Glory Review Wanted. Recent cruisers please post review!

[kmm59us]

So who was your cruise director?

Karen

[quote name='cruisingrobert']I'm sure some of my fellow cruise mates will post reveiews, but just a few things that stick out so far:


Radisson - pre-cruise was great - would stay there next time.

Staying there ourselves, liked it the first time (2003).

I95 going down and back - horrible in Georgia and Flordia - will never drive that way again during Easter week - took extra 4 hours each way because of traffic, weather, road construction and sometimes - no idea why cars coming to a stop on a major interstate.

I don't look forward to this.


(SNIP)


Cruise Director - was ok - fun at times - but sucked up to the captain and Carnival a little too much.

[Girlsnightout]

[quote name='SoCalCruiseguy']CCL "COULD" get smart and do what they should have and have experimented with... that is moving the St. Thomas stop to the first stop on the eastern itinerary. Sure INS has a part to play and I've also heard all the whines and groans of "but I like it this way and we planned our trip because of it etc. etc. etc...." no disrespect but, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if about a dozen things have to work perfectly AND the sun then has to aligns itself "just so" for everything to be o.k. (meaning getting off the ship while there's still daylight), then there's a problem there I think, no check that, period. CCL continues to have this problem repeatedly rearing its ugly head in St. Thomas due to the SAME reason(s) and they don't seem to have any interest in correcting it. Hey Nassau is only about 4 hours, so why not advertise the stop in St. Thomas for what it has all too often become, a pit stop thats advertised as the crown jewel of this itinerary[/QUOTE]

Agree. Why won't CArnival do something to rectify this problem? I've been to St. Thomas on Celebrity and NCL, and have been able to easily disembark by 9:00 am. This was also when the port was chock full of ships. This seems to be a Carnival problem, not an immigration problem.

[GregD]

I was on the glory on the "famed" 2/19 propulsion proboblem cruise. Any recent Glory Cruisers. Can you answer these questions please.
Who was the Cruise Director?
Was the Captain, Captain Salvatore?
And, Who were your waiters, Head Waiter, and bar Waiter/waitress?
Thanks,
-Greg

[big_duck]

[quote name='Girlsnightout']Agree. Why won't CArnival do something to rectify this problem? I've been to St. Thomas on Celebrity and NCL, and have been able to easily disembark by 9:00 am. This was also when the port was chock full of ships. This seems to be a Carnival problem, not an immigration problem.[/QUOTE]

Were these 3000 pax ships coming from outside the US?

[weRready2go]

I agree with all the great reviews. My only negative was that there was not enough for the older teens (16+) to do. When asked if there was any meeting for this age group, I was told no. I later found out that there was one the first night. Missed it. Make sure that the older teens attend. This is where they quickly find there new friends. I did eventually get a schedule of events from the teen lounge. Activities included Blackjack for teens:) , dance lessons:rolleyes: , watching the hairy chest contest:eek: , and watching pool games:eek:. Kids want to play not watch. It took my daughter until Wednesday to find kinds that she hung around with. Go to the meeting......

[SoCalCruiseguy]

[quote name='big_duck']Were these 3000 pax ships coming from outside the US?[/QUOTE]

Where a ship comes from doesn't make one bit of difference. And there are plenty of cruise ships just as large and in fact, many are larger than what CCL is sailing, so I think that point might be a bit off as well. Besides, if you're a passenger on a cruise ship getting off in St. Thomas, your going through U.S. INS, American citizen or not. No this problem seems to be an ongoing CCL debacle exclusively. Do a little research and you'll see what I mean. Frankly, CCL can easily do more to improve if not resolve the problem. They can change the rotation as mentioned earlier, arrive in port earlier (sail for speed not fuel economy), leave later, have more onboard staff to help with the crowds, or even pay INS for more onboard support, now there's a thought.

[lilsonicfan]

[quote name='GregD']I was on the glory on the "famed" 2/19 propulsion proboblem cruise. Any recent Glory Cruisers. Can you answer these questions please.
Who was the Cruise Director?
Was the Captain, Captain Salvatore?
And, Who were your waiters, Head Waiter, and bar Waiter/waitress?
Thanks,
-Greg[/QUOTE]

Freaking let it go already, GregD!

[GregD]

What do you mean "let it go." I haven't complained once!!!

[hlfdzn]

do they allow you to take a rolling soft cooler thru security at the terminal? I would like to take one if I can, just don't want it confiscated. Thanks

[Rayefan]

I have taken a small rolling cooler on 3 cruises this past year. No one opened it or even question what was in it.... By the way, I only had a few bottles of water.

Barb

[rhondanrob]

Regarding the suggestion that the order of the island stops be changed - there is a US law that prohibits foreign flagged vessels from operating between US ports. The intent of the law was to prop up the US shipping industry by eliminating foreign competition, but the result is that a foreign carrier like the Carnival Glory (registered in Panama and thus of foreign registry) cannot legally sail between two US ports such as Port Canaveral and St. Thomas. They must first make a call in a foreign country, hence the stop in Nassau. It's the same reason many Alaska cruises leave from Vancouver B.C. rather than Seattle. As for the aggravation with immigration in St. Thomas, well, like it or not we're at war, and you sometimes run into a little inconvenience as a result.

Regarding requests for recent Glory reviews, here's something I recently posted on another thread (rollcall for upcoming cruise on the Conquest) regarding our 3/19 cruise on the Glory:
The Glory was a very nice ship - same class as the Conquest, so I imagine we're in store for a similar experience. The Lido deck restaurant can get a bit crowded, but very few people ever seemed to figure out that the serving line by the pool bar had the same food with almost no one in line, vice the extremely long lines inside. Never had more than three or four people ahead of me for the omlette chef. There's also an upstairs dining area where they serve fish and chips that was sort of undiscovered - the buffet area would be mobbed, no seats available, but you could just go up the stairs and there'd be loads of tables. There's usually always something going on that draws the majority of the crowd, so if you're anywhere but there, the ship doesn't feel crowded. It can take a very long time to get an elevator for some reason. It was odd to stand in the forward elevator lobby, which is serviced by no less than 10 elevators, and yet it took forever for one to arrive. So get a cabin as high up as you can afford - decks 9 - 11 are best in my opinon because you can get to most of the Lido action without having to wait for an elevator. We had a 6E cabin, which is awesome - it's on the Spa deck, which is the very highest level with cabins, and the rooms have floor to ceiling windows, a whole wall of glass, instead of a balcony. It was about 10 paces from our cabin door to the Lido deck overlooking the pool. This will be our first cruise with a balcony, so we're looking forward to trying that and seeing which we prefer. It was a Spring break cruise, which means the ship was overrun with kids of all ages, but for the most part they were well behaved. There were some unfortunate problems with kids damaging the elevators, carving their names in the mirrored steel doors, etc., but there's not much you can do about it. The food was good (not great, but more than acceptable), the Emerald Room (premier dining club) was OK, but definitely a seen-that-been-there, won't spend the money again on the Conquest in October. If you wanted a deck chair within sight of the pool, you had to get up around 6:30 or 7AM and put some towels and a magazine on the ones you wanted so that they'd be there when you wanted to go lay out. I know you aren't supposed to do that, but everyone does, so if you don't, you'll know you're doing the right thing, but you'll also never get a deck chair. This was our first experience with going our own way ashore - we didn't take a single Carnival shore excursion, but instead just went ashore and hailed a cab and said "show us around." Had a blast everywhere we went, we weren't herded around in a big crowd, and moved at our own schedule. Plus we saved a bunch of money, since everything for us is x 4. If you haven't been on a Carnival cruise in a while, something new they're doing is assigning eveyone to a team at dinner the first night - Red, White or Blue, and then the teams accumulate points for participation in events, winning Bingo, contests, etc. It's a way to get folks more involved, and it seemed like it was working, as folks appeared to get caught up in the nightly announcement of point totals at dinner each evening. There was one event at midnight on the Lido deck where they tried to see which team could muster the longest Conga line, and I think they were a bit surprised by how many folks showed up - must have been a thousand folks dancing around the pool, the security folks were getting a bit nervous because some of the young men were getting a bit too aggressive. Thought they were at a soccer game rather than on a cruise I guess. Anyway, we love cruising, it's a terrific vacation, and can't wait for fall break!

[mamagina]

[quote name='rhondanrob']Regarding the suggestion that the order of the island stops be changed - there is a US law that prohibits foreign flagged vessels from operating between US ports. The intent of the law was to prop up the US shipping industry by eliminating foreign competition, but the result is that a foreign carrier like the Carnival Glory (registered in Panama and thus of foreign registry) cannot legally sail between two US ports such as Port Canaveral and St. Thomas.

I think the ship has to just stop at a foreign port at some point of the cruise. The Glory's Western itinery stops at Key West directly from Port Canaveral. And the NCL Dawn goes from NY to Port Canaveral directly.

[SoCalCruiseguy]

The routine debacle in St. Thomas has NOTHING to do with being at war, it has to do with mismanagement. Lets put credit where credit is due. In addition lets be sure the INS gets some credit as well. It makes me ill when people get sucked in so easily into believing that when government fails dismally at performing their core functions, that the reason is somehow connected to some higher/noble cause i.e. war or terrorism, instead of simply realizing that in all likelihood its a case of bloated, inefficient government bureacracy and the INS is famous for that, or are we talking TSA? And I say again, if other cruise lines can sail the same itinerary and routinely effect early morning disembarkation from St. Thomas, why can't CCL?

[rhondanrob]

Carnival seems to have this whole cruise business pretty well figured out, and I don't pretend to know better than they do how to get a ship load of people (over 3,400 people on our 3/19 cruise) through immigration. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we didn't arrive until 10AM, which means we weren't first in line, and by the time we got there, there were already two other mega-liners tied up to the pier, and a smaller Celebrity ship at anchor. There are only so many INS agents in St. Thomas, and my guess is first ship to arrive is first to be cleared. With the Victory sailing in right behind us, immigration had to clear probably 15,000 people in the space of three or four hours, or about 3,750 an hour, or about 62 a minute, which is of course one a second. I can't say I enjoyed waiting 90 minutes to go ashore, but I do have to recognize a pretty efficient process when I see one, and yes, since there is a war on, I'm glad to know they don't just say "Hey Ya'll Come On In". Anyway, they were calling folks with an early tour first, but here's how we dealt with the whole situation. Rather than book a tour, we just accepted the fact that it was going to take a little while, so we chilled, made it through the line, and then when we got ashore, made our way over to the Paradise Point tram, which is about a 10 minute walk from the pier. We rode up to the restaurant just in time to catch the bird show, which was entertaining, and then settled on the balcony and ordered our first of several rounds of Bushwackers. Now I make a pretty decent Bushwacker, but these were "to die for" as they say. Next we ordered a big basket of fried flying fish, because hey, we'd never had flying fish before! It was as good as the Bushwackers, in a fish kind of way. After about an hour or two of enjoy the Reggae music, taking in the unbelievable view of the cruise ships in the harbor a thousand feet below, and I'm not sure how many rounds of Bushwackers, we rode back down the mountain, and grabbed a cab, and asked for the grand tour. The going rate is $20 pp, and we got about a 2 1/2 hour drive through all the highlights, with the driver stopping occassionally at the most scenic spots to take our picture. He dropped us back off at the pier, and we were so happy with our tour we tipped him an additional $20. I may still have his card if anyone is interested, he said to pass his name on if we knew anyone else heading to the island. Anyway, we arrived back at the pier just before dusk, and had a leisurly couple of hours to shop in the pierside shopping mall, take some great night time pictures of the ship, and got back aboard about 7 or 7:30 PM, with just enough time to get ready for dinner. All in all we thought it was our best stop.

[Girlsnightout]

[quote name='SoCalCruiseguy']The routine debacle in St. Thomas has NOTHING to do with being at war, it has to do with mismanagement......... And I say again, if other cruise lines can sail the same itinerary and routinely effect early morning disembarkation from St. Thomas, why can't CCL?[/QUOTE]

You're not kidding. The 9/11/war excuses are getting really old, not to mention complete BS. There was a war going on last time I disembarked in St. Thomas, and it was a breeze. It's mismanagement alright. Maybe Carnival pax are just more sheeplike than the other pax?:eek:

[hlfdzn]

Thank you for the reply about the coolers..Melissa

[wgorange]

If anybody goes on Carnival Cruises do not use their Shore Excursions they are a waste of money and you can do tours on your own for half the cost. We just returned from Cozumel where we did the Dolphin experience. All they wanted to do for the $99 per person was to look at the camera so they could sell you a video or picture. We discovered the fee to the park was $12 and the Dolphin Experience about the same. The Paradise Beach in Cozumel is wonderful and well worth visiting. One of the guides at the park told us that Carnival gets 60% of shore excursions that they book. I believe it after our trip. Also, traveling on Carnival you need to remember an extension cord or multiple outlet as they only have one 120 outlet in a cabin. Hard to do with hairdryers and curling irons without either one.



Inspirations had decent food and service but we will use RCL next time for sure after our recent experience. Their Kids club is far superior to Carnivals.

[lilsonicfan]

[quote name='GregD']What do you mean "let it go." I haven't complained once!!![/QUOTE]

Funny how almost all your posts refer to your " "famed" cruise".

What, are you just asking for fun!? Grrr!

[kcslim]

Cruising Robert, thank you for that review! I'll be on that same itinerary in September. I've previously been to all the ports except Progreso, and was looking forward to it. Sounds wonderful.

My friend will be doing the cave tubing, which I really don't want to do. Last time I went to Belize I did Goff's Caye, which was beautiful, quiet, and the guides were very nice, but I wouldn't want to do that again. Do you have any other suggestions for Belize that others may have done and spoke highly of?

While in Cozumel, we plan on doing Chakanaab Park and swim with the dolphins. We will try and do the earliest and head out to Paradise Beach. Anything else you might suggest?

Thanks so much!

Karen

[hlfdzn]

the website I saw for Chakanaab park has the dolphin swim listed for $75, plus the entry fee as well as the cab to get you there. Chakanaab is a beautiful place though, with nice snorkling. Is paradise beach close to chakanaab?

[ashumate2]

Any new Glory reviews from last week's sailing??

[WrenchHeadCruiser]

Hi all,

Some great reviews. We will be sailing on the Glory 4/30 and some in our Roll Call are looking for Camp Capers (all age groups) from recent Glory sailings. If anyone has them it would be greatly appreciated if you could post them.

Thanks

[caviargal]

[quote name='mnsawyer']Oops...forgot to mention about chair hogging...it's a big problem but I do save chairs but only 2."

Saving two is no less inconsiderate than saving more than two. I think chair saving is totally rude. I will move someone's things off to the side and use an unoccupied chair. I let the cruise staff handle it from there. If the chair hoggers get angry, that is their problem, not mine.

On CCL, no one enforces the no holding chairs policy but it is a shame as other lines that do make it better for everyone, IMO.

[basketballmom]

No cruise line enforces chair hogging!

[Thatmom]

Hi,
A few years ago we my sister and I were on the Vision of the Sea. One morning around ten we were walking around looking for two chairs together. All had been saved. One of the crew saw us and came over and removed some towels and said these haven't been used in an hour and had us take them. About an hour later a couple came looking for their chairs and the crew member appeared and explanined how he had moved their towels and that chair saving was not allowed.
So for at least the cruise they did enforce it.
Has never happen since. the worst I have ever seen chair saving was on our trip last Oct. on the Gory. we just gave up and found somewhere to sit and people watch. In the shade.
Carla