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String's Easy BREEZE-Y Carnival Girl Review


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We just returned home from our June 10-17 cruise and I thought I'd go ahead and do a review.

 

THE GOOD

 

We got to sail with Schwartz, who is one of our favorite cruise directors. We made new friends, specifically our waitstaff June, Reza and Mercy as well as Fun Squad member Fadzayi (Fuzzy). :-) Because it rained nearly every day (boo!) during our cruise, we spent a LOT of time inside doing trivia or hanging out playing shuffleboard at the Red Frog. We also chose to do the Bottomless Bubbles this time around (which we'd never done before) and honestly, I never had any issues getting a drink. No matter which bar I got my cokes from, I was served in a prompt and polite manner.

 

The food was also amazing, as usual and I tried some things I'd never had before..like fried oysters. I didn't hate them, but I didn't love them either. I had lobster on Elegant night, which I'd had before and hated but my husband encouraged me to give it another try. So I did and I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either. I also tried this pumpkin and chorizo soup they had one night that was SO good. The dining room team was amazing..they learned by the second night that my son was NEVER going to eat the hot dog (even though that's what he ordered) because all he wanted was the bun, the fries and the coleslaw. So they would bring him JUST a hot dog bun, a double order of coleslaw and french fries. And every night, after that first night, they had our drinks ready for us--root beer for my husband and son and a Diet Coke for me. :-)

 

I also love, love LOVED the comedians--especially Doug Williams, who joined the cruise during the second half after we got to Belize. He was really, really dirty and REALLY funny which is what I like in comedians since my taste in comedy runs to stuff like Katt Williams, Sam Kinnison and George Carlin. I believe there are dirty, funny comedians and comedians who are dirty for the shock value but they're not really all that funny. Fortunately Dough Williams and Ceejay (whose last name I've forgotten) were the former and not the latter.

 

I also really enjoyed the new deli menu. I had the Cubano Mixto a couple of times as well as the Buffalo Chicken sandwich a few times and they were both really REALLY good. I tried out the Tandoor twice and LOVED the beef kebabs. They were SO spicy it felt like my mouth was on fire but OMG so delicious! They didn't have any naan (which I thought they would) but this graham flour pancake thing instead that was really tasty as well.

 

I also have to give props to the singers/dancers for deciding to go through with doing an "in concert" version of 88 Keys instead of cancelling it because the ship was rocking much too hard for them to be able to do the show safely. And they KILLED it on Flick: The Art of Movies. Just absolutely KILLED it. People can hate on the Playlist Production shows all they want but I think they're amazing. :-D

 

The Bad

 

It rained nearly every day of the cruise or at least was cloudy and LOOKED like it was going to rain. Boo.

 

Fortunately, it did NOT rain the day we were in Roatan and we got to do the Zuperman Zipline at South Shore, which I highly recommend. We purchased the excursion through the ship and it was absolutely amazing. The first two runs, you are suspended in this tube-y harness thing (sling?) and go flying down the line with your arms and legs outstretched like Superman. The rest of the lines are pretty standard although if you're lucky, they'll ask you (like they did with our group) if you want to go tandem with a guide who will flip you upside down so your feet are in the air. You're SUPPOSED to let go of the harness at that point so you're just hanging there, but I couldn't do it all the way. I was too scared. We didn't really see any wild animals on the jungle hike portion of our excursion, other than one very angry capuchin. I got stung by something also..I don't know what but it hurt like crazy for about half an hour. My arm didn't swell up and/or fall off, so I'm assuming it was something relatively harmless that I wasn't allergic to that stung me.

 

We weren't initially going to get off in Belize at all, but Hubs decided he wanted to do some shopping so we waited until they called general boarding (so we didn't have to worry about getting a tender sticker) and were able to get right onto a tender. We walked around, shopped a little bit and were able to get right back on a tender with no problem whatsoever.

 

One of the things we noticed during our cruise was that Schwartz wasn't doing his "I love you more. No I love YOU more!" schtick like he'd done in the past. One night when we were in the dining room, he popped by to see us (because he'd recognized us on embark day and sent strawberries to our room which was nice of him!) and my husband asked him what was up with that. Apparently, about six months ago, somebody complained not just to guest services on board but to customer service when they got back home as well and he was told he had to quit doing it. BOO!

I bet it was a platinum or diamond too since they have the reputation for throwing their weight around. I know not all of them do that, but a few bad apples tend to spoil the whole bunch, yanno?

 

Another thing that threw us for a loop (and really it's our fault I guess) is that amongst all the junk mail that we typically get in our cabin (spa offers, etc), we got a paper informing us of the NEW free for all debark tag procedure. We were SUPPOSED to go to the Red Frog at a certain time and grab the zone number tags we needed. We didn't know this though, until around 3:30 on the day they were given out so we ended up with zone 22. Fortunately, we had some leftover zone 1 tags from a previous cruise that we were able to use instead. Because of those zone 1 tags, we were able to get off the ship by about 8:30 and were on the road by 9ish. We figured that it was fine because A)who was it going to hurt ANYWAY? and B)on our next cruise, we'll be platinum so we'll get to embark/debark early ANYWAY.

 

The day we arrived in Cozumel, it was pouring buckets. We were SUPPOSED to go to La Isla Passion via Twister boat but were told we had the option of cancelling and getting a refund by the guy on the pier (I forget his name..Antonio, I think?), which is what we ended up doing. We walked around, shopped a little, went to Mare Blue (because they have the best teeshirt designs) and headed back to the ship. I think most people decided to try and make the best of it and I heard a few people spent the day at Nachi Cocum in the rain and it was fine. But I've been at the beach in the rain (well, not in Coz but in Galveston) and it kinda sucks. I was really glad we decided not to go. We're going to try and go next month when we go back and hopefully it won't be raining then.

 

Overall, we had a super trip, I think. I love the Breeze...it's one of my favorite ships and I'll be sad to see it leave Galveston and get sent down to Florida (I think that's where it's going).

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Thanks for the review. We will be on the breeze in August. Sailed her before and loved it. Did you try to do the sky course at all or was it open? What kind of cabin did you book and did you enjoy it? Other than the overcast skies , did you have a lot of movement on the ship ? I am excited to go back, my first cruise of 2018 and I can’t wait.

 

 

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I've done the sky course before but I don't know if it was open this time because of the rain and the windy conditions we experienced. I did get up on most of the sea days early and hit the track, which my husband said was nuts but I wanted to try and at least work off SOME of the calories I was consuming on the cruise. I've lost 25 lbs since January and didn't want to put it ALL back on. We got home and I found out I'd put on 10 lbs during the cruise but dadgummit..I blame it on Schwartz AND Fuzzy sending us chocolate strawberries and all the delicious food! I tried the new granola in the dining room and mixed it into my oatmeal (though they give you milk if you want it) and it was SO delicious. I also really loved the waffles and the pancakes they had in the dining room.

 

AND I went to tea time on the first and last sea days...Oh. My. Lanta. The pistachio macarons and the chocolate cake were SO good.

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We LOVE Schwartz too! I think he is DH favorite CD.

Sorry it rained the whole cruise. We were on Glory in mid-May and had wind and rain every day, sometimes both. It was impossible to do anything outdoors, even walk around decks it was so windy. And yet --- we still had a great cruise! It's all about attitude.

 

Thanks for the report!

robin

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As a Platinum cruiser we have NEVER thrown our weight around but the good new is that soon you will be able to.

 

We have been on the Breeze 3 times since November and love the ship and will miss it. But the Vista is coming to Galveston to replace it and can’t wait to give it a try.

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We were on this sailing. Had a great time. Thought Schwartz did a hell of a job. Also thought the best comedian was dj cooch. The only issue we had was debarking. We chose to do self assist because it was deemed as "express" debarkation. Be warned that this is NOT the case. Debarking began around 7:45 but we were not able to get off the ship until around 9:15 even though we were self assist. Not a fan of the new debarking procedures at all.

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Thanks for the review. We just booked our first Carnival cruise on the Breeze. My hubby is Indian and we are looking forward to Tandoor. Can you give me an idea what variety of food they have? Any biryani, butter chicken, lentils, etc...?

Thanks.

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Thanks for the review. We just booked our first Carnival cruise on the Breeze. My hubby is Indian and we are looking forward to Tandoor. Can you give me an idea what variety of food they have? Any biryani, butter chicken, lentils, etc...?

Thanks.

 

 

Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you. It's been a bit of a nutty week around here.

 

I did't go to the Tandoor every day but the days I did go, they had beef kebabs, some kind of fish thing (I didn't try it since I'm not a huge fish-eating person), lentils in yogurt (not my favorite but not bad) and a few other things. I wanted to take pictures but my camera died like the first port day (boo!) and I didn't have any other way of taking pictures. There was also an Indian-esque (seemed to me anyway) offering every night at dinner. It seems to me they also had some kind of Indian-esque (maybe?) offering on the port day breakfast menu in the MDR.

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We were on this sailing. Had a great time. Thought Schwartz did a hell of a job. Also thought the best comedian was dj cooch. The only issue we had was debarking. We chose to do self assist because it was deemed as "express" debarkation. Be warned that this is NOT the case. Debarking began around 7:45 but we were not able to get off the ship until around 9:15 even though we were self assist. Not a fan of the new debarking procedures at all.

 

 

IIRC, DJ Cooch did the later adult comedy shows (at 11:30) and except for the first night onboard, I was usually in bed by that point. I don't remember if he did any family friendly shows, but we didn't go to those this time around because Hubs and Son wanted to see the shows in the main theater, which was fine with me because we'd go to dinner, go see the show and then Hubs and Son would take themselves up to our cabin and get settled for the evening while I went and grabbed a sandwich and waited for them to start letting people into the lounge for the 9:30 pm adult comedy show.

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Okay, so I am dense, but I do not get why someone would complain about him saying I love you and I love you more-- is that not PC now? Was it "tone"? lol. Good lord.
On debarkation day he whispered the following on the intercom to the entire ship (cabins included)

 

Good Morning.

Good Morning!

I'm under your bed.

 

I died laughing. Didn't think he did anything inappropriate.

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Okay, so I am dense, but I do not get why someone would complain about him saying I love you and I love you more-- is that not PC now? Was it "tone"? lol. Good lord.

 

I guess it's not. He didn't say exactly WHAT they complained about, just that he'd been called on the carpet by the beards about it.

 

When we sailed with him last year, when he was still doing it, it wasn't done in any way that could be interpreted (at least, this is how we saw it) that could be bad. A little flirty maybe, but it's not like he was (again, not that we saw) going up to random passengers and saying it.

 

My son was tickled to death at the "Good mooorning. Good moooorning! I'm under your bed!" that he did over the PA on debark day. He thought it was hilarious.

 

Although I am not (and never have been) a cruise director, I HAVE been in customer service before. And you have to seriously watch yourself...you can be fun, but not too fun because it might come off as a little too flirty and get you into trouble. People will get butthurt over tiny little things and get you in trouble. I'm guessing somebody took it as a little too fun and flirty and was offended by it. I've learned over the years that people can and will be offended by the smallest, most random things and throw hissy fits like nobody's business just because they can or they think it will get them something.

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I guess it's not. He didn't say exactly WHAT they complained about, just that he'd been called on the carpet by the beards about it.

 

When we sailed with him last year, when he was still doing it, it wasn't done in any way that could be interpreted (at least, this is how we saw it) that could be bad. A little flirty maybe, but it's not like he was (again, not that we saw) going up to random passengers and saying it.

 

My son was tickled to death at the "Good mooorning. Good moooorning! I'm under your bed!" that he did over the PA on debark day. He thought it was hilarious.

 

Although I am not (and never have been) a cruise director, I HAVE been in customer service before. And you have to seriously watch yourself...you can be fun, but not too fun because it might come off as a little too flirty and get you into trouble. People will get butthurt over tiny little things and get you in trouble. I'm guessing somebody took it as a little too fun and flirty and was offended by it. I've learned over the years that people can and will be offended by the smallest, most random things and throw hissy fits like nobody's business just because they can or they think it will get them something.

We had him on magic last yr when Dr E was on vaca...he was ok...truthfully the "I love you more" was annoying and by end of cruise we all cringed everytime we heard his voice come over the intercom and it seemed liked he was constantly on the intercom but not sure it would be worth a complaint...just annoying...Dr E will always be our fav and will be missed (we were on his last trip with him this yr on magic)...

 

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We just returned home from our June 10-17 cruise and I thought I'd go ahead and do a review.

 

THE GOOD

 

We got to sail with Schwartz, who is one of our favorite cruise directors. We made new friends, specifically our waitstaff June, Reza and Mercy as well as Fun Squad member Fadzayi (Fuzzy). :-) Because it rained nearly every day (boo!) during our cruise, we spent a LOT of time inside doing trivia or hanging out playing shuffleboard at the Red Frog. We also chose to do the Bottomless Bubbles this time around (which we'd never done before) and honestly, I never had any issues getting a drink. No matter which bar I got my cokes from, I was served in a prompt and polite manner.

 

The food was also amazing, as usual and I tried some things I'd never had before..like fried oysters. I didn't hate them, but I didn't love them either. I had lobster on Elegant night, which I'd had before and hated but my husband encouraged me to give it another try. So I did and I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either. I also tried this pumpkin and chorizo soup they had one night that was SO good. The dining room team was amazing..they learned by the second night that my son was NEVER going to eat the hot dog (even though that's what he ordered) because all he wanted was the bun, the fries and the coleslaw. So they would bring him JUST a hot dog bun, a double order of coleslaw and french fries. And every night, after that first night, they had our drinks ready for us--root beer for my husband and son and a Diet Coke for me. :-)

 

I also love, love LOVED the comedians--especially Doug Williams, who joined the cruise during the second half after we got to Belize. He was really, really dirty and REALLY funny which is what I like in comedians since my taste in comedy runs to stuff like Katt Williams, Sam Kinnison and George Carlin. I believe there are dirty, funny comedians and comedians who are dirty for the shock value but they're not really all that funny. Fortunately Dough Williams and Ceejay (whose last name I've forgotten) were the former and not the latter.

 

I also really enjoyed the new deli menu. I had the Cubano Mixto a couple of times as well as the Buffalo Chicken sandwich a few times and they were both really REALLY good. I tried out the Tandoor twice and LOVED the beef kebabs. They were SO spicy it felt like my mouth was on fire but OMG so delicious! They didn't have any naan (which I thought they would) but this graham flour pancake thing instead that was really tasty as well.

 

I also have to give props to the singers/dancers for deciding to go through with doing an "in concert" version of 88 Keys instead of cancelling it because the ship was rocking much too hard for them to be able to do the show safely. And they KILLED it on Flick: The Art of Movies. Just absolutely KILLED it. People can hate on the Playlist Production shows all they want but I think they're amazing. :-D

 

The Bad

 

It rained nearly every day of the cruise or at least was cloudy and LOOKED like it was going to rain. Boo.

 

Fortunately, it did NOT rain the day we were in Roatan and we got to do the Zuperman Zipline at South Shore, which I highly recommend. We purchased the excursion through the ship and it was absolutely amazing. The first two runs, you are suspended in this tube-y harness thing (sling?) and go flying down the line with your arms and legs outstretched like Superman. The rest of the lines are pretty standard although if you're lucky, they'll ask you (like they did with our group) if you want to go tandem with a guide who will flip you upside down so your feet are in the air. You're SUPPOSED to let go of the harness at that point so you're just hanging there, but I couldn't do it all the way. I was too scared. We didn't really see any wild animals on the jungle hike portion of our excursion, other than one very angry capuchin. I got stung by something also..I don't know what but it hurt like crazy for about half an hour. My arm didn't swell up and/or fall off, so I'm assuming it was something relatively harmless that I wasn't allergic to that stung me.

 

We weren't initially going to get off in Belize at all, but Hubs decided he wanted to do some shopping so we waited until they called general boarding (so we didn't have to worry about getting a tender sticker) and were able to get right onto a tender. We walked around, shopped a little bit and were able to get right back on a tender with no problem whatsoever.

 

One of the things we noticed during our cruise was that Schwartz wasn't doing his "I love you more. No I love YOU more!" schtick like he'd done in the past. One night when we were in the dining room, he popped by to see us (because he'd recognized us on embark day and sent strawberries to our room which was nice of him!) and my husband asked him what was up with that. Apparently, about six months ago, somebody complained not just to guest services on board but to customer service when they got back home as well and he was told he had to quit doing it. BOO!

I bet it was a platinum or diamond too since they have the reputation for throwing their weight around. I know not all of them do that, but a few bad apples tend to spoil the whole bunch, yanno?

 

Another thing that threw us for a loop (and really it's our fault I guess) is that amongst all the junk mail that we typically get in our cabin (spa offers, etc), we got a paper informing us of the NEW free for all debark tag procedure. We were SUPPOSED to go to the Red Frog at a certain time and grab the zone number tags we needed. We didn't know this though, until around 3:30 on the day they were given out so we ended up with zone 22. Fortunately, we had some leftover zone 1 tags from a previous cruise that we were able to use instead. Because of those zone 1 tags, we were able to get off the ship by about 8:30 and were on the road by 9ish. We figured that it was fine because A)who was it going to hurt ANYWAY? and B)on our next cruise, we'll be platinum so we'll get to embark/debark early ANYWAY.

 

The day we arrived in Cozumel, it was pouring buckets. We were SUPPOSED to go to La Isla Passion via Twister boat but were told we had the option of cancelling and getting a refund by the guy on the pier (I forget his name..Antonio, I think?), which is what we ended up doing. We walked around, shopped a little, went to Mare Blue (because they have the best teeshirt designs) and headed back to the ship. I think most people decided to try and make the best of it and I heard a few people spent the day at Nachi Cocum in the rain and it was fine. But I've been at the beach in the rain (well, not in Coz but in Galveston) and it kinda sucks. I was really glad we decided not to go. We're going to try and go next month when we go back and hopefully it won't be raining then.

 

Overall, we had a super trip, I think. I love the Breeze...it's one of my favorite ships and I'll be sad to see it leave Galveston and get sent down to Florida (I think that's where it's going).

We were on the same cruise. We also had Schwartz as cruise director last year and loved him! I too, missed his announcements ending in love you!! - we always answered him back. He finally said Ok love you, bye - as we were waiting to disembark. Maybe we should complain that we WANT to her him say it!! I thought it was very endearing!!

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Thanks so much for your review. We embark on the Breeze for the last time in a couple of weeks. I am so disappointed that she is leaving Galveston.

 

I'm glad you enjoyed her in spite of the multiple rainy days.

 

The Dream is coming to Galveston in 2019.

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