CruiseFlicks

Wow! You were on our cruise - congratulations. I might've run into you guys but obviously, did not realize there was a just married couple! That is on par for my observation powers.

If you have not done so, would you mind sharing photos from the cruise as well?

After dinner, I don't remember doing anything of note that first night. On the morning of the second day, I got up pretty early to watch the sunrise. It was the only day I could get a decent photo of the sunrise. I walked/jogged/ran about a couple of miles on the jogging track on most of the mornings. Here are a few photos of the sunrise, the jogging track and other folks enjoying the sunrise:

And just like that, it is time to get ready for dinner. Here is a shot of the towel animal left in the room ...

... and a couple in the corridor where the stewards have been practicing :-)

We were assigned table 379 in the Silver Olympian Restaurant on the Lobby Deck (Deck Three). As our room was in the aft of the ship, it was just a couple of flights of stairs up. But, as we later learned, it was difficult to get to the lobby this way. One had to go all the way to Deck Five, walk across the cigarette smoke infested area surrounding the casino then walk down to get to the lobby for Guest Services/Shore Excursions.

We had a chick-pea based entree for dinner, which was the only vegetarian option of the night, but we were set for the rest of the cruise because we requested an Indian vegetarian option if available (and it was, of course) - we were pampered royally for the remainder of our time on the ship.

I, a melting chocolate lava cake virgin, opted for the tiramisu (an OK choice but obviously not the best). DD went for her favorite Apple Pie. DS went for the lava cake and suddenly, I was a lava cake virgin no more! Don't remember and can't tell by the photo what DW had.

Some unique buildings

Are we there yet? We are ... almost ...

... and then we are in the Atlantic Ocean!

This is the best I could get of the sunset that day :-(

This is the closest I could get to the prow of the ship (I believe I was either on Deck Six or Deck Seven or Deck Eight). I saw (ordinary) folks getting their photos taken by each other and thought I could get there as well, but was informed that that was the crew area.

All these yachts gave the area the feel of a regatta in the making.

A Miami tour bus in action

Ferry being loaded with cars

Palm trees swaying in the breeze

And then, it was our turn to leave - we were a couple of hours late I believe, assuming I am right in thinking that our official departure time was 4 pm. The engines revved up, the tail started emitting smoke ...

... the gangway plank is pulled ...

... and Carnival's official videographer is in business.

Though we were out of there, we were not really out of there (yet). We first had to do the turn around dance. A slight turn to the right first ...

... followed by a thrust to the fwd starboard side so we are facing the Miami skyline at close quarters ...

... and we are turned around and have the Atlantic Ocean in sight.

Whirlpool area where some folks were relaxing.

I have a feeling that they were either informed that they needed to leave or they had something else planned, because the area was empty a few minutes later.

A view of the ambience

Terminal area as seen from the ship

This Celebrity cruiseliner departed as we were in the muster drill

Our ship's tail

That "more" could've been jello or the crumb cake ...

... or whatever else the staff served up next!

When we were getting on the ship, we had been informed that our room would not be ready until 1:30 pm; however, as it was already past 1:15 pm when we came onboard, we decided to check out the room and, sure enough, we were able to get in. We put our carryon items in the room, looked around, figured out the safe - nice to work it where it locked based on my driver's license (I was the only one who needed to use it for the duration of the cruise, as I was really antsy of losing our passports, which were all in there throughout). We did notice that some other rooms already had their bags outside, and wondered why our check-in bags were yet to make it.

Anyway, we left the room after a few minutes and headed up to eat. Not much to say here, as the lines were pretty short and plenty of seating was available. We looked around and deduced that the food setting was a bit Italian based on the available options (we could be wrong on that - look forward to being corrected). Anyway, like I said in a previous post, we ate the available options - but we wondered about the food being cold. As we are not connoisseurs, I don't know whether that specific food item is supposed to be eaten cold or warm (unfortunately, I do not remember the item name). Oh well, bottom line, we were full by the time we exited the place and that is what mattered (to us) as we had only eaten snacks since leaving home before 8 am.

After eating, we went to the Venetian Palace (or Victoria Lounge - for the duration of the cruise, I kept mixing them up) to get kids registered for their respective camps. As I noted earlier, I was unable to pre-register them in time. This process took a good half hour including their presentation.

That done, we headed outside and I looked to see if I could spot a table tennis (ping pong) table. Sure enough, I found that there were a couple available. DS and I checked it out for a few minutes. I can hold a rally pretty good and DS can do a fair job of it; however, the wind killed the session, though we did get our exercise to make up for the food.

In between, DD had discovered the slide and was reasonably impressed (especially given that we have not visited the local waterparks - Disney or Wet 'N Wild - in the last year or so). Other than the food, it was the water area that had helped us select Carnival over Norwegian (for a similar itinerary, we had choice of either the Epic or the Pearl, if I remember right).

We were then called for the muster drill. For Disney, we had had to go to our room, wear our life jackets and then present ourselves in the muster area. Here, we only had to go there and supposedly watch the crew demonstrate. I cannot speak for the other areas, but in ours, the crew did not demonstrate anything I recall seeing. Besides, the line was three deep and were not organized by height. Had there been a true emergency, the crew would have had to do a lot more than they should have been required to had the passengers been adequately forewarned. Be that as it may, we were thankful that the cruise was uneventful in this regard. In retrospect, if there is one issue I can find fault with Carnival, this is probably it - especially given that the last year or so they have had the most (famous) incidents with their ships.

Just to maintain proper sequence, I must mention here that all these events occurred before the Victory sailed away (an earlier post).

Photo time:

Long (infinite?) corridor which sure appears much longer on any of these stateroom floors than it actually is

Area where we had the kiddie camp registrations

Chandeliers(?) inside ...

... and outside

As she completes her turn ...

... people look out ...

... as she sails away!

As most everyone else on the Victory was waving at us, this one dude had his priorities straight. I am sliding, come hell or high water! ;-)

In the meantime (and, to be honest, before the Victory sailed away, which makes this post non-chronological), we had helped ourselves to the Lido buffet. From a cursory glance at the items on the buffet, it appeared that Italian dishes dominated (but I could be wrong because, like I said, it was a quick glance to figure out which items were vegetarian). I ended up getting a couple of cold Italian pastas that I did not really care much for then headed over to my kind of food, i.e., the dessert section.

I got a piece of the Mango Mousse ...

... and a few of those delicious strawberry pop cakes. Any other day I might have devoured a couple of the other items on show; however, once I had finished what was on my plate, there was just no room for more :-(

Folks, I had originally started this review last month, but later realized two things:

a) Editing is limited on CC forums

b) Photobucket's limits are quickly exceeded when lot of people read your review!

So, I've reduced the resolution of the photos I uploaded and am back again. Remember if you have not read this review - or seen the photos - before, it is new to you :-)

----------------------------------------------------------------

In September 2010, we - me and DW, DS(9) and DD(5) - cruised on the Disney Wonder; it was a three night cruise with halts at Nassau, Bahamas and Castaway Cay. Most everyone we met said that Disney is the ultimate in cruising and once you go on them, you won't like the competition and that kids wouldn't enjoy the cruise either.

Though we liked the cruise, it was a ho hum kind of experience and we wondered why people like to cruise, and especially Disney.

- Nassau Bahamas: We did not really spend too much time off the ship. As we were not terribly water-friendly, we did not even consider going to Atlantis. So, we just left DD in the kid's club and strolled around within hearing (sort of) of the ship.

- Fireworks in the sea: It was not as great as we had been given to believe by friends.

- Castaway Cay: Now this was something we really enjoyed. Though the snorkelling - me and DS - was a disaster, we enjoyed renting bikes. All four of us got custom-sized bikes and we had the run of the island (as did others, of course). We biked all the way across to the other side (if memory serves me right) and climbed the lookout post and took pictures of the Wonder. Biking across the huge airstrip is something I still remember vividly - I have never ridden a bike on such a vast pavement elsewhere.

- Food: We are vegetarians of (Asian) Indian origin, so the food was more of a miss than a hit for us. We were not terribly thrilled by the wait staff either. We are not heavy into drinks like soda, so the prospect of unlimited beverages did not really endear itself to us.

- Though the kids had a wonderful time there, I have a recollection of hassles getting the kids in and out of the kids club on the Wonder. Just that we had to wait everytime we checked the kids in or out. Even to register the kids and get the armbands - IIRC - was time-consuming.

- Disney character appearances were another touted selling point. However, we found the lines to be as long or even longer than what we encountered at the (local to us) theme parks, plus the wait for the pictures with the princesses kept us from getting off the boat quickly at Nassau (even though we did not really have anything major planned).

Oops! This was supposed to be a review of a Carnival Cruise. Sorry, I got carried away with the comparison. What I was trying to say is that we did not really get why folks cruise - to us, even though we had fun in Castaway Cay, it did not feel worth the nearly $2000 we spent on one of the smallest sized cabin on the ship (though we did not really feel that it was too small for us).

So, this year, when we started planning for a vacation, our first choice was Europe. Too expensive - it got scratched pretty quickly. Second up was the Northwest. I had grand dreams of landing in Calgary/Victoria/Seattle/Portland/Edmonton/wherever, rent a car for a nice full circle drive in a week visiting Glacier Park, etc. Priced the air tickets for sometime in July. Scratched that as too expensive as well. Well, I was left with needing to "use or lose" a week in the next four months and a staycation is not really my cup of tea (or coffee).

So, we looked at cruises ... longer than 3 day variety, so we could explore the world, not just the Bahamas. I saw an excellent deal on Norwegian. Whether from Tampa or Miami, they were pricing at about $1600 for us for the Western Caribbean circuit. Unfortunately, whoever I spoke with said that Carnival was better, especially the food. With that in mind, the only option we were left with was to pony up the additional $400 plus drive down (four hours - at my driving speed) to Miami.

The Disney cruise we had booked nine months in advance and had plenty of time to plan. The Carnival cruise was booked just about a month or so in advance. So, we barely had any time to plan. We had no excursion booked when we went on board the ship - we called our travel agent who confirmed that there was no price difference whether you booked online with Carnival or did so on the ship. The only issue might be that the tour we wanted might be full. Well, we didn't really have a choice anyway, so that was that.

Similarly, I procrastinated filling out the details online with Carnival and realized too late that there was a 72-hour pre-cruise deadline for pre-registering the kids for the clubs. So, that also now needed to be done on the ship.

Enough with the preamble. On with the review:

We turned in about midnight on Friday excited to be on a cruise after quite a while. It took some time to finish packing. Between the four of us [sURPRISE] I had the most luggage. Usually, I have the least. I don't know if I was committing a mistake or the rest of the family. For the weeklong cruise, I had one airplane check-in size bag and one airplane carry-on size bag. There were only three more carry-on size bags for the rest of the gang. Worst case scenario - someone would be doing laundry and that person was definitely not going to be me :-).

Next morning, we woke up early - I had set an 8 am deadline for leaving, in the unlikely event of an issue with the car. As we had prepaid for parking in an off-port facility, we were antsy about taking our newer vehicle with us. In any event, we went with the older car and fortunately, needed to take only a couple of breaks - one for gas and one for the restroom.

It was stormy in the Fort Lauderdale area and we had stop-and-go traffic for about five miles or so. I was a bit worried that it would get too close for comfort (for me that would be getting aboard the ship at 2 pm for a 4 pm stated departure). Fortunately, once we got past that one long bottleneck, the traffic - and, more importantly, the sky - cleared, and we got to the parking lot right after noon.

Car parked (safely, of course) at Safe Cruise Parking

Miami skyline from our shuttle bus

The line at check-in - not too long but not too short either; we had not received any notification of when to come or not come to check-in, so we presented ourselves just before 1 pm. We were group # 39, I think.

The Carnival Victory was docked right behind (or ahead, depending on the point of view) us - both facing west towards Miami - but left before we did. She - and later, we - had to go further in and turn around. I don't know what the rules are about reversing, i.e., why is it not an option? Is it the length of the channel that is the issue or is it some other issue? Also, I don't know what governs how the ships dock - on 29th, I saw another ship come in and do the turn around before docking so she was facing the sea when docked.

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h304/cruiseflicks2014/CruiseFlicks2014/03222014_Miami/P3220242_zpsd9b70fc8.jpg[/img]

The Victory has almost completed her turn around with the American Airlines Arena (Miami Heat's homecourt) in the background.

This area on deck 4 is also where all the photos are. We had a photo coupon from our previous cruise that someone who shall remain nameless forgot to bring. They never expire so I guess we'll be using it on the Breeze. There was nothing else to see from here on deck 4 as it either leads to the dining room or the main lounge.

 

A quick shot of the main atrium lounge from above

 

 

We headed up to 5 which is the main deck for all the shops, casinos, bars. Here's the first of the 2.0 upgrades, Cherry On Top. We went in later and checked it out but there wasn't really room with all the other great food available.

 

 

 

A shot of the other shops. I liked the way these were laid out on this ship much more than the Pride. It was much more open, or at least felt like it. Granted, if you've been in one of these shops, you've been in them all.

 

I took a couple of photos right about the same areas! I will be redoing my review later this week - am working on it. We were on the Liberty's western caribbean itinerary March 22-29th.

PS: I came to this thread after reading one of your other (more recent) reviews. Love your reviews and photos :-)

PPS: Congratulations on your marriage. All the best!

Enjoying your review very much. You've got some great photos.

One of these days, I'll revisit and update my cruise review. Was thoroughly disappointed when my photos stopped showing up because of bandwidth issues. I had not realized that there is a bandwidth restriction on free accounts at photobucket.

Enjoyed reading your posts, though I've probably skipped a couple in between. Where do you host your photos and do you reduce the resolution/size before uploading? I am asking because my Liberty review is temporarily on hold - until the 5th - as the photos I hosted out on photobucket have exceeded the bandwidth limit. I don't have the option of re-uploading the photos as there is no edit option on cruisecritic; in other words, those links will be permanently broken if I re-upload the photos :-(

I didn't realize that the photos would take up so much bandwidth. You could still right-click on each photo and select the 'open image in new tab' option but that is cumbersome.

I cannot edit any of the previous posts that I have already posted. I don't want to pay to upgrade my photobucket account. I cannot modify the photos to a lower resolution to save on bandwidth.

The best I can do at this point is recreate the entire thread once more with low resolution photos (or point to flickr like swim13 has done) or create a blog and point to it from cruisecritic. Any other suggestions? I would love to make a quick change that works for everyone :-)

Those food looks really good. Making me hungry. Did you have to tell them ahead of time what you would like to eat. I didn't realize a Carnival would be able to prepare all those food, but I'm happy to know they can cater to all nationalities.

Did you enjoy it. Was it to your liking?

Of course we loved the Indian food. What I still don't know - even though others appear to be mentioning it - is whether we were specially treated with Indian food for dinner upon request or whether all Carnival ships provide it as an alternative option.

Besides, when I had inquired our TA before leaving on our cruise, she informed us that there is no "Indian vegetarian" option that she could request Carnival on our behalf. But someone we met on Liberty later told me that he had specially requested Indian vegetarian food beforehand. Could someone clarify? Or should I ask this question on a separate thread (or should I ask John Heald this question on FB)?

More Chemistry lab kind of photos

As I am not a big fan of honey (which is similar though obviously not the same), I took a small thimble full in my shot glass, apprehensive of the taste. I liked it. When the other folks were getting additional shots, I inquired whether I could get some more of the nectar. Sure, go ahead Amigo, I was informed. So, I poured myself an entire shot glass full (i.e., as deep as my thumbnail - I am saying this because I am not sure if my interpretation of a 'shot glass' is correct!). I kid you not, but it was so sweet that I was unable to finish it on the entire bus ride back to the dock and had to finally dump the remainder into a garbage can.

But before we left, I purchased a bottle of Agave nectar from the local shop at the tequila tasting place. Had I done any research beforehand, I would not have been conned (I do not really mean that) into purchasing an expensive bottle of Agave nectar, which is available over the internet for less than half the price. Oh well ... at least the tequila tasting was worth something to those folks :-)

Another gift shop at that location

Exchange rates are displayed so you know what you are paying

Is anyone still with me or have you moved on to other more recent threads? :-)

Sorry for the delay. Got busy with other activities. Now, where was I?

Yes, we were in Cozumel and had reached the 'Mayan village' - we were welcomed by a Mayan elder who chanted a prayer inviting us to his village, and were treated to a tortilla and some hummus-like paste. It was tasty though I don't think I would have asked for seconds :-)

Later, we were taken to what was the focal point of the excursion for some - the Tequila tasting. The local guide gave some information about how tequila was made back then and how it is now and how the agave is one of the ingredients. I was not paying much attention, given that I am a teetotaler.

However, I was interested to find out if there were any alternatives for the tequila tasting. And soon, among the array of pots that appeared to transform the place into our high school chemistry lab, I had my answer - Agave Nectar.

For Grand Cayman there is no priority tendering, it's a quick trip to the port so everyone just lines up and waits together. I just got off the Legend last week and had purchased FTTF knowing that we had 2 tender ports, turns out I didn't need it for either since we had a carnival excursion booked for Belize and the Cayman tenders were so quick.

You said the key words - "Carnival excursion". Folks on Carnival excursions automatically get first option for tenders. Though my understanding is that they get stickers as well, other folks have to get the stickers. We were on the Liberty last month. We were in no hurry and got #59. After the initial few batches though, things moved pretty quickly. I learned that there are about 30 folks per sticker number. About 200-250 folks fit a tender so, if required, the whole ship could empty in about 10-15 trips.

But wait a minute now. Did you not get stickers in Belize either? We were in a Carnival excursion in Belize but still got stickers, and those tenders have much less capacity than those in Grand Cayman. Maybe you guys did not have a whole lot of folks tendering then?? [still does not make sense!]

This post has turned into a ramble. Oh well ...

I can say what a tandoor is definitely not, sure - it is not the entrance to the Spa! ;-)

That said, as an Indian American, I don't have a clue when I last ate - or how often I have ever eaten - food cooked in a tandoor (never had the desire to go behind the scene and check out the restaurant's cooking method). I can honestly say that I have never - in my house or in friends', as a kid - seen a real live tandoor in action. But then again, this could just be me.

Besides, Indian cuisine is so vast and varied that I am pretty sure I have not tasted all the different varieties - that too, as a vegetarian, I would have missed half of them regardless. In the USA, South Indian restaurants are fewer than the North Indian ones - different cuisine entirely.

I love palek paneer! No Indian cuisine places near me so haven't had much besides that. But loved it when I lived in Sedona, AZ as there was a really good place there. Went at least once a month if not more.

Quite a few places in the Orlando area. Where exactly are you located?

We are going on an 8 day cruise in July with an 18 and 20 yr old. Will there be enough things to do to keep them occupied on the 3 sea days. They are too old for the teen club and too young for the adult experiences. This is the last family adventure as my 20 yr old is graduating college and my 18 year old has enlisted in the Marines.

They could play volleyball (16+), though ship folks organized volleyball only twice on the Liberty that I was aware of (3/22 to 3/29). Besides, there are always shore excursions to stay busy.

Here are the photos of the main course, besides the plain rice and tortilla (which I did not take photos of):

Yogurt rice (or curd rice, as it is referred to in India)

Beans curry with coconut - I would say this is the Indian version of the green bean casserole! ;-)

Sambar, an Indian soup

Daal with some vegetables

Wow! great review. I would love to see pics of your Indian vegetarian meals.

We had pulav, tortillas (DW would have loved to have roTis but I was not complaining - not one bit!), Paneer Makhani and daal, and Aloo baingan.

In this photo, the paneer makhani is to the right, the daal is to the left, aaloo baingan is towards the bottom and there is raita to the bottom right, which is a vegetable garnish in yogurt.

In this photo, aaloo baingan takes the pride of place, surrounded by mini bowls of salad (we were not big fans of salad, with Indian cuisine at least, so we asked our dinner crew not to bring those after the first couple of days). Also in the photo are visible the tortillas and the paapads (these are gaining fame with a new name 'poppadums', god knows why!).

We did full justice to the paneer - a perennial family favorite - and not too shabby a job with the daal ...

... or the aaloo baingan. Please don't mistake these ladles for spoons - those plates were pretty impressive in size. We were really really full each day, so much so that even I - a dessert hound by nature - had second thoughts about having dessert (they were just thoughts - they didn't keep me away from dessert)

Thanks to Nicole's post, I know what those yummy bread-cheese sandwiches are called ... the ones I smuggled out to Cozumel from the Blue Iguana Cantina.

The skies weren’t exactly vacation picturesque when I woke up on our first sea day. They were cloudy and gray. The seas were rocky. It didn’t bode well.

 

 

Since there was no rain and it was still warm out, we put on our swim suits and cover-ups, packed a bag and headed up to the Lido Marketplace for breakfast. The Marketplace felt crowded even though it really wasn’t. In an unusual change in events, the line for regular breakfast fare was longer than the lines for custom omelets. No matter for me, though – I had my eyes on something else for breakfast: Blue Iguana Cantina.

 

 

 

I’m a bit of a huevos rancheros fiend. Brunch is big in Chicago and if there’s huevos rancheros on the menu, I’m all over it. So it was interesting to see huevos rancheros on a cruise ship (along with made to order breakfast burritos). Unfortunately, the huevos rancheros weren’t all that good, but the Blue Iguana Cantina had another offering that surprised me and was honestly one of the tastiest things I ate all week: arepas.

 

 

The arepas were served piping hot, with the sweetness of the corn meal flatbread melding with the slight nuttiness in the cheese. A cup of salsa verde on the side for dipping and I wanted for nothing else. Sweet, salty, crunchy, soft. It was a myriad of juxtapositions. Pure breakfast perfection.

 

We headed out to the aft pool after breakfast and found it pretty crowded for an overcast day. The pool water was very warm (almost like bathwater) and oddly enough, the hot tubs were a bit cool. We didn’t stay out for too long.

 

 

I loved those arepas as well. Did not know what they were called. I am linking to your post from my thread (Liberty 3/22-3/29).