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11/22 IMAGINATION - Retailer Therapy


BSQ

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Originally I wasn't going to write this up, but notice there usually isn't a lot out here about the shorter cruises. Here’s my Trip n Ship report on my 11/22 sailing on the Carnival Imagination. This was the 4-day western itinerary, ports of call in Key West and Cozumel. This was my fifth cruise, and I was traveling solo. (I kind of forgot to invite BubbaQ oops!)

 

Reader warning: All I wanted from this trip was rest and relaxation. I really didn’t want to do anything. If you are looking for information about all the ship activities, you won’t really find it here.

 

BOOKING

I’ll start at the beginning. I booked this cruise 6 days before we sailed … well 8 days actually, I had to call back on Monday after I’d booked to get a discount applied. After a lot of cheesy hold music and ads for Carnival Vacations, four transfers later, I was finally booked. Normally this would irritate me, but everyone was so nice about it all, how could I be upset (are you listening Comcast cable ??)

 

Between the day I had first called and the day I’d gotten everything finalized the price must have dropped, so someone took pity on the poor tired retailer trying to escape the retail madness of Black Friday and celebrate her birthday … I ended up with a $99 booking credit and just over $10 OBC. SCORE!

 

So thank you to the six different people at Carnival that had to be consulted over two phone calls, to get my cruise booked.

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PRE CRUISE HOTEL

 

I drove down to Miami, and stayed at the Intercontinental – Downtown. I know you’re thinking “whoa, that’s not budget”, It was going for $84 plus taxes on the last minute travel websites, though I used Points to cover my stay. I’d stayed at this hotel before, and found my stay once again to be comfortable. A lil of the ICH love had worn off for me since my previous stay, and I gotta tell ya, there’s no way I’d pay what they normally ask for this hotel. It’s nice, but not Ultra Lovely. Parking is $39 here. Seems high until you search around and find that all the downtown hotels are robbers priced similarly.

 

What I like about the ICH: Close to port ($10 cab ride), Proximity to Bayside Market Place (next door), the walking path along the water, comfy beds, Starbucks in the lobby.

 

What I didn’t like about the ICH: Room soundproofing to the outdoors, bellmen that didn’t even approach us and ask to take our bags (usually you can’t get rid of these guys). I think it’s overpriced in general.

 

Tip: if you have to decide between city views and bay views … go for the water views every time.

 

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very windy Miami

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EMBARKATION

 

I arrived at 11:45am. Left my bags with a porter , walked over to the entrance where I was handed a dog chew toy on a string. This I’m told was to track how long it took me to get on board. Carnival was trying to see how long it actually takes people to get on board. I have to say kudos to Carnival for wanting to know these stats.

 

Everything moved quickly. I was through security and upstairs filling out my health screening form in minutes. Over to the Kiosks to check in … this was a new thing for me. There was no wait to get to a Kiosk, one zip of my passport and of my credit card and it was off to the next station to get my Sail & $ign card. Loved how quickly this went, my only negative observation is the line to get the S&$ card spilled over into the kiosk area making it congested and a little confusing. Separating the lines for these two areas a bit better, would have made it smoother. (But overall, it went quite quickly).

 

Next upstairs to the photo area, which I bypassed, cause that’s what I do, along the gangway and Voila! Smile for the S&$ picture, and here we are on board the Carnival Imagination!! Took me all of 20 minutes. Oh yeah, ummm excuse me, who do I give this dog toy thing to??

 

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This was the earliest I’d been on a ship. I think I rather liked this getting here early gig. The first person I passed was a young man in chef’s whites with a tall Chef’s hat. He asked if I was interested in hearing about the Chef’s table. I asked when it was, he told me Thursday. I booked it right then n there.

 

I explored a little, but hadn’t eaten breakfast so I made my way to the aft Lido to get some lunch. I find if you go in the opposite direction of the crowds, you’ll find peace n quiet. The front buffets were crazy crowded, and lines lines lines around the grills by the main pool.

 

The Deli and Pizzeria and NO lines. NO LINES! The one thing I like about this class of ship is the outdoor seating area just outside the food area. I found a quiet place to enjoy lunch and just gaze out upon Miami. Just me and my Cow. Yes, cow.

 

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CABIN M248

 

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I had booked an IS cabin and ended up with M248, a 4-something. It was roomy, but the one thing I noticed as soon as I set foot in the cabin was <wheeze, wheeze> a lingering cigarette odor. @(*#! I’m allergic. I called the cabin steward immediately, he said he’d take care of it right away. Went up to get fresh air, and my cow took to her twitters. Did I mention my Cow has a distinct personality? It is either a result of too much Tequila (on both our parts) or an overactive imagination.

 

Unfortunately the whole issue with the Cabin became a major ordeal and took 6 hours before it was even addressed. In hindsight, I should have let the cow handle it through her tweets.

 

Twitter Exchange:

3:13pm

Cough Cough Cough. My Stateroom smells like cigarettes. (Were allergics @CarnivalCruise )

 

3:17pm

YAY! #FunShip

 

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3:23pm

@RoamingCow if you’d like to send me your cabin number, I’ll send someone over to you ^mb

 

3:29pm

@CCLSupport, thanks! MooMoo already called our steward we’re enjoying the serenity deck till later. We are having fun! Mooo!

 

3:31pm

@RoamingCow That’s what we like to hear! Enjoy the rest of your Cruise! - ^mb

 

 

I just want to add that I was very surprised to be contacted by CCL via Twitter. I have had occasion to contact CCL Support via twitter once before, and was very impressed by the customer service. In this experience, it was just a random bovine rant that Carnival picked up on and offered assistance. @RoamingCow and I applaud their Tweeps.

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MANDATORY SAFETY BRIEFING

 

My Muster Station was the Xanadu Lounge. We gathered here, sans life vests, and listened to the safety briefing. Then, station by station, we were lead to our actual life boat stations (for us, up one flight of stairs), where we lined up outside under the life boats, and waited some more. Once all stations were outside, we were given the all clear signal. While this seemed odd as we were doing it, I know when I was seated in the lounge I was kind of thinking, ummm how will I know where my life boat is if there is an emergency? All I know right now is where the bar and lounge are … not a bad thing, but well … I’m just sayin is all.

 

 

SAIL AWAY MEET & GREET

 

One thing with booking so close in, I didn’t really get to bond all that much with the folks on my Roll Call. Fellow CCer treasure4two had made arrangements with Carnival for a M&G. They had given us the conference room (with iced water available), which was tucked away and though not easy to find, did have a wall of windows so we could see Miami passing by as we headed out to see. It was nice meeting all who attended! And thanks treasure4two for arranging this!

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FOOD & MDR

 

I had requested Your Time Dining, but ended up with late seating. Dinner seemed to last a really really long time. I was seated at table 305. Know how your tablemates magically seem to have something in common with you? Ummm. Here I was a solo traveler seated at a table for 9, actually with two tables of folks - all from the same family. Walking up to the table they were all laughing and talking suddenly all faces turned to me as I was lead to the table. 18 people all staring at me with a “who the h* are you?” look on their face. I smiled and said “hey Cous! Don’t you remember me? From Granny’s side of the family … course you remember that time? At that place?”

 

I can honestly say through all my MDR selections I did not have a bad dish. The chocolate pumpkin pie thing on Thanksgiving night was a little too fancy for my simple pumpkin pie from the back of the Libby’s Pumpkin Can Label tastes. : )

 

Elegant Night, I felt was a little more relaxed on this short cruise compared to the longer cruises I’d been on. I’m going to confess something to you all. I WORE DENIM. Please note I did not say jeans. I wore career denim trousers, and I will take these pants over an ill fitting sparkly polyester anything, any day of the week.

 

On a personal note, thank you to all 18 of my adopted cousins from Ohio on this cruise. It was a wonderful sharing Thanksgiving with your family. Thank you for letting me be a part of your annual tradition.

 

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CHEF’S TABLE

 

In the end this was the highlight of my on board experience, but getting to this day was a whole lot of ups n downs and confusion. As I mentioned, as soon as I set foot on the ship I’d made the reservation for Chef’s Table which was to be Thursday night.

 

Tuesday my reservation was confirmed, Wednesday it was canceled due to overbooking.

Are you kidding me??? I’ll spare you the drama, and simply write after MUCH confusion the Chef’s Table experience happened on Wednesday, and it was a wonderful experience. In all there were 7 of us, and I could not have had more perfect dinner companions had I hand picked them myself.

 

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PORT OF CALL - KEY WEST

 

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We were in Key West from 7am to 1:30 pm. Key West doesn’t open up till 9 – 9:30 ish, so the time that we were actually in port felt like just a blink of the eye. This was my first trip to Key West. I had decided on a Trolley Tour figuring I’d done these in other cities and it was a good way to learn about the place and see all the touristy stuff. I booked on line with City View Trolleys getting a $2 discount. While my trolley ticket ended up being under utilized due to the short time in port, I still felt it was worth getting.

 

Of all the things to see and do, I picked the Hemingway Home.

 

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I road the trolley until this stop. I enjoyed this tour, but I suppose if you know nothing of Hemingway, are unfamiliar with his writing and his life, this would probably not be a stop for you. Oh, unless you just want to go to see the six toed kitty cats. Caught the trolley just as I’d finished up here (had I missed it, it would have been 20 minutes till the next one).

 

Next stop was the Key West Winery. All the wines here are made with fruits or vegetables. (Not too fond of the carrot one). They are sweet, but on a hot Florida afternoon, I can totally see these hitting the spot. Now if it would only get hot again. After some wine tasting and checking that the Cow didn’t jump out on Duval Street, we headed over to Kermit’s for some Key Lime pie.

 

Now the way people go on about the Key Lime pie in Key West, I was expecting a heavenly experience. I was a little let down. Don’t get me wrong, it was VERY good … but as I took a bite of the luscious filling, I found myself saying “this tastes … exactly like the one I make.” One slice of pie, and a couple bags of key lime salt water taffy later, I walked back to Mallory Square and caught the next trolley back to the ship. Yeah, that’s it. Just enough of Key West to know I need to put it on my places to return to list.

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PORT OF CALL - COZUMEL

 

We docked at the International Pier. I didn't realize that I was going to be at a different pier than when I was on the Freedom, it took me a minute to get oriented. 5 or 6 ships were in port at the same time. I'd missed the tequila convention by a couple days and the Iron Man would be a couple days later.

 

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I had a specific mission in coming to Cozumel this trip. Xtabentun, Tequila, and Tikin Xic. Tikin Xic was out since the Chef’s Table happened (so worth the sacrifice). Xtabentun I ended up getting from Los Cinco Soles in town. In talking with the store clerk I discovered their brand of Xtabentun is bottled by Valisotino which I happen to like better than D’Aristi brand (too much anise). A sample of theirs sealed that purchase.

 

Although LCS is a tourist shop (I’m a tourist) so I didn’t go out of my way finding the cheapest local tequila shop. To be honest, I was going to buy from any place if I found my beloved XQ. Seeing the 200+ bottles of tequilas on display I was like a kid in a candy store. If my cow had been with me, she would have been out of my backpack and hugging the tequila bottles. There it was … among the sea of glass bottles, a ceramic blue X. Score! Mission accomplished.

 

I walked along the tourist shops and was very much reminded of what I really dislike about my trips to Cancun. “Come into my shop” “Cheaper than K-Mart” “Almost Free” “My turn now lady” This was like Retailer’s Hell. My bags were getting heavy so I returned to the ship to drop them off.

 

Conversation between ship security and me as I reboarded … “1, 2, 3,… EIGHT? Bottles?? “ “Yes 8, I was on a mission.” “You have to check those.” “That’s what I’m here for.” As I went to the table to check my bottles he made sure to call over to that person that I had 8 bottles … in a language I wasn’t supposed to be able to understand.

 

The intention was to put on a warmer shirt and turn right around and head back to town and eventually dinner. Chef’s table drama took over so my day in Cozumel was cut short, but I’m OK with that.

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OTHER SHIPPY THINGS

 

In general I found myself making comparisons between this ship and my last cruise 3 months earlier on the Freedom. I really liked that the promenade deck, even on elegant night with all the photo areas set up was never as traffic jammed as the Freedom. It felt more open, which just struck me as odd for a smaller ship. I did try out the sushi, and liked it. I’m not really all that into sushi, but will do an occasional California Roll (both a sushi and how we go through stop signs in CA), but have been hesitant to try it on most of the ships I’ve been on due to the overwhelming fishy smell. For me, if you can smell the fish it’s not worth eating. No smell, so I gave it a whirl. I can’t say my previous cruises have been incomplete without it, but I’m glad I tried it.

 

Imagination does have the Comedy Club and I did enjoy both the comedians’ R-rated shows. I did see the Love & Marriage show, though it was called something else.

 

I didn’t see either of the production shows. I intentionally skipped the first one (living in America) since I’ve seen it a few times. The second one (Shout) I wanted to see ... .but the times weren’t listed on the tear off sheet of the Fun Times … I couldn’t remember what time it started. With dinner going late, and having to still pack, I ended up skipping it.

 

Turns out those of us dining at the Chef’s table weren’t the only ones confused. It was still listed in Thursday’s FunTimes. I guess normally the dinner is on Thursday night but Chef told us it was changed to Wednesday because Thursday was Thanksgiving and that meant a special dinner preparation in the galley, so he would be too busy. While I like the layout of the new FunTimes (I think), a little closer attention to detail might need to be paid. This is the second time I’ve found them to be less than accurate when it comes to when things are going on.

 

 

Oh, I don’t know how I forgot to mention this. I came home with a cold, so no clue how it slipped my mind. The temperatures in port were pleasant. I found Key West perfect, with only a little (to me) humidity. Cozumel, my first words off the ship were “uh oh, I’m gonna be cold” Light showers, a little humidity, breezes keep it fairly cool (to me). On the ship I pretty much froze all the time. I turned my AC completely off in my cabin. All the public areas were very cold (to me). If my cabin had a heater, it would have been turned on. I wished I’d have brought more than one long sleeve sweater. Lesson Learned: sailing in the Winter … bring warm clothes for on the ship.

 

And there you have it. If you have any questions about the Imagination or this Itinerary, ask away … though you can see I was pretty much a zombie on this cruise.

 

Happy Travels ... Happy Shopping ...

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BSQ-great review and I should know, we were with you!:) I too wish our M&G would have been in a better location with a few more goodies, but it was nice meeting people we had talked to. I agree on the Chef's Table also!! Big time.

We loved it so much, we are pretty sure we are going back, same time, same ship. Just hope there are not 800 kids there again, but will still enjoy my wonderful hubby!! By the way, he will be putting our pictures up on our website in the next few days.

Wishing you and your boyfriend and family, a wonderful holiday season! You are one sharp and fun cookie!

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Can you recommend any places close to the Intercontinental Hotel to eat? We do not have a car. Thanks for any info. Beth

 

If you walk up to the bayside market place they have a GREAT nicuraguan steak house named Los Ranchos! Great churasco and chimichuri sauce. There are pics in this post: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1302868&highlight=

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PRE CRUISE HOTEL

 

I drove down to Miami, and stayed at the Intercontinental – Downtown. I know you’re thinking “whoa, that’s not budget”, It was going for $84 plus taxes on the last minute travel websites, though I used Points to cover my stay. I’d stayed at this hotel before, and found my stay once again to be comfortable. A lil of the ICH love had worn off for me since my previous stay, and I gotta tell ya, there’s no way I’d pay what they normally ask for this hotel. It’s nice, but not Ultra Lovely. Parking is $39 here. Seems high until you search around and find that all the downtown hotels are robbers priced similarly.i

 

We stayed there too!! I meet a friend there and we each booked one night and her night was the first night. She had email confirmation that she added me to the room but they had no record of it and told me for my own safety they were not going to let me check in!!! lmao. I left my suitcase and had diiner, my friend hadnt even landed in Ft. Lauderdale yet.

 

To add insult to injury, they told me that my friend couldnt call in either that it was ok for me to check in because she could be a set up. They had no way to know they were talking to the real roommate who booked it. Seriously??!!

 

My friend then finally gets dropped off and in a huff. Said every other hotel they stopped at had a bellman who helped with luggage except for ours. Even hotels like Holiday Inn that supposedly arent as good had them.

 

The room was fine, but since no free breakfast or shuttle, it was a good deal to be sure, but if you could get Holiday Inn for say $159 a night you probably were just as well off. The best thing for us too was how convenient it was to everything and the port. We had the same deal you had for $84 from the same site.

 

For a favorite place to eat that chicken place that is a chain, but its cooked on the grill with island flavor, its wonderful and reasonable. $5 or $6 for 1/4 and rice and beans, a little more to pick your own sides and the cooked banana is one of the best Iv had.

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I had booked an IS cabin and ended up with M248, a 4-something. It was roomy, but the one thing I noticed as soon as I set foot in the cabin was <wheeze, wheeze> a lingering cigarette odor.

 

We just had a porthole cabin on the Imagination Nov 15-19th. Really liked the ship and the Chef's table was a highlight for us as well. But the smoke odor was pretty strong in our cabin as well. Bothered DW more than me but I could still smell it.

 

Did it get better at all after your brought it up with the steward? I wonder how much they can really do about it. That was our first non balcony cabin and I noticed the smoke in the hall a lot more too.

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Can you recommend any places close to the Intercontinental Hotel to eat? We do not have a car. Thanks for any info. Beth

 

You will find lots of places walking distance from the hotel at Bayside Market Place.

 

I ate at the Latin American Cafe, which was quite good. (The smell of BBQ is what drew me in there).

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We just had a porthole cabin on the Imagination Nov 15-19th. Really liked the ship and the Chef's table was a highlight for us as well. But the smoke odor was pretty strong in our cabin as well. Bothered DW more than me but I could still smell it.

 

Did it get better at all after your brought it up with the steward? I wonder how much they can really do about it. That was our first non balcony cabin and I noticed the smoke in the hall a lot more too.

 

This was the first time the smoke odor had bothered me in room on board.

 

I greatly downplayed what it took to get the room taken care of, it was a very upsetting experience that I don't want to relive. :cool: They put ozone machines in the cabins to eat the smoke ... but it lingers in the carpet and anything cloth. They supposedly wash down everything and spray the fabrics.

 

After they finally took care of my cabin, I was able to enter the room without wheezing, but the stale cigarette residue was always there. My Steward had been instructed to always wash down the room thoroughly and change out everything daily ... but I know that didn't happen.

 

I had a neutralizing spray with me that I sprayed on everything that didn't move, each night.

 

While I don't mind having smoking areas on the ship, inside the cabins is one place I wish it would be banned.

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