Imagnination 4/26/10 Review

[magictam]

My sis and I took our 2nd annual “Girls Cruise” on the Imagination on 4/26/10. I live in Wyoming and she lives in Florida, so I’m able to come in a day or 2 early and then drive to the port with her. We had no idea where the port was and thought we should drive down the day before (also she lives in central Florida, 4 hours from Miami) but we had no idea where we were staying once we got there.

 

The weather was great and we had a fun drive catching up with each other. When we arrived in Miami, we immediately headed for the pier, but weren’t allowed to get there as some event was letting out and they had the streets closed for crowd control. As we were driving around, I saw a Courtyard Marriott and we stopped there. I went in for pricing and a look see. I was given a tour, showed a room on the 12th floor with a small step out balcony and a view of the bay and port. The room looked clean and smelled clean. There is also a pool and work out room on the 7th floor. So I took it. They do charge a parking fee though. Room fee, taxes and parking fee, total cost was $147.00.

 

[magictam]

 

 

 

After settling in, we decided to walk down to the pier area. We strolled down by winding through downtown (it was only 2 blocks over, 3 blocks down from the hotel). We passed a huge shopping area, but as it was Sunday most were closed. We passed a lot of little shops and eating places on our way. There were also some street vendors at the pier selling food. There’s a sandy area with benches and chairs available for free. So we snatched a couple of chairs and people watched. Did some bay watching of boats and jet skiers enjoying the day.

 

 

We headed back to the hotel and stopped at Wal-greens (a few blocks from the hotel) for wine, drinks and whatnots. 1 block down from the hotel we found a CVS which would have been more convenient, but oh well. When we got back to the hotel there they were having happy hour from 4-7 with free beer, wine and finger foods. We got there just in time to have some wings, chips w/salsa and humus and a great waldroff salad. I don’t like wine and beer isn’t a favorite either, but I was hot and thirsty so slammed down an ice cold beer and then had a second. We had a great “free” dinner.

 

Dropped our stuff off at the room and went to the pool area to relax. Then we headed back downstairs to the “bistro” to get some milk and dessert. The girl at the bistro said they didn’t have any milk, so we walked down to CVS but they were closed, we circled the block but everything was closed so we headed back to the hotel. Decided just to get some desserts from the bistro. When we returned, we could see into the display case (it was blocked before w/people) and saw there was cartons of milk available. Grabbed some milk and brownies and back to the room. Settled in for the night.

[cjkumbaya]

Please keep it coming - good job so far. Looking forward to more!

[nooney64]

Looking forward to your review, I will be taking my first cruise on the imagination on July 19th. :D My daughter thinks that I'm crazy because I'm on CC everyday.

[magictam]

Monday April 26, 2010

Like a little kid at Christmas, I woke up at 6:45. Visibility sucked and I could barely see the port. There were a few ships in port, but not the Imagination. About 7 I saw her pulling into port and she parked right behind the building in front of the hotel. You can just see the Whale Tail. That was all I needed to see to be real excited.

 

After getting ready and packing up, we headed to the “bistro” for breakfast. Probably should have walked around downtown for some place else. But I knew we would be walking a lot exploring the ship and wanted to save me legs. Mistake on my part. I had scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, hash browns, small milk (a pint in the carton) and coffee for a whooping $17.00. It was ok but not $17 worth. Checked out and headed to the pier. What an adventure.

Monday morning traffic. We missed the easy right hand turn into the port and had to circle around. There were lots of pushing, shoving (not literally) and horns blowing. Then we found the signs directing us to the port. Followed them and was able to park directly across the Carnival Terminal, parked under cover and walked across the lot. A porter immediately took our luggage and we made it into the building before it started to rain (about 10 am). We had heard on the news before we left the hotel that there were tornado warnings between Ft. Lauderdale and Tampa/Orlando. The rain was no surprise.

After winding our way there the empty ropes, we were directed to a kiosk to check in. This was a first for us. I’m not sure if I really like the kiosk thing. As the place was almost empty it was fairly easy but I can only imagine what a pain it could be with hundreds of people there.

Anyway at the kiosk, you have to enter in your name and find booking, then swipe your passport (if you using something else, I think you had to checking at the counter) and a credit card (preferably the one you registered on line with). Then you proceeded to the counter to pick up your S&S card and boarding pass. We had boarding pass number 2.

 

 

We sat in the lounge with the red sofas. It was a very comfortable area to pass the time, but we were forewarned that it could be hard to hear the announcements from the area. So at 11 we moved to the main seating area. Shortly thereafter our number was called, we boarded the escalator, had our welcome aboard picture taken, sail and sign picture taken and was aboard.

We took the elevators to the Lido. Either I don’t remember or the elevators are different on this ship, but the buttons have no number only names of the decks. Across the top of the elevator doors is a list the name of the deck, deck number and what’s on that deck. That helped some.

 

 

 

Gotta go for the day. I'll try to do more later tonight.

[magictam]

We made it to the lido, snagged a table by the pool, got our first DODs from Michelle and some food from the hamburger/hotdog bar. I don’t know why, but I love the hot dogs and chips & salsa on Carnival. Then we just watched it rain, met some of our fellow shipmates and people watched. Had a few more DODs and about 1:30 headed down to find our cabin and did some exploring on the way.

 

 

 

 

The cabins weren’t quite ready at 1:30, but we were able to go in. Cabin U210. We met our head steward, Patrick from Jamaica. He spoke very formally and rapidly. I’m not sure I caught everything he said and I never saw him again. But the cabin was set up and clean so not a problem.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[queenkay8]

Going on this cruise in August with my family. Can't wait!