ItalianFemmy's Carnival Breeze Photo Review - US Inaugural

Hi everyone and welcome to my long anticipated (so I hope it doesn't let you down), Carnival Breeze Photo Review!! Many of you followed my Dream review last year so you already know us. And for those who didn't, shame on you! Haha, just kidding!! My Dream review is linked below in our signature by the way.

I want to start this review off by talking a little bit about myself (Alicia) and my partner, Latanya. This is us... Latanya is on the left and I am on the right.

This photo was taken last year on the Dream using our camera by our friends Steve and Kim who we met on CC before we sailed away. Latanya who never wears dresses is absolutely thrilled that I am posting photos of her online with a dress on..... but she'll be even more 'thrilled' when I post other images later... hehe.....

A few notes before we delve in!!

1.) I took every shot that will appear in this review unless I state otherwise and credit someone else for their photo.

2.) I'm starting this review earlier than I had planned to based on people being so excited to see at least some of it before their own trips. I will be 100% honest here and say that as a photographer, this is my busy season and as I am typing this, I have 19 clients whose images I have already shot waiting on their edited photos. So, I will only be able to do this review in small doses. For those that followed my Dream review, you know I will edit all of the photos that I post and in order to have time to do this, I have to space it out. So, please be patient with me!.

3.) We sailed with the awesome Chris and Cassandra.. (Chrissandra) and they are doing a much more fast paced review than I will be able to do so please do check out their review meanwhile. It's filled with all kinds of good stuff!

4.) Some of your fellow CC members will be co-starring in this review... and I have photos of them...... they should be terrified! :-D

5.) This review won't be like my review on the Dream in the sense that nothing we did was the same. On my cruise aboard the Dream, many of you know I went out and took some gritty photos showing the poverty stricken areas and took photos of the locals. I didn't get to do that on this trip even though I had planned on doing so. (Will get into this more later.)

6.) This will be a completely fair review. I will be going into story type depth over the things I/we enjoyed and didn't. In fact, I took the time on this cruise to ask others what they thought and plan to share their experiences with you as well. I also interviewed a few crew members and plan to reveal that at some point too!

7.) At the end of my review, I will be posting a nuts and bolts comparison of my Dream cruise and my Breeze cruise. I've been on many others but the Dream was/is?? my favorite so it's only natural to compare the two!!

8.) If you ask me a question about a day that I have not gotten to yet, I won't answer you unless you email me privately. I don't want to spoil anything ahead of time. If, however, I have completed a day and you have a question that I didn't cover, please ask away!

As always, doing reviews here helps me to actually take the time to edit my own vacation photos, which I would probably never get around to otherwise... so I am excited to get started!

Okay, most avid CC members know how to subscribe to a thread. I encourage everyone to subscribe with at least daily email reminders. This way, you'll be notified when I add stuff. Some days, I won't be able to post at all due to being out shooting a large event, wedding, etc. So, subscribing is the easiest way to keep up to date with when I post.

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Enjoy!!

Yay! I have been waiting on this review, can't wait for more.:)

Yay! Ready. :)

Thanks for starting your review of the breeze:). Like your writing style and love the photos:)

One of our fellow CC members, Floatie started a group called "Funnel Fanatics" for the U.S. Inaugural sailing on the Breeze. I had always booked directly through the cruise line and had never used a T.A. before so I was skeptical to join the group at first. Eventually, I thought there should be more pros than cons and decided to join. This was in January of 2012. So, we had more than 10 months to anticipate our trip on the Breeze.

We'd never done an inaugural sailing before so when Carnival told us that we'd be able to see the naming ceremony take place, that we'd have all kinds of additional perks for being on the very first full itinerary, US voyage, we were pretty stoked. Stoked enough to pay a very decent premium for the November 24th sailing. Our friends, Steve and Kim, who are currently aboard the December 8th sailing got a balcony for less than we paid for our interior spa cabin..... and all along I was cool with that because we were going to have tons of extra perks!!

Meanwhile, I fell by the wayside and barely came onto CC so I didn't get to forge the connections and bonds with people in the roll call like I normally would. In fact, many of them only knew me and wanted to meet me because they'd read my Dream review! I kept meaning to be more active but work got in the way. It didn't stop the roll calls from being active and friendships from forming meanwhile. Of course, I wouldn't really know much about this until we set sail.... (more on that later!).

I started checking in on the group page a couple weeks before the trip was to begin. I still hadn't booked one excursion which is totally unlike me because we (Latanya and I) love to do things at each port of call. It was around this time that I found out we weren't getting the naming ceremony and most likely wouldn't be having JH on board with us either. I grimaced, disappointed and kept my head held as high as I could, trying not to be bitter. After all, they HAD all kinds of other awesome things planned for us, right? :-)

Two days before we were to leave, I finally started feeling like I was about to go on vacation and we decided last minute to join in on a group excursion that one of our roll call members had organized for Aruba. Will tell you more about that member and that day later!!

I must PAUSE for a moment to say thank you to the CC community!! You all made me feel so good last year about my talent as a photographer and so validated as an artist that I finally started to see myself in that light. I had never submitted anything for publication last year when I did my Dream review. But so many of you kept saying my work belonged in magazines. And after my review hit 100,000 views and hundreds upon thousands of positive comments, I started to believe there was something there. Granted, I'd been shooting for more than 5 years and tons of clients had told me the same but it didn't hit me until such a large number of unbiased people reached out to me.

I had over 100 emails from members on here telling me how my review inspired them in some way and more than 40 people who wanted to get into photography hoping that I could help them in some way. And I did my best to always respond to every single person.

Meanwhile, I started putting my work out in platforms where it could be viewed by more people. As I sit here, less than 1 year later typing this review, my work has been on the cover of a magazine 6 times since June, 2012. I have received a total of 11 publications in 2012. I have over 200 photos printed inside of magazines as well. I might have gotten there one day but I believe my review on CC and the love that was shown to me encouraged me to make it happen now, rather than later. So, I want to thank all of you for that!

Meanwhile, I started putting my work out in platforms where it could be viewed by more people. As I sit here, less than 1 year later typing this review, my work has been on the cover of a magazine 6 times since June, 2012. I have received a total of 11 publications in 2012. I have over 200 photos printed inside of magazines as well. I might have gotten there one day but I believe my review on CC and the love that was shown to me encouraged me to make it happen now, rather than later. So, I want to thank all of you for that!

That is so awesome and congrats to you! Your photography certainly does need to be recognized as greatness! :D Definitely subbing to this review of the Breeze. :)

Thanks for the review!

Latanya and I shot a wedding in Orlando (5 hours from Miami give or take your driving speed) on Friday night, November 23rd. I had my laptop and external hard drive with me and we drove through the night to our friends house in Boca Raton. I stayed awake to back up the clients wedding photos onto the laptop and then onto the hard drive to leave at my friends house. I didn't want to risk having the only copies of their photos on the ship with me! Eeek!!

Saturday morning, we woke up feeling rather excited. Carnival had sent us an email a couple of days prior saying that our boarding time was between 1pm-3pm. A lot of people thought this was Carnival's scare tactic so everyone wouldn't crowd the terminal at once and they didn't heed this warning to be accurate. They would find themselves rather upset as they arrived at 10am only to be told they indeed did have to wait until 1-3pm if that was their boarding time.

Latanya and I were so tired from having driven all night from the wedding that we were happy to wait until 1pm to get there.

Before the cruise, I made reservations with Premier Parking which is about 1 1/2 miles away from the terminal. Their parking garage is only $8 per day and you get a free shuttle ride to the ship and back to the garage when the cruise is over. We've been doing this for years. I can't justify paying more than $20 per day to park when I can go a mile down the street and pay less than 1/2 the cost.

We stopped at this little super market close to the parking place to get a drink and a snack, not knowing how long the boarding process would take. They had this awesome raspberry lemonade that made me go back there when we got off the ship to get more.... but they were out... bummer!! Oops, I just skipped 8 days ahead! :p

When we pulled into the Premier parking garage, we had to show them our documents for our reservation and they had us pull over and told us to wait for the white van with blue premier letters on it to pull in and to follow that van up the parking garage until the guy told us where to park. So, we did just that. It took about 5 minutes for him to pull in. Then we got our spot, parked our car and he loaded our bags into the van. I opted to keep my camera bag in my lap so that my gear would be safe.

The only down side was that they crammed a lot of people into the van. But again, it was only a mile and a half and was still worth the discount. They dropped us super close to the terminal and we checked our big bags with the porters. We tipped them and were on our way into the terminal.

We've been to terminals where the line wraps outside. Such wasn't the case here and it had me a bit giddy because I thought we were about to stroll right on in. I was wrong. And this is when we were given a boarding group number. Ours was 43. And they were on I believe 29 or 30 when we walked in. We went through the process of checking in and getting our sail and sign cards, etc. Then we had to sit and wait for our boarding group to be called.

(I have to take a break to edit some client photos, then edit a couple shots from the terminal and then I will proceed with my review hopefully later tonight. If not, it will be Thursday because I have an all day wedding to shoot tomorrow!)

I can't wait to read your review and see the pictures!

We are on the Jan 5 sailing.

Your pictures are so beautiful!

Let me go pop some popcorn before I read any more. I've been waiting for this one! :D

we really enjoyed sailing with you Linda and I both read your Dream review and Loved it. I will wait for you to post more all along understanding you work for a living and this is something you will do as time allows because you do things right not rushed

Alicia, so glad to see you posting your review! I know it will be worth any waiting. Very happy we got to sail with you & Latanya...it was truly a pleasure!:) Can't wait to see more of your pics...you were snapping a whole lot of photos!

I am anticipating your review. Your last one was great!! Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to do this. Hope you had a great vacation!!

Hi Alicia!! Subscribed :D

(and thanks for the shout out hehe!)

I remember your previous review and you had awesome shots! Congrats on your achievements! Normally, I don't follow reviews unless its for a ship and itinerary I'll be on soon but I love your photos and your writing style so I'll be tuned in!! :-)

Latanya looks great in her dress! Will she be popping in to do guest posts? I love when couples chime in with their own thoughts.

I just sat down with a glass of wine eager to start reading, DH is in luck tonight since it wasn't too long..thanks for starting it, can't wait for the rest :)

 

(I have to take a break to edit some client photos, then edit a couple shots from the terminal and then I will proceed with my review hopefully later tonight. If not, it will be Thursday because I have an all day wedding to shoot tomorrow!)

I wondered why there would be an all day wedding on a Wednesday until I realized the date will be 12/12/12 :)

Alicia, it was a pleasure sailing with you & Latanya.

I look forward to the next time ;)

Anxious to read your review and enjoy the happy times all over again!

(((hugs)))

Uh-oh, looks like we have some competition :p. It was so great meeting you and Latanya! I'm glad we got to do dinner together with Ron and Linda that evening and get to know you better. I can't wait to sit back and read someone else's review (these things are a lot of work).

Okay.. one more post! I had to pay to re-upgrade my Photobucket account so that it won't exceed bandwidth. Shout out to all CC reviewers that take money out of their own pockets to pay for bandwidth to do these reviews! If you are reading my review and you don't usually read reviews, I encourage you to read others as those of us that do this are truly dedicated!

Moving along...

So we were boarding group 43. We got to sit in comfy seats while waiting for our boarding group to be called.

And we even asked a random stranger to take a photo of the two of us. The man that looks like he's either about to pull his pants down or just pulled them up in the background makes this shot awesome! lol.

We're only a couple minutes in and Latanya is already giving me the "fake smile" Gotta love her! lol

And now, she's found clever things to do with her embarkation papers to block 1/2 her face.

Yay!! We're on the move.. our number called... and everything goes fairly smoothly from this point. We're taking an escalator upstairs and winding around to another line.... photo time.... this embarkation photo never gets bought by us because we look like we've been traveling all day. But we take it nonetheless. The ship photographers notice my camera and we quickly become friends. Now, I am taking their photos instead of them taking mine... Sweet!!

We wind the bend and walk across the catwalk on the top towards our new home for the next 8 days... The terminal is cleared out more by this point as well...

We got to the parking place at around noon. We were at the terminal by 12:30 and we were on the ship around 1:30pm.

On a mission to go straight to our cabin and drop off our bags we go..... (more to come later!)

Going to subscribe & somehow I missed your review of the Dream - so I will keep myself busy with that! Looking forward to traveling w/you & Latanya!

Yay! I have been waiting on this review, can't wait for more.:)

Thank you for waiting!! It will be a slow review but hopefully worth the wait!!

Yay! Ready. :)

Set. Go. :D

Thanks for starting your review of the breeze:). Like your writing style and love the photos:)

Thanks so much!! I hope I don't disappoint!!

That is so awesome and congrats to you! Your photography certainly does need to be recognized as greatness! Definitely subbing to this review of the Breeze.

Thanks!! It certainly feels amazing and almost surreal!!

Thanks for the review!

You're most welcome!

I can't wait to read your review and see the pictures!

We are on the Jan 5 sailing.

Your pictures are so beautiful!

Thank you so much for the kind and sweet words. I hope that you have an amazing cruise and that you'll be able to learn some things from mine before you go!

Let me go pop some popcorn before I read any more. I've been waiting for this one!

A girl has to work hard at her review to keep up with you and Chrissandra. :-)

we really enjoyed sailing with you Linda and I both read your Dream review and Loved it. I will wait for you to post more all along understanding you work for a living and this is something you will do as time allows because you do things right not rushed

It was awesome meeting you both as well! Sorry we didn't have more time to chit chat! I was all over the place taking photos any time the CC folks got together!

Alicia, so glad to see you posting your review! I know it will be worth any waiting. Very happy we got to sail with you & Latanya...it was truly a pleasure!:) Can't wait to see more of your pics...you were snapping a whole lot of photos!

Thanks so much! And yes, I took about 4,000 images. I won't be posting nearly that many but it will be hard to narrow a lot of them down!! Was a pleasure sailing with you as well! Hope we get to do it again!

I am anticipating your review. Your last one was great!! Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to do this. Hope you had a great vacation!!

No problem! It's a pleasure to do reviews for a group of people that are truly interested in reading them!!

Hi Alicia!! Subscribed

 

(and thanks for the shout out hehe!)

Yay!! And you're welcome! Can't wait to talk about you! teeheehee

I remember your previous review and you had awesome shots! Congrats on your achievements! Normally, I don't follow reviews unless its for a ship and itinerary I'll be on soon but I love your photos and your writing style so I'll be tuned in!! :-)

 

Latanya looks great in her dress! Will she be popping in to do guest posts? I love when couples chime in with their own thoughts.

I am flattered that you follow mine!! So awesome! Latanya doesn't have an account but I will post some of her opinions for sure. As busy as I am, Latanya is my photography assistant/ 2nd shooter on weekends and she works full time as a scientist with her Ph.D. Monday through Friday. And on weekday evenings, she helps me design my client albums and fulfill print orders. We're pretty dedicated people to setting up a stable future financially so she just doesn't really have time. I don't either to be honest... but I am making it!!

I just sat down with a glass of wine eager to start reading, DH is in luck tonight since it wasn't too long..thanks for starting it, can't wait for the rest.

Awww well I hope you enjoy the wine anyway, even though there wasn't as much to read just yet!

I wondered why there would be an all day wedding on a Wednesday until I realized the date will be 12/12/12

Yes, it is 12/12/12. But to be honest, we book lots of week day weddings. Venues and wedding vendors often charge less for events booked on weekdays. We don't because we still have to do just as much work. But venues that would sit empty otherwise do.... so it's kind of trending...

Alicia, it was a pleasure sailing with you & Latanya.

I look forward to the next time

Anxious to read your review and enjoy the happy times all over again!

(((hugs)))

You're one of my favorite people that I have ever met on a ship! I cannot wait to talk about you later in the review, TC! It was a pleasure sailing with you as well!

Uh-oh, looks like we have some competition :p. It was so great meeting you and Latanya! I'm glad we got to do dinner together with Ron and Linda that evening and get to know you better. I can't wait to sit back and read someone else's review (these things are a lot of work).

Oh please! You already have over 30,000 views on your review plus you two are adorable and everyone wants to read about your travels (as do I.). It was a pleasure meeting you as well and you already are going to the naughty corner because you are telling spoilers in my review! lol

Going to subscribe & somehow I missed your review of the Dream - so I will keep myself busy with that! Looking forward to traveling w/you & Latanya!

The Dream review will keep you busy for hours and hours I am told!!

I've been anxiously awaiting this review after getting totally sucked in to your Dream review - a ship I've never sailed lol. I've been following Chris and Cass' review and since it's coming to an end, I'm so glad you're doing this. My husband, son and I will be on the Breeze for the Dec 22 sailing and I'm beyond excited!