Carnival Conquest, March 15, 15 Review

Carnival Conquest, March 15, 15 Review

This is our third cruise with Carnival and our first on a Conquest Class ship and our other cruises on a Fantasy Class – so, this review will be a contrast between the two different ships as much as a review of this particular cruise. Additionally, this was our first time out of Port Everglades and our first time with Faster to the Fun. Since, we are back to work it may take a few days to get this done in its entirety.

Embarkation & Debarking, other than being held up for an “inspection” it was pretty smooth – no better or worse than Charleston, just different. This is the only time I felt my $50 Faster to the Fun was worth anything – we were able to walk right up and get checked in – then it’s usefulness fell off – we sat and waited with everyone else – I guess we got on maybe 15 minutes faster than the others. Since we had an excursion booked in Grand Cayman the priority tender benefit was moot. We were surprised there was no “porter” line when debarking – your porter stands in line with you while you go through the long line. In Charleston when we got a porter there was a dedicated line and it went real fast.

WINNER – Charleston because of the dedicated porter line.

I know most everyone likes photos – so, we will try and upload some as we go or at the end.

was on the same cruise, waiting to read this one, as I had some issues as well.

grand caymen was a joke!

end disembarkation was another !

I agree, fttf was great for boarding, and would use again, but the other privileges seemed pointless

Looking forward to your review. We will be on the Conquest in July

Following. First cruise on the Conquest coming up soon.

I've only sailed on the fascination before. My first cruise on conquest is this weekend. Thank you for the info on grand cayman.

I'm anxious to see how it goes. Can't wait to read the rest of your review.

I'm sailing on 4/4/15. Looking forward to your review!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Forums mobile app

I love you two!!! You guys are the wonderful. CONQUESTIONABLES forever.

I love you two!!! You guys are the wonderful. CONQUESTIONABLES forever.

I screwed that up, imagine that! It was supposed to say that you guys are wonderful and we all are CONQUESTIONABLES forever :)

Carnival Conquest, March 15, 15 Review

 

This is our third cruise with Carnival and our first on a Conquest Class ship and our other cruises on a Fantasy Class – so, this review will be a contrast between the two different ships as much as a review of this particular cruise. Additionally, this was our first time out of Port Everglades and our first time with Faster to the Fun. Since, we are back to work it may take a few days to get this done in its entirety.

 

Embarkation & Debarking, other than being held up for an “inspection” it was pretty smooth – no better or worse than Charleston, just different. This is the only time I felt my $50 Faster to the Fun was worth anything – we were able to walk right up and get checked in – then it’s usefulness fell off – we sat and waited with everyone else – I guess we got on maybe 15 minutes faster than the others. Since we had an excursion booked in Grand Cayman the priority tender benefit was moot. We were surprised there was no “porter” line when debarking – your porter stands in line with you while you go through the long line. In Charleston when we got a porter there was a dedicated line and it went real fast.

 

WINNER – Charleston because of the dedicated porter line.

 

 

 

I know most everyone likes photos – so, we will try and upload some as we go or at the end.

Xxxooooxxxxx

I screwed that up, imagine that! It was supposed to say that you guys are wonderful and we all are CONQUESTIONABLES forever :)

No worries I speak Indy ....

HSP_0070 by RussHatch, on Flickr

I think I will go ahead and talk about the food and food options available. On the Conquest there are several options – buffets, MDR, Fish & Chips, Guy’s Burgers, Blue Iguana, Pizza, Deli and room service. I managed to try something from all of them except the deli – our DS tried the deli and said it was good. I enjoyed all of them – the pizza is SO much better then on the Fantasy – I am not sure if it was a ship thing or a fleet wide change – but I thought it was very good. Guy’s was really good – only problem was the hours that it is open. I wish they would do something we went on more than one occasion to grab a burger and it was closed – same thing with the Fish & Chips. The burrito and taco place was open much more often – it was really good – there are two lines – one for burritos and one for tacos, on the taco side they had some pork that was very tasty but it wasn’t an option on the burrito side … didn’t make much sense. The MDR was, as always good, we do your time dining and it worked out for us, we had to wait only once and for just a few minutes. The Conquest did not have the Mongolian grill and the Fantasy does. The Conquest has the Red Frog and the Tequila Bar where the Fantasy does not.

WINNER – Conquest for just the sheer number of options but they do need to work on opening some of those options more.

DSC04018 by RussHatch, on Flickr

DSC04019 by RussHatch, on Flickr

DSC04020 by RussHatch, on Flickr

DSC04153 by RussHatch, on Flickr

DSC04154 by RussHatch, on Flickr

Enjoying your review so far!

Can't wait to read more. I board her on the 12th.

Thank you for keeping me sane the next week or so! Sailing 4/4 and it's getting tough working lol

Things to do – well, as on all of fun ships there is a lot to do or nothing to do depends on the person and their interests. The Conquest has volley ball, basketball, putt putt, work out facilities with machines, free weights, cardio equipment and a jogging track – so, if you are the active type there is stuff for you to do and use (Fantasy has the exercise room, putt putt and the track). There are ample bars on both – Conquest has more than I could experience on a 6 day cruise. Both ships have a casino if you are a gambler. Both have comedy shows, production shows, singing, dancing etc… the Conquest is a larger ship and the venues are larger. The quality of the performers is on par with one another – the Conquest has much nicer staging and a video wall that was impressive. Additionally, more shows were offered (Brits, Divas, Latin Nights and I forget the other) we made it to 3 of the 4 and they were decent – our only complaint would be whoever is running the sound board needs to back off the volume. The comedy shows, at least we think they, were really good. We have found the comedians to normally be the best shows of the cruise. We normally like the piano bar as well, this time it didn’t click for us but others seem to enjoy spending time there.

Since we are discussing the different venues and such, I want to touch on navigating around the ship – it is, in our opinion confusing and difficult to get around compared to the Fantasy class ships – the Conquest just seemed to be compartmentalized had to go up or down to get from here to there – plus people would cut through the MDR (Renior) wearing attire not suitable for the MDR as a short cut – I don’t think they should have been allowed to but they were and did – I didn’t really need to see some of the no shoes on swim suited butts that march through …

Winner – Conquest, again larger ship a few more options but not as easy to get around.

DSC04157 by RussHatch, on Flickr

[url="http://boards.cruisecritic.com/DSC04157"]DSC04163 by RussHatch, on Flickr

[url="http://boards.cruisecritic.com/DSC04157"]DSC04166 by RussHatch, on Flickr

[url="http://boards.cruisecritic.com/DSC04157 by RussHatch, on Flickr"]

[/url]

DSC04186 by RussHatch, on Flickr

DSC04212 by RussHatch, on Flickr

DSC04230 by RussHatch, on Flickr

DSC04315 by RussHatch, on Flickr

On to a delicate subject – I say delicate because to a certain extent it can be subjective; the overall condition of the ship. I will say the ship is clean, other than the common aggravation shared on all cruise ships … Dirty Windows! I know … how do you clean them? This was our biggest complaint on the Fantasy, as we have always had ocean view cabins. We opted for a balcony this time and while it was nice we decided it was not a requirement by any means for future sailings. However, some of the windows in the MDR (aft Monet dining room) were crazy dirty. Also, there is a table starboard side for 2 where the window frame is corroded through. We discovered several places throughout the ship that was in need of repair work, replacing or at the very least painted. This ship is 12 years newer than the Fantasy, but appeared to us to be in worse shape. While on this – it did not appear the crew was as concerned about how the ship looked compared to the Fantasy crew. On the Fantasy every single time I left the cabin I saw staff working, cleaning, scrubbing … I saw people dusting the elevator shaft. It was just the opposite on the Conquest, we rarely saw crew cleaning. On several occasions the drink stations were not functioning or there were not cups. We had been anticipating much more moving from a smaller, older ship to a big newer one – the Fantasy is even more impressive now.

Winner – Fantasy for overall condition

Since we have lightly touched on the subject of staff, might as well go ahead and talk about them. Before we go any further, I want to point out the staff on Carnival ships work very, very hard doing what often is a thankless job. We have seen them clean up after people who for whatever reason think the staff can be treated any way they feel like – make messes that they should be made to clean themselves. Having said that we had some wonderful interactions with several crew members – please forgive me, I am sure I will misspell several people’s names. The cure blonde at the coffee bar was awesome; Aysa, I believe was her name. Carlos our room steward was great – never really got to talk to his assistant. We had “Andy” on the fantasy and I doubt any room steward will ever equal his attentiveness, Carlos was a close second. Bianca in the MDR (your time dining) was fab and we requested her every time after the first night. Her assistant Nenad was equally cool. The hostess who seated us, blonde woman named Andrea was a pleasure. The folks who work in the art gallery were great and the fun shop girl from England was a hoot. With a crew of over a thousand these are our stand outs – none of the other crew members we encountered were …. friendly, at least not like the crew of the Fantasy. This is not to say they did anything wrong – no one was rude or impolite, just kinda there and maybe a little indifferent. Oh, one other person who is a definite stand out – Glenda – she works at the port and was in charge of shuffling and sorting us while we waited to board – she got a conga line going and was singing. If we rate the people we mentioned with their counter-parts on the Fantasy it is a push.

Mike Pack was the cruise director and did a fine job – he had energy and we saw him all over the place – I am not sure how he could have made our cruise better, but I can see how a bad cruise director could make things worse since they MC most events. So as far as cruise directors go he is up towards the top.

For our specific interactions with the ones that we were dealing with it is a push again – overall interactions goes to the crew of the Fantasy.

Winner – Fantasy – overall. Both have some wonderful crew members though.

Thanks for this review. We're on Conquest in June, first time on Carnival line. Trying to figure out the dos and don'ts of Conquest, particularly food and shows.

Hi. You mentioned it earlier but I didn't find it on the deck plans. Where is it located?

thanks

Hi. You mentioned it earlier but I didn't find it on the deck plans. Where is it located?

thanks

It is on the Lido deck - next to the Sun Pool, starboard side midship.

DSC04323 by RussHatch, on Flickr

DSC04324 by RussHatch, on Flickr

DSC04340 by RussHatch, on Flickr

DSC04329 by RussHatch, on Flickr

Ports of Call – we were on a 6 day with stops in Key West, Grand Cayman and Cozumel. There are tons of excursions available with Carnival and with third party providers – on this particular cruise we booked through Carnival but we don’t always – our advice here would be if you go out on your own just make sure you do your homework. We base our decision on which port, have we been there before, excursion times – stuff like that. Although it wasn’t on this cruise we can whole heartedly recommend Blue Hole Watersports in Nassau – Basil was awesome – a little more than half the cost and much better snorkeling then through Carnival.

Key West – we had no plans, got off the ship and grabbed a “hop on hop off” ticket for a trolley – it was well worth the $ - we prob could have saved a couple bucks booking directly online or checking groupon.

Grand Cayman – well, it was awesome and sucked at the same time. We decide at the last minute to book an excursion because there were 6 cruise ships in port with 19000 passengers! We had FTTF which was useless for the tender because all excursions had to meet in the theater and get ferried by excursion group – it was late getting started. To further complicate the matter ship time and GC time was different. We booked Stingray City/Tiki Beach – we were late getting off the ship so everything was rushed. The crew of the boat was great – we got good time in the water with the rays – it was really cool and that part we can recommend. We got back and delivered to Tiki Beach, got our ticket for a watered down rum punch and lounge chair – were told they would take us back at such and such time – problem number one – they wanted to take us back after the last tender had run (different times remember)! We finally convinced them we could not wait till then – and got a van/mini bus with a driver who had a rather nasty attitude because not all of his seats were full to haul a group of us back. So we paid for 2 hours of beach time only got one hour – we were a hungry and ordered a bit of food – when the bill arrived it was unbelievable – I knoe the Cayman dollar is stronger but the price on the menu and what our bill was did not even add up – I just wanted to get to the tenders so I could get back to the ship. As an FYI – we ordered one hamburger w/FF, one quesadilla and 2 beers – apparently in GC that is $50 bucks worth of food – it wasn’t worth arguing about so I caved and paid. Bottom line – the stingrays were awesome and the ride out to them was great – Tiki Beach and that transportation part sucked balls. If you are going to do an excursion find something that includes your lunch and read every review about it you can find. FTTF is pretty much useless if you have an excursion too.

Cozumel – I can say without any reservations if you are thinking about this excursion make sure you do it through Carnival – the times are definitely pushing the envelope on making it back to the ship. We booked the Mayan Ruins at Tulum – it was better than expected. We once again meet, this time in the mid ship MDR – were hustled off to a very nice ferry that took us over to Playa on mainland Mexico. The ferry ride was very nice, air-conditioned with a snack bar and drinks available for purchase. We tried to think ahead and we had brought camelbacks for each of us – we filled them up with ice and water from the ship before we left. Once we arrived in Playa we were walked over and boarded an equally nice charter bus for the trip to Tulum. Our guide was Saul and he was great – we stopped at a rest stop where he talked about Mayan culture a little and the local obsidian that has a definite gold hue – maybe that is what the Spaniards mistook for cities of gold. Also, at this rest stop is a gift shop – we bought some obsidian stuff and the DW bought a liter of vanilla for like 8 bucks. We got back on the bus and continued on to Tulum – once there Saul escorted us into the ruins and provided a short lesson on Tulum – we were then free to walk around on our own – there is also a beach you can access. It was crazy hot we wished we had planned on getting into the water. We had a time to be back at the bus – so, after we had walked around snapping pictures like crazy we headed out of the ruins – just outside near where the bus was parked we ate a place called Frosty’s – we all had tacos and Mexican beer – reasonably priced and very tasty. There are numerous places to shop there too – from hats to alcohol. We all loaded back up and we rode back to Playa, back on the ferry – different one this time but still had A/C and they were showed a movie on the way back to Cozumel – we were back on the ship about 15 minutes before it pulled away from the dock – excursion was approx. 7 hours long. I am very glad we did it – but it is one of those did it once kinda things don’t think I will ever go again.

Thanks for your review so far. Can you tell me who the Hotel Director is? and do you have the funtimes? thanks

Thanks for your review so far. Can you tell me who the Hotel Director is? and do you have the funtimes? thanks

The hotel director was Dave Drier.

I have the Fun Times and will try to make time to scan them - I won't make any promises though. For us the big thing was which night were cruise elegant - we departed on a Sunday, for our cruise it was Key West (1st full day) and Cozumel (2nd to last day). If you have other questions let me know and I will try to answer them.

DSC04044 by RussHatch, on Flickr

DSC04081 by RussHatch, on Flickr

DSC04116 by RussHatch, on Flickr

DSC04239 by RussHatch, on Flickr

DSC04271 by RussHatch, on Flickr

HSP_0266 by RussHatch, on Flickr