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Oreo's awesome breeze review 3/10 to 3/16


oreomaximus
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Hello fellow cruisers! So this will be my first ever review on CC so please bear with me. I know there are so real pros out there who have set the bar super high when it comes to cruise reviews so I will attempt to do my best even though I have no idea what I’m doing. Again, this is my first time. So please…be gentle.

Okay, so first things first. Introductions. In order to protect the innocent, I’ll call myself “K”, like Tommy Lee Jones’ character in Men in Black. I’m from a suburb of Houston, TX called Richmond. I’m 36 years old, went to LSU, and am a Green Bay Packers Fan. My husband, we’ll call him “D”, is 31 years old, born and raised in Austin, went to the University of Houston, and is a Dallas Cowgirls fan. Please, don’t hold this against me. If I’d of known this before we got married…I’m just serious.

Here's a picture of us:

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Anyhow, we have 1 child, a daughter, who we’ll call the little human. She’s 18 months and our precious little miracle. She didn’t go on this cruise with us cause momma was only willing to deal with one kid on this vacation. That just went over some of yall’s heads. Don’t worry. It will click later. Here's a picture of the little human:

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Moving on:

After many days of searching, researching, becoming exasperated, giving up, searching again, bugging the hell out of our PVP, negotiating with my husband about how much I would be willing to “give him” in exchange for him giving up going to the State Boys’ Basketball Tourney to go on a cruise instead, and finally just flat out lying to him about how much the cruise would really cost us (no, seriously, lol) we finally booked!!!! This would be only our second cruise together (first was our of San Juan, Puerto Rico on the Victory for our honeymoon. Best. Cruise. Ever.) but our 5th for each of us.

We chose the 6 day cruise out of MIAMI, FL on the fabulous NEW CARNIVAL BREEZE from March 10th to March 16th. Our scheduled itinerary would include Grand Turk, Ocho Rios, & Nassau. We were really excited and even though we knew the drive (18+ hours) would be a beast, we really couldn’t justify spending more on airline tickets for what we paid for the both of us to cruise. SO…we sucked it up and decided to make the drive.

We hit the road at 3:45pm sharp on Friday afternoon as we had decided to stay a night in Miami before we set sail on Sunday. We arrived at about 1:30 on Saturday afternoon after a pretty uneventful drive through the states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and then from one end of Florida to the other. I can definitely say, however, that I will never, ever be driving on the Florida Turnpike again. Humph. Waste of time and money. But I digress.

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We booked a room at the Courtyard by Marriott Hotel off of NE 2nd Street in Downtown Miami. It seemed like it was very close to the Port of Miami and centrally located to a lot of happening areas such as the Bayside Marketplace and it was also just across the bridge from South Beach. We caught a deal on priceline for $79.00. Woo hoo!!

After checking in, we dropped off our bags, walked around the lobby for a while, then headed over to the Bayside Marketplace for a little eat and a little drink.

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Hotel Pool

 

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Fish Tank in the Hotel Lobby

 

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Bar in the Hotel Lobby

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We booked a room at the Courtyard by Marriott Hotel off of NE 2nd Street in Downtown Miami. It seemed like it was very close to the Port of Miami and centrally located to a lot of happening areas such as the Bayside Marketplace and it was also just across the bridge from South Beach. We caught a deal on priceline for $79.00. Woo hoo!!

After checking in, we dropped off our bags, walked around the lobby for a while, then headed over to the Bayside Marketplace for a little eat and a little drink.

attachment.php?attachmentid=264873&stc=1&d=1363656535

 

Hotel Pool

 

attachment.php?attachmentid=264874&stc=1&d=1363656580

 

Fish Tank in the Hotel Lobby

 

attachment.php?attachmentid=264875&stc=1&d=1363656652

 

Bar in the Hotel Lobby

 

The alligators ate your pictures.:D

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First thing we did when we went over to the Bayside Marketplace was to find a place to get a drink. I will say that things are a little pricier than they are in Houston, but that’s okay, cause we’re on VACATION!!

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We found a bar called “The Other Bar” and got some delicious adult beverages. It was sort of chilly out so soon after, we decided to hit Bubba Gumps for some Seafood.

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I think this was called the sampler. It was very, very good for $14 and I was very impressed.

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Hubby just got a poboy and fries. He said it was pretty good as well. All in all, we were happy. Even though our waiter was drunk.:D

 

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Once we got our fill of Bubba’s and grew tired of listening to our drunk waiter (he was entertaining though, I must say -- Nothing like hearing a drunk person try to say, “Mama always said life is like a box of chalk bits” -- hilarious) we ventured over to the American Airlines Center to take some pictures of the outside of the building. Ooh ahh. It would have been more exciting if there was actually a concert or the Heat had been in town for a home game, but NNOOOOOOOO, there was absolutely nothing happening there that night. Arrghhh!!! And to add insult to injury, there was some sort of huge “Ultra music festival” that they were setting up for in the Bayside Marketplace Park for the NEXT weekend.

Seriously? Stop playing with my emotions.

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This, I would find out later, is called "two fisting" as defined by the drinkers of America coalition.

 

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Welcome to "Wade County", LeBron.

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Are you sure this is your first review? You are off to a great start. Anxious to read the rest. Hope we left the ship in good shape when we got off on 3/16. I'm doing a review, too, I'm Calamity Jane (Delta Dear)

Love your humor, too.

Are you using Photobucket ? If so click on the last code in the box of codes. Copy and paste. You might want to use the Preview Post before you do the post to see if photos show up. Even though I think I know what I am doing, I always check to be sure.

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So after being dragged up and down Ocean Avenue by my five-year old husband all night long in search of models and celebrities and ending up seeing mostly "women (and men) of the night" and male entertainers who attempt to dress like famous women but mostly ended up looking like "wonder woman on steroids" -- which ironically, I found to not only be entertaining, but extremely educational as well -- we got up bright and early at 7am ready to start our trek over to the Port of Miami cruise terminal. Yeeeaaahhh!!

 

Oh, and by the way, I DID take pictures of the persons of interest (trying really hard to be politically correct here) but I decided NOT to post them as in my attempt to be humorous, I would undoubtedly offend someone and decided to err on the side of caution.

 

 

After grabbing breakfast at a nearby Subway, we grabbed our vehicle, raced down BISCAYNE and crossed over the bridge to CRUISE CITY.

 

We parked at Terminal "D" which was very easy to find but was very expensive ($120.00 for the 6 days) but we felt was very convenient and safe. We practically ran over a group of elderly people ;) trying to get in line after dropping our bags off with the porter, then came to a screeching halt at what I will call the first "checkpoint". We waited for about 10 minutes before we presented our passports and boarding passes. After this we went to checkpoint 2 -- which is the equivalent to the security line at the airport where we walked through a metal detector and sent our bags through the conveyor belt. Now, we had about 12 small bottles of water and two bottles of wine in our carryons. They didn't glance at the wine but shook each and every one of those little bottles of water. Apparently, if they bubble, then you get shot on sight for trying to smuggle in alcohol. Its just. that. serious. Give me a break. I saw a group of about 20 people that had about 5 cases of water between them and they had to take every single bottle of water apart. I can't even imagine how long it took them to put them back in the plastic. That would have really put a damper on my vacay.

 

Anywho, so where was I? Oh yes, up the escalator to the less scary part of the terminal and where you start feeling like you are actually going on a ship and not to jail :D. Once up the escaltor, you get a set of dice, you ROLL, and then "7"!! CRAPS!! We got boarding group 7. Its about 10:30 at this point and the terminal is pretty full. I was pretty surprised to see how many people purposefully ignored the "do not come til 1:00" letter. Shame on them. What is wrong with these people? I was expecting to be the only ones there, lol!!

 

So after we crapped out we went directly over to a representative who issues us our sail and sign card, took some cash for us to slap down on it, and then we sat down and waited to be called. If I can remember correctly, I think they began calling special groups, FTTF, platimun, or Ruby or diamond or whtever the special people are called, and then wedding folks. After that the lady with the phone sex voice started calling the different boarding groups. She literally would say group 1 & 2...45 seconds later...and now groups 3 & 4....45 seconds later and now groups 5 & 6. It was no time at all. I'd say we were on the ship by about 11:30ish? AWESOME!!

 

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Apparently the pics aren't showing up....so....I will have to figure out what is happening and then repost the pics. :mad::mad::mad::mad:

 

But, have to put the little human to bed so I will post more tomorrow.

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Yaayy...a Breeze review! We're doing that same route on our upcoming cruise! Looking forward to the rest of your review and your little human is adorable!

 

The cruise was pretty awesome. Thanks for the cosign on how cute my daughter is. If she wasn't so cute, I probably woudn't be able to accept how BAD she is. Cute kids are always the worst, lol. But we love her anyway. ;)

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Are you sure this is your first review? You are off to a great start. Anxious to read the rest. Hope we left the ship in good shape when we got off on 3/16. I'm doing a review, too, I'm Calamity Jane (Delta Dear)

 

Love your humor, too.

 

 

Are you using Photobucket ? If so click on the last code in the box of codes. Copy and paste. You might want to use the Preview Post before you do the post to see if photos show up. Even though I think I know what I am doing, I always check to be sure.

 

Hello fellow SpringBreakBreezer, Calamit Jane, Thanks for the advice. I will try and redo in the morning!!

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Okay I am discovering that writing this review is becoming addictive. I am supposed to be putting my daughter to sleep but now that I've figured out how to post the pictures (thanks Calamity Jane) I CAN'T STOP. So, if one of these posts has a whole bunch of letters or numbers in some wierd, unidentifiable order, its just my daughter's contribution to this review. At the moment she is sitting on my lap banging on the keys. Its just a matter of time before she clicks "enter" and posts some of her gibberish.

 

Here is a picture of Downtown Miami before we sailed.

 

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