sunshower9

Hmmm...something must have gone horribly wrong in the kitchen when I was on my cruise, because I hated my Caesar salad. The dressing had absolutely no flavor at all. :(

The melting chocolate cake wasn't good either. It was basically just a cup of chocolate sauce. Hopefully everything is better on my next cruise.

I just did my first cruise in November of last year with the same itinerary. In Key West we just walked around and took pictures of the different sights. I wanted to go to the butterfly museum but my husband wouldn't let me (I'm still mad at him about that. ;) ).

In Cozumel we went to Nachi Cocom, like another poster mentioned. We LOVED it. There weren't many people there that day, so it was almost like having a private beach. It's only $55 per person with unlimited food and drinks. We ate and drank ourselves silly and just relaxed on the beach. It was awesome. :D

 

Downtown is very sleepy at night, with just a couple of casinos and a few restaurants open. Years ago, downtown used to be where all of the action was, but that has changed, and now everyone heads to Palm Beach after dark. Just take a cab or a bus to Palm Beach. If you don't want to have dinner, there is still lots to do and see. By all means, take your child with you. There will be tons of kids. Paseo Harencia Mall has nightly family shows, a really cool water show, and different family events. There will be tons of stores and kiosks set up along the walkways. You can take a carriage ride, go bowling, go to a movie, shop, get gelato or ice cream, have dinner, walk along the beach, people watch, go to a casino. Palm Beach is definitely the place to visit at night. When you are ready to leave, you can walk over to the bus stop, which only runs every half hour at night, or walk over to one of the hotels, where taxis are readily available.

Good info! We'll be in Aruba in the afternoon/evening as well. We're planning to do the afternoon Trikes Aruba tour which will bring us back to the pier around 5:30. I was thinking of going to the beach afterwards but wasn't sure what beach or if it would even be a good idea. I also wasn't sure about transportation. Now I have a much better idea. Thanks so much for posting!

Damn auto correct! That should be most "bad-ass" looking!!!

 

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LOL!!:D:D

I just signed up for the trike tour in September. I know it's early, but I wanted to get our reservation in there now so I don't forget later. Plus I like planning things early.

Oh well, glad I got our Vista cruise booked for this year. Much easier for me to get to Miami than Galveston.

It was listed in my fun times on Conquest over the Thanksgiving cruise. I didn't attend, but I did see it.

Same here on the Victory.

Thanks for your help! I called Carnival earlier to find out for sure. I already got my price drop approved!

I just checked the fares for my cruise and they've dropped by $40 on the Early Saver rate, which also includes $50 in OBC and a free room category upgrade. I originally booked ES with $50 in OBC and no room upgrade. I was going to submit a price protection form, but I have the following questions:

1. Since the new fare also includes $50 OBC, will I be able to keep the $50 I have now? Or is that forfeited?

2. Will they give me the room category upgrade since that's part of the new fare? I don't really want it and I'd like to keep the room I have now.

Thanks!

Do them both. One this year and one next year. Flip a coin.

This is what I'm hoping to do. :) Got the Southern Caribbean booked for next year, probably going to do the Eastern in 2018.

Everyone must determine for themselves what documents they are comfortable using for travel. But according to Carnivals FAQ a copy of your original is fine. At one point the rules read a clear Xerox copy

From Carnivals FAQ:

Birth Certification Information

The following are acceptable:

An original birth certificate issued by a government agency (state/county/city) or the Department of Health and Vital Statistics*

A copy of a birth certificate issued by a government agency (state/county/city) or the Department of Health and Vital Statistics

A clear, legible copy of a birth certificate that was originally issued by a government agency (state/county/city) or the Department of Health and Vital Statistics. The*copy does not need to be notarized or certified.*

Birth Certificate Card

A Consular report of Birth Abroad

 

Also for the 16 and older group a valid photo id from school works.

I just came back from a cruise about 3 weeks ago and I took copies of mine and my husband's birth certificates that I made on our copier at home. They accepted them with no issue.

I did have the originals with me just in case, but they weren't needed.

You were located near the forward elevators. Do you know for sure if they completed the cabin refurbishment all the way to the back of the Ship? Did you walk back there or did someone tell you the whole Port side on 7 was completed? Thanks

But what I can tell you is that everyone who had a new room was unable to use their keys to get in. When I was standing in the hallway waiting for someone to come fix it, as far down as I could see on both sides of the hallway there were people also waiting because they couldn't get in.

That's when a crew member came by and told us that all the rooms were brand new. "3 hours old" new, he said.

You were located near the forward elevators. Do you know for sure if they completed the cabin refurbishment all the way to the back of the Ship? Did you walk back there or did someone tell you the whole Port side on 7 was completed? Thanks

Someone told us that they were all completed. I did not check to be sure.

I was on the Nov 21 sailing in cabin 7286 and all the rooms on our side were updated.

This was the first cruise for me and hubby. We traveled with a church group (which was not my church, but we were invited by a family member who goes to that church). There were several other family members with us as well. This cruise sailed from Miami to Key West and Cozumel. We had a 2 hour boarding delay due to remodeling of some of the cabins.

First thing I'll say is that embarkation was the most unorganized, chaotic mess I have probably ever seen. Obviously I have no idea how it usually is, but there were people all over the place. Once hubby and I finally got checked in, we were assigned zone 12 for boarding. I wasn't sure where we were supposed to go after that, so I just started following a group of people who were leaving the check-in line. I thought they were going to a waiting area, but we ended up following them to where they take your picture before embarking. Right after that, we went up some stairs and I realized we were actually at the place where they board the ship. They let us right on the ship without checking our boarding zone or anything. So we literally went straight from check-in to the ship without even meaning to do so.

We had lunch right away and then went to our rooms to see if they were ready because it was around 2:00 by then. Got to the room, put in the key card and...nothing happened. Tried again...nothing. Soon we noticed that all the other people around us weren't able to get into their rooms either. We flagged down a crew member who told us that all the rooms in that area were only about 3 hours old and that we needed to go to guest services to get the key cards reprogrammed. This was on deck 7, btw (we were in 7286). So we got our keys reprogrammed, but they still didn't work. Long story short, someone had to come by and basically reprogram the lock itself in order for everyone's keys to work. We waited for over an hour before we could actually enter our room. So that wasn't exactly the best start. But at least we did have the remodeled rooms. And we got a complimentary bottle of Chardonnay, 2 liters of water and 2 tote bags as gifts for booking with a group. We also attended a complimentary cocktail party later in the week. Oh, and I kept reading on here that cabins only have 1 power outlet, but our room had 2. Just a tiny detail that crossed my mind when I saw the cabin for the first time. :)

Also, one of our bags was delivered to the wrong room. They delivered it to 7386 instead of 7286. I only knew because my aunt and uncle were staying in one of the 7300 rooms and they saw our bag down on their end. We had to go searching down the hallway for it. After I retrieved the bag I wondered why the heck my aunt and uncle didn't just wheel it down to our room because the room number was right there on it...lol :rolleyes: But I wanted to mention that because I took the advice of someone on here to put bright colored duct tape on the outside of our suitcases. I did that just in case the airline forced us to check our bags (we only did carry-ons) so they would be easily distinguishable during baggage claim. It turned out to be a good idea because that's how my aunt and uncle recognized that it was our bag and that it was in the wrong place.

It's hard for me to think of a lot of details right now, so I'm just going to touch on what I remember at the moment. The food was okay. We ate at Chopsticks once and we didn't really like it. I had the Lido buffet twice and it was okay. I ate pizza pretty much everyday because I'm a pizza junkie. :) It wasn't exactly great, but I liked it. Hubby liked the burgers from Off the Grill. We didn't eat at Comfort Kitchen. We were not impressed by the food in the MDR. We ate dinner there twice, breakfast once, and we had seaday brunch there also. Breakfast was actually pretty good (I really liked the hot chocolate), but we didn't care for the dinner options. I actually liked the appetizers better than anything else. I had heirloom tomatoes w/ blue crab and ahi tuna, duck potstickers, strawberry bisque, and romaine caesar salad. The only thing I didn't like was the caesar salad because the dressing had no flavor. The one entree I did like was the roasted duck. Besides that I had the salmon (it was cooked well but lacked flavor), blue crab ravioli (just didn't care for it), and black tiger shrimp (tasted okay but only 4 pieces of shrimp???). I think I had one other entree but can't remember what it was. For dessert I tried a malted chocolate hazelnut cake that I did not like at all, and the next time I tried the melting chocolate cake. I know a lot of people love the melting chocolate cake, but I was not a fan. It was basically a cup of chocolate sauce with a thin layer of crust on top. I was expecting more cake so I was disappointed in it. Hubby had a coffee creme cake that I had a bite of. It tasted pretty good. Definitely better than that hazelnut thing I ordered that night.

As far as entertainment, we really enjoyed Vroom and we also went to a couple of comedy shows. We saw a PG-13 show which wasn't that funny, but the R rated show we saw later was hilarious. I watched Livin' in America with hubby and my mom. All 3 of us fell asleep during the show. :) I don't know if it's because we just didn't enjoy it or because we had been hanging out on the ship all day and were exhausted. The complimentary cocktail party was nice because free booze! :D They only offered us 3 different kinds of drinks: rum punch, screwdriver and one that I don't remember. But it was still nice.

That's all I can think of right now regarding the ship. I enjoyed the ports of call. We didn't get much time in Key West so I didn't get to see most of the things on my list. Hubby wouldn't let me go in the butterfly museum, which was the thing I most wanted to see. My brother and his wife went and they loved it. That made me even more upset that I missed it. :mad: But we saw the southernmost point and the beginning/end of US-1, and of course I had to get some key lime pie. In Cozumel we spent most of our time at Nachi Cocom, which was the definite highlight of our trip. The beach was sooo quiet (maybe only 40-50 people there) and we drank ourselves silly with the unlimited alcohol. Plus the food was amazing - much better than anything on the ship.

Overall, we both really enjoyed the whole trip. We definitely plan to cruise again, but we want to visit some different places and we'll try a different ship next time. We'll probably do another Carnival cruise, but we want a ship with more/better food options.

I hope my little review was helpful. If anyone has any questions, please ask because I'm sure I've forgotten some things. Thanks for reading!

The line getting off took an extremely long time. Again, I blame the back up on picture taking blocking the ramps.

 

When we returned to the ship, the line was way around the buildings in port. It took forever to reboard. My daughter and family ended up having lunch in port waiting for the line to shorten at the time we were to sail at 1:00. It was a cattle call[emoji853]

 

Loved Key West as a port of call.

I was on the same cruise. That line was INSANE! I couldn't believe how long it was.

As far as cabin remodeling, we were on deck 7 and our cabins were brand new (cabin 7286). They had literally just finished them right before we boarded. I saw areas blocked off on deck 6 for construction. I never heard any construction sounds during the night. Can't speak for daytime because we were pretty much never in our room during the day.

5 days!!! First timer here and I'm so excited!

Thanks for the info. I saw that Seafood Shack was listed as "Coming Soon" to Victory on the Carnival website, but they didn't say when. Good to know that's it's already there.

Is your itinerary Bahamas? At some point soon, it must switch to the Key West & Cozumel route since our Jan 2 cruise takes that route.

Actually mine is going to Key West and Cozumel too. We're going on the Nov 21 Thanksgiving cruise.

Thanks for the review! I'll be sailing in 3 weeks!

Thanks for the review! I'll be sailing on the Victory on my very first cruise next month. The negative reviews made me nervous at first, but with this being my first cruise, I have no expectations. :) So I plan to go in with a good attitude no matter what. Glad you had a great time!

I'm going on my first cruise next month and my hubby and I were planning to do this excursion. Now that I've been reading posts on here, I'm not sure if we should do the catamaran or go to one of the beach resorts. The reviews for the catamaran excursion are overwhelmingly positive, but I'm still not sure.