section all at once so there might be a day or two break between some of the sections. Also, If you do wish to quote part of this review, try your hardest to only take the section you need, as when you take the entire post, the forum gets clogged up and then it’s difficult to tell what’s the actual review, thank you for your consideration.

It is my first Caribbean cruise and also my first time doing a cruise during the school year, which meant less people of my age category, but that didn’t matter to me, as you soon will read. Since this is my first time posting a Travel Review/Trip Report, I might as well introduce myself.

*This is me and yes this has 100,000 things done to it

I am Matt a.k.a TheCriuseDirector and I LOVE cruising, even though I am quite young. I live all the way in the snowy state of Pennsylvania and I’m located quite close to the Steel City/Yinzburgh and I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, it’s so lovely here. But during the winter it does get quite cold and dreary so my family (My parents and myself) decided to take a winter holiday to the Caribbean to escape the awfulness that is the polar vortex. This is my third cruise, all with Carnival, but I’m open to trying other lines, which takes me into the first section of this review, planning.

**If you would like to skip the planning section, or any section for that matter, just follow along until the text changes to a different color, as that is how I will be dividing up sections/days onboard the cruise. Also, I will be using this blue colour you see here and also a bright red that you will see in the next post**

Planning

I was the planner of this vacation, mainly because I’m the only one who looks for deals, and with major discussion about us going away for the winter, I thought this would be a great time to try my luck. I knew that Carnival would be the preferred line, as we previously cruised with them and knew their product, so I started to look at those itineraries that were roughly a week in length and went to some places that we did not go to before. I looked mainly at Eastern and Southern Itineraries because I was positive that they would be pleasantly warm, but 8-days seemed a bit too long for my parents (I would be fine with 10+ but I have no ruling) and most Southern Itineraries were either too far away, departing from San Juan, or were the 8-day long cruises, none of which appealed to all members of our family. Next, I tried looking for reasonably priced Eastern Caribbean itineraries that fit what we wanted, but the only one that truly stuck out to us was the 7-Day Eastern onboard the Sunshine, to Amber Cove Dominican Republic, St. Thomas USVI, San Juan Puerto Rico, and Grand Turk. So we made note of that and decided to take a risky move… We looked at other lines.

RCCL was our first option, as my grandparents have gone on one and raved about it, but they were too expensive for a “budget-season” getaway so NCL was our next bet. And let me tell you, if I had not found the deal on the cruise I am reviewing, I just might be on the NCL boards. Their two newest, and to my knowledge, the most favorable and advanced ships in their fleet, had amazing offers onboard their two itineraries. The Norwegian Getaway’s itinerary, a 7-Day Western Caribbean going to Ocho Rios Jamaica, Georgetown Grand Cayman, Cozumel Mexico, and Great Stirrup Cay Bahamas, was appealing not only because of the itinerary, but because of the ship itself. In short, it has 5 waterslides and was a quite new ship (New for 2014). And also the Norwegian Escape’s itinerary to St. Thomas USVI, Tortola BVI, and Nassau Bahamas, through a 7-Day Eastern Caribbean Cruise. The only thing that stopped us from booking the Escape right then and there was that it had three sea days. We aren’t big fans of sea days mainly because the decks are windy and they get cold (not good for laying out), and also the price. With a brand new ship, you’re bound to have prices that show, and it just didn’t work out with either of the ships; but I’m positive that I will someday sail on those ships, whether it be soon or not.

So, skip ahead a few days and I’m checking cruises once again and I find a great deal for a balcony cabin onboard my dream ship, the Carnival Breeze. The balcony stateroom onboard had a base price of ~$475, which was impeccable to us. But what really sealed the deal was that an aft-view extended balcony cabin was not far from this price at all, just $60pp, totaling the price to ~$535, we added in prepaid gratuities and our entire cruise fare was just over $2,000! With the sailing being Sunday to Saturday, that gave us a whole extra day as a cushion just in case things went awry (SPOILER ALERT: They did). So we booked flights on American Airlines and we were all set until the cruise.

We did look at shore excursions during the 6 months and 2 days that we were waiting, but I won’t spoil those until we get to the specific port’s section, but I guess I’ve rambled on about this for enough time now so let’s get onto the First Day of vacation!

his Should be the most text you'll get without a picture for a LOOOONNNNNGGGG time, so don't worry

Following We are doing this trip March 20th

Great start!

Loving your style!!

We are taking this 6 day trip leaving Super Bowl Sunday on breeze with 2 teen boys, anxious to hear your take on this trip!

Did this sailing in Oct 2014. Love, love, love this ship. We booked our excursions independently (we always have). Fun time.

Day 1

Well, I guess it isn’t necessarily the first day as it is 11:30PM the night before I left but I was 30 minutes away from my birthday and only a few hours away from being on my dream ship so the adrenaline was pumping and I couldn’t fall asleep. Ok, I was waiting for the first “Happy Birthdays” to come in… But that problem would be one for a later date. I fell asleep at about 00:15, maybe 00:30 with visions of ships and the ocean in my head, as opposed to sugarplums I guess. But this next part is where the big ‘kicker’ comes in. I had my alarm set for 3:00. So I woke up, ate some breakfast, and got in the car by 3:45 to head to Pittsburgh International Airport for a flight at 6:00.

We don’t usually fly the day of the cruise because we see it as too risky in case of our flight gets delayed or if it gets cancelled. But with the polar vortex that hit the Mideast, it was actually the safest option. We got to the airport at 4:25 and with nobody in their right mind being up at the time, check in was fast and painless.

Here are some photos (mainly selfies) of me on the way to the gate

They have this awesome transformer type sculpture in PIT and it's made out of all of Pittsburgh's bridges! Pretty Cool!

Me goofing around in one of the many awkward poses you'll see me in

Starbucks's Caffe Mocha is the only thing keeping me awake and functioning

So we sat at the gate at about 5:00 and over the announcement speaker thing, we were informed that they had overbooked the flight by 5 seats, but no problem was encountered there. We got on the plane at 5:45 and I took myself to the window seat on the wing.

On the first gangway of the trip!

My view for the next 2.5 hours

The luggage is being brought onto the plane!

I love flying! But sometimes it's better to fly at like 7:00 instead of, you know, 5:00

Just a little additive for this, I have mad respect for the people working on the tarmac at airports. It was maybe -5F when we left and they were working very hard to get our luggage into the plane and keep everything safe.

It was a great hour on the plane with a computer reset to see if that could fix a minor problem that our plane was having, but at 6:45, we were told to deplane while they got a new one, since they had a lot in the hangar.

So then at about 7:20 we got back onto the plane and I took my wing seat once again.

I'm really glad to actually be going to Miami now!

In the air!

Looking down at all the lovely scenery that is the great US of A

Here we go as we are landing in Sunny, but only 55F Miami

Once we landed on the tarmac, I saw this bad boy, Airforce Two along with us. I don’t know if this meant Joe Biden was in Miami or if that just meant his plane was there.

An Airbus A380, world’s largest passenger aircraft

I love these AA planes. They remind me so much of whenever the Brady’s took their vacation into Hawaii and I believe that they flew in on this type of plane, but I could be horribly wrong though, so don’t quote me on this.

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We got off in Miami to be greeted with my first outside terminal and also an unpleasant temperature of 55F but it felt like 40F so we quickly rushed inside and got our baggage. Now let me tell you, baggage at MIA is ingenious. Let me try to describe it well, but I think I’ll fail. When you get out of the terminal, you take the sky train to the main area and then take stairs down another level to get to the first of the baggage carousels. This took about 15 mins. BUT what is so much better was that we had to walk about another 10-15 mins to get to our carousel, number 28 I think. Now how is this ingenious? It sounds like torture for the legs! Well, I’m not denying that fact, but when we got there the first few bags were already going around, so there was little to no wait for us when our one and only suitcase came by.

We then made the best decision of our lives and if you even are remotely close to the airport you should do this as well. We checked in at the airport. There was about a 10-15 minute wait (this seems to be a pattern ) and then we got up to the counter and got our key cards and were all ready to go! But you might ask “Don’t you need to take airport transfers from Carnival to get the airport check in?” The answer, my fellow comrades, is no. We took a taxi after we stopped for some Nathan’s Hot Dogs, which weren’t that good in my opinion, and we were on our way. I took a few pictures on the way to the cruise terminal.

When you are going on your dream vacation on your birthday!

When you are less than 5 minutes away from the port!!!!

WHEN YOU SEE THE WHALE TAIL OF YOUR DREAM SHIP!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You had me at hello. I am subscribing..,great start.

Following....we are on the Breeze in September!

Cant wait to hear what you think! :)

Going good for a first review. Waiting patiently for more.:D

Me too !!!

Enjoying your review. Looking forward to the rest.

Enjoying your review.

Great review! Can't wait for more as we are doing same itinerary March 6/16.

You write so well for a young man. Good job.

We're sailing Breeze in three weeks. Though it will be our second time on her, we still act like every cruise is our first. Looking forward to read more.

Following We are doing this trip March 20th

Thank you and I'm 100% positive you'll love her.

Great start!

Thank you so much!

Loving your style!!

Thank you very much!

We are taking this 6 day trip leaving Super Bowl Sunday on breeze with 2 teen boys, anxious to hear your take on this trip!

Spoiler Alert: They'll love it, I'm sure of it

Did this sailing in Oct 2014. Love, love, love this ship. We booked our excursions independently (we always have). Fun time.

We booked ours independently as well, and I'm 100% with you when it comes to the ship

You had me at hello. I am subscribing..,great start.

Thank you very much

Following....we are on the Breeze in September!

 

Cant wait to hear what you think! :)

I know you'll love it as much, if not more (if that's possible) than i did

Going good for a first review. Waiting patiently for more.:D

Hopefully you won't have to wait too long, I've been trying my hardest to get as much of it done as I can