Conquest Review May 9 - May 16 2010

[sbnuggie]

Hello,

 

In an effort to always "pay it forward" this is my review of our voyage aboard the M/S Carnival Conquest for May 9th 2010 - May 16th 2010. I know I did a lot of research here on CC for my info so I want to try and help others out by posting a review and maybe answering a few questions where I can. I don't have all of our photo's and video uploaded so I will try to post some photo's here and there but no garuntee's. Also, I'm not the best writer and I take forever to type so this won't be done in one day and I don't plan on typing a long wordy review, but I will do my best, also my spelling is horrid and grammer, forget it. But here are some quick highlights:

 

1. How to get a group of six from Houston Hobby to Galveston and be able to tour the island cheaply. Those of you flying in to Houston take notes.

 

2. Definitely stay a day or two before/after to see Galveston if you've never been....lots of history.

 

3. Embarkation, Carnival does a great job, Galveston Terminal and thier security what are you guys thinking......and who runs this place?

 

4. Conquest Class ship, never again, (well, maybe "never" is a little harsh). All of you spirit class fans raise your hands.......

 

5. Camp Carnival Rocks....

 

6. How do you cruise with a sick child......ver dibujos animados en español.

 

7. Coming out of GC, Conquest is dead in the water for 35 minutes, nothing like a $500 million dollar floating resort going nowhere fast all due to a part the size of home plate.......

 

8. Jamaica....blah, GC not windy enough to stop us from anchoring but Stingrays are afraid of the wind apparently. Cozumel, fun as always even with 14000 cruise ship passengers.

 

9. Behind the fun tour worth $95 per person....hmmmmmm

 

10. Disembarkation, sorry Carnival, you gotta share the blame for this horrific experience, three words: brutal, brutal, brutal.

 

And were off....

 

A little background on us, we are from the Sacramento Area and have three children in tow, twin girls who are 8 and a boy who is 4. My wife and I have been on two other Carnival Cruises both times without the kids so this was going to be our first with the children. We are sold on Carnival, love it, you can "party" if you want and be casual or you can be as formal as you want. We have moved on from our party years but still enjoy having a good time and don't mind if others around us are having a good time. That is why I think Carnival is a good match for us. We also took our 18 year old nephew for his High School Graduation gift, so there was six total in our group.

 

We were also traveling with my wife’s best friend and her family which included her husband, and two children 2yr old girl and 4 yr old girl and they had never cruised before. So with our two families together we totaled 10 people.

 

When we decided to take this vacation together last year it was after my wife and I had taken our cruise on the legend. My wife was raving about the cruise and suggested a Caribbean cruise versus a Mexican Riviera Cruise so the two wife's went to work researching cruises without consulting me or cruise critic. They decided on the Conquest out of Galveston simply because it is a shorter flight from the San Francisco bay area to Houston rather then Florida. They then contacted a PVP put a deposit down and locked us in on an Early Saver rate (we also had a $50 credit that we got when we returned home from that cruise) for a sail date for Mothers Day before I came home from work. In hindsight that might not have been the best idea because as it turns out, getting from Houston to Galveston is not always the cheapest or the easiest depending on the number of people you have and what you want to do. It all worked out but I did a lot of research on this issue.

 

So with sail date set I started research on CC. I joined our roll call group but admittedly was not very active in it. I just knew we wouldn't have time to do the meet and greet with all of the kids traveling and the wife pushing for family time I knew it wouldn't work but it seems the group had a good time getting to know each other.

 

 

Day 1 - Friday May 7th

 

We packed up the old family truckster with our 5 bags (I was amazed the wife was able to fit all of her and my girls clothes into just two bags) and drove to my in laws house in the SF Bay Area mid day, pretty uneventful. We had a direct flight scheduled from OAK - HOU on Saturday which left at 7:00 am and her dad was driving us to the airport and we had to pick up our nephew as well. Got into town ate dinner and in bed by 9:00 pm for everyone as we have an early flight.

 

Day 2 Saturday May 8th

 

Up at 415am, get the three "S" 's done and wake the kids up at 430, in the car by 445am and off to beautiful Oakland International airport. Kids are so excited and an absolute dream, this is a great start. We get to the airport by about 540 or so. We flew Southwest, stood in line got all the bags checked and made it to the gate by 615. Rustled up some overpriced airport food for breakfast and all was going smooth as snot. Flight was on time and uneventful except for the fact that my son has to pee every 30 minutes it seems. Ahhh the joy of traveling with kids. Oh, also real quick, a big shout out to the inventor of the portable DVD player, whoever you are, god bless you. We land at Houston Hobby 1230 pm and here is where my extensive research really helped.

 

I had a group of six that I wanted to transport down to Galveston, drive around and see the island, requisition supplies (i.e. juice boxes, kid snacks for excursion, Mommy Daddy drinks ;) ) get dinner and then get us to the Cruise ship on Sunday, and do it economically. Well, shuttles/limo's etc ranged in price from $30 - $50 per person and that was just to get you from Hobby down to the island. We would then have to take taxi's to drive around from place to place, find a hotel with a cruise shuttle yada, yada, yada. Given all of our needs renting a car is the best option I could find. We ended up renting a Mini Van from Enterprise as they are the only rental car on the island. However they are not open on Sunday's but they do have a key drop. So, we get off the plane gather the bags and go out to the curb and wait about 5 minutes for the Enterprise shuttle, hop aboard and drive out to Enterprise. This was the first of many long lines we encountered during the week. Turns out only two people were working the counter and there was a long line, took us 45 minutes to get our mini van. I was a little worried because when I called the Houston Hobby Enterprise months before asking about one way rentals they told me there was a $50 drop fee, but doing research on CC I found that if you call the national number and do the reservation there is no drop fee and they email your reservation also showing no drop fee. So I had my confirmation in hand and when I checked in the young lady didn't charge me a drop fee or mention anything about it. I had mentally prepared myself to put up a fight in case there was. Maybe she just felt bad that I had three kids in tow standing in line for 45 minutes after a 3.5 hour flight. Got ourselves a dodge grand caravan and we headed off to Galveston. We promptly got lost. I turned right out of the lot when I should have turned left........oooops. Only cost us about 15 minutes or so, but of course that was about the time when I heard the first "I'm hungry". Quick, find me a set of Golden Arches. We ended up on the 45 and a few exits down found a McDonalds. Got our meal to go so we could enjoy fine dining while stopped in traffic around the NASA exits. Don't know why the traffic was stopped, maybe just some of that famous Houston traffic, but I was a little worried because usually after the "I'm hungry" line is taken care of, it's promptly followed by "I've gotta go potty" line. Thankfully that didn't happen and we got to Galveston at about 3:30. We drove straight to the Visitor Center on Broadway in one of the old houses and my wife jumped out and picked up a map, the man working the counter gave her another map showing houses that had wood carvings made from the oak tree's damaged in the Hurricane. We then drove straight to the hotel, we stayed at the Comfort Suites on 89th Street over by the airport. We stayed there for the deluxe continental breakfast and it was one of the only hotels where I could stuff our party of six into one room to save on money. The hotel is newer and very clean. We had two queen beds and a twin sleeper sofa. It was comfortable for the one night we were there but I wouldn't keep six in there for a stay of more then a night or two.

 

After dropping off the bags and freshen up a bit before we headed off to tour the city, drove down seawall, stopped and put our feet in the water. We took the map of the dead tree's and found most of them, this was my kids favorite part, when we found one, they would jump out and take photo's of them. Most of them sit in peoples front yards. Most people would smile and waive and let my kids take photo's. I guess there was a homes tour going on that afternoon so this area had a lot of people walking around. We drove through the Strand district, we didn't get out as it was really busy. It was prom night so there were a lot of Limo's and kids dressed up. Also there was a big wild game BBQ by the Harbor Hotel so this area was super busy. We drove all the way out to the eastern point of the island and took some photo's then back to the seawall area where we ate dinner at "the spot". The place was packed but we were in and out no problem. Before going to the hotel I stopped at Specks Liquor to buy some booze for the cruise. I knew that Carnival is cracking down on smuggling so this was a concern but I figured we would go for it. Got our supplies and got back to the hotel at about 8:30 pm.

 

About the same time our friends had just gotten to the hotel. Our friends had opted to take another direct flight from OAK - HOU later in the day, they didn't leave until 1 in the afternoon. They didn't want to try and get their kids up early to go flying which I understand given their ages and they didn't have an interest in seeing Galveston. They took a taxi direct from Hobby to the hotel and with tip was about $90. They hadn't eaten so they ordered a Pizza from Marios (I think) and I drove him there to pick it up, sure glad we had a rental car. They commented that the pizza was one of the best they ever had.

 

Our kiddo's were tired and they were asleep within 5 minutes of hitting the pillow. This was a long day for them but they were real troopers and I was proud of them for there behavior. I had planned on getting to the terminal early tomorrow so we can be one of the first one's on the ship but after discussing it with the wife and our friends we decided just to let everyone sleep in and we will just go when we felt like going instead of rushing over there......

 

That’s all for today