It’s a Breeze! Our Cruise Sept 17 -24, 2017

Our cruise is September 17, 2017… we booked it over the Christmas holiday, since 2016 was kind of a rough year for us- my hubby had some health issues, we lost some family members, others are battling some serious health demons… anyway we hoped that having a cruise to look forward to would start 2017 off on the right foot- so far, so good!

I’ve written several reviews in the past. The early part of this one is eerily similar to my Magic review from 3 years ago, because I’m not egotistical enough to believe that everyone has read my reviews, and remembers all the details! Plus, some of this info in the introduction is helpful to other cruisers, so I’m including it.

One of my pet peeves is people who start reviews then leave their readers hanging. I know, I know- life happens and sometimes you just can’t get back to it. But it annoys me to no end! So I won’t do this to you. I’m writing my entire pre-cruise blog and review out in full in Word, then after the cruise, I’ll post it in part or in whole, fairly quickly. I’ll have to figure out how to post pictures to use in a review over again, since it’s been a few years.

Another thing that’s kind of frustrating is wading through 100 posts of responses from the reviewer, thanking everyone who comments on or compliments their review. So I’m warning you now, I will respond to questions or comments that add to the review, but if my only appropriate response is ‘Thank you!’ I’ll say it now-THANK YOU for reading along and commenting on my review! But please don’t be offended if I don’t answer each of your thank you’s individually.

So this first part is going to be all pre-cruise blog. If that part bores or annoys you please feel free to move on to the review part, since I really don’t care to hear your complaints about all the stuff you had to read to get to the goodparts. You’ve been warned!

Now before I begin, one thing I had a tough time with at first were all the acronyms people throw out there… so here’s a list of the acronyms I use or have heard here on Cruise Critic and what they stand for!

· DH – Dear Hubby (alternately DW)

· TA – Travel Agent

· PVP – Personal Vacation Planner (CarnivalTA!)

· CC – Cruise Critic; CC’er- fellow CCmember

· FTTF – Faster To The Fun

· OBC – On Board Credit

· OCD – Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (notreally cruise-specific unless you’re referencing my packing list!)

· OV- Ocean view cabin

· M&G – Meet & Greet (also known asMeet & Mingle- M&M)

· DoD – Drink Of the Day

· DD – Dear Daughter

· GS – Grandson

· GS – Guest Services (pretty sure you canfigure out the difference)

· IMHO- In My Humble Opinion

· YMMV- Your Mileage May Vary (obviouslymeans your experience may be different)

Pre-CruisePortion

C Minus 261 (261days til cruise)

Intro! DH (Dave- 65) and me (Pat- 58) - together we’ve been on 5 & 7 cruises respectively, all on Carnival (except for an ill-fated trip on the Big Red Boat before the days of Disney!). We live in Leander, a suburb northwest of Austin Texas, having moved here from Florida in 2013 to be closer to our daughter and her family. We have a 9 YO grandson who is the apple of our eye, and we’re already saving to take him on a cruise in a year or two!

Asf or booking, we actually have 3 Marriott timeshares that we have issues using, now that we live in Texas- east coast and west coast there are tons of places we can exchange to, but in Texas? Not so much! But we found out that we can trade in our weeks for Vacation Points, which can then be used to book cruises! YAY! Actually this cruise is a ‘free’ cruise certificate that Carnival gave us because we’re willing to part with so much of the rest of our money, they figured they’d throw us a bone! All we needed to do was pay port fees and taxes!

I started researching our options in November 2016… we knew that Galveston was our port of choice since we could easily drive it and not have to fly. I wanted 7 days if possible and I was open to trying a different cruise line so I looked briefly at the Liberty of the Seas. Once I settled on Carnival we went back & forth between Breeze and Freedom. In the end we went with Breeze because it’s a newer ship and pound for pound I could actually get a better cabin out of the ‘free’ cruise certificate on the Sept 17 sailing. So Breeze it is!

There’s a back story here regarding our itinerary- we lived in West Central Florida (Tampa Area) for many years. I always wanted to visit Key West. We moved to Texas before that ever happened. So for our last cruise I thought, here’s my chance! Key West, Nassau & Freeport! But DH REALLY wanted to see Jamaica so I caved…. And we ended up not even leaving the port area in Mo’Bay Jamaica… so this cruise- Key West it was! I don’t care about Freeport or Nassau- a lot of people dish on them but I figure, worst case, we’ll have the ship to ourselves for a good part of the day!

I went back and forth looking into what room we wanted. Using the ‘free’ cruise certificate (note that I keep referencing ‘free’?? Quite intentional, I assure you!) we could get an OV on deck 2 of the Freedom or the Breeze. But the OV’s available were not in great locations, so we started looking at minimal upgrades. I already knew what the port fees and taxes were going to be for a 7 day cruise out of Galveston on Eastern Caribbean route, if we went with the standard offerings (in most cases, lower level interiors or OVs). It turned out that for only a couple hundred more per person we could get a balcony on the Verandah deck of the Breeze (Deck 8). Decision made. Our cabin by the way was 8217, all the way forward on the starboard (right) side. I figure the certificate actually saved us about $400 pp in the cost of the cruise. So our ‘free’ cruise wasn’t free, but it made our balcony much more affordable!

Only261 days to wait!!!

Pre-CruiseAccommodations & Parking

The first thing I looked for was Faster to the Fun (FTTF) - none available. Okay, so good for me, gives me more time to research and determine if I really want it this time around. It’s gone up $20 since I bought it 2 years ago- now $69.95 for a 7 day cruise… plus Galveston has staggered check-in and I was able to get the 10:30 slot. So DH & I discussed it and since we don’t have any tender ports, we’re driving to Galveston so no rush to get off the ship to catch a plane, we’d forego FTTF this time and see if it feels like a mistake we won’t make again.

Just so you know, FTTF was sold out when we booked, and remained that way until about 50 days before the cruise- at the end of July they opened up about 10 FTTFs for sale, and the feeding frenzy began. Since we’d already decided to pass on it, no big deal, but I saw posts on our cruise site that they were gone within the hour.

Next item- even though it’s a 4 hour drive from Austin to Galveston I prefer to be within sight of my cruiseship when I wake up day of cruise. I am not a good traveler if I don’t have full control of my circumstances and can become very OCD if I don’t lock down the details (stems from an ill-fated trip home from Mexico when I was much younger- short version, it took me almost 2 days to get home, with no money, sick with bronchitis and lugging a stupid sombrero I bought in a moment of insanity). DH knows this and doesn’t fight me anymore on things like booking a hotel the night before our cruise! Smart man, my hubby!

Last time we cruised I found a Marriott Springhill Suites on Galveston Island that I could use my Marriott points for. But they require a 2 night minimum so instead we used our Marriott points at the TownePlace on Seawall Blvd- right on the water! It’s still only a 15 min drive to the port and they serve a hot breakfast so we locked it in.

Getting a hotel room was never a question this time, since I was reading that the same construction that made life so difficult on I45 just outside Houston several years ago is a perpetual cycle! They regularly close down one or both sides of the highway in the vicinity of Houston every weekend. Last time I cruised I read anxiously as various people posted about being delayed for various reasons (delayed or cancelled flights, broken down buses, construction nightmares) and then they got stuck in the traffic… wonderful people here and on that other social network site posted real-time traffic updates and helped a lot of people navigate around the blockages… I’m happy to report that in 2 of the 3 hair-raising dashes to the port, the cruisers made it in time and were able toboard.

Short, sad story—a cruiser on CC who never did get onboard arrived close to sail-away due to flight delays in Dallas, and in spite of being told on the phone by Carnival that she’d be able to, was denied boarding when she got to the port at 3:45. We were all heartbroken reading along with her as she bypassed the Carnival transfer that she’d paid for and had her sister meet her at the airport in Houston and drive like a maniac to the port. We were sure she had made it in time when she suddenly posted that they wouldn’t let her board… it was like it was happening to all of us!

So I’m going to offer some free advice to all future cruisers… if at all possible, get to the port (or immediate area) the day before your cruise. The cost of a hotel room is minimal compared to the cost and anguish of missing your cruise.

A lot of the Galveston hotels even offer a park & cruise option, if you’re driving. Most have shuttles to the port. So lesson learned, if there is anyway, cost or time-wise that you can be at the port the day before, DO IT! TheTownPlace Suites that we booked has a Park ‘n Cruise option- I think the cost was $229 for the one night with free parking for the week, and a free shuttle to the port. If you’re not concerned about spending the night on the island, there are a lot of hotel options around Texas City and other areas leading to Galveston… just make sure you know how you’re getting to the port, since not all of them have a park n stay option.

Next thing to settle on was where to park. Last time we went with Galveston Park n Cruise- it’s great because it’s literally right across from the ship. But their costs have gone up (now $65 for 7 days for outdoor parking) and I found a deal with EZ Cruise Parking, which is only 2 blocks south of Galveston Park n Cruise and they have a few specials.

7 nights parking with EZ Cruise is $65 and they have a shuttle. With a discountcode (it’s ‘2017’ for this year) youcan pay $50. But we also saw they have a Park & Walk option- no shuttle and you can save even more. So with tax it was $48.71. I’ll drop DH off at the portwith the baggage so he can check it with the porters, I’ll park the car and walk back to meet him in time for our 10:30 check-in. Or maybe he’ll drop me off. We’ll see when we get to the port that morning. Easy Peasy!

Online Check-in and Staggered Check-in Times

As soon as you book your cruise you’ll be able to log into Carnival (create an ID if you’re new to CCL) and add your booking. Then you can complete your online checkin process. This entails making sure all the details they recorded during your booking about you (name, sex- yes, I was listed as a male one cruise and had to get itfixed- address etc). There are a few other things you’ll take care of here:

· Specify your bedding preference (if you’re a couple, do you want them to put the twin beds together to make a king bed?)

· Set up your onboard account. Don’t agonize over this… if you’re not sure if you want to use a credit card, or a cash account, or gift cards or whatnot, just go ahead and set up a cash account. You can always go back at any time before the cruise to change it; you can alsoc hange it at the port!)

· You have to read and accept the cruise contract. If you’ve never read this before, I strongly suggest you at least peruse it, so you’re not caught by surprise (yes- they can change or cancel the ports on you, all you get in return is your port fees credited if they cancel).

· You can print out all the necessary stuff in this same place- luggage tags, health assessment forms (really handy to fillout in advance so you don’t have to do it at the port). ONE NOTE- if you haven’t paid in full at this point, you won’t be able to print your boarding pass. No panic, once you’re paid in full, it’ll be available.

· Once you complete your online checkin you can also start looking at the excursions offered through Carnival… see the next section for more on that!

The other thing you need to do at some point is determine your staggered check in time. This is a process that started in Galveston last year and is being rolled out to all Carnival cruise ports. It allows you to pick a 30 minute window to arrive atthe port and check in. A few notes to consider about staggered check-in:

• Check-in time is NOT boarding time. Even if you have early check-in it just means you'll get to the boarding lounge earlier. Boarding is the same as it's always been- weddings, Diamonds/Plats/FTTF then the rest of the herd by zone.
  
• VIPs (Diamond/Platinum/Suites) and FTTF will still pick a check-in time online but you can check in as soon as you arrive at the terminal, regardless of what your check-in time is on your boarding pass. This also applies to those who are using Carnival transportation (airport transfers).
  
• The earliest check-in time I've seen or heard of is 10 AM. Again, that only gets you into the boarding lounge. I'm not sure if some cruise ports have a later first check-in, but I'm guessing if you have a 4 PM departure, 10 AM is the earliest scheduled check-in.
  
• For those NOT VIPs or FTTF, you'll be given a card with a zone number when you check in. Once boarding starts and aforementioned VIPs and FTTFs have boarded they will begin to call you to board by placard number. So technically the earlier you get there, the earlier you'll board. But because this new process improves the flow, those checking in at noon may not have a very long wait in the boarding lounge.
  
• If you arrive EARLY for your scheduled check-in time, you’ll be invited to go back and wait in line until your scheduled time arrives (can’t show up at 10:15 for an 11 AM check-in)
  
• If you show up LATE for your scheduled check-in time, you can go to the front of the line if you’re within a half an hour. Otherwise you’ll have to wait for the start of check-in for the next 30 minute window.
  
• Lastly, it appears that since I did this, Carnival has changed the process for many ships in many ports. When you go to do your online check-in, if there’s no option for ‘Arrival Appointment’ just be patient. It seems that they are adding this selection to your cruise checkin closer to final payment, about 6 months out, rather than when you originally book.
  

Excursions

Next topic? Excursions… this itinerary- Key West, Freeport, Nassau- is not a wildly popular one, but as I explained earlier, Key West was the draw here.

Key West- I looked into packages, but finally decided that we’d book the Hop On-Hop Off Trolley through Carnival. At $19.95 pp it matched the prices I had seen elsewhere and I know that if there’s a problem with not arriving in the port we’ll get our money back.

As of now, we don’t plan to have an excursion in Freeport or Nassau. We’re somewhat familiar with both places, having been to both several times. So we’ll probably just get off the ship and do some shopping. Although we’ve talked about taking a taxi to Atlantis in Nassau, just to look around. We’ll probably decide the day before we dock! Plus I love the peace and quiet of the ship when almost everyone else is in port and we don’t have to wait for anything!

Reservations

While thinking about ways to spend our time, we decided to have dinner in the steakhouse on Monday, the first sea day to celebrate our ‘anniversary’. We actually will celebrate our silver wedding anniversary in August but our first date was Sept 17, 30 years ago! I made the reservation online but never heard back from them. I had to send them an email after a month before I finally got confirmation of our dinner.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the steakhouse on Carnival ships, there’s a $35 charge for an upscale dining experience, with great steaks, surf & turf, etc. If you go the first night you get a free bottle of wine. I’m no wine connoisseur but even I couldn’t drink it. They apparently also offer 50% off another wine selection the first night, which most people advise you to take advantage of rather than the free wine.

We also decided to try Cucina del Capitano for dinner on Wednesday night, during sailaway from Freeport. We had lunch there on our last cruise, but we hadn’t been there for dinner and we’ve heard great things about it! There’s a cost of $15 pp which is apparently $$ well spent! Keep reading this blog and I’ll tell you all about it once we’ve tried it!

C Minus 240 (240days til cruise)

So now I have a painful 8+ months to wait until our cruise. What am I going to do besides haunting Cruise Critic and annoying DH with mindless bits of administrivia about cruising, the Breeze, Carnival, John Heald, CC, Galveston?

I decided I’d write another blog, and based on the feedback from my last review, people out there are as obsessed with the preparation for their cruise as I am. Therefore I committed to include all this prep part of the cruise as part of the review. So it’s a good thing, ‘cause I’m starting to drive everyone else around me nuts with worthless little details about cruising! Well, worthless to anyone not going on a cruise that is. Things like:

· Did you know that room service is free for just a $1-2 tip? There are some new items available for an upcharge there, but there’s still lots free on their menu. You should be able to find the menu in your cabin on the first day. It’s usually left there with your first Fun Times daily newsletter. If you have a balcony strongly consider having that first cup of coffee there each morning- it starts the day off perfectly!

· Something new to Carnival is the Hub App. It’s a free app on your smart phone that allows you to view the Fun Times, your bill, message others in your cruise party ($5 fee per device to take advantage of the messaging, otherwise it’s free)… sounds like a great app, but until I use it I can’t comment further. Stay tuned and I’ll let you know how it works.NOTE- I had trouble finding the app for my iPad, and someone told me it was only available for the iPhone… not true. I persevered and finally got it downloaded for my iPad as well as my phone.

· If you see your picture hanging in the display case of the photo area, it’s free! Not where all the rest of them are,but in the display behind glass… Carnival is finally introducing a new program, where your photos are available digitally, and you can review them on iPads in the Pixels area and just pick the ones you want. Also supposed to be available on the Carnival Hub. It’s available now on Vista & Breeze but is likely going to be rolled out fleetwide.

· If you’re not used to a lot of salt in your diet your hands & feet can swell a lot on a cruise ship.

· Take ginger pills to help with any kind of nausea, either rough seas or rough night in the Red Frog Pub!

· For the past 4 years or so Texas charges taxes for any booze or cigarettes purchased on your cruise that you’re bring back home (doesn’t include anything already processing through your liver though!). You have to report it when you get off the ship, but it sounds like it’s on the honor system. We’ll see if that changes.

· While we don’t do Cheers (DH doesn’t drink so until they change the rule that says everyone over 21 in your cabin has to purchase it, we won’t) I have heard that the Cheers package doesn’t kick in until 6 AM of the next day of your cruise when you leave from Galveston. You don’t pay for the first day (so 6 days charge for a 7 day cruise) but it’s something to be aware of if sailing out of Galveston.

· Carnival is starting a new process wherey our Sail & Sign card will be in a sealed envelope in your mailbox outside your room once the room is ready. For VIPs & FTTF that is as soon as you board. For the rest of us, they’ll make the announcement, by 1:30, when cabins are ready. Only at that time will the cards be available so you can access your cabin. Apparently they needed to do this because too many people were sneaking into their cabins early and dropping off their carry-ons, interfering with the cabin stewards trying to get everything ready.

o From a security perspective, if your cards are missing or have been tampered with, just go to the VIP line at Guest Services and they’ll take care of getting you replacements.

o If fraud is involved (someone took your cards and used them to make purchases) they’ll take care of that too… although now that your S&S card brings up your image on their computer every time you use it, this is unlikely. Hopefully no one who looks like you steals your card! Seriously feedback from everyone is that there is no risk and it really speeds up the checkin process.

Preparation

The next thing I started working on was my packing list. Yes, I’m a lister! For everything! I can’t have a dinner party without having a list of everything I have to buy and what I have to do… cruising is no exception! But since this is my 8th cruise, my packing list is pretty impressive! Now understand, if I brought everything on my list, I’d need a couple of steamer trunks! But if I have it written down, at least I can consider it when I do my final pack and decide to leave it behind or not. For example, I have bungee cords on my list, to hold my balcony door open. But I don’t always have a balcony, so that’s been on my ‘ignore it’ list several times.

There are quite a few ‘maybe items’ on my list. Right now my list is 76 items long, and I’m sure it will be longer before the cruise gets here, because every time I spend time on CC I find more ideas. Doesn’t mean all those items will make the trip, but I want to at least consider it. But I freely admit, I’m anover-packer! DH makes fun of me and how much stuff I bring, but at least once EVERY vacation, he’ll ask ‘hey, did you think to bring…’ and I’ve almost never been stumped!

The only problem is having an item on the list but failing to get it into the suitcase or carry-on! On a previous cruise I thought I’d packed my glasses in my tote bag since I wasn’t bringing my purse. I got onboard and wanted to read the Fun Times and guess what? No glasses! I had to buy a pair of very expensive readers from the $10 store onboard! So the latest revision on the list is a column that says ‘Buy’ and another one that says ‘Packed’! Don’t laugh at me, my packing OCD keeps me from going insane!

One more consideration I have to figure in my packing list is the overnight stay in the hotel in Galveston… last cruise I had an overnight bag and I’d worked really hard so I wouldn’t have to open the big cruise suitcase til it arrived in our cabin. The overnight bag had everything we’d need for the night and all I needed to do morning of the cruise is pull out DH’s meds, put them in my carry-on, leave the overnight bag in the car and get on the cruiseship. Small problem- I had everything for DH but I forgot to put undies, a nightgown or deodorant for me in my overnight bag! Now a nightgown I could live without for 1 night, but undies and deodorant was a deal-breaker. So there I was in the middle of the hotel parking lot, rummaging through my perfectly packed cruise suitcase trying to find replacements! To make it worse, the nightgown was left in the overnight bag in the car in Galveston, and I was stuck sleeping in one of DH’s t-shirts all week on the cruise!

Financing the whole thing!

If you’re like me, you’re always looking for ways of doing things as fiscally responsible as possible (in other words, cheap!). I want to enjoy my vacation to the max without obsessing about that final bill on the last night of the cruise. We’re not rich, we’re not broke- we just can’t afford to spend thousands and thousands on a single vacation. So I try to find small ways to help out along the way, so I can afford that DoD if I want it.

One thing I found was the Carnival gift cards… many different places offer them at a 10% discount. Many credit cards like Amex, Citi Visa etc were talking about offering these gift cards for points, but none of my credit cards had them. But I found a post that talked about AARP offering the same thing. So I immediately bought a $100 gift card using my free AARP points for $90. You can apply these to your cruise payment, or apply them to your S&S card. They have $500 or $100 cards, each are 10% off. So altogether I bought enough to pay of the balance of my cruise before the due date in June. The only problem was that the $500 cards disappear on the AARP site almost as soon as they’re posted, so I had to get all $100 cards- it’ll just take my TA & me a bit longer to pay off the balance of the cruise!

I also plan on buying a few more before the cruise- I figure with that first purchase I just got a discount on our steakhouse and Cucina del Capitano dinners! I’ll look to buy a few before we leave. There was a lot of debate early on because you couldn’t use the Carnival gift cards online prior to cruising. So if you wanted to purchase Cheers in advance at the cheaper rate ($5 per day pp less) you couldn’t use the Carnival gift cards before January of this year. Now you can, so a lot of people are taking advantage of this additional savings.

Something else that might help you- if your credit cards don’t offer the discounted giftcards, and you don’t want to join AARP, then you can sign up for Allstate’s Drivewise app on your smartphone… it’s free, you don’t have to have Allstate insurance to get it, and they seem to have the Carnival e-gift cards almost all the time.

One note about Carnival gift cards- if you buy them directly from the source who sells them (AARP, Verizon, Allstate, your local grocery store) you’re fine. But if you buy them from a gift card reseller (I don’t so I can’t really help with names of sites) be very careful. A few cruisers posted on CC that they had bought a bunch of gift cards from one of these sites, used them to pay off their balance only to hear from Carnival a week later that the cards were fraudulent and couldn’t be used. They were able to get their money back from the reseller company, but they then had to use a credit card for the balance and lost all the discounts they were counting on by using the discounted gift cards.

Even worse, one poster saw this thread and checked her cruise to Cuba the following week, only to find out that her cruise was cancelled due to non-payment! Turns out she used the fraudulent gift cards without knowing it, Carnival discovered it and reversed all the credits but never notified her. When final payment date came and went without the payment being made, they cancelled the cruise! The speculation is that her travel agent may have received notification of the cancellation and dropped the ball, but I never saw a response on the thread about it. So if you buy cards, cash them in ASAP and don’t hold onto them til the cruise (pay your balance, gratuities, excursions, whatever) just don’t wait til the cruise.

C Minus 140 (140days til cruise)

Breeze Drydock- so Breeze just got out of drydock and her first sailing from Galveston is today, April 30. I’ve been haunting John Heald’s site (he’s onboard for this sailing) as well as Cruise Critic to see all the details of her changes- they’ve apparently added the Alchemy Bar, Guy Fieri’s Pig & Anchor BBQ along with all the normal cosmetic updates (paint, carpet, etc). Plus the coffee shop switched over to serving Starbucks, which just ruled out the idea of me ever paying for a specialty coffee there! Not a fan of Starbucks!

There’s been a rumor about a new shop they’re supposed to also be adding, and John is apparently on board to perform the grand opening… looking forward to finding out what the new place is. Strong rumors were the Cherry On Top Ice Cream Shop (additional cost, Marble Slab Creamery style ice cream offerings). So you’ll probably all know by the time I post this blog, but I’ll definitely let you know in case you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t heard by then!

UPDATE!!! The big deal is a new jewelry store- Pandora! Big whoop…. That’s sure going to cramp their Bella Perlina bracelet sales onboard!

John also mentioned that they’ve extended a lot of the ship-specific merchandise in the Fun Shops… so now in addition to the Carnival towel you can buy Breeze flip flops!

C Minus 120 (120days til cruise)

So as I mentioned before, until you’ve paid off your cruise, you can’t print your boarding passes. Not a huge deal, just something that I always look forward to, since it means a big milestone has been reached!

For this cruise our final payment date was June 24. However I bought a bunch of Carnival gift cards so in early May I called to apply them to my balance. It left us with a whopping $68.61 left owing! So rather than wait for another month, I went ahead and paid it off on May 21.

For some people, it makes a difference, since with one of the offers (EarlySaver??) you can request price drops up until you’re paid in full so it makes sense for those folks to delay paying in full until the last possible moment. Doesn’t apply to us, so we went ahead and paid. So now all my docs, including our boarding passes, are printed and waiting, laughing at me, on the corner of my desk in my cruise folder.

Social Media 101

Now is as good a time as any to mention that in addition to Cruise Critic, fellow cruisers will often choose to set up a roll call on another social media site. I’m sure you know the one!

Well since our Cruise Critic roll call was a HUGE bust (!) this time around, I went looking for other Breezers sailing on the high sea in September on that other site! Well, turns out there are not 1, not 2 but 3 separate groups on that site for our cruise! So what do I do? Sign up for all 3 of course!

Turns out that the organizers for 2 of the 3 groups are very active, and are setting up different events for us to do. I’m hoping that they’ll eventually get together and make one group, so we’re all together, planning one cocktail event, one slot pull, one meet & greet! We’ll see… I’ll let you know how it goes. Meanwhile, I’m way too busy at work to really think about, let alone commit to an event onboard, so I’ll look at what they’re offering closer to the cruise, and talk to DH about what interests him (he’s usually pretty easy-going, and will do whatever I want, but I figure that since we’re celebrating 30 years together on this cruise, why break a process that’s worked all this time!)

I guess this is as good a place as any to bring up the debate between DH & me-internet onboard or not? We go back and forth about it, depending on our mood. I have an iPad that never leaves my side… I check the internet on it, my mail, read books, keep notes, take pictures… you name it, I use it for that. It’s going with me on the cruise. So the question was what DH would use… he’s not a tablet kind of guy, and his phone is good for some things, but I really wanted him to get himself a laptop for several trips he’s taking this year. So finally I prevailed and he bought himself a laptop that will allow him to use it for whatever he uses his computer for, and for me to download my phone pics etc.

DH& I also each have a smart phone- I’ll be turning the phone and data portion off and just using mine as a camera, clock and alarm. I’ll also be accessing the Carnival Hub with it. We haven’t decided if we’re going to use the Chat function that you can buy for $5 per device (for the entire cruise)…DH and I rarely separate when we’re onboard so I’m not sure it’ll be of much use.

We’re talking about whether we want to get internet at all this cruise… we might,j ust to keep in touch with my DD who will be watching the furbabies while we’re away. Both of the pups are pretty ancient and should something happen, I’m torn about whether or not I want to know right away.

C Minus 100 (100days til cruise)

I usually mark the transition from triple digits to double digits with something of import like booking a cool excursion or buying something neat for the cruise, but nothing really came to mind that I wanted to get/do/buy, so I figured our first day at 99 days out would be marked by nothing more than a post on our group page…

But this is the day that they announced that our cruise would be made into one of their Carnival Concert Series cruises! They posted that the ship would dock in Nassau until 11 PM on Thurs Sept 21 to accommodate a show with Chris Tucker, the comedian would perform onboard. This is the guy who starred in the Rush Hour series of movies with Jackie Chan. He’s funny and we’ve always liked him, so we decided to try it out.

His show will be at 8 PM for 75 minutes in the main Ovation Theater. Cost is $30 pp with open seating, or $100 pp for the VIP package, which allows you seating in the front 2-3 rows and to get your picture taken with the celebrity. There are lots of great people I would definitely pay the VIP cost to see (Jay Leno, Jeff Foxworthy, Daughtry) but in this case we decided $60 for both was plenty to hear his jokes… I’m trying to find out details about how soon you have to lineup to get a decent seat, what is the experience like in the theater… so far no one has ponied up any details so I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes when I get to the ‘live’ part of the review!

We also found out this week that our cousins from Toronto were going to be cruising this week with their 2 granddaughters out of Galveston… on the Breeze! They’re taking the Western Caribbean route, Cozumel, Belize and Mahogany Bay. I’m really excited to hear the details of the ship from them- different itinerary though.

So just as they were leaving Toronto to head to Galveston, we heard about my biggest cruising nightmare- a tropical storm building in the Gulf! Fortunately for them, TS Cindy came ashore east of Galveston, a few days after they sailed, and was not really a factor in their cruise. I did hear that Cindy caused some serious nerves for people cruising out of NOLA and Mobile, but in the end, she was just a big rainmaker, and as far as I heard, didn’t impact any cruisers. However there were some tornadoes and flooding onshore, so my prayers are with whoever was impacted by that storm.

An update from our cousins about the ship after they returned? The biggest feedback was about Schwartz, our CD… apparently he was a HUGE hit… other than that they loved the ship, loved the food, loved the cabin… just a LoveFest all around! I was kind of disappointed therefore to read he’d be leaving the Breeze before our cruise for a vacation. His replacement, Mike Pack, is supposed to be equally as good.

C Minus 75 (75days til cruise)

Haunting Cruise Critic has become my ‘fix’ to get me through til cruising time! I saw a neat thread talking about things that people bought on Amazon for their cruise. So then people started contributing to the list of things to have for your cruise that they bought at the Dollar Store!

So I started thinking about things I bought just for this or other cruises, and I thought I’d share them with you…

A couple of items of note that we purchased are listed here:

· Mesh laundry bags- $1 at dollar store

· LED candle for bathroom - $1 at dollar store

· Cruise luggage tags -$6 for 4 on Amazon

· Oversize ziplog bags- $3 for 6 enormous ones

I got new swim shoes for both DH and me last cruise… not sure how much we’ll need them, but DH is diabetic and suffers from Neuropathy- which means that while he has tingly pain in his feet almost all the time, he also has reduced feeling in them. So as I do a barefoot dance across the scalding hot Lido deck beside the pool, he just stands there, clueless that he’s burning the soles of his feet! In 2016 he got an infection in each foot (one in April, the 2nd in October) and ended up losing a toe on each foot. I’m hoping the swim shoes will prevent any issues since he cannot walk barefoot. Not to mention make the buffet area floors a little less slippery! They were only $9 a pair at Sears so I grabbed them.

I bought a small (8” x 12” x 2” approx.) plastic crafts organizer. It has adjustable little compartments in it (I actually have one for my beading crafts) and I started filling it with my first aid kit… so band aids, swabs, ointments,medications, everything has its little compartment so it will be really easy to just throw in the suitcase, and keep somewhere convenient in the cabin. It was a suggestion from a fellow CC’er and I loved the idea! I have used it several times on work trips and it’s great to keep everything contained and easy to access.

Next on my shopping list was an over the door organizer (for storing shoes) that I want for the back of the cabin bathroom door. I have one but it has shoes in it so putting personal items like razors and hairbrushes in it just seems icky to me! The one I bought on Amazon is half as long, has 16 pouches and will be a perfect size for sticking all those toiletries and suchnot from the bathroom and only cost me $6. DEAL!

The next thing I bought was a compact electric adaptor- like a mini power strip it plugs into the outlet and has 2 additional outlets, plus 2 USB ports so you can charge your phone and your laptop at the same time. It’s made by Sharper Image and I bought mine at Costco for $11. Again, it’s already gone on those worktrips with me and it’s worth its weight in gold! I can’t wait to use it on the ship.

C Minus 64 (64 days til cruise)

FIRST SINGLE DIGIT DANCE!!!

Someone posted this on our roll call with the addendum ‘Only 9 more weekends til our cruise!’ Hey- I was desperately watching the countdown and needed something to break up the time! 238 days is a LONG time to wait for something you want this badly!

I think this is officially the doldrums of cruising… too early to start packing, plans for the ports pretty much decided. What else is there to do except hangout on Cruise Critic and that other social network site reading about others’ cruise experiences, asking their questions, voicing their opinions… about cruising! Which I really want to be doing right now, but can’t! Not for 64 more days!

C Minus 25 (25 days til cruise)

I can’t believe it’s been so long since I wrote anything here about the cruise- heaven knows I’ve been thinking about it enough! But we just got back from a week at our timeshare in Hilton Head with our 9 YO grandson and planning for that took a lot of my time. Plus I’ve decided that I don’t take vacations from work- I just end up working the same amount in fewer days! So it was crazy before and after the Hilton Head trip at work….

When we got home from the trip I started unpacking everything, then realized- Hey! I’m going to need all this stuff again in 3 weeks so why bother? I just cleaned out the dirty stuff, moved everything else that’s going with us on the cruise into boxes on the floor in my bedroom. This is the way I gather stuff to pack for a trip… as I mentioned earlier, if I pack everything in suitcases, I tend to lose track of what’s actually been packed and what hasn’t, so by staging it in one spot, I can then actually cross it off my list when I put it in the suitcase a day or 2 before we leave.

Other than a few things here and there, plus stalking Cruise Critic and other social media sites I’m pretty much in a holding pattern of working, sleeping, reading Cruise Critic and looking over my packing list.

C Minus 21 (21 days til cruise)

The biggest news at this point is Hurricane Harvey. God bless those folks along the Texas Coast who are living through this… Rockport and Port Aransas southwest of Galveston were hit hard by the first impact of the hurricane, and today Houston is experiencing ‘unprecedented floods with unknown repercussions’ to quote the National Weather Service.

All of the boards are blowing up discussing how Harvey is impacting those scheduled to dock & depart this weekend. To their credit, Carnival posted 3 days in advance that Breeze cruisers would likely have their cruise impacted and that they would receive pro-rated credit for the reduced cruise. They also posted that if people chose to not go on this cruise, they could cancel and get a full refund in the form of a future cruise credit.

The thing that had the cruise sites buzzing was the fact that Royal Caribbean refused to make the same offer to their cruisers on the Liberty of the Seas until after 9 PM the evening before the cruise, leaving folks who were supposed to travel hanging.

Even though the Houston airport was officially closed, the RCCL cruisers were being told until the night before that if they didn’t show up when the cruiseship left that they would lose their money. Very bad PR on their part. The good news is that they finally made the right call and told their passengers that if they had to cancel their cruise they could get a future cruise credit. They just created a lot more anxiety by waiting so long to make that call.

My fingers are crossed, selfishly, that Galveston remains relatively unscathed and the highways into the island become passable soon. If you’re reading this, then I guess I got lucky, because if I don’t cruise, there won’t be a need for a cruise review!

C Minus 2 (2 days til cruise) – What Else can go wrong???

For days now we’ve been obsessing about the weather… Hurricane Harvey decimated parts of Houston, but thankfully left Galveston pretty much alone. Once we realized that our ship could port and leave again, we breathed a huge sigh of relief… a bit premature, it seems! ‘Cause along came Irma! It smacked Southern Florida hard, and as most of you know by now, knocked Key West particularly hard. It didn’t seem likely that we’d be cruising there, at least.

So our next watch was to see what Irma had done to the Bahamas- Freeport and Nassau. At this point we didn’t know if our Eastern Caribbean cruise would become a Western, or if we’re just going to float around the Gulf for 7 days! We started calling it the Magical Mystery Cruise because we didn’t have a clue where we’d be going!

Finally 2 days before our vacation was due to start, Carnival informed us that we’d be skipping Key West (as expected) but would still be able to go to the 2 ports in the Bahamas. They told us any excursions we booked would be refunded to our S&S card as well as the port fees and taxes.

NOTE- if you’re like us and wanted to minimize credit card spend, pay attention to this… once on board they tried to tell us that the port fees & taxes (all $11.87 per person!) would be refunded to the original method of payment. I was able to show them the email saying it would be refunded to our S&S cards and they made it happen. Why is this a big deal? It turned out it wasn’t but I was concerned because I paid for part of the cruise with Carnival gift cards and didn't want to wait to get a replacement gift card. Also I was truly shocked that the port fees and taxes for Key West were so low. We were hoping to up the kitty for other purchases with our S&S card as well. No biggie. Just note that it helps to back up any discussion you have with Guest Services with an email from Carnival themselves.

So we spent Friday evening finishing packing and I went through my checklist one more time. DH & I packed our dog up and went to DD’s with the pup and all her luggage for a week’s stay. I am going to miss my 80 pounds of fur (I have an Old English Sheep Dog – yeah, like the Disney dogs).

We recently lost our male OESD who was 14 years old, which is really old for a big dog, but that didn’t make it any easier to say goodbye to the big goofball. So for this cruise we only have our female left to worry about… but she’s also 14 so I had to leave all the relevant details for DD just in case something awful happened… I told her to take care of anything that needs to come up and God forbid she goes while we’re away, I’d rather not know until I get home! (NEWSUPDATE- my old girl came through the trip like a trooper! So no bad news on our return!)

C Minus 1 (1 day til cruise) – It’s TOMORROW! It’s FINALLY TOMORROW!

We packed up the car and hit the road around 10 AM. We were able to drive all the way through without incident this time… I seem to post this each cruise but if you’re travelling to Galveston make sure you check out the construction and traffic conditions in and around Houston and on I-45 south to Galveston. It seems to be in a perpetual state of construction. Coming home from Hilton Head we lost almost an hour altogether because we found out that Hwy 290 north of Houston was closed. So I searched it out and found out what the state of construction was supposed to be in North Houston on that Saturday. It took a bit longer but since it’s Saturday, I didn’t panic. I was checking our FB sites and lots of folks coming from north of Houston ran into tons of traffic issues- constructions, accidents etc… however they all made it safe and sound, ready to cruise away!

We arrived at the TownePlace Suites on Galveston Island about 2 PM. It’s located on Seawall Boulevard, right on the ocean. Our room was nice- very clean and quiet- a bit old looking but very well maintained. If any of you have Marriott Rewards points, this hotel is a great deal. It’s about 8 miles from the cruise terminal (and our parking) and only takes about 10 mins to drive. If you’re just looking for a place to sleep the night before the cruise, this place is perfect… comfy beds, full kitchen, free wifi, free breakfast. It has an outdoor pool and a hot tub, but we didn’t bother with either. They also offer a ParknStay option, but we got such a good deal on parking at EZ Cruise Parking that it was hard to beat. We turned in around 11 and hoped to get a better sleep before we get on the ship.

C Minus 0 (CRUISE DAY) – Sunday, Embarkation Day – YAY!

So this is a different kind of review than I originally planned on giving, so if you think this is a bait & switch, my apologies. But after all the passion and concern exhausted because of the weather leading up to the cruise I really didn’t have the energy to do anything more vigorous than walk to the Lido deck and back… as a result, I took haphazard notes, ZERO (yes- none!) pictures and I don’t really feel like I could do a comprehensive review. So instead, I’m going to entertain, enlighten and admonish you with some of my most and least favorite things about Carnival in general, and the Breeze specifically, in the hopes that you’ll find some of the info helpful!

So here are my thoughts regarding cruising with Carnival, and the Breeze in particular…

· ALWAYS BUY TRAVEL INSURANCE- but especially when cruising during hurricane season. This is a costly but valuable lesson lots of people learned this summer! The cruiseline may cancel and refund your money but if they don't you still may not be able to get to the port! So make sure your travel insurance covers all your costs, including flights, hotel stays before or after, any costs you may have incurred (like non-refundable, non-Carnival excursions). The heartbreak of missing a cruise is bad enough without worrying about the financial impact as well.

We had insurance so it was one worry off our minds, but lots of people are out there today, who lost the airfare or hotel they paid for, lost vacation time etc. One thing I read that was interesting- for not a lot more money you can buy a policy (I know Nationwide has one) that will reimburse you if your itinerary changes- either they cancel a port or change it. I'll definitely be looking into that policy next time I cruise during Hurricane season!

· ORGANIZATION – typical of our cruises, I overpacked. But most of what I didn’t use would have been very helpful if things had been different. For example, the 2 boxes of Bonine non-drowsy never got opened, thankfully, but if the weather had caused rough seas, I’d have been happy to have them. So well worth it in the end. But we had one extra pair of underwear each, other than that I finally got it right in the amount of clothes to bring!

· OUR ROOM STEWARD, and SELECTION OF # OF SERVICES PER DAY- our steward, Jay, gave us the choice of morning, evening or both for cabin service and he made it perfectly clear that he was equally happy with whichever choice we made- no subtle pressure to only pick one… in fact we opted for twice a day and told Jay that in the evenings, all we really needed was ice. Well, we got ice morning and night every day, and out of 7 evenings, he did his steward ninja trick 5 nights and did a full service in the evenings anyway. We probably would have had it 7 nights but we hung out on the balcony one night and another I was under the weather, so he didn’t bother us. Bottom line? Selective service was a non-issue, and if your steward doesn’t welcome your choice, make sure he/she understands that you expect the service you selected and if it’s not forthcoming, you will go to Guest Services to let them know.

· STAGGERED CHECK IN- I’ve heard that this normally goes really well at Galveston… well of all the things on our cruise this was our only real complaint. We got the email that often comes telling us to add an hour to our check in time and to delay our arrival at the port til that time (in our case, 10:30 should have been 11:30). By the time we checked our luggage, drove to the parking lot, walked back with our carry-on, it was 10:30. We expected to be directed to where the 10:30 check-in people were, and that we’d probably wait about an hour to check in. Well the line was almost half a mile long, and every Carnival person I asked told me we had to go to the end of the line… as I asked down the line what time people’s check in was, there were people in line already for noon and 12:30 (1 PM to 1:30) and later that would be in front of us! Nope, not happening!

So we went forward, asking as we went along, and as soon as we hit someone with the same checkin time as us, we stood in line there…well it turns out the folks in front of them had noon, as did the people who ended up in line right behind us. When they started checkin just before 11, we fully expected the people checking boarding passes to let those who had a 10 or 10:30 check in time through and the others would be told to wait. Never happened. If you were in line, you were let in. As a result it was totallychaotic and slow.

So the lesson to Carnival is, I hope, that they need to apply the same logic when check in is delayed as they do when it’s not… if 10 AM becomes 11 AM, check boarding passes and handle it accordingly!

· CHECK IN PROCESS OVERALL IN GALVESTON- once you go into the building at the port you’ll go to a check in desk, show your boarding pass, passport or birth certificate and your health survey form; you’ll then go through security (followed by the big soda inquisition! More in a bit!) then you move into the waiting lounge. On the way you’re given a zone card and you have to go line up to put money on your S&S card if you have a cash account.

Before you get to the lounge but after you go through Security where they scan you and your carry-ons, they will point you to several tables off to the side for inspection of soda or wine. It’s pretty much on the honor system, although if they see you bypass the tables they’d probably call you back, but if you head over there and, like I did, reach into my carry-on and hand him a 12 pack of soda, they don’t check your carry-on again to see ifyou showed them everything! I say this because I was concerned since I had 3e xtra cans of soda I’d thrown loose into my backpack- they didn’t even look! The guy opened the case of pop (and I mean opened- he ripped it open in the middle to check to make sure that it was cans of pop throughout and then left me to figure out how to put this shredded container with a bunch of loose cans back into my duffle! DH just tossed them in there loose and we moved on. We didn’t break the rules- we only had 2 12-packs of soda (other than the 3 loose ones I just mentioned!) and 1 bottle of wine- I didn’t bother showing them the wine or the other 12 pack- I didn’t really want it shredded too! We put everything back in the bag and moved on. Nothing was said.

Once you’re in the boarding lounge, you’ll wait til they’re ready to board. Even though check in was delayed, boarding started about 11:30, which is typical from what I hear. They call the wedding parties first, then the VIPs, next the FTTF folks, and finally they begin with Zone 1. We were Zone 4 and were onboard about noon.

As you go through the turnstiles Carnival staff scans your boarding pass with an iPad, you then walk through the area where they take your embarkation photo (optional) and then you begin to walk back & forth up a series of long ramps (indoors, not air-conditioned) until you get to the ramp onto the ship. Note- if you are physically challenged this is a long process and either be patient with yourself or ask Carnival for a wheelchair. But once you get through all this, you’ll board the Breeze on Deck 3 in the Atrium. I’m not sure what the process is for scooters but as we were walking up the ramp 4 people in personal scooters came back down the ramp- their scooters couldn’t cross the ramp onto the ship so they had to find another way onboard.

· S&S CARDS NOT GIVEN AT CHECK IN ANYMORE- Carnival has instituted a new process where you don’t get your cards at check in anymore… you use your boarding pass as a means of charging drinks or BB or whatever you may buy until you get your S&S card. If you’re VIP or FTTF you can go straight to your room, drop off your carry-ons and your S&S cards will be in a sealed envelope in your mail slot. If you’re not VIP/FTTF your rooms will be ready at around 1:00 to 1:30… they’ll make an announcement and you can then find your cards in your mail slot. If you go any earlier you can’t secure your room, even if you can get in there.

Lots of people online expressed concern about the security of their cards (usually attached to their credit cards) being just left in the mailbox for anyone to take and use fraudulently…this turned out to be a huge non-issue… if your envelope is missing or opened after the cabins are available just go to the VIP line at Guest Services and they’ll give you a new S&S card. If there have been any errant charges, they will investigate and reverse all charges. Although since this process began at Galveston and other ports, I’ve never personally heard of anyone having an issue and no one on this cruise reported a problem that I heard of.

· OFFBOARDING- there are 2 ways to get off the ship on the last morning- self-debark and regular debarkation. If you choose regular debarkation, you put your luggage out the night before and will be reunited with it somewhere in the terminal as you leave the ship, before you go through Customs & Immigration. You will be given zone tags based on your floor and will leave the ship when that zone is called.

If you choose self-debark, you have to be able to get everything you brought with you (checked suitcases, carry-on, kids, hungover husbands) off the ship yourself. If you can manage it and you’re anxious to get off the ship earlier, you can do this. Again, they’ll call you by deck to self-debark. We selected this option and even though we went to breakfast in the MDR, went back to our room and grabbed everything then made our way down to deck 3 when we were called, we were still in our car at EZ Cruises parking and ready to hit the road home by 8:20! If you have early flights I strongly suggest you plan your luggage to be able to take advantage of this option! But if you’re the type who has 5 suitcases, a hatbox and 2 carry-ons just for you, this is NOT the way to go!

· CARNIVAL CONCERT SERIES- great idea, pretty cheap option for one hour of your favorite singer or comedian (we saw Chris Tucker the comedian)… it starts at 8 PM, the lineup started before 7! We were in line for 7:15 and got what we thought were great seats- Ovation theater, deck 5, left side of stage where we sat for all the live shows… but this is the only real complaint we had regarding the ship itself. We couldn’t hear 75% of what he said! This was a common complaint of most people on the 2nd level on either the left or right side of the stage. Straight on wasn’t as bad. I mentioned this to Carnival after the cruise and we were given a $60 OBC for our next cruise. That wasn’t the point of my complaining- I wanted to make sure they knew that something had to be done with the acoustics for the concert series shows in that theatre, so they don’t continue to have disappointed passengers.

· POOL- I heard from day 1 that the pools were really warm- bathtub warm, I was told. They are definitely salt water and chlorinated. Well, I have an issue in the past few years with hot tubs- the chemical levels leave me with the equivalent of chemical burns all over my body, and I’m on fire everywhere afterwards- uncontrollable itching, painful rash- just nasty, trust me! So now I have to avoid hot tubs. But I decided on Thursday after our shopping trip in Nassau to try the Lido pool. Well let me tell you- bathtub warm it was not! I almost passed out when I threw my overheated body into the pool thinking it would be nice and warm- it was freezing! But after a few minutes I got used to it, and spent a nice hour lounging in the pool talking to other passengers, while my hubby sat in the shade also chatting with other people – not sure what they call the pool area with benches and a cabana roof but with a few inches of water to cool off your tootsies…

All in all it was a nice afternoon and I didn’t realize there was a problem until I went to get ready for dinner. I had showered as soon as I came back from the pool but as I dressed for dinner I realized I had a bad rash under both arms… then I noticed it was on my stomach… and my legs…and my chest. By the time we were in the MDR for dinner, I was itching everywhere! It got so bad that I ended up leaving the Chris Tucker show 10 minutes early, since I was miserable and couldn’t hear much anyway!

I had to take massive doses of Benedryl, lots of cold showers and wear as little as possible for the next 2 days which kind of put a downer on my last 2 sea days. In fact I spent all of Friday in bed sleeping off the Benedryl and trying not to scratch, but I rallied enough by Saturday afternoon to make an evening out of it. All in all it took almost two weeks before the horrible itching and rashes were gone.

So now it seems that pools are off-limits to me too! Although I will say that I believe that some time Wed night or Thurs morning they must have drained the pool and refilled it (hence the cold water!) and then supershocked it with chlorine. I’m pretty sure there was some extra heavy chlorine content in the pool- when I got home and finished laundry I happened to smell my bathing suit as it came out of the dryer- while everything else smelled of lovely dryer sheets, my bathing suit reeked of chlorine!! I’m hoping that if a pool hasn’t been recently shocked I may still be able to resume my favorite holiday pastime of lounging in a pool!

· CABIN DETAILS AND LOCATION- we were in 8217 all the way fore and starboard (right side). In fact if you watch the Breeze leave Galveston, and look for the bridge, count 5 cabins down from there on that deck and that was our cabin!

It was really convenient for YTD in the Sapphire Dining Room on deck 5 (3 flights of stairs straight down, or a short elevator ride). It was pretty convenient to get to the Lido deck on 10(only 2 flights of stairs but a bit of a walk to the back of the ship). But if you wanted to eat breakfast or brunch which is in the Blush dining room, you had a pretty long walk all the way down the 8th floor, then we usually took the elevator to 3, since I don’t exercise well on an under-caffeinated system!

I mentioned our cabin steward, Jay, earlier- he was great! The cabin itself was nice- standard layout with the closets on the left, the bathroom immediately on the right, desk with drawers, safe & fridge on the left past that and the sofa opposite it. We actually found that the fridge worked really well at keeping our sodas and water cold- this is often not the case! The bed was actually pretty comfy for both DH & me- that’s unusual since he loves an extra soft bed and I have to have an extra hard bed for my back. But we both survived the week without major trauma!

Since this cruise was our anniversary week, Jay even gave us a gift card for $50 off services in the Spa…it’s not good for merchandise, only services… and since any that we were interested in were on the north side of $150, we passed on the offer. It was still sweet of him to do that.

I did find the colors of the cabins on the Breeze more soothing and updated than on previous Carnival ships- no burnt orange and turquoise here.

The standard balcony is still small. Just enough room for 2 chairs and a small side table, and still be able to open the door. But I found that my chair was wedged right into the divider that way, so we ended up moving the table into the corner opposite the chairs beside the railing. That way we had more space for the chairs and most of the time we didn’t need the table anyway.

I find at 5’ 4” the railing is at absolutely the worst height for me when sitting- I can see through the glass below the railing, and I can see the sky above, but if I look straight out, all I see is the wood railing. But in the scheme of things, it’s not too bad a view!

· SHOWS WE SAW: There are several shows currently onboard the Breeze, all of them in the Ovation Theater in the front of the ship. It’s on 3 levels- deck 3, 4 & 5:

o Welcome Aboard show is the first night; you meet the cruise director (on our cruise it was Mike Pack- he’s terrific). Plus they give you a sneak peak at several different entertainment options you’ll have this week.

o Motor City- a tribute to Motown… we really enjoyed this one; the entertainment troupe (3 guys, 4 girls) came out into the audience and interacted with us as part of the Pre-Show. Most of the shows had a Pre-show each night, sometimes in the Atrium, sometimes in the theater… all were great.

o 88 Keys- a nod to the great piano players- Billy Joel, Elton John, etc. This wasn’t our favorite, it was just okay.

o Country Road-we missed this, as DH isn’t a country fan so I can’t comment.

o Flick- the greatest songs from the movies; maybe not the GREATEST songs, but they were all really good and this was our favorite show of the 4 we watched this week.

One thing I hadn't experienced before was the Playlist Productions- where they had the backdrops for the shows mostly pre-recorded and played back... we actually thought those were pretty good! And we didn't miss the live band performing for these shows.

· OTHER FORMS OF ENTERTAINMENT- lots of cool things happened in the atrium- dance classes, sing a longs, live entertainment. We often stopped and hung out there for half an hour on our way to something else! There was an illusionist onboard that I heard was pretty good but we never managed to make it to his shows. Ditto any of the comedians in the comedy club.

o Just a word here to parents or people who are more sensitive to language or adult content: don’t bring your kids to shows like Chris Tucker or the late night comedy show, then complain that it’s not appropriate for kids! Or that you were offended that the jokes they told were too political or too sexist or too whatever! I was shocked at how many 8-10 year olds were at the Chris Tucker show! He’s definitely not PG and those parents paid $30 to have their kids watch him simulate the sex act with a chair! Go figure!