CONQUEST Review with LOTS of pics & info - Montego, Cayman, & Cozumel

We took a cruise on the Carnival Conquest ship in October of last year, yes I am several months behind in posting a review, but hey, better late than never right? :p

So a little info on me and my man - I am Katie (29) and Joe (50). We have been together for 4 wonderful years. I own an independent marketing & design company and I do a lot of work for Joe, who owns GRT Race Cars - they build open wheel modifieds & dirt late models - check their site out: www.TeamGRT.com if interested.

We had a wonderful time on this cruise! Here is one of our favorite pics from the trip, a pic to tease you & get you in the "tropical" mood...:cool:

Enough teasing.....here we go!

So we decided since our cruise was starting on Sunday, Oct 3rd, that we would go down an extra 2 days early and enjoy our time in Galveston, since neither of us has been before. So off we go, we are about 8 hours from Galveston Island, so we left Friday after lunch sometime and got to Galveston around 10 pm.

We had reservations at the Hilton Galveston Island Resort @ 5400 Seawall Blvd. This was a wonderful hotel, like most Hilton hotels. The suprising thing was this hotel was only $89 p/night. It was right across from the beach and it included park & stay while on the cruist at NO EXTRA CHARGE! :) This was a big deal for me as I had noticed lots of people paying well over $60 just for parking! This hotel was 5 minutes from the port, so definetly a deal! Here is a pic from inside out room looking out....

I thought I had taken a pic of the actual resort from the front of the hotel, but maybe I didn't...or maybe it was all the cocktails we had. :p

Keep it coming. I'm cruisung the Conquest out of NOLA in January and I'm already obsessed. Can't wait to see the rest of the review!

So we basically enjoyed the day relaxing by the beach & pool, we knew we were going to have lots going on the cruise, so we just relaxed. I actually went to do some shopping at some of the Seawall Blvd shops (imagine that a girl going shopping??!! No way as the guys would say! LOL) so while I was shopping that afternoon, Joe relaxed by the pool & had some cocktails. This was a really neat hotel, in the pool, they had a bar you could swim up to, yea it was neat, of course should have gotten a pic but we were too busy visiting it. :)

So we had a fun relaxing day and decided that we would hit the hay early, since tomorrow we boarded the big ship, the Conquest!

A little more info on the hotel parking with included vehicle stay while on cruise - next....

Today is the day! So we woke and went to eat breakfast, we also scheduled the time we wanted to be taken to the port. So the way it worked we met out side and the van driver followed us to their secure parking lot where he would then pick us up and take us to the port. Here is a pic of us with our couple...ha ha...:p bags waiting to be followed to parking....

Once we were parked and in the van, we were taken directly to the port, which like mentioned earlier was literally only 5 minutes from the hotel and from the Seawall Blvd. So after that we were on the way!!!

I didn't take any pics at port but Im sure you can imagine, people everywhere, we got there at 11am and were there in lines and thru security and onto the boat by probably 12:30-1pm, so wasn't bad.

Regarding alcohol and rum runners etc....we thought we would be brave and try to put alcohol into Listerine bottles....more on this later, LOL....;) but we had done that and we poured Crown into 3 Listerine bottles...its kindof funny now, but this is the honest truth - I dont even think the security HAD A CLUE! We put our bag thru the secuiry scanner and it didn't even make them wink, stop, or anything.

Now really, if a person was to have 3 bottles of Listerine that were labeled as MINT but are light brown colored, wouldn't this be suspicious??!!! I guess not to them, so we got right by with no problems with our "Listerine" :p;).

So glad you're posting about your cruise! I'll be doing this exact trip in September!!! :D:D Can't wait to hear more about your experience.

AT LAST!! We are on the cruise! With drink in hand....ready to sail away!

We hung out for awile and walked around exploring the ship, and of course had to stop when we noticed the football game on the big screen!

I didn't get a lot of pics of everyone celebrating the sail away, as we wanted to go unpack our bags and check out our room! So off we went....

Once we got to our room, we started unpacking and checking the room out, Oceanview cabin #2309, here is a pic:

And, being that I am a marketing/design person, I had to make a door sign! I just bought paper and stuff from Hobby Lobby to come up with something:

After starting to unpack our items, we realized we were missing a bag....so this involved a lot of time figuring out what to do next, went to the desk and told them they assured us they would let us know something, and luckily within about 2-3 hours our extra small bag was found. So, all contents were in it and we were happy when it was returned to us!

We decide to get a bite to eat, after all the drama with the lost bag. We went back to Deck 9, Lido and decided to just eat buffet style, pick and choose tonight. I didnt take pics of our food, but we enjoyed the sunset from the top deck.

After we finished, we decided to just check out the casino, well "just checking out" the casino, turned into "playing" ;), so we like to play table games & some slots, but we decided to sit down at a Blackjack table and see what we could do...............well at 1 am, wr decided it was time to go, we had won $1800 from them! We were having such luck, that we really didn't want to leave but we decided to. So it was a happy night!

Tonight we came home to this towel animal, which looked like an elephant:

Enjoying your review so far! We will be on the Magic in February and will have the exact same itinerary as you, so I am especially looking forward to your info regarding the ports and any shore excursions you did! Thanks!

After a late night in the casino, we decided to sleep in, afterall, we are on vacation! :) So today we missed breakfast, and went for lunch at about 11am. We enjoyed time on the Lido deck and on the Panorama deck (Deck 10). They had some movies playing on the big screen and so Joe enjoyed the movies and I enjoyed the sun & a book, & a dip in the pools every now and then.

Tonight we had reservations @ The Pointe Steakhouse, so we didn't want to get too full at lunch, so we kept it pretty light. We had reservations at 6:30, so right around sunset. We went to the room to get ready, shower and into dress clothes, here we are before our reservation:

Here we are at our table with the excellent "surf & turf":

So, now its time for the funny story. Remember eariler when I said we won $ in the casino, well during our main entree, the waitress brings over an expensive bottle of wine and says this is compliments of the casion, we are cracking up at this point, she then proceeds to say, you'll must have done well!, we said yes. We are not big wine drinkers, but we thought what the heck, so here we are cheering to our wine!:

We had a good time at the steakhouse, needless to say, wine & all!

We walked around some more & went to the atrium, they had some game going on we stopped & watched for awhile. Then we ventured to the piano bar, that was fun, didn't get any pics while there but it was on the floor with the casino, so we had to stop & thank the host for the wine! After this we went to our room, here was our towel animal this time:

Keep it coming. I'm cruisung the Conquest out of NOLA in January and I'm already obsessed. Can't wait to see the rest of the review!

I can promise you this is a GREAT itinerary! You will have a blast. I'm going to be posting lots of info on the ports in just a bit.:)

So glad you're posting about your cruise! I'll be doing this exact trip in September!!! :D:D Can't wait to hear more about your experience.

Yes, you have picked a great cruise! This was an abosolute blast of a trip! I know you will enjoy it! More info in a bit! :)

Enjoying your review so far! We will be on the Magic in February and will have the exact same itinerary as you, so I am especially looking forward to your info regarding the ports and any shore excursions you did! Thanks!

I will have a ton of info on things we did at the POC's, and I can not recommend highly enough what we did in Cozumel...more on that later! :cool:

We got up pretty early today, so I decided to go to the Panorama Deck 10, and walk/jog a bit. I don't exercise daily but I try to do it a couple times a week, so thought since we were up so early I would go for it!

I get back to the room and we decide to go to breakfast in the Monet dining room. We were sat at a table with 6 other lovely people - a couple from California on their honeymoon, and a family of 3 on vacation with their mother. So we all had nice conversations, and all discussed what each was doing for excursions. Interestingly, the young couple had the same plans as us in Grand Cayman - Stingray City!...more on that later!

Again, we just enjoyed relaxing and catching some rays on the decks most of the day. Tonight was formal night, so we had to get ready for that. We had Anytime dining, which we wouldn't trade for anything, we loved the flexibilty of it! So I highly recommend you select "anytime dining".

We took it easy most of the day, as tomorrow was our 1st POC - Montego Bay Jamaica.

We had planned in advance to go to the Sandals Resort. Let me just say, we are SOOOOOOOOOOOOO thankful we ended up booking this thru the ship. More on this later....

More! More! More!:) Leaving August 14th on the conquest for our first cruise. So excited! Your review is SO helpful :)

This was our first POC - MONTEGO BAY, JAMAICA.

We had debated on whether we wanted to book our own deal or do something thru the ship. We normally, in the other cruises we have gone on, did not book anything with the cruise, as its ALWAYS higher than if you go direct to a company that is hosting the event - snorkeling or whatever. This time, however, I can not say how glad I am that we booked thru the ship, I will explain more of this later on. We decided to go with the Sandals package that included transportation to and from the resort, as well as being all-inclusive, ALL DRINKS & ALL FOOD, included in the price, as well as two chairs on the beach, and any watersports you want to do. The price for this was around $80 p/person. All the commercials you see on tv, this resort looks JUST LIKE THE COMMERCIALS!!

Here is some pics when the ship was pulling into Montego Bay:

Here is the market they had going on with all the natural & hand-made items:

So we had to meet in the building beside the ship at 10:00 am, so we went ahead and got off the ship to look around before meeting up with everyone else that was going on this excursion. Here is a pic of the bar inside the meeting area:

Let me just say, it was HOTTTTTT in that area, there were people everywhere and it was so humid & hot! Here is a pic of all the people where they meet their excursion:

So finally our excursion is called and we all line up to get on the van. Here is our greeter. And yes the bus was air conditioned - thank goodness!!!:

They drive on the opposite side of the street:

The lady that was driving the van, told us the KFC in Jamaica mean "Keep from cooking" we all thought that was funny!

We passed by Margaritaville on the way, but didn't stop of course we were on our own mission to get to Sandals!, Here is a pic I tried to snap as we "flew-by":

Some locals...

....and finally we arrive at Sandals!!!

Like I said previously, this property looked JUST LIKE THE COMMERCIALS - VERY BEAUTIFUL!!!

More pics @ Sandals:

On the way back from Sandals, we could see the boat, and man were we ever glad to be heading back!! Here is a pic below on the way back.

In case you are wondering why we wanted to be back, just take my word for it - Montego Bay Jamaica is like a slum area, wrecked cars sitting everywhere, half torn down buildings, homeless walking around, it was just NOT a good environment, especially for cruisers. I had previously heard a lot of people say that they are NOT getting off the boat in Montego, I though oh it cant be that bad or carnival wouldn't stop there, but I am here to tell you 1st hand it is bad. The area around the doc where you get off the boat is ok, and as soon as you pull down the street to get to the Sandals property which really was beautiful, but otherwise everywhere else literally looked like the slum. So now you can see why we were anxious to get back to the ship. I honestly couldn't believe it and cant tell you how important in Montego it is that you dont do your own tour, walk outside and hire a cab driver like you can in lots of other POC's. Anyway just a word of advise stick with carnival excursions only in Montego!

Here's an example, and I wish I would have taken pics of others but I dont want to remember the bad on vacations!!! :)

We made it back to the ship, safe & sound! We hit the showers and went the sail away party on Lido! After today we were ready to get some drinks & kick back! Here we are as we are leaving Montego:

Tonight they had music on the jumbo screen - this was Elton John singing, we hung out there for awhile.

After hanging on the Lido & PRomenade, we went to the show Magic & Illusion show with Lady Hellivi. She was pretty good, we enjoyed the show, and after that we called it a night. Here was our animal tonight, we still aren't sure what it is?!:

Well, its 11:30pm here, I've got a lot to do tomorrow, so I better call it a night. I will continue my review tomorrow evening. Hope everyone is enjoying it so far! Stay tuned for more! :)

excellent review, I am doing this same itenerary next year on the magic...

excellent review, I am doing this same itenerary next year on the magic...

It's a great itinerary! You will enjoy it, just be careful what you plan in Montego. But the other 2 POC's are VERRRRYYY NICE!!! :cool:

You will love it, I have lots of recommendations for my other POC's...will get into that in a few...

Do you know if the Conquest has ice machines and vending machines on the floors?

Thanks,

Neworleanscruiser

I'm loving your review,i can't wait to go on a cruise,for some reason i can't see the pictures,it's saying photobook moved the photos,i was able to view them yesterday but not today, is it my computer tripping???