scuba_ninja

The least sea day the weather was a bit rough and cold. Nobody was in the pools.

The sunset was really nice that night.

And we were seeing oil rigs by that time. 

TOWEL MONKEY!!!

Also, debarkation info, cause folks care about that. 

Cookie did a Q&A session. It was awesome. He's a great guy. 

He was super candid, and it was a great session. It's sad that there were not more people in the audience, because this was a highlight of the trip. Hearing about his life and what he does was not something I thought I'd enjoy as much as I did. Cookie is a really smart, funny and heartfelt guy. He really cares about his staff, his job and the impact he has on our vacation. It is clear that his staff cares about him too. He was really honest with us, about good and bad. I never thought a cruise director could matter really for me, but he changed my perception of the job. 

Somehow, I forgot to even take pics of the menu the last night. Sorry! I suck! BUT, we did get an amazing surprise at dinner! The first night I had talked a lot to our waiter about Filipino food. I've had the chance to eat it a bunch of times and I really like it. He promised to get me some the last night and he DID!!!!!!!!! CHICKEN ADOBO FTW!!!!!

Might have been one of the tastiest things we ate on the ship. The rice was fragrant and delicious. So good. So sad we didn't get it every night Get friendly with your waiters! Get some chicken adobo! We learned on our behind the scenes tour that the staff mess serves a lot more foods like this, and I was crazy jealous. I even said something to the tour guide. He brushed me off, but I was really serious. I wish we could also order more of the kinds of food they get "downstairs". 

Here's a little video of the "dinner show" the last night. 

The ship has a little trophy cabinet. It's kinda cool.

And one of the paintings is upside down. 

Here's some shots of the Lido at night, because they are pretty. 

And a glimpse at the rock and glow party. They had to scale it down and move it inside because it was so cold and windy. The ship was rockin' pretty hard that night too. And I don't mean party rocking. I mean take your bonine rocking. 

OK, this was one of the BEST BEST BEST things. On our left we have a hand-written recipe for Chicken Adobo! I was also talking to our room steward about it and he ended up giving me his family recipe. Nelmer, you are awesome! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! To your right, you have some goodies compliments of the head chef that were delivered to our room as thanks for taking the behind the fun tour. and in the center.... DUN DUN DUN... A SHIP ON A STICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! F*CK YEAH! 

I don't know if it was a party favor from the tour, or a thank you from one of the fun squad crew we got friendly with. But it's my single most favorite thing ever. I made my wife carry it home as carefully as a newborn baby. That thing has a place of honor in our home now. I mean it is solid gold. 

Last sea day is the worst. It means I have to go back to real life soon. But. I did do the behind the fun tour at it was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  With some extra !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sadly, no pictures, so I'll just write about it. You have to sign up right away when you first board. It sells out quickly. It cost us $95 a person and was well worth it. You get an amazing 4 hour tour and you also get a few pics. One of the group at the very bow of the ship and one on the ship with the captain. And a hat, lanyard bag thing and a soap carving. 

We saw behind the scenes in the theater, A galley, the bridge, the engine control room, the storage areas, garbage areas, the office of the HR director on the ship (he was the one who led our tour), crew dining/cabins/bar, the laundry areas and i'm sure i"m forgetting something else. Really amazing what you learn. I feel like in order to make diamond level, you should be required to take one of these tours so you can see how the staff really live before you get all cranky and entitled. 

It's amazing how much of a floating city even an older, smaller ship is. The crew, other than the captain were all so happy to answer questions and were clearly passionate about their jobs. The captain was as huggable as a cactus and was completely disinterested in us. Sad really. Even in his announcements though every morning this guy sounded as happy and energetic as a mortician. Maybe it was just our sailings because he's probably under a lot of pressure since the uhhhhh.... incident. 

You learn amazing things like the fact that they make 500 pounds of bacon a day on the ship. And that the crew bar rates are 25¢ for a bottle of wine! I was really happy that the people we met with were so open about their lives and about any question we asked. What a great experience. There is so much that happens behind the scenes on these ships to make sure we all have a great vacation. The tour is fairly active and NOT handicapped accessible. But man, if you can do it, DO IT! No part of the tour was boring and I gained a real appreciation for what happens every day. If anything, I feel like this makes me want to give a lot more in tips. And I did. I gave my room steward a little extra and I gave some to a few fun squad folks who rocked. 

I used to work on big science vessels so seeing how this one operated was cool for me. I loved seeing the engine control room and talking to the engineers about the water makers and some other neat stuff on the ship. The folks who work in these positions are no dummies. 

Here's a picture I took walking up to the pier on the way out. I think it's pretty cool to see these bit boats all together. Yeah I called them boats. Just waiting for someone to fight me about it. 

OH! Before I forget, here's some more really ugly art. 

And the self-serve beer machine on Lido. I never saw anyone use it I don't even know if anyone knew it was there.

You pay by the ounce. I think it was 40¢ an ounce. That makes about $4.80 for the equivalent of a bottle of beer. I think the beer in the bars is cheaper, no?

Entertainment the last day was this ventriloquist. He was awful. I talked about him in an earlier post. I feel bad for him his material was so bad. 

I did get a neat picture of another cruise ship passing us in the night. 

passing... like ships in the night....  (isn't there a song like that?)

Here's tonight's dinner menu. 

I got the spring rolls. They were alright. Nothing special. No photos because they didn't look all that special and my wife has started making fun of me for all the photos I take of food. I'm a Google local guide, so I use them to get points, but I think she's had her fill of my obsessive food photos. My wife had the shrimp cocktail as usual and the greek salad. I actually can't remember if I ate any vegetables this week. I don't think I did. I'm cool with it. 

I ordered the lamb shank. I really liked it. It was super tender and I really liked it. I'm a big fan of lamb. I make it at home all the time. I can attest to this being pretty darn good lamb. If I hadn't been eating like a frikking hog all week, I'd have ordered two. But I seriously over ate this week. I still feel sick thinking about it. And I regret only ordering one order of lamb. 

My wife also had the tortilla soup and the veal parm. It was ok. 

2 hours ago, wesorbeth said:

We cruised the Glory Oct. 2019 and we are going to cruise on her Oct. 2020.  

 

I just mentioned to my wife today that glory has an itinerary in February 2021 we have not done yet. And I'm considering booking it. It's old, but there's no sewage anywhere. No idea where that came from. Maybe a little rust and some smokey smells from the casino. That's about it. 

Al Chile is right outside the Puerta Maya actually. Easy walk back to the ship. 

And they have a rubber chicken tree. Which is awesome. 

Our waiter took our picture, and also took a selfie of himself for us. 

If you go there, tell Louis some random stranger from a cruise ship says hi. 

We ordered grilled octopus and some mixed ceviche dish. It was awesome. I showed the pics to my co-worker who is Mexican, and she was even commenting how good it looked. 

We licked out plates clean. 

The mini-sub expedition was fantastic. I don't know that I need to do it more than once, but what a great thing to do! So much fun. The guides were great. We didn't see a ton of fish, but I still had a blast. It is like a moped with a propeller and a bubble on top. Mine was super slow sadly but I still had a great time. It helped me feel less sad that I didn't get to dive on this trip. 

I felt safe the entire time. Good briefing. 

They let us hang out the rest of the day at the resort too. Really nice beach. We spend a good amount of time there just chillaxin'. 

The restaurant there didn't look all that special so we decided to head down back into "town" to try and find a place we went to two years ago called Al Chile. It had Just opened when we were there last, and it was so cheap and so good. Sadly, it has become a lot more expensive but the food is still really good. Yes, the waiters outside are very aggressive about trying to bring you in, but it is really good food. 

COZUMEL. 

Just as I am required to complain here, Carnival ships are all required to stop in Cozumel. Even ones that are in different oceans. 

There's nothing wrong with Cozumel. It's easy to get around. Almost everyone speaks english and there and it is actually decently affordable. 

We were actually a touch late getting in to Coz. As Cookie said "you might have noticed we're docking next to the Legend, so we're going SLOWLY.

Side note. I heard there was someone helicoptered off the ship in Cozumel. I have no idea what happened. Cozumel has some decent medical care because of the divers that come through there, so if they had to come off the island, it must have been something pretty bad.

The Legend BTW also still has some bumps and bruises. 

It really is amazing how big these boats are. Ha, I used the b-word. I can't wait for people to go nuts. 

The port itself has a very narrow corridor you have to walk through that's lined with over priced stuff like peeing Chihuahuas. 

It's like you're being corralled. I'm not a fan. 

When you get into the port of Puerta Maya, the shops there are actually decent. 

Don't buy the vanilla here though, the shops just outside the port across the street are cheaper. And don't buy clear vanilla. It's not actually real vanilla. 

Oh, I need to backup actually. We did the port day breakfast, which was a good idea. We didn't have to rush off the ship and the food was good. 

we ordered a few things. The avocado toast was "lit" as those darn millenials who eat avocado toast say. I'd order it again in a heartbeat. All while shaking my fist angrily at the millenials. 

The egg sandwich was ok. Nothing to write home about. Has brown patty thingies not so good. 

The waffles were not good really. Kind of... weird. Mushy. yuck. 

I love Dosas. I didn't want all the fillings that came in it, so I asked if I could just have the plain Dosa and they obliged! It was GREAT. I regret not eating more of them!

Also, towel animal on a cart. 

Our adventure for the day was the underwater mini-subs. We booked it through shore excursioneer. We took a 5 minute cab ride to the Hotel Cozumel, which is very pretty and has a neat tunnel thing that goes under the road so you can get to the beach. 

OK, I also promised to talk about ship condition. 

OMG LOOK AT ALL THE RUST!!! 

MISSING PAINT

OMG!!!!!!! VACATION RUINED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, let's be real. The ship is old. In ship years, it is like 4,692 years old or something. Maybe older. Ship years are like dog years. But like, way older. And stuff. 

The glory is a fine ship. But if your vacation really is ruined by rust and old paint, you'll hate the glory. I really don't give a crap about it. 

This staircase was under construction the entire cruise. 

Starboard side, right near the hot tubs on lido. 

They seemed to be working on it every day, but couldn't actually fix it? Maybe the maintenance crews are stretched thin because of the glory hole, but the ship can really use some TLC. Again, does it decrease in any way from my personal vacation? No. The ship sails, I can still eat my body weight in food a day and the comedy clubs gave me laughs.

The cabins are in similar shape for the most part. I ended up putting a piece of crumpled up paper in between a ceiling tile and some trim because I could hear it creaking at night. I'm one of those light sleepers that the ticking of a clock drives me insane. 

Like I said, I still had fun. Part of me even feels bad talking about these condition issues, but I want to be honest. 

Also, the elevators were ***** slow. And not just I'm impatient slow. It was a real issue. We were actually kicked off the ship a little early so they could run elevator tests and figure out that the hell was wrong. When we did our behind the fun tour, even our tour guide was talking about it. There was for sure somethin' up. But, again, for me, it didn't ruin my trip or really impact me all that much. I can see how elevators can be a big deal if you have mobility issues. I was in sore need of more steps each day. 

Would I sail the Glory again? Absolutely. I'm on the ship to have fun and relax. Not complain about rust. A faded deck chair didn't have any impact on any of my enjoyment. It would be great though if the Glory could get a bit of a makeover. 

OK, let's pause here for a really critical post. 

But first, a random picture of a table setting. OK, not super random. We all like to fight about the butter now that it doesn't come wrapped in gold foil. The butter is in fact real butter. I think I talked about this earlier in my postings. I can't remember, it was too long ago (ha ha, get it, i'm taking too long to do this review). The butter comes in giant blocks. They carve off big blocks, throw them in industrial size mixers and whip it. Whip it good. Like Devo. 

Service in the MDR was incredibly friendly. but damn was it slow. We're talking 2 hours dinners. And they got a lot of stuff wrong. I don't blame the wait staff. They seemed to know that what they were getting sent up was wrong, and they kept saying sorry for it. I was part of a group online that shall not be named, and that group was exploding with complaints for all dining times and rooms. The food in general had a lot of inconsistencies too. My chocolate melting cake would come out like pudding. My wife's was clearly well-bake cake. 

Personally, I was on vacation time, 2 hour dinners didn't bother me. I still had time to get to the comedy show. But missing/wrong dishes was a bummer. The thing with cruises is that staffing is such a wild card. You never know who's fresh on, tired and about to go off, etc. Pizza on one sailing can be amazing and then the next week awful. And that's honestly a big difference between Carnival and let's say Celebrity. Celebrity in general you'll have more consistency. Carnival is a lot cheaper, and you might miss on a few things here and there. I can live with it. Nothing that wasn't right was bad enough for me to say "RAWWWRR. NO MORE CARNIVAL FOR ME". The service friendliness was so amazing that I was willing to overlook the fact that I got two shrimp cocktails instead of 3. I don't want to dwell too much on the dining room misses but I can't ignore them. Sure, the pasta was gummy one night, but I sure didn't starve. 

Also, as an angry jaded New York native, this made me happy when it was on the table one night. 

So, a few things to wrap up Cayman. 

Please note that the lines to get back on a tender at the end of the day are pretty long. Factor that in to your timing. 

If you are on the last few tenders though, you get to see them loading up all the alcohol people bought in port. 

Here was our towel animal that day. 

We hadn't eaten at all in port and we were STARVING. So we grabbed some guy's burgers. Spot on delicious. 

For those of you asking "but why never the BBQ". Because it's disgusting. They're no equipment to make proper BBQ on the ship. And the ships that have a "Guy's BBQ". No different. The food is the same. There's no smoker on board and I HATE liquid smoke. It is so gross to me. 

By the way I see it asked around the boards a lot, how do you know what to do when you tender, etc. Here's the sheet they put in your mailbox the night before Cayman. 

Oh, and here's some fun times. I know folks love those. 

And tonight's dinner menu

I didn't take food pics because honestly, it wasn't all that interesting. The food was fine. Nothing we have not seen before. Our dinner companions got the vegetables in the pie crust, took about 3 bites and ordered something else (the indian veggie, which was always great). I had the fried oysters. They were kinda meh. Too much breading, not the freshest oysters. The lobster tail was fantastic though. We ordered two each. Perfectly cooked. 10/10 would order again. They cut all the meat out and put it back in the shells for plating, which makes for much less messy eating. I ordered the Malted Chocolate Hazelnut cake. Not bad. Looked really pretty. 

Oh and that night I got one of my favorite pics from the whole trip! You might have to turn the brightness up on your phone and be in a darker than not room, but you can totally see the constellation Orion! I took this outside on Deck 7's "secret deck" which was outside our room. 

Sorry guys, I'm not only dealing with explosions of crap at work, but also some family illness. 

To answer your questions in short order, yes, the glory is showing some age, but in NO WAY shape or form is it a bad ship, too old to sail, or does some worn carpeting impact any of the fun in any way. If worn carpeting or some faded deck chairs is what makes or breaks a vacation for you, maybe examine your life a little? Or sail Viking or some other line that cares more about looks than fun. Carnival isn't a luxury line. And I'm OK with that. 

I do recommend the Glory in general. It's not perfect, but it's a great ship with a great staff. 

As far as the turtle center goes, yes, you could grab a cab. It was about a 25 minute drive to the turtle center. If I go back, I would probably do exactly that. You're not in port for very long in Cayman. So you could easily come to the center in the morning and then come back and shop near the port in the afternoon if that's your kinda thing. Cayman had great shopping around the port. And even some good coffee shops. 

1 hour ago, Momma1980 said:

Great review! Following along. We will be sailing on the Valor out of New Orleans soon. We would love to see some of your pics and recommendations of what to do there as well! Thank you for posting. 🙂

Absolutely. I will post lots of NOLA goodies at the end. I promised I'd give cruise details first. Glad you're enjoying the review. 

The Stingray swim was fun! I really enjoyed it! Yes, it's crowded. And we happened to be there on a bit of a rough weather day. If you're going with little kids, be warned. You might be holding them above your head/wave swells all day. Honestly, they should tell you that you really need to be a swimmer for this one. On a calm day, you are only about chest deep and would be fine. But any kind of waves/swells and I can see this being a tough situation. Especially if you have issues in water. Or mobility issues. 

Speaking of. This is NOT a mobility issue friendly activity in general. You have a slippery ladder you have to use to get in and out of the water. I had no trouble whatsoever personally but I can see where it can be difficult for people who don't have good limb strength or who are not sure footed. There may be other tours that have easier water access, but the one through Carnival did not. 

Our boat crew for the experience was great though. Super friendly. Very much cared for the rays and really respected them. 

The safety briefing was helpful and the person giving it had a lot of pride for his job. 

Once you are in the water the rays are everywhere. They are beautiful too. They won't hurt you. Don't be an idiot and grab its tail and you'll be fine. Approach from in front, not behind. 

The guides did all of the "catching". And they were very respectful. If the ray really didn't want to get handled, they let it go. Yes, this is a crowded experience. The gov't has taken steps to limit the number of boats recently, which is good. 

Everyone got a chance to touch the rays, get kisses and even get a "back rub". It was a ton of fun. The guide even did a little tooth picking with the barb. This is a big time "DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME". But I'd be surprised if by now the guides don' t know the individual rays by name practically. 

Part of the experience is getting to feed the rays a piece of squid and feeling the suction of their mouths. 

It was late in the day by this point and the rays were actually pretty full, so they didn't eat. The guides were very respectful of the animals actually and didn't try to force them at any point to do anything. If a Ray wasn't in the  mood to be pet, it was let go. 

I'm super glad I did this! I don't know that I'd do it again, just because it is kind of a one and done thing, but it was absolutely awesome. 

Here's a good shot of the Glory on our way home. 

TURTLES TURTLES TURTLES!!!

Let me start by reiterating that Cayman is a beautiful island. It's clear by the multi-million dollar mansions that this is where the bank money is. And oil money. And money I'll never see in my life. 

The turtle center is beautiful. This isn't some backwater tourist trap where they mistreat the animals and just display them. Yes, it's a tourist trap, but a high class one. And the turtles are clearly all very well cared for. The facility is clean and beautiful. The turtles are healthy. Even the wild chickens who live at the center are happy. 

This is a fully fledged conservation center. Yes, it's touristy. But it is beautiful. I wish I could have spend an entire day or more here. There were tons of things like the aviary that I never even got to see. 

We saw more chickens though. 

The turtles are in a number of different ponds. 

You've got breeding pools

Pools with baby turtles you can touch

and most importantly, you have the lagoon where you can swim with turtles. THIS IS AMAZING. They give you snorkel gear that is clean and in great shape, and you go have the time of your life. Lots of turtles and fish in this lagoon. 

I've worked in environmental science and I've worked closely with animal conservation places. I can tell you that this place is well funded and top notch. Yes, they cater to and rely on tourist money, but again, this place is great. 

The lagoon is in great shape, the turtles are well fed, peaceful, happy and don't seem to care a whole lot if you touch them. They also pose for beautiful pictures. 

The turtle swim lagoon is a 10/10. Seriously. I would spend an entire day, maybe more JUST in this lagoon. If i go back to cayman, I can skip the stingrays, and just go here all day. So maybe that means the turtles are better? The stingrays are amazing, but once you've done it, you've done it. The turtle center is fantastic. 

You can even watch other people watching you!!

Also, the gift shop here had a shirt that my wife wanted but didn't buy because she thought she might be able to find it cheaper somewhere else. Big mistake. We both really regret her not getting this shirt. 

I asked our driver between the turtle swim and the rays about the chickens. My exact words were "does anyone pay for chicken on this island?" He laughed pretty hard. I imagine he gets a ton of questions about them, so I'm glad I had a creative one.  Apparently there was an egg farm on the island that was destroyed in a Hurricane. That Hurricane also destroyed or severely damaged something like 80% of all structures on the island. It was Ivan I believe. Anyway, lots of chickens survived and became wild. They don't really have any predators, and apparently they are protected by law, like all wild animals on the island. So now they have more chickens than they know what to do with. Also, apparently the wild chickens taste terrible so people still buy chicken on the island. 

1 minute ago, LandlockedCruiser01 said:

 

"Ice cream"?  Was Savannah leading the show, by any chance?  She was the cruise director on my last cruise, and that's the metaphor/euphemism she used.  There were no kids in the audience, just high-schoolers at the youngest, but I'm sure she did to be funny.  Similar to her "say bye!" tagline.

I don't remember anyone with that name on the ship. Cookie was our cruise director. And he said Ice Cream in a very sexy voice when he said it. It was hilarious. Not sure what the audience mix was, but it was very funny. It isn't listed as an 18+ show, so I think they have to get creative. 

The next day was Grand Cayman. Cayman.Is.Awesome. The average hotel price there is around $500 a night, so the only way I'm getting there is by ship, and thank goodness I had the opportunity. That's a beautiful Island. That's overrun with chickens. 

We grabbed a few chocolate muffins from the lido and headed to the tenders. Technically I took this shot coming back, but whatever, it works here. 

Since it was a tender port I wanted to make sure we got off the boat and back in time so I opted for a Carnival excursion. Pricing was actually no different than third parties I looked into. So that was good. We did the Sea Turtle and Stingray excursion as stingray city has been on my bucket list for many years. I have a hard time deciding if I liked the turtles more or the stingrays. 

I have to give the excursion 4 out of 5 stars over all though. Hey, it's cruise critic. I have to complain. But first, here's a chicken marinating himself in coconut. mmmmmm coconut chicken.....

The start of the excursion was a mess. They overbooked apparently so they had our group waiting outside with nowhere really to sit for about an hour before they could get a bus for us. That really sucked. We lost valuable turtle and stingray time!!! And yes, when you are only in port from 9-3, the hour counts! Especially for something this great!! Also, make sure you bring snacks!!! There was water on the boat for the stingrays, and I think there might have been some snacks. but there really isn't a time to eat on this excursion. At least, not with the reduced time we had. There was a place to buy food at the turtle center, but we decided to swim with turtles more, rather than eat. 

When they finally got us a bus, they decided we were going to the turtles first. Cool. No biggie. I can live with stuff like that.

That night was the love and marriage show. Now, I don't have a lot of pics of that show. But it deserves its own post. It was so good that Cookie even said in his end of cruise Q&A that it was the best he'd ever done. And lemme tell ya. IT WAS AWESOME.

The newlywed couple got married on the ship the morning of the cruise. Yay cruise ship wedding. But they were the least interesting. 

The "middle" couple had been married about 5 years, and they were clearly deeply in love. As part of the contest to get on the stage, couples had to have the husband re-propose to the wife and tell them why they are in love, etc. Well... this couple has no husband, so that caused a lot of laughs figuring out who'd go on stage. But the speech she gave was one for the ages. I wouldn't be surprised if it brought tears to people's eyes. No joke. It was about how much her wife is her rock through multiple deployments (I think they met in the military, but one gave up her military career for the other) and how great life is together, etc. Really a beautiful and passionate speech. 

Now. The longest married couple. 62 years. OH MY. The husband had mobility issues and issues talking so his daughter volunteered to come up and help him. uhhhh.... I wonder if this was her first cruise, cause she clearly didn't know what she was in for. Cookie didn't hold back either. Let's just say that when he asked about the "Ice Cream" they had the night before. They had to compare it to holidays. I think the choices where Memorial day, Halloween, 4th of July and Labor Day. Apparently the newlyweds according to the wife were more like labor day. The middle couple Halloween (full of tricks and treats). But uh.... after 62 years, good to hear that they're still... 4th of July. I don't think their daughter will ever be the same after having to tell the audience that. Or about the first place, and strangest place they've... had Ice Cream. 

Love and Marriage show is awesome. If you have not gone, you're absolutely missing out. 

On 1/17/2020 at 10:03 PM, LandlockedCruiser01 said:

Did you mean "South American"? 

 

I know of Carnivale in the West Loop neighborhood.  It's kind of clubby and flashy, but it's authentic and it offers empanadas.  But last time I ate one, it wasn't from a restaurant; my friend's sister-in-law made it.  She slow-cooked some pork and a little bit of poblano pepper in mole, then put it into pastry dough and baked it.

Yes, I'm sorry, was on mobile. I have not been to Carnivale. I should check it out. A number of my coworkers are Jamaican, I should ask them if they have any good spots. 

11 hours ago, LandlockedCruiser01 said:

 

Great review.  It's written like a travelogue, and gives a good overview of your days.  I look forward to more.  Speaking of pot, it just got legalized in Illinois.  I'm all for letting the police focus on more serious crimes, but smokers are jumping on dispensaries like hyenas on a zebra carcass.

 

I'm from Chicago too, and I know of only one place that sells beef patties.  It's the frozen, packaged kind, but better than nothing. It's an unlikely place: Dollar Tree.  I'm sure there are Jamaican restaurants that sell freshly made beef patties, but they're similar enough to South American empanadas I already eat fairly often, than I don't make it a priority to seek them out.

If you've got a good place for South Africa empanadas, please do share! Thanks for the compliments!

10 hours ago, fyree39 said:

Brown Booby

 

Frigate Bird

Thanks for the info. I'm better at identifying burgers than I am birds. 

12 hours ago, SERK said:

Still enjoying the review!  I read where you didn't care much for the breakfast at the buffet.  Have you tried Blue Iguana Cantina? They open for breakfast and make an excellent breakfast burrito to your liking and they don't try to sell you pot. 🙂 

Yes! Blue Iguana breakfast was excellent! It did not try to sell me pot. And it was tasty. 

Other than my Jerk Pork and Beef Patty, the best part of that port was pulling away.

It was neat watching the ship turn in the harbor. Our fishing cop friend got back in his boat and helped guide the way. 

By JAMAICA~!

Dinner that night was decent. 

The shrimp was pretty good. 

And the Jerk wings were.. decent. 

I'm kicking myself though, I ordered three. Yes THREE orders of frog's legs. And I guess I forgot to take pictures. They were excellent. Well cooked, and well seasoned. HIGHLY recommend. They are a little boney, but oh so good. They tasted pretty fresh too. My wife had the flat iron steak, which was excellent. 

After much confusion, we finally found the bus stop for the return journey. Next stop, Dr's Cave beach. 

I will say the drivers were generally pretty nice. They did a little narration along the way. Telling us not to eat Ake from the trees and stuff. I would never want to drive in Jamaica. Apparently there's no such thing as traffic laws or sanity on the roads there. Once the bus found a spot to drop us near the beach, we were off. Instructions of where to go to get the bus though were really poor at all stops leading to much confusion. 

Here's some random stuff we passed along the way. This first picture apparently is an army base. 

Apparently some of the "abandoned" houses are not actually abandoned. What people do 'round here is they buy land and build the house VERY slowly over many years and money comes in. The banks give terrible loan rates, so they'll just wait many years for the house to be ready and do what they can when they can. 

So Scotchie's is pretty famous, and I'm really really sad I didn't get to go. I love Jerk flavors.

It looks like lots of other tour buses were there that day. 

The hip strip is lots of tourist trap shops. I would have browsed them (I get a kick out of them) but we wasted too much time at Rose Hall and we wanted some beach time. 

Dr's cave beach has a starbucks attached to it of anyone cares about that sorta thing. 

To get in you pay $6 a person. The beach itself was a bit crowded, but we found a fine spot. Umbrella rental fees and all that were not outlandish. There is security here too. How good they are... I don't know. EVERYONE. EVEN THE SECURITY GUARDS tried to sell us pot. 

The sand was pretty clean, and the bathrooms well enough attended to. But again, lots of people asking for tips. There were lifeguards too. Actually not a bad beach by any means. 

While we were at the beach my wife was hungry, and so was I, so we decided to try the restaurant at the beach. It is called the Sand Bar. 

Lots of locals/tour guides eating there, so I felt it couldn't be that bad. It's kinda like when you see a restaurant and cops are eating there. They know the 'hood. They know all the places. If they're eating there, it's probably a decent meal, because they can go anywhere. Service was slow because it was kinda crowded (and the kitchen staff was in NO hurry- tour guides were screaming at them to hurry up).

W O W. That food shocked me!  I had the jerk pork with festival bread and my wife had a while jerked fish that came with DELICIOUS rice and some veggies. 

One other thing I am really sad about is that I didn't get to the Pork Pit. People say it's as good, or even better than Scotchie's. I had planned to walk there from the beach, but after getting harassed mercilessly we decided it just didn't feel comfortable walking all the way there. The walk from Dr's cave beach to pork pit is pretty short, but it just didn't feel safe. We did walk from the beach to Margaritaville, and that was enough for us. Not a good experience. Margaritaville even was kinda dingy. Lots of vagrants outside.... you guessed it, trying to sell pot. The food we had was really excellent though. I'm sure Scotchie's and Pork pitt are awesome, but i have actually no complaints about the meal we had. I have to imagine it was actually not too far off from the famous places. 

I can see my ship from here!

Long story short, there was a lot of issues finding the stop for the bus. Lots of people trying to sell me pot. And one kept asking "what are you afraid of, the Jamaicans? Too scared to try a little pot? Big Bad Jamaican mon?" So when finally someone was actually trying to tell us where the bus stop was, I didn't believe him. I thought he was some pot selling vagrant looking for a tip. Eventually, and by this time I was getting nervous about departure time, we found the spot. The bus finally came. But then had to turn around, go back to Dr's cave beach, and pick up some more lost carnival souls. I guess I'm glad to see they were not left behind at least. We made it back JUST in time to walk through the sad, sad, sad, shops at port. There was a beef patty seller though, and I HAD to get one. I used to get them all the time in NY, but can't find them in Chicago. The one at the port was actually good. I was SO happy. I love beef patties. She clearly sold mostly to the port workers/tour guides. She was very surprised to see a tourist in her shop. Doesn't matter, had a patty, it was great. When I put hot sauce on it she smiled and nodded.

We got back on board, and didn't have a lot of time to spare... so I thought. I was hanging out on our "secret deck" waiting for the boat to pull away, watching a local cop fish off the dock. 

And wondering why we had not left yet (this is like an hour after all aboard). Well, a few tour busses come screamin' round the bend, I guess whatever tour they were one got caught in the traffic, which is horrible. Must have been a Carnival tour, since the ship clearly waited for them. 

In the meantime, I got to see a neat storm comin' down the mountain. The storm did not in fact ask me if I wanted to buy pot. 

We never made it to the craft fair, that that's a bummer. In the morning passing it, it looked closed so we didn't bother trying. On the way back though we could see it had opened. A few really REALLY drunk people got on at that stop (on the way to the ship). So I guess they have some kind of bar there too. One rather inebriated fellow made a very funny dirty joke, but I don't think I can tell it on these boards without getting in trouble. 

Jamaica Mon! Happy New Year Mon! Want some pot?

That basically summarized Jamaica. But I feel like some of your like details and pictures, so here goes. But before I begin, here's a picture of what I believe to be a frigate bird that was following the ship the day before. He was diving down and catching fish the ship's wake displaced. Pro tip, watch the ocean. You'll be amazed what to actually see off the ship that so many people will miss because it's noon and they're already on drink 15 of the drink package. 

Jamaica was New Year's Day. YAY.

The room stewards had some nice towel animals on their carts today.

There was one carved watermelon at the buffet. I was surprised in general how little carving there was of fruit on the ship. On the dream 2 years ago it was everywhere, on Glory, maybe one or two a day on the buffet line. I didn't really eat at the buffet much, but I'd pass by hoping to see a carving. Or snag some Mortadella. mmmmmm... mortadella. We did hit up lido for breakfast that day. Meh. The eggs looked gross and we didn't get any. We got some chocolate muffins instead, which were actually really good. And I got a sausage, because... sausage. 

Pulling into port was uneventful There were some neat ships in the harbor though. 

Originally we had booked the Croydon Plantation tour. Without warning, and with no explanation Carnival cancelled our expedition a few months ago. We got a prompt refund, but it was weird to have no reason. Even the email was blank. It said "we had to cancel because " and then nothing after it. Who knows why the cancelled, but it looks like that excursion is completely gone from the Carnival site, and a few other shore excursion sites. Maybe tourists were getting eaten by ghosts or something. 

Everything else in Jamaica was either really expensive zip lines, or really really expensive beaches. We opted for a more low cost option and decided to try the hop on/hop off bus. Not worth it. I didn't see a lot of info about it on these boards, and even when I asked, people didn't have much info, so here's what I can tell you. 

First off. Pay no attention to that sign. Well, maybe a little. I'm sure getting caught bringing drugs onto the ship is bad. Which reminds me. First day on the ship, someone was CLEARLY smoking pot somewhere near my cabin. It only happened that one time as we first walked up to our cabins. Maybe that person wised up/used up their supply/got kicked off. Who knows.

Anyway, back to Jamaica. They sure as hell don't give a flying Bob Marley about you doing enough drugs to make Willie Nelson look like an amateur. I don't do any drugs, I don't really even drink. I grew up in a very strict teetotaler home. I don't have any issues with people who indulge, I just never got a taste for that stuff. Personally, I actually think pot is less of a nuisance than alcohol. I don't see a lot of pot heads getting crazy and trying to fight someone in the hot tub because they think you looked at their girlfriend funny. Pot heads are just more likely to make the lido buffet crowded. That being said, it is pretty obnoxious when people are constantly trying to push drugs on you, then trying to make you feel bad for not doing drugs. ***** Jamaica?

The HOHO bus stand is right inside the terminal as you get off the ship. The terminal is super bare and boring. It is literally an empty warehouse. 

If you can't read the sign, the bus stops at Rose Hall, Doctor's Cave Beach, Margaritaville, and then Montegeo bay craft market. 

The buss is $25 per person and they only take payment using S&S card. It's not worth it. Take a Taxi to Dr's cave beach and call it a day. 

Rose Hall shopping is pretty crummy. I'm not going to say that my wife didn't buy anything there, she did. And it wasn't a terrible "deal" that the guy made, but the shops are overly pushy and EVERYONE TRIES TO SELL YOU POT. Also, people who help you in the stores demanded tips. Look, Jamaica, like most islands ships visit is economically depressed. But Jamaica was the only place I've ever been where they were just... rude about it. Everything was a pushy money grab. It was a very slow day in port with only one ship. So I'm sure they were a little extra that day, but c'mon. Like I said, my wife bought a little sparkly thing that was marked $275 and got a deal on it for $35. I'm sure it's actually worth $10, but whatever, she likes it, it made her happy. She didn't pay $275. 

The shops were not particularly nice. The bathroom there was OK at least. They are the furthest stop from the port, and also the bus' first stop. After traffic and everything, we ended up wasting a lot of time getting there, and shopping. Next time I'll skip Rose Hall if I ever go back. 

Here's the best pics I took at Rose Hall. Yes, the plants were the most interesting part. 

Ok, Fine, maybe the naughty pot paraphernalia was the best part. 

Like I said, I didn't really enjoy this stop. I did pick up some Jerk seasoning as gifts here because it was cheap, but I feel like I could have gotten the same thing cheaper on the "hip strip". 

4 hours ago, Carriecruises said:

You mentioned that they have your S&S card at your room.  So are the cabins open?  And how does it work if you have the Cheers package?  Do you have to go to your room first to get your S&S card?

No, the cabins were all locked and there was a sealed envelope in the mail slot thingy on the door with the S&S cards. You would know if there was any tampering. You use your boarding pass for anything you need before your S&S/Room is ready. Really efficient system.