Carnival Victory- 5 Day Review- Nassau, Half Moon Cay & Grand Turk

Hello! We returned back from our wonderful 5 day Victory cruise yesterday. I will be writing a full review with pictures. But, for those of you who just want the "highlights" here they are:

- We had a wonderful cruise; this was our first with our son and he loved it as well

- Faster to the Fun pass was very worth it if only for the room being ready upon getting on the ship (11:15 we were dropping off our carry ons) and getting luggage first (delivered by 12:15 when we returned from lunch)

- Half Moon Cay was beautiful and I highly recommend getting there first thing (another plus of the FTTF) and getting a shell/cover on your chairs (19.95 and the sell out quickly)

- The ship is a bit older, but the staff is so great as always

- Camp Carnival staff was so great and my son kept asking to go "to camp"

- We won two ships on sticks for trivia!!

- Free drinks at the casino when you reach 1,000 slot points for the entire rest of the cruise

- Vroom show was pretty good

- Grand Turk beach was nicer than I thought it would be after reading other reviews

-We had a few "dud" meals, a few really great meals, always wonderful service and dining staff was great with our son & his bowl of grapes was always there 5 minutes after we sat down!

- Overall, we had a wonderful cruise. The biggest negative- it is over :(

I will start the review by day (including our day in Miami before cruise) and then have a couple of sections specifically geared to those traveling with small children/toddlers.

Victory review (full version) coming soon!

Kim

Did you purchase them in advance or do you have to go early to get them?:confused:

We leave on this trip next Monday . Starting to pack. So ready to go. Glad you had a good time !

We live just outside of Tampa, FL. It is about a 4.5 hour drive down to Miami. This would be my 5th cruise (4 on Carnival) and my husband's 6th cruise. This was our first cruise with our son, 2 years 5 months old. We chose this 5 day cruise on the Victory because of the timing (work scheduled projects coming up) and the length (in case our son didn't like it, there wasn't enough for DS to do, etc.) and the ports were easy to not do excursions and just go to the beach with a 2 year old!

Vacation begins...

On Sunday, April 28th we left our house at 7am and started our drive down to our first stop to visit my great aunt in Ft. Lauderdale. We arrived (after a couple of snack & bathroom breaks!) to my Aunt's house around 11am. We visited for a bit and took her out to lunch to Red Lobster. It was a great visit but short. DS was ready for a nap so we said our goodbyes and made our way down to Miami. We drove around a bit to let DS sleep and then arrived at our hotel, Holiday Inn Port of Miami right at 3pm.

Our room was not ready yet and the staff tried to offer us another room type. We really wanted the pull out couch room we had booked due to the mattress being easily taken off and put onto the floor. DS has outgrown a pack-n-play/crib. The staff was so great at this hotel. They bent over backwards to try to get us into the right room quickly. (the people who left our booked room checked out late and it was not cleaned yet). At 4pm (after walking around the area a bit) the hotel manager called my cell phone and said our room was ready. They had upgraded us into a 2 room suite for our troubles. This room worked out wonderfully. We simply took the mattress off of the bed and put it onto the floor against the wall.

The hotel is an older hotel with not many bells and whistles, but it is clean, the staff super nice and the location wonderful!

We brought up our luggage from bell check to the room and changed into our swimsuits to head down to the pool. DS loved swimming in the pool.

At 5:30 we headed over to Bayside (about a 3 minute walk from the hotel) and listened to a band and ate dinner at Hard Rock Cafe. The dinner was OK (basic Hard Rock Cafe food) but the service was a bit slow. Overall, we had a good dinner.

After dinner we walked around Bayside and DS rode the train and took a pony ride! A great first day of vacation!

We then headed back to the hotel, did a load of laundry (DS had an accident in the car ride down) had a beer up in the room and called it an early night at 10pm. (DS was asleep by 8:30)

Pictures of Miami & Holiday Inn Port of Miami

https://plus.google.com/photos/113755214272177301029/albums/5874514566082530449?authkey=CNjSkKvvl4GlVQ

Next up... Cruise Embarkation time!!

Did you purchase them in advance or do you have to go early to get them?:confused:

I do not think that you can pre-purchase, but it did show up on our sail & sign as an "excursion" so it may be worth it to ask when you board the ship at the excursion desk. We took the first tender over to Half Moon Cay at 7:45 and immediately got one. By 8:30 am I would say they were all taken. By 9:30am, people were having problems even finding a chair in our "area".

We did give our clam shell to people looking for seats when we left at 11:30am. (with a 2 year old, 3+ hours at the beach was enough and we wanted to get back onboard for lunch and naptime)

You will love it though!

Kim

:DYay! A Victory review with the same itinerary as our upcoming cruise! Great start and I'm looking forward to more...

We woke up from our stay at the Holiday Inn, walked a block to McDonald's for breakfast and coffee and then explored the park area by the water. We never did make it over to the play area at the park as there were too many interesting trees to look at and people to watch! We then headed back to the hotel to bring down our luggage and head off to port of Miami!

It took only 10 minutes from hotel parking to dropping off the bags with the porter! We had the Faster to the Fun and the porter took our bags and put a special FTTF tag on them as well. DH parked the car and we were all within the checkin line by 10:45. It was quick and painless and by 11am they had started calling the VIP passengers. FTTF passengers where next up and we were stepping onto the Victory by 11:15!

My first thoughts of the Victory: Whoa! Green! And look at all of the sea horses! It was really neat watching the expression of my son. He was just staring at everything and not really sure what to think.

We took the elevator up to our room (7349) and dropped off the stroller and carry-on bags. A side note for families- we only used our stroller once in Nassau and never on the ship other than this first embarkation. Our room was ready and they had pulled down the bed and we got to see what that looked like. There was no way that we were going to have our two year sleep up there, so we turned the couch around and it worked perfectly (picture in link). Our room steward (I am NOT good with names- it began with an S) came and he agreed that the couch was a better option and he said he would put the bed away and set up the couch as DS's bed for the week.

We headed up to the Lido to get some lunch and for the first 4-5 elevator trips this vacation- Keiran (DS) kept saying "are we getting on the refrigerator?" It was really cute. Both refrigerator & elevator are hard words for a two year old;)

After lunch (DH & I had sandwiches from the Deli and DS had fruit and a hotdog) our bags had arrived at our room! It must have been around 12:15 or so. DH & DS went exploring the ship while I unpacked and got everything set up in our room. This was one of the nicest perks of FTTF. I could have everything unpacked and put away before most got into their room. It really helped me start the vacation early. :D

As always, I overpacked. I did manage to find a place for everything though. Some really great tips that I got from this board that helped were some little "baskets" for DH's bath stuff, lotions, etc and toys. I also brought hooks that went over the door to hang our hats on and extra hangers to hang up lots of clothes.

The bathroom is really pink, but that didn't bother us! One really nice thing about the bathroom was the HUGE medicine cabinet. I really remember them being smaller. This was able to hold all of my "what if" medicines for DS, our regular bath stuff, bandaids, hair stuff, etc.

The balcony was great. We used it throughout the cruise for snack time, hanging out to (as my son put it) "watch the ocean float away" and I used it during nap time to read while DS slept.

I was done unpacking by 1:30 and we put Keiran down for a nap. DH stayed with him while now I went off exploring the ship!

Side note for parents with toddlers: I would say that there is room in this balcony room to use the couch and put the mattress from the upper on the floor, but it would be cramped. The couch worked out really well and we didn't miss having the couch in the room. Our bed just became more of the couch/changing station/play area/etc. DS's bed was his bed for naptime and bedtime. He also loved climbing out of it after naps/in the morning and climbing into bed with mommy & daddy!

Next up... Exploring & First night on the ship

https://plus.google.com/photos/113755214272177301029/albums/5874522214918120065?authkey=COnn_qHahpCZPQ

Yay!!! I am doing this trip in 2 months! Can't wait to read the rest of your review :)

Caro-

After exploring the ship, Keiran woke up from his nap and the 3 of us went up to Lido for a snack. Pears and bananas and apples were on board everyday and make for a great snack!

I got a soda package this cruise. I think that this was a good deal as it was $35 for the entire ship and one soda is $2+. I had a few diet cokes per day (hubby helped on some of them even though this was "against the rules"). The glasses were large both in the casino and Lido bar, I would say 3/4 of a can.

We explored the ship a bit more this afternoon including the arcade (we never actually played, but DS loved to push the buttons and ride the motorcycle ride, etc.). There were lots of things to do on the 5th floor (casino, arcade, piano bar, lounges, dance club, etc.). Promenade (5th) and Lido (9th) were the floors we were at the most. Our room on the 7th floor was perfect for either a short elevator ride or a walk up/down the stairs.

The lobby (3rd floor) was also explored and outside the lobby doors was a wonderful large almost ship length path and deck with benches and chairs. This became a special place for us to take Keiran to play, climb on the benches and watch the ocean. There were rarely any other guests out there.

Another big hit with our 2 year old were the glass elevators in the lobby going all of the way up to the 11th floor. He loved riding these!

We went back to the room and got dressed for dinner.

At 5:15 we went to the Camp Carnival meeting. We had pre-registered online and brought our information printed out. They said we didn't have to stay unless we had any specific questions. We didn't- so they gave Keiran a t-shirt, gave us the entire week's camp schedule/fun times and we were off!

We went to the promenade for sushi and to listen to the live band that was playing. They had a great band and some people were dancing. There were plenty of seats near the stage and it was a great time before dinner!

Note to parents: our normal dinner time is 5:30. After the first night we learned to bring an extra snack to this pre-dinner outing as Keiran wouldn't try the sushi. He was hungry and it worked out well. Keiran did love the chop sticks and used them as drum sticks to play along with the band!

Note about sushi: almost every night they had something different. You got 3 pieces. Early seating (we had 6pm) is really busy at the sushi station until about 5:45. Either prepare for a bit of a line (about 10-20 people) or come a bit later- like right before dinner at 5:45 if you don't want to wait. We enjoyed listening to the music and hanging out for a bit so preferred to get there by 5:30 each day.

Maria was our head server with Mohammad and another (sorry! forget his name but really nice) assistant. The first night food was good. Not great, but good. Throughout the cruise we had hit or miss food within the dining room. To me though, anything is better than cooking ;) At first, I was a bit disappointed that they put us at our own table. After night two though, I was relieved as Keiran would wiggle so much after he was done eating while waiting for us to get our main course. We only had dessert this first night on the cruise as 1 hour was about as much as Keiran could stay...

Side note: sometime this day we got the "call" to say we had been selected for a private photo shoot for our family. I am pretty sure that this is just they start calling rooms and seeing who answers. Regardless, I said yes we were interested because one of my goals on this trip was a good family photo! He said that he would drop off the time/date card tomorrow for our photo shoot. I will describe this later in my review (actual shoot, pricing, etc)

After dinner we got changed and went to the Camp Carnival 2-5 year old Family Party. How much fun! We got there at 7:30 and Keiran had so much fun and we did too just watching him have the best time. They played music, had balloons, did some special dances for the whole family, etc. It was a nice way for Keiran to get to see some of the other children that would be at camp and meet the counselors. He still is talking about the "party" with the music and balloons.

We asked him if he wanted to go to camp and he said yes! So, at 8:15 we took him up to camp for about an hour. He had a great time and asked to go back every day after this! They did give us a cell phone.

While DS was at camp, DH and I went to the casino and played a bit. They had the usual craps, blackjack ($6 table), roulette, slots, etc. I wasn't feeling the love from the casino, so I offered to have this be my night to pick up Keiran and let hubby stay out. I went to pick Keiran up around 9:30. They said he did great. Keiran told me he had fun "playing" and talked about the "old lady who ate the animals"... we later found out that they sang the song and watched the video the old woman that swallowed the fly! Haha!

While Keiran slept, I had planned to read on the balcony. Ooops- didn't realize that the lights on the balcony are unable to turn on while we are sailing. Some kind of sea/sailing rule. I just had a beer and listened to the water as we sailed down to Nassau. Steve had a bit of luck in the casino and had fun (what really matters!). I was in bed by 11 and Steve came back to the room around midnight.

Next up... Nassau and a day onboard!

Pictures: https://plus.google.com/photos/113755214272177301029/albums/5874561658919958001?authkey=CNC1w8DS3q274QE

We are off to see Grandma & Grandpa but I will try to finish at least another day tonight!

Thanks for reading!

Kim

We live just outside of Tampa, FL. It is about a 4.5 hour drive down to Miami. This would be my 5th cruise (4 on Carnival) and my husband's 6th cruise. This was our first cruise with our son, 2 years 5 months old. We chose this 5 day cruise on the Victory because of the timing (work scheduled projects coming up) and the length (in case our son didn't like it, there wasn't enough for DS to do, etc.) and the ports were easy to not do excursions and just go to the beach with a 2 year old!

 

Vacation begins...

 

On Sunday, April 28th we left our house at 7am and started our drive down to our first stop to visit my great aunt in Ft. Lauderdale. We arrived (after a couple of snack & bathroom breaks!) to my Aunt's house around 11am. We visited for a bit and took her out to lunch to Red Lobster. It was a great visit but short. DS was ready for a nap so we said our goodbyes and made our way down to Miami. We drove around a bit to let DS sleep and then arrived at our hotel, Holiday Inn Port of Miami right at 3pm.

 

Our room was not ready yet and the staff tried to offer us another room type. We really wanted the pull out couch room we had booked due to the mattress being easily taken off and put onto the floor. DS has outgrown a pack-n-play/crib. The staff was so great at this hotel. They bent over backwards to try to get us into the right room quickly. (the people who left our booked room checked out late and it was not cleaned yet). At 4pm (after walking around the area a bit) the hotel manager called my cell phone and said our room was ready. They had upgraded us into a 2 room suite for our troubles. This room worked out wonderfully. We simply took the mattress off of the bed and put it onto the floor against the wall.

 

The hotel is an older hotel with not many bells and whistles, but it is clean, the staff super nice and the location wonderful!

 

We brought up our luggage from bell check to the room and changed into our swimsuits to head down to the pool. DS loved swimming in the pool.

 

At 5:30 we headed over to Bayside (about a 3 minute walk from the hotel) and listened to a band and ate dinner at Hard Rock Cafe. The dinner was OK (basic Hard Rock Cafe food) but the service was a bit slow. Overall, we had a good dinner.

 

After dinner we walked around Bayside and DS rode the train and took a pony ride! A great first day of vacation!

 

We then headed back to the hotel, did a load of laundry (DS had an accident in the car ride down) had a beer up in the room and called it an early night at 10pm. (DS was asleep by 8:30)

 

Pictures of Miami & Holiday Inn Port of Miami

 

https://plus.google.com/photos/113755214272177301029/albums/5874514566082530449?authkey=CNjSkKvvl4GlVQ

 

 

Next up... Cruise Embarkation time!!

OMG! Your son is so adorable!:D

Glad you had a great time! Can't wait to read more of your review. We leave in 3 weeks.

Great so far! If you happen to ahve any more pics of your room, I would like to see them. I am booked in cabin 7350, which is on the other side of it. I'm guessing ours will probably look about the same, except our sofa is supposed to be a sofabed, which I think means the back and arms are removable pillows.

I've been trying to figure out what the big space behind the stairs right outside the cabins is. Did you hear much noise outside your cabin???

We were on the same cruise this past week!! We loved Victory!! Great ship, great itinerary, GREAT service from all !!!

Great so far! If you happen to ahve any more pics of your room, I would like to see them. I am booked in cabin 7350, which is on the other side of it. I'm guessing ours will probably look about the same, except our sofa is supposed to be a sofabed, which I think means the back and arms are removable pillows.

 

I've been trying to figure out what the big space behind the stairs right outside the cabins is. Did you hear much noise outside your cabin???

Unfortunately I did not take any more pictures of our cabin. It was pretty much what you see within the pictures online though. Other than what you saw within the pictures I posted, there were the standard 3 closets (one is filled with the safe & life jackets and is pretty much unusable), a long "counter" along the wall with a mirror behind it, 1 set of 3 drawers and one "little" two shelf closed cabinet, a stool, and then another 3 shelf cabinet underneath all of the counter/mirrors. Then there is the TV on the wall next to the balcony door. Above the TV is a wide open shelf, below are 4 shelves within a closed double cabinet. There were plenty of storage places for all of our stuff!

To answer your question- I can tell you what was on the "inside" portion across from our room. (I am guessing the same on the "even" side of the ship) It was a storage room for the room stewards (towels, soap, etc.) and some sort of other room for the room service staff (maybe plates, trays?). We were up early and rarely in our room, so any noise we didn't really hear or it didn't bother us. The only morning I heard some noise from that area was the day of Half Moon Cay around 6:45am (which was OK as we wanted to get up early anyways). I am guessing bc multiple people ordered room service early. I thought it was a great location on the ship close, but not too close to the elevators/stairs and not too long of a walk to either the front or back of the ship elevators either. Your side of the ship will have the view of all of the ports. Ours was just the ocean- which was fine with me :)

Hopefully that helped!

Kim

DH and I had been to Nassau on two previous cruises so we weren't planning much of anything this day. We woke up at 7:15 (whew! sleeping in for us!), played around in the room for a few minutes with DS while we got dressed for the day. We went up for a leisurely breakfast in the Lido. DS loved the french toast. I tried to not gain 10 pounds this trip (boo... gained 3...) so I had some oatmeal. This is also the morning I decided the free coffee and I were not going to work. I tried the large mochachino with skim milk at the coffee bar on Promenade and continued to have that each morning. At $3.50 + tip it is less than a starbucks coffee on land.

After breakfast, we went down to go into Nassau around 9am. We walked down the pier and went to get our passports stamped (we figured Keiran would like this in a few years to look back on). It had rained the night before and there were puddles everywhere (score for a 2 year old!). This was the only port that we brought the stroller out of the room for. We never used it on the ship either. It stayed within one of the closets all trip.

We went to the Straw Market and shopped for some trinkets and gifts for family/etc. This is a great place for some inexpensive souvenirs. We also saw Winston carving somethings out of wood. We stopped to watch him and ended up purchasing two little turtles from him. We walked around some more near the docks and after about an hour had really done enough. With the wet streets and the 5 boats (yes, 5 ships in port!) it was just too crowded and not safe with the stroller crossing streets, etc. This was fine with us. We strolled back through customs house, stopping to take pictures, drum a bit, splash in some more puddles, etc. I think we were only off of the boat for 1.5 hours this day.

Back on board we relaxed in the lobby area for a while people watching and glass elevator watching (remember, one of Keiran's favorite things were these elevators!). We also went out to one of our favorite spots on the boat the outside deck on the lobby floor. We went back up to the room, checked out the capers/Fun Times and I think went to the arcade again for a while before lunch.

Lunch was at the lido again today. If I remember correctly, this was the carribean themed lunch and was pretty good at the buffet.

After lunch, DH wanted to take a nap too, so the boys went up to the room to nap and I walked out to deck 3 to read my book. I quietly came back up to the room after a while and moved my reading to our balcony with a diet coke in hand.

Naptime was over and it was time for a Jello snack up on the lido! This was Keiran's favorite- all of the different colors of jello each day. We then took Keiran up to Camp Carnival for about an hour and a half. Again, he loved it. They played games, did this parachute game, sang songs, etc. He had so much fun.

Steve and I went to play some trivia and won our first plastic golden ship on a stick for this cruise! It was a pretty tough trivia and I think we only got 9/20 right- but a win is a win! We did another trivia and had a lot of fun, but not another win.

Coming up...formal night and our special picture shoot.

Pictures for this day: https://plus.google.com/photos/113755214272177301029/albums/5874650789298809361?authkey=CObCjvTE68PYJA

As I mentioned earlier, we had gotten the "phone call" from the Dream Studios saying we had been one of 5 families selected for a special photo shoot. Again, I am pretty sure that they just start calling cabins- but, we accepted as I had hoped for some good family shots.

The pictures/photo shoot: It was scheduled for 5:30 on formal night. We missed sushi and made our way to meet our photographer Ivan. He was wonderful. He was very professional and very good with Keiran. He wanted us to do some pretty "cheesy" shots and some we went along with, others I refused to do- like a shot of me against a pole with an arm up on the pole- no thank you. I will now skip ahead to the last night of the cruise when we had our "meet" to view the photos. All of the photos were wonderful (except a few). They really were great and if I was a millionaire, we would have purchased them all. At $34.95 per photo though and the least expensive package at a low $350 for 15, it was way to expensive for photos. We just didn't budget for that- and even if we had- I would have never convinced my husband to spend that on pictures. We did end up purchasing 2 pictures and he "threw in" 2 for no extra charge. Still the most expensive photos other than our wedding photos, ever. I think that you will be able to tell the professional ones in the images attached though. He really did do a great job on them.

After our photo shoot (about 30 minutes) we went directly to dinner. They had a kids menu, no knife, etc. all set up for Keiran. Within a couple of minutes a bowl of grapes was delivered and bread. For dinner, Steve had the prime rib, I had the fish and Keiran had strawberry soup and a peanut butter & jelly sandwich with fruit! I am really glad that we took the photos before dinner as Keiran LOVED that soup and so did his vest & shirt!

After dinner, Keiran went to camp (after we all changed into more comfortable clothes and Steve & I went to the casino for a little while. DH & I then went to the 8:30 "family" comedy show as that would be the only one we would both be able to attend. He was funny and it really was good humor for adults, but very suitable and geared also towards children. There was even one point that he brought up 3 kids from the audience for an improv skit which was really funny.

We did a little more playing at the casino and another drink and then Steve went to go pick up Keiran at 9:30 (he said they then went up to Lido to pick up milk and a late snack before bed). I stayed out this night and hit a mini-run on the slots and then lost most of it playing blackjack. So it goes! It was fun and I was up in the room in bed by midnight with a fun day at Half Moon Cay planned for tomorrow.

Up next... Half Moon Cay: Just beautiful!

Tonight's pictures: https://plus.google.com/photos/113755214272177301029/albums/5874661240767655937?authkey=CMTd24mW3-_kuQE

Thanks for sharing, I head out on the Victory in August.... Can't wait..

We are going on the Victory later this year, same itinerary, same cabin! What a surprise! Enjoying your review very much :)

This morning, first I took some advil upon waking up! I had a couple too many drinks on my "night out" at the casino the night before. I woke up around 6:45, went down to get my special mochachino coffee and then up to lido deck for bananas, cereal and yogurt to take back to the room for the three of us. After a bit of juggling the food and my coffee up to the room, I entered and started to make a bit of noise to wake up DS. DH was already awake but still in bed. We ate our breakfast and changed into our swimsuits before heading out.

Side note for family cruisers: since we had no couch, we simply used the chair and little table for Keiran to eat while Steve & I ate sitting on the side of the bed.

This is another FTTF perk morning! We walked down to the lobby at 7:30 and showed our FTTF sign and sail cards, were asked to sit on the couches and within 5 minutes we were escorted down to deck 0 (or 1?) and on the first tender boat.

Another family with small children side note: this tender is NOTHING to worry about. No lifting child onto the boat, it was simply a walkway/plank with rails onto the tender boat.

The tender ride was about 15 minutes and it was quite interesting through the little channel in order to get to the dock at Half Moon Cay. We walked off the tender and into paradise! We really loved this island. I had read on Cruise Critic (thank you all!) that the best thing to get was one of the clam shell covered seats. We walked over and purchased one (19.95) and you put it onto our sail & sign card. Although we live in FL, we burn easily and so shade was needed! By 8:30 we were sun screened up and hitting the water. We spent the next 3 hours spending 15 minutes in the beautiful waters, then 15 minutes back at the clam shell while Keiran played in the sand in the shade of the clam shell. The sand was so soft on this island and the water was so clear! There were groups of fish swimming with us as well. I tried to get some pictures of the fish but my underwater camera is really slow and none of them came out. The beach did get really crowded by about 10am and it looked as if every single chair on the beach was taken.

There is a little play area on the beach for kids with a water slide (little) and a "shower" spray, etc. We did this for a few minutes but Keiran was having much more fun swimming with us and playing in the sand. We did take a walk around the island and there is a great playground with 4 different pirate ship play areas with slides, ladders, swings etc. We spent about 30 minutes here.

We did purchase 2 bottles of water (again on our sign and sail card). There were waiters walking around with buckets of beer and taking bar orders. There was also a bar (or maybe more) on the beach as well.

We decided to not eat on the island as we thought we would have better luck with options for Keiran back on the ship and be able to just eat and then nap. We took a tender back to the ship around 11:30/11:45.

We had such a fun day! This beach was wonderful and we got a bit of sun, but didn't get burnt. A side note, I heard that the last few tenders between 1:30-2:30 were a mad house with all of the people. My suggestion would be to get there early.

Next up... Day 3 afternoon on the ship & night.

Pictures here: https://plus.google.com/photos/113755214272177301029/albums/5874668391179908721?authkey=CJTk5uWGl8_YxwE

Thanks for the early morning tip on HMC: I am really looking forward to this port. I have the FTTF pass so I will definitively take advantage of that early tender and "shell" for shade!

Caro-

We had lunch again on the Lido deck. I believe this is where my whole trying to stay healthy kick flew out the window as I really enjoyed the chips from the grill with chili, cheese, sour cream & jalapeños!

Nap time today was a bit long as the sun really makes you sleep well! I read for a bit and then took about a 30 minute nap myself. Steve went around and I think went to the art auction for a while (could have the wrong day here) and said it was really just the same stuff from our cruise 4 years ago. He explored a little and I think even played a bit in the casino. If I remember correctly, the casino was open all day this port day.

After naptime we went back up to Lido for a snack (jello anyone?) and then headed off to Camp Carnival for about an hour. Steve and I played in the casino while Keiran was at camp. I am not certain if it is just the fact that we have never been onboard as much as we were this trip on port days or if they have cut back on the “activities” onboard. There really wasn’t a whole lot going on this afternoon/evening on the ship.

We did our routine of showering/getting ready for dinner and then going down for sushi and listening to music before dinner. Tonight there was a solo guitarist singing instead of the band that had been on promenade the past nights and future nights. We ended up playing trivia with him later on in the cruise- music trivia and let’s just say he got more correct than we did at that!

Dinner was good again, not great, but the starters were really good. I think part of the issue with our food experience on this cruise compared to past ones was that we really felt “rushed” due to Keiran starting to get antsy. I am grateful that they brought out his food first with our appetizers (or before), but it also made him done sooner than we were and before we even got our main course. By this point, he was ready to go and asking to go to camp (he knew the routine!). I think that this is the night that my husband got the Indian vegetarian meal. He said it was very good. The pasta/mushroom/chicken was an entrée you could also get as a starter. This was a great starter and I wish I had gotten it as my meal!

After dinner, we dropped Keiran off at camp. Of course we took the glass elevators up to the 11th floor! Steve and I then went back to the casino and played a bit and had a few drinks. Steve really wanted to play some poker, but it seemed that the only game that would get going would break up around 8/8:30 when people were going to late dinner or the show. Other times, there just were not a lot of players and/or they only had $20-40 in front of them and he didn’t feel it was worth playing. Him and I opted to play some BJ or 3 card poker. I got a bit even or so this night and Steve lost only a little more. Overall, we were on point or ahead of what we had budgeted for gambling-wise.

I ordered a beer to go and picked up some milk from Lido deck, dropped them off in the room (FYI, we always had ice bucket filled by our room steward), got out PJs and went to pick up Keiran by 9:30. He was still wide awake each time we picked him up, but after milk and a piece of the chocolate the room steward left and a couple of books read to him, he was out like a light! He slept great on the cruise both for naps and bedtime. I sat out on the balcony again, had my nightcap and almost fell asleep myself! I think I was in bed by 10:30. Steve wasn’t too far behind coming in from a not so great craps table!

Next up… Grand Turk

This morning was another sleeping in for us, up way too early for most on the ship! Keiran woke up a little after 7am and so another day on the boat began! This was our only port day that we did not arrive early in the morning. We were scheduled to dock around 11am. As you have noticed if you have read this far, with our 2 year old, mornings are prime hours for us as they do not interfere with lunch & naptime. Up early, we got dressed and went up to Lido for breakfast and then I snuck off to promenade for my mochacino coffee. We had a nice breakfast at our usual spot inside the lido at a booth. There were not too many people and so this morning Steve tried the omelette station. It still took quite a while, but worth it! That is one thing that always amazes me about cruising with thousands of others on the ship- rarely do you feel like there are that many people on board! Especially early in the mornings.

After breakfast we explored the ship again, up to the sun deck, around the pool area, and walked around the track and waited until 9am when the mini-golf/sports desk opened so that we could play mini-golf. One nice thing they did this morning was to lay out a towel animal on about 30 of the beach chairs out by the pool deck.

We played mini golf! They even had a putter small enough for Keiran. And… he got to pick out his own colored ball to play with! He loved it, even if he basically dropped the ball right next to the hole and then shoved it in! Steve tried to teach him how to properly hold the putter, but he wanted to do it his way! It was a cute way for sure! Luckily, there was only one other group up there with us with another small child, so we were not interfering with anyone’s real playing time. Yesterday we asked Keiran what his favorite thing on the ship was and he said “I played mini-golf”! He really did have a fun time and Steve & him went again on sea day.

After golfing we went down to promenade and visited the arcade and then got a milkshake at 10am! (hey, it is never too early for a milkshake!) We also brought out some stickers and sat relaxing drinking our milkshake and watching Keiran sticker his paper.

We headed back up to the room to get dressed into our bathing suits, pack the beach bag and get sunscreen on before we left for our short trip out to Grand Turk. We knew that we wouldn’t be able to be there too long as Keiran would need to eat lunch and take a nap. We did give him a couple of peanut butter crackers up in the room to try to hold him over for a bit later lunch!

We were off of the ship around 11:20 and it is such a quick walk to the beach! You can see the beaches right when you exit the ship and the pier is not a bad walk at all. I was very lucky to grab to chairs in the semi-shade as there was the Liberty also in port with us that day. I had read that the beach was rocky and not as nice as Half Moon Cay and other beaches. I will say that it is not as soft sand, clear water as Half Moon Cay, but it was much better than I thought it would be from the information I had read! You are really close to the ships though- you feel as if you could swim out to them (but they have it roped in!). The water isn’t as clear as some beaches and there were some rocks and seaweed, but not much and there was plenty of water and beach that were free of these things.

We spent much more time in the water here and less time playing in the sand because of the number of people on the beaches and the not as soft sand/no shaded sand. After about an hour at the beach we dried off and did a bit of looking around at the shops and the little space “museum” that they have outside before heading back to the boat. One reason we were heading back so soon was because Keiran needed to eat and take a nap not too late; the other reason was this looming really dark cloud slowing making its way towards us. By the time we made it to our room and got dressed, it had started to downpour outside. Not that it matters if you are at the beach to get wet- but we didn’t feel like dealing with it.

We ate lunch on Lido again. This day I got a chili-cheese hotdog (see, what watching what I eat??) and some French fries. Keiran also had a hotdog and some fries with a pear. He asked for a pear multiple times on this trip! He really liked being able to “select” what he got to eat rather than us just ordering it/making it for him! Naptime followed around 1:30.

Up next… A Tiger in the Jungle & Free Drinks for the remainder of the Cruise?

Pictures of the Ship & Grand Turk:https://plus.google.com/photos/113755214272177301029/albums/5874916618485047777?authkey=CK651pXEgajSwQE

What beach did you go to on Grand Turk?

Thanks!

When my DDs were 5 & 7, we would take them to the Lido Buffet where they would pick out what they wanted to eat (with a little guidance) and they loved being able to do "the ordering" of dinner. We would sit with them while they ate dinner, chatting and going over our day with them. Then we would check them into the "Kids Club" and we would have our grown-up dinner date.

As they have gotten older (now almost 11 & 13) we have increased the nights that they have dinner with us on subsequent cruises and now they have dinner with us on all of the nights.

Love the pics! Great review!