Alwayssomething

On our cruise in October while at breakfast on a day when the seas were particularly rough our plates and coffee cups slid across the table which it would not have done with a table cloth, we thought it was pretty funny but it was only then that a couple people at the table realized there was no table cloth.

Does anyone know if the Conquest has a bar in the steakhouse?

There was a bar in the Steakhouse.

On Conquest a few weeks ago they had two bottled flavors of Honest tea, the hot tea was another brand and they had approximately 8 flavors, a friend of mine enjoyed it so much she bought a couple packages to take home with her as well.

I am doing the DR, Aruba, and Curacao route. Would you mind sharing the Fun Times? :)

I am trying to upload and having some issues, I am getting an error message, I will keep trying.

We saw a few people who had the inside of the room decorated and then took one of the decorations from inside the cabin and put it on their door.

Sorry, looks like I provided bad information. Looks like the Travel Pass works on the islands not on the boat after you leave the ports. I was trying to help folks out as the two people in our part that bought the internet package on the boat were both refunded as it was horribly slow. I just used my phone one day with Travel pass and not while at sea, going back and rereading my texts from Verizon it isn't very clear about only using Travel Pass while in port and I misunderstood, glad I didn't use it the whole time! Thank you for the clarifiction

It does pull from your domestic allowance of data. I only turn off the data when I board, I do not put my phone in airplane mode so I received a text from Verizon. It is called travel pass and I was only charged for the day or days I used it. I was not charged anything extra while I used it at sea, but I started using it on one of the islands, and even received a reminder 23 hours later while at sea that I only had an hour left before I incurred another $10.00.

Just a heads up to Verizon users that would like to use their phone to post to social media and such while on board. Verizon was $10.00 a day for each day I used it for data and calls and texts, if I used it every day of my cruise it would have been way cheaper than the Carnival package.

I know, I know, I will get all the responses about not using it while your on vacation, but some of us have reasons we need to be in contact with those at home.

Serenity Deck was very nice the beds were comfy. It was closed on the windy rough day! The only thing in the cabin that looked replaced was carpet everything else was older or showed wear. Maybe new wallpaper.

I also noticed some padded couches in the shady area of deck 10 under the tail that I didn't notice on my 2016 cruise. Nice comfy reading area.

Only went once to the piano bar, the singer was great, the other night we tried to go he was sick. The other days we didn't make it, but I heard people praising him through the whole cruise.

A little about us, it was two older couples and one youngercouple, all bought the cheers program, three wouldn’t do it again threewould. One couple did a destination wedding in FortLauderdale prior to sailing so there was some stress up to the lastminute.

The day before our departure we received an email telling usthat the Conquest was on its way to Ft. Lauderdale late from dry dock and tomove back our original boarding time by 3 hours. Myfirst thought was “shoot how am I going to enjoy my cheers package if I don’teven get to board before 4”. Then wetried to figure out what to do when we couldn’t get a late checkout of ourhotel and had to return the rental car before 1 since their shuttles only rununtil 1:30. Not the end of the worldbut people did feel a little cheated.

Embarkation:

Our first time sailing out of Fort Lauderdale, I’m sure itwould have gone smoother if everything had not been pushed back, but by noweveryone is just trying to get on the boat, some people swearing they never gotthe message about the delay others just had nowhere else to go after theshuttle dropped them off. The line waswrapped through the building out the side, and around a bit. But once the line started moving it wentsurprisingly fast. I didn’t check mywatch but it took at least an hour total. Of course we were able to go directly to our rooms. But no one could say when we would muster andwe had dinner reservations at the Steakhouse at 6. Normally you get on and relax this day seemedmore rushed.

Muster took places about 5:30 and we did a quick change of clothesand off we went to the steakhouse. Theywere a little behind as they all have duties at the muster station drills too,so no rush. Everyone enjoyed theirdinner.

Only two shops were open after departing Effy Jewelry andthe gift shop. Pandora, a watch shopand a higher end shop were all still closed and windows were papered up.

Because of all of this we did not see our room stewardSuparman until the next morning, which was no biggie to us.

First day was a day at sea, things seemed normal as weexplored the boat, they were finishing up laying carpet on my floor and thephoto area had a lot more goodies for sale for your camera/phone/scuba divingand very little space for pictures. They were converting that to digital and it was supposed to work withfacial recognition after setting up and account with your folio number. Ittook a few days to get the facial recognition to work and a few times we hadother people’s photos, but there was a search function and you could lookthrough the photos on the ipad instead of paper copies that were in this tinylittle area with no real display room. Timeconsuming and a pain, but when they fix the glitches it will be a greatalternative. By the end of the cruiseif you had your photo taken they would enter your room number in the system andit would show up in your folio on the ipad. It was easy to place your order and pick up later.

We were all lounging by the pool when we heard a thud andturned around to see that a man had tripped over a piece of the steps at thepool that were broken. The little metalpiece they put on them to help you from slipping was sticking up. A crew member was flagged down and he put acone on it and the next day it was fixed.

Dinner was in the main dining room and was elegantnight. This is when we started eachnight with a drink at the Alchemy bar before dinner. Kind of a dessert first thing as it was adrink with ghiridelli chocolate, kalua, shaved chocolate. The bartender Dusan was awesome.

I think I walked through the cruise critic meet and greet location just priorto the meeting. Wish I would haverealized, I would have stopped.

Day 2 Amber Cove – we had no excursion planned here but whenwe got off the boat and looked around and took some pictures we decided to joinan island tour that was starting in 30 minutes. All the shops were up and running when theboat got out into international waters that evening.

Day 3 La Romana – we visited Monkeyland and had ablast. This by far was one of the bestexcursions I have done.

Day 4 was Curacao – Beautiful Island, but wish the hourshere would have been different they were 1 pm to 11 pm but I would say mostpeople were back on the boat well before dark.

Day 5 was Aruba – a personal favorite I love thisisland.

Somewhere either on the way to Curacao or between it andAruba the seas got very rough. We saycrew members having difficulty and at breakfast our plate and coffee cups slideacross the table. The next day when wewere talking to a crew member we noticed had difficulty the day before he saidhe had been on the boat 6 months and it had never been like that before. It was also like this a day or so on thereturn route.

After Aruba was two full days at sea, the first is rained agood portion of the day and when the boat was rocking so hard they actuallyclosed off the top deck. The first onewas the second elegant night and that night the captain offered everyone acomplimentary glass of wine and came into the dining room to apologize for theongoing repairs and things not working or being open. It was a very nice gesture but it wasinteresting that people complained about the wine choice….it was a free glassof wine for gosh sakes.

Disembarkation:

Was relatively smooth and quick. Surprisingly so. Although one couple in our group had leftour car at the Hampton Inn in plantation and had shuttled to the port, butapparently the hotel can’t pick up at the port. No one was told this, so the couple caught a cab.

As always, there were some issues, but Carnival took care ofthem right away and went over and above, we had a great time, we thought theentertainment was great, although they are using a screen for a lot of the showand the screen cannot been seen by all seats making the theaters seatless. Meet a lot of great people and the food was anywhere from good to greatdepending on what it was.

I have the fun times from the cruise and will scan them inand post them as soon as I can. If youhave any questions, fire away.

Most of the stores were redone and were not open until the second day of the cruise. All new carpets and our rooms at least looked like wallpaper was new. They also tried the change the photo area to digital only, using IPAD's with facial recognition. It was only working half as good as it should when we left the ship, but it was a heck of a lot easier than looking through all the photo's (which they were still printing because of the glitches, but had no real area to display them in any longer). Many things were still very old and had nothing done to them. We heard a thud and turned around to see a man on the ground and he had tripped on the metal piece of the stairs out on the pool deck. The step was dry rotted and the piece was sticking up, it was nailed down the next day but nothing that would have been missed if the whole boat was done over, leading me to believe that 2 week dry dock is for small changes and deep cleaning only.

Are you doing the Dominican, Aruba and Curacao route? I have the fun times but just haven't had a chance to post my trip report or the fun times yet.

I have not seen FTTF on sale yet and we cruise in three weeks, does this mean it is already sold out or do they wait until closer?

We have 6:00 pm dinner reservations for 6 at the Steakhouse on the first night of the cruise. I have been on a few cruises and only once did the luggage not make it to the room until after 7. I'm concern about the fact that our dress cloths will not make it in time for our reservations, or that one of the three rooms will not make it in time. I didn't really consider this when I made the reservations.

Also we depart now at 6:00 pm instead of the normal 4:00ish, I assume we will still muster at 4:00ish and just not leave port until 6 since this would conflict with a lot of dinners. Anyone have experience with this?

We were not kept safe, we were allowed to roam around the boat, we were able to leaved the boat without being questioned. To me, that's like letting people leave the scene.

 

 

 

I wouldn't worry about them not questioning anyone and letting you leave the scene, I am going to guess they know who was on the boat and where you live and how to contact you as well. If they need to talk to you they can find you. I'm even pretty sure that when a crime is committed they don't always question everyone at that exact moment, but maybe I just watch too much TV.

I have a friend who took her BF last year for this birthday on a 5 day cruise. He only took linen shorts and a polo for dinner and was turned away on formal night. It was his birthday that night and she had ordered a cake, they would not budge and let him in. So they celebrated the next night. So although I don't think it happens often that someone is turned away it is always possible I guess depending on their mood.

Awesome! I will check out cruisetimetables dot come too and keep an eye on it closer to sailing date. Grand Turk and Aruba are the only places I have traveled to previous to this cruise, so I am looking forward to not sharing the excursions and area with other cruises and passengers.

We are booked on the Conquest October 14th, I checked on ports.cruisett.com to see how many other ships would be in each of the 4 ports we were stopping in. It looks like only Grand Turk will have a boat other than us in port. I have never been on a cruise that didn't have other boats in the ports, is the link I went to outdated and is there a better place to get this information? Or are we really going to get lucky and have islands to ourselves this trip?

On one of our cruises, three people at different days and areas of the boat went down. One passed out and two with seizures. All three times people came to aid them while someone else went to get assistance from the staff. Once the lady helping happened to be a nurse. Although it was great to see everyone helping these people, I secretly wondered if the air we were breathing was being piped in making people drop like flies as it 's a big boat and if we personally witnessed three how many more had happened (none of these people were drunk either).

When we were returning to our room after dinner a couple in the end cabin were having a knock down drag out things were being thrown and a lot of screaming, security was already there. We were blocked from accessing our rooms, we learned that the man had brought a girl back to his room and was having sex with her when his girlfriend/wife returned to the room. Guess he didn't know she had the same key to the same room??

Elements is very nice too! I can't compare it to Passions as I have not eaten at Passions, but if I had a choice between Elements and Barefoot I would choose Elements. We loved barefoot and loved that we could want the planes for the airport coming in, but there were more children and it wasn't as quiet as Elements.

I am curious what all of you do with your passport while you are off the boat. I understand not being concerned if your cc or room key get wet.

Last visit waited in line a surprisingly long time to secure a locker. I'm taking my Kyss bag next visit & attaching to a lounger. I Use it on the beaches, wrap chain around umbrella/chair, never an issue.

 

 

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keishashadow, just curious which size Kyss bag you have? I have been thinking about the medium size, but wonder if I need the large.