Holiday Review 4/25/05 Calica/Cozumel Very Long

[shecat]

Embarkation: We arrived at the parking garage around 12:45 there was a short line to park. You drop off your bags with the porter then you go park. It cost $50 to park you can pay cash or with credit card. We parked on deck 3 which is last covered parking area. If we had gotten there 20 minutes later we would have parked on the uncovered deck, which would turn out to be important. We took the elevator to the first floor. This area is a little bit congested, but everyone one was courteous. Then you are directed up the escalator to get in line. The line goes quick. We received our first gold sail & sign card. They are for repeat guest. Then you take your embarkation photo and sit in a chair until your row is called. At this point they take your picture for your sail and sign card and then you get on the ship. I have heard the mention of sewer smells on the Holiday. The only time we smelled anything was when you get on and off the ship. You enter the ship on the Main deck. We got on the ship at 1:45, so from parking to getting on the ship took approximately one hour. It was chilly leaving. It is a good idea to always bring a jacket.

 

Cabin: Our cabin was U172 which is an outside located on the port side aft. We booked an outside guarantee. I had read that the cabins on the back the ship vibrate badly. The only time the vibration was noticeable was when we left a port or were docking. The room was very clean and the most comfortable bed yet on a cruise. The bathroom looked like new and was larger than on our previous cruises. There are no refrigerators, so I brought a roll-on soft sided cooler. Room steward kept it full of ice. The windows are large enough to sit in. Only one electrical outlet, so bring a power strip, extension cord or a wall outlet adapter.

 

Dining: We had requested 6:15 dinner seating and that is what we received. However, we wanted a table for two if possible. We went to see the Maitre’ D and his assistant was taking request. I asked if we could get a table for two and his response in a sexy accent, “Madame I can do anything”, so he changed our table for us. There are only two tables for two in the Four Winds Dining Room. Then it was up to the Lido for our first meal. This would be the longest line of the cruise. I opted for pizza, no line there.

 

The first night at dinner filet mignon is on the menu. It was great. Chocolate Decadence is also on the first night. The second night is formal night. They serve lobster, prime rib and other meat dishes. The lobster was tough. I am not a big lobster fan anyway. The prime rib was good. The attire for formal night runs the gamut. You have some people in tuxes and I even saw some people in shorts. The third night we did not eat in the dining room. You are in port at Calica. They have opening seating for that night, so you do not sit at your assigned table. The fourth night is day you are in port at Cozumel. Sorry I can’t remember too much about dinner that night???????? Be sure to go the last night of dinner. They give you a print of the Holiday.

 

We ate breakfast mostly at the buffet. If you make it up by 8:00 the lines are not very long. We ate breakfast in the dining room one morning. The pancakes are larger and you can get eggs benedict. We ordered room service one afternoon. The sandwiches are good and you get chips with them. As usual the pizza and soft serve ice are good. I tried the goat cheese pizza and it just was not my style.

 

Drinking: I know I will get flamed for this but we did take on our own alcohol. I purchased a small old hard sided Samsonite at the thrift store for a $1 and packed a case of beer in Coke cartons and sent it thru with my checked luggage. Arrived at the room safely, the room steward kept it iced downed for us in our roll on cooler. Took rum and mixed it with the fruit punch. We still bought a few drinks on the ship. Buy your beer by the bucket, it is cheaper that way. We went to the Captains Party and the Past Guest Party. At both you can order what you want. At the past guest party the wait staff piled our table up with drinks. We could not drink them fast enough.

 

Bars & Entertainment: We went to the Tahiti Lounge for karaoke almost every night. Like most karaoke some really good singers and some really really bad singers. It is all for fun. The band in Doc Holliday's is good. They are from the Philippines. It is amazing how good they sound on so many different songs. The guy at the Bus Stop is so so. The comedian the first night is ok. The second comedian at adult hour is pretty funny. One thing happened at the adult show the second night. This group kept on heckling the comic. Finally he got the best of them and they decided to leave. On the way out one of the women said a few choice words to him and pointed a certain finger at him. She was not watching where she was going and walked right into a glass door. It was so loud everyone could hear it and started laughing. She busted her nose, it could have been broken. So never sit on the front row or harass the comic. The steel drum player on the lido deck is ok. He plays when you leave port and on sea days.

 

I was a judge for the Hairy Chest Contest. I had a blast. I made one mistake. One of the contestants was a rather large guy. All of the judges discussed the men’s attributes amount of hair, texture, tattoos and of course body types. I said “well contestant #2 has man boobs”. The judge next to me says “that’s my husband”. I could have crawled in a hole. But really she should not have been judging if her husband was a contestant and no, he did not win. The Passenger Talent show is good. The cruise director puts his own show at it. One of the pool games is diving for pearls. What they do is throw golf balls with numerical value into the pool. The contestant with the highest total wins a strand of pearls. Bingo goes on everyday. The last sea day one of the games is win a cruise bingo. The cards are $10 for one or $20 for three.

 

Calica/Playa Del Carmen: We opted to rent a car and go on our own. Executive is right there at the dock. We rented a small 4 door manual with AC and full insurance for $50. We visited Xel Ha http://www.xel-ha.com.mx/default.asp?com_id=0&idioma=1 . I was a little disappointed. Hardly any live coral, very few small tropical fish. One highlight is the large Cubera Snapper around the floating bridge. This would be a good place if you have small children. The lagoon is protected and there are ample places to sit. It was just a little too crowded and touristy for us. The beach there is beautiful but you can’t get in the water. The surf and undertow are bad. There is a small lake with kayaks for your use. If you are interested in doing a dolphin swim they have that program. We left there and went to Hidden Worlds Cenotes & Caverns http://www.hiddenworlds.com .We took the $20 tour. We totally enjoyed this. We had our own guide Ricardo and he was excellent. If you are claustrophobic this tour is not for you. A couple of places you only have a few inches of air above you, but it is not far. They issue you a wet suit and a waterproof flashlight. You ride to the sites in this contraption that all the working parts are showing. There is really no way to describe the beauty of the stalactites and stalagmites. We saw a few fish. The caves are lighted so it is not too spooky. The rental car has to be back by 6:30. So we turned it, changed clothes and caught a cab into Playa for the rest of the evening. We liked the town of Playa Del Carmen. The main tourist area is cobblestone streets and is closed to traffic. We had a couple of drinks at Senor Frogs and located a geocache http://www.geocaching.com . There are plenty of restaurants to eat at. They are all reasonable because of so much competition. We ate a place can’t remember the name on the main street. It was fabulous. We both got the chicken fajita special. You get a beer of your choice, chicken fajitas, rice, refried beans and salad for $7. It was the biggest plate of fajitas I have ever seen. One dinner would be enough for two people. We made arrangements for our cab driver that took us to town to meet us back in front of Senor Frogs. Sure enough he showed up at the designated time and returned us to the dock. Back at the dock we had time for a few more beers. There is a Corona Bottle beer shack at the dock. We sat there and watched all the late comers zoom in.

 

Cozumel: We had hoped to get an early start but ended up getting off the ship around 10:00. We rented a 4 door small car with AC at Budget for I think $66 including full insurance. We probably could have found a better deal but was short on time. Maps in hand we headed for Punta Sur Lighthouse. We took the $6 tour. It is well worth it. While waiting for the next tour to the lighthouse a small deer of some sort walks around the concession gift shop area. You can pet it. It is tiny. It likes to eat cookies. The tour truck transports you to the lighthouse. The view from the lighthouse is awesome. You can see dense greenery, a salt marsh and the beautiful blue waters of Cozumel. A small maritime museum is located here too. The truck pickups you back up and the tour guide gives a small history lesson of Mayan people and points out a couple of tiny ruins. Then you stop at the salt marsh and he feeds the crocodiles chicken wings. Back at the car we head further up the highway and stop at a beach for a little while we ventured into the water but not very far. There are plenty of opportunities to stop for photos. We ended up at Coconuts Bar & Grill http://www.islacozumel.net/food/coconuts/ . We had two reasons for stopping here. On these boards I had read about the wonderful view and ambience of the place and also we had a chance to grab two geocaches here. We were not disappointed on either. Hubby got the grilled grouper sandwich and I had the shrimp tacos, both were yummy, especially the sandwich. There are two dogs and a pregnant cat that live on Mexican time there. The view is wonderful the wait staff friendly. We found our two geocaches and picked up a travel bug and left a travel bug. We stopped to fill up the tank I think it held maybe $4. By the way gas is cheaper in Mexico.

 

Car Rental Tips: Buy the insurance. Pay with cash if you can. Budget would not let us pay with cash, therefore there was a surcharge for using the card. Try to get a car with a full tank. It is easier to say fill it up at the station. Scout out the gas stations on your way out. Have a good map. There are lots of one way streets in Cozumel.

 

General Suggestions: Get to the cruise terminal before 12:30 if you want a covered parking spot. When we returned to Mobile it was one awful thunderstorm and we never got wet. There are so many activities to participate in, try to do a least one. Probably an hour after you leave the dock you will pass Middle Bay Lighthouse on the left side of the ship. It makes a nice photo opportunity. Go to Mexican night. It is the night you leave Calica. Good food and a dance competition. We used the gym a couple of times. This is one area where you realize the Holiday is smaller. I think they have three treadmills, two ellipticals and limited weights. The equipment is ok you may have to wait to use it. One nice thing it overlooks the lido deck area, so you are not bored. Get up early if you want a special deck chair. Otherwise there should be plenty to choose from. Never saw the first topless person in the topless area. We did the self disembark and were off the ship by 8:45. Would have gotten off earlier but there was some delay. Take half as many clothes and twice as much money!

 

We have cruised the Inspiration, Conquest and Destiny. This ship ranks right up there with them. For the price it can’t be beat. I forgot to mention the cruise terminal personnel are extremely nice and helpful. They told us the ship was overbooked that there were 1775 passengers and that a normal load was 1450. We thought oh no crowds everywhere. It never felt crowded except that first day at the buffet. Thanks to everyone on this board that gave us tips and took the time to answer all my questions. Oh yeah, we have already booked the Holiday again for August!

 

PS Please forgive my grammar and typos. I was trying to hurry up and finish.

[corina27]

Thanks for writing the review.You had a great cruise!:)

[GrammyJill]

Thanks for taking all the time to write that for us!

 

 

We are taking our first cruise on Holiday in late July. Your review was great!

 

Thanks again!

[memickee]

Shecat - I have booked a cruise 8/20 - the five dayer. When will you be setting sail? I have been on a cruise once before on the Conquest - I didn't like the amount of folks on board - so hopely the smaller passenger capacity will make it a more enjoyable cruise.

What is geocaching?

[shecat]

We never felt crowded on the Holiday and it was over booked. I don't think the Conquest had a full sailing on it and it seemed the public areas were a little bit crowded. It is sort of hard to describe geocaching. First off you need a hand held GPS. The prices for a GPS start around $75, maybe even cheaper than that. Go to the website http:\\http://www.geocaching.com and look up caches hid in your area by zip code. A cache is normally a rubbermaid type container hidden in publicly accessible areas. They can be in parks, rest areas, nature preserves or slap dab in the middle of a shopping area. Most caches take you to places that you would not normally visit. Such as the one at Coconuts in Cozumel took us. Another side note of geocaching is travel bugs. You purchase tags to attach to an item, register the name of the bug and its number on geocaching.com. The item gets moved from cache to cache and it registers miles. I have a Leopard Shark Travel Bug http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=32240 that has moved almost 16,000 miles and is currently in Sweden.

[shellinglady]

Thanks for the review I am in room U176 on the Holiday I leave on June 25th

[happy1]

Holiday reviews are hard to find. Thanks for taking time to post this helpful information.

[Cruisewolfe]

Hi...

 

We will be sailing on the Holiday 5-day, too..Our very first cruise...nice to see that we will "know" someone else there!!!

[Cruisewolfe]

Shecat - I have booked a cruise 8/20 - the five dayer. When will you be setting sail? I have been on a cruise once before on the Conquest - I didn't like the amount of folks on board - so hopely the smaller passenger capacity will make it a more enjoyable cruise.

What is geocaching?

 

 

Thats our cruise!:)

[Cotton]

Shecat...I can't believe I didn't see this before now...!? Knowing how much I love the Holiday, I'm SO glad to hear that y'all had such a great cruise! Your review was terrific - well worded. (The woman running into the glass door - priceless!):D

[lpacif]

Thanks for the great Holiday review from Shecat and the posts from the Holiday expert - Cotton! We are taking the kids (youngest is 17) on the Holiday for Christmas week. This will be their first cruise but my husband & I have cruised Carnival Ecstasy. Has anyone out there cruised the Holiday for the holidays? I am expecting lots of kids on board but was wondering if Carnival does anything special for the holidays.

 

Thanks!

[Cotton]

Expert?:D I do love the Holiday, though.

 

About the Christmas cruise...My adult son, his girlfriend, and another couple went on the Dec. 20-25 Holiday cruise this past year. He said the ship was decorated throughout, and lots of special touches here and there, in the dining room, etc. He said the ship was overrun with kids. (He should've listened to Mama - I TOLD him!) Anyway, he enjoyed the cruise, but said he'll stick to flying to the islands from now on.;)

[pacerzfan]

Thanks for the great Holiday review and I agree the woman running into the glass door - priceless!

[cbreez]

my wife and i will be taking our second cruise august 20 on the holiday. our first cruise was on the jubilee, holiday's sister ship.

[Cruisewolfe]

That is our cruise... 8/20 from Mobile.. please look for us there:)

[memickee]

All of you who are interested to meet on the 8/20 sailing - We are going meet at the Bus Stop (Promenade Deck, near Doc Holiday's) at the front of the bus near the sign that says 'No Standing' at 3:00 p.m. on 8/20.