Our B2B Adventure on the Breeze Inaugural!

[rtw68]

Great review, thanks for all the pictures! We will be Breezing in May.

 

Nice! You will love the ship, we all sure did!

[rtw68]

It truly is a small world... we are also from the Mansfield area!!!

 

LOVE the review as we are heading out on the Breeze in February!!!

 

That's cool! A Buckeye invasion of the Breeze! :D

[rtw68]

Then it was time for the Red Frog party

 

 

 

 

After the party, we headed back to the cabin, and found our new towel animal:

 

 

Time moves so quickly while at sea. We were already at the end of Tuesday!

Oh yeah, my birthday was Tuesday. More about that later, DW wife made it a point to tell everyone multiple times (over a couple days). I think she enjoys me getting embarrassed while being sung to! ;)

 

The new friends we met on the Breeze (and who will be cruising with in 2014) were nice enough to buy me a cool mug and a couple cigars that I have enjoyed! :D

[rtw68]

11/28/2012 – CURACAO

 

We arrived in Curacao between 8:30AM and 9:00AM.

 

The pilot boat dropped off the harbor pilot and headed back to port before us:

 

 

Here are some pics as we headed in:

 

 

 

The dock that we used was VERY short. They had additional mooring “islands” further aft and forward.

 

 

 

It was interesting watching the pilot boat move the ropes from the ship to the mooring points. It took them quite a while to get things done.

 

[rtw68]

 

 

 

 

 

[rtw68]

 

 

 

 

Nice sailboat:

 

 

Almost ready!

 

[rtw68]

We planned on going ashore about 10:30am, so we had breakfast, and of course I had to take some more pictures!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[rtw68]

 

 

 

 

 

Here was a guy in a VERY small boat I’m assuming fishing:

 

[rtw68]

Welcome to Curacao!

 

 

 

 

 

More blue water!

 

 

We met up with Steve and Michelle and proceeded off the ship.

 

[rtw68]

And started walking to the downtown area.

 

 

 

An old fort was converted to a hotel shopping area.

 

 

 

 

[rtw68]

Here is the pontoon bridge. It had a boat motor on either side and would push the bridge open or closed depending on the traffic. They had warning bells and flags when the bridge was due to open.

 

 

 

This looks like an old NCL ship that was sold?

 

 

Here is a pic of the four of us. Myself, DW, Michelle, and Steve.

 

 

Then some speed boats showed up. Looked in ninjas or military?

 

[rtw68]

The architecture of the buildings was impressive. Even though they were all modern stores now, you could get a feel for the history and influence.

 

 

 

 

Subway anyone? They also had a McDonalds!

 

 

 

[rtw68]

Wonder if this boat would stay afloat?

 

 

Here the pontoon bridge was open and a tug boat came through

 

 

We ate lunch at a place along the port. The crab salad sandwiches were good! I can’t recall the name of the place but it’s the first place on the left once you get off the pontoon bridge.

 

Here are some pics of the Breeze from the city:

 

 

 

This bridge also joined the two sides:

 

 

I hope these weren’t aiming at the Breeze! She isn’t a pirate ship!

 

[rtw68]

Some more pictures of the shopping area

 

 

We actually went back on board the ship. Steve and Michelle got back off toward the evening and we joined them and took some additional pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

[rtw68]

Michelle’s pictures came out much better than mine when we took some of the city & ship at night-time. Hopefully these photos won’t outlaw me from being Mr. Kodak!

 

 

 

This one turned out pretty good:

 

 

We all met up for dinner that night at the Red Frog Pub. We each ordered some of the “pub grub” and had a buffet of our own.

 

Speaking for myself, I enjoyed one too many “pain killer” drinks (which were really good by the way) and fortunately, DW was my “designated walker” for the evening!

 

Here is the menu for the pub grub. The food is really good and only $3.33 per appetizer (plus gratuity):

 

 

Here was the evening’s towel animal:

 

 

We went to bed excited for our excursion in Aruba!

 

I will hopefully be able to post some more tomorrow evening! Thanks for reading.

[floatingaway2525]

11/24/2012 – END OF TWO DAY/EMBARK FOR EIGHT DAY

 

I am normally up very early for work every day, and unfortunately, my built-in alarm clock had me awake very early. The good thing about that is we were just heading back into Miami, and I was able to watch the Breeze spin around in the turn basin.

 

In watching the other ships do this from the Port of Miami Web Cam it sure looks tight. Seeing it in person, however, there is more than enough room for ships to make the turn.

 

On most mornings, we ordered room service coffee and fruit to enjoy on the balcony, then we went for some breakfast a little later. The breakfast buffet on the lido was pretty good. The scrambled eggs had a strange texture to them, but still tasted fine. I enjoyed having French toast and yes the bacon police were active!

 

I do think that Carnival was unprepared for the number of B2B’ers that were on the ship. I was expecting there would be more but there were only 180 of us.

 

I was shocked when our room steward Wilfred had placed the luggage tags and customs form on the bed Friday night! After a trip to customer service, they said that was normal procedure and they did have us on the B2B list.

 

The left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing and it wasn’t until late on Friday night that they had the info for us. We were to meet in the Ovation Theater at 9:30AM to get the process moving.

 

In addition to the 180 of us that were on the B2B, there were staff members that would also be disembarking that morning. They had to keep us separate. Most of the delays were caused by Customs & Immigration, and unfortunately, until they say things can proceed, we just had to wait.

 

I believe it was close to 10:00AM before we finally made our way off the ship. They walked us through the terminal, and down the escalator to the customs/luggage area.

 

We “Breezed” right through customs only having to hand them our filled out form. Nobody was declaring anything on the forms since we were staying on board, I think it was a major waste of time dealing with the form, but that’s the government in action!

 

We were then taking to a large waiting room and that’s where we stayed for quite a while. At this point, they were supposed to hand us our new S&S cards and then we could proceed back on the ship. We were supposed to be back on before anyone else embarked, but that wasn’t the case as we later found out.

 

To be honest, I had never done a B2B before and none of this really bothered us. There were some other people getting upset, but I knew we had another eight days to look forward to. I was on vacation and wasn’t going to get worked up about it.

 

They finally started handing out the new S&S cards, and this was very disorganized. They had them listed by cabin number and it took quite a while for them to be given to everyone. Again, I think it was because of the large number of B2B’ers and the Customs and Immigration delays that caused the problems for Carnival. In the future, they should have a better way to handle that many people returning to the ship.

 

After what seemed like a 30-40 minute delay, we were finally brought back on the ship for another “ding” and security photo.

 

Pierre Camilleri, the hotel director, was personally greeting everyone once we boarded and apologized for the delay. I was back on the ship again, it didn’t ruin my cruise! Later that day, we found a fruit basket that he had given to the B2B'ers.

 

Thank you Randy, for this very accurate description, and keeping it in perspective so well...too bad more adults can't manage this:rolleyes:

It was a Customs and Immigration delay that did not clear the ship for reboarding, for anyone, period. It wasn't fun for sure, but the CCL staff were awesome and did all they could with a crappy situation...And I thought hey, one more fruit basket was a very nice touch.:D I felt awful for the staff dealing with a lot of anger that was misdirected!

Most excellent review and pics, thank you!!!

[rtw68]

Thank you Randy, for this very accurate description, and keeping it in perspective so well...too bad more adults can't manage this:rolleyes:

It was a Customs and Immigration delay that did not clear the ship for reboarding, for anyone, period. It wasn't fun for sure, but the CCL staff were awesome and did all they could with a crappy situation...And I thought hey, one more fruit basket was a very nice touch.:D I felt awful for the staff dealing with a lot of anger that was misdirected!

Most excellent review and pics, thank you!!!

 

Thanks Floatie! I have enjoyed many of your reviews and to have you compliment mine is an honor! :)

[nybumpkin]

 

 

 

 

This looks like an old NCL ship that was sold?

 

 

 

She's formerly Celebrity Horizon, and was sold to Pullmantur a few years ago. Love your review!

[rtw68]

She's formerly Celebrity Horizon, and was sold to Pullmantur a few years ago. Love your review!

 

Ahh thanks for the info! :)

[JaniceB]

Nice pictures of Curacao and the ship in port. Enjoying your review.

[gapearl]

11/26/2012 – GRAN TURK

 

This was our first visit to Gran Turk. We didn’t have any specific planned, but wanted to visit the beach and ended up at Margaritaville.

 

As soon as we pulled into port, you could hear loud music and announcements from the “Local Village.”

 

 

I don't think I'd trust a $35 helicopter ride. The Red Frog Caribbean Beach Party looks like fun! I've gotta try one of those "painkillers"! :D

[rtw68]

11/29/2012 – ARUBA

 

Ok back at it! Hard to believe we were at our last port of call on this cruise. Welcome to Aruba!

 

 

 

We had some breakfast and then went to check in with the DePalm tour folks for our SeaTrek Underwater Helmet Walk. We had to fill out a disclaimer form at the counter, and then the bus driver had us fill one out also. No way we could have sued them for anything….

 

We then went outside and waited for a bus. Unfortunately, they don’t count as people get on the bus so we had to get off of two buses before they had one empty enough for us.

 

 

The bus took us on about a 15-minute ride around the airport and through some back roads to an industrial area. The De Palm Island is about a 5 minute boat ride from the shore.

 

 

 

[rtw68]

We checked in with the counter at De Palm and provided our previously filled out disclaimer forms.

 

Our turn was at 10:30AM.

 

Here are some random pics around De Palm

 

 

 

 

 

 

[rtw68]

We had a safety briefing and they explained what we would be doing. We would start our way down a ladder into the water at shoulder height. They would then place a helmet that weighed 70 lbs on our shoulders.

 

They helmet had a pressurized air hose attached to it (3 times normal air pressure). We would then make our way down the ladder about 20 feet into the water.

 

Also, you had to walk level and keep the helmet level because if you bent over, water would fill the helmet. Also, they recommended you breathe naturally to and from your nose, so the helmet wouldn’t fog up.

 

Now I’m not a strong swimmer (DW is a former life guard) and she was worried I wouldn’t do well. Not to worry! Swimming is not a requirement here!

 

They pointed out that every step or so we should try to balance the pressure by yawning, swallowing, or holding our nose and force pressure out our ears.

 

Well, my left ear always gets messed up on flights, so it wasn’t a surprise to me that I had a sharp pain in my ear until while I stepped down (while doing the “nose thing”) to the bottom and through the walk. My ear bugged me for a couple days afterward, but it was well worth it.

 

They also briefed us on how to tell them how we were doing underwater. They would come by us and give us the “ok” sign, and if we gave them the “ok” sign then things were going ok. If we gave them the thumbs up or thumbs down they would get us to the surface quickly.

 

One thing I need to mention is a mishap on their part that actually benefited us. With our group (#4) they have divers and a guy taking photos and video. They then take the camera to the main counter and they copy the photos for you to purchase for $39.95. Not bad considering it includes photos and some video. Your own cameras are not permitted.

 

Well, when we were done with our walk, we waited for the pictures to be available. It turns out that they didn’t put a card in the camera, so NO PHOTOS or NO VIDEOS!! There were several angry people. They offered to let us go again if we wanted, and at first we didn’t want to do that. We were concerned about being back to the ship on time.

 

The other people left angrily and grabbed cabs to go back to the ships. We decided, after they said we would be ok time-wise, to do it again.

 

I was SO glad we did, DW and I were the ONLY ones that did the walk again. Because of that we had a private walk with nearly 100 photos and a couple videos of just us! We were appreciative that SeaTrek made the offer and allowed us to do the full walk again. They get high ratings in my book!

 

At the bottom of the ladder, they had a steel walkway with railings. Glad they did that! With the helmet it distorted your view and made things much larger. I found myself grabbing for the railing and missing it most times!

 

Here is a pic of DW near the ladder that we descended (and you can also see the walkway with railings):

 

 

The diver had a squirt bottle that he must have sent fish food from. The fish went nuts and were very close to us:

 

 

Here I am with some kind of sea creature the diver gave me:

 

 

DW with the same sea creature:

 

 

He were are together:

 

 

Here is a good shot of the helmet:

 

[rtw68]

At one point, they guide you to a couple seats with a table in the middle and have you sit down.

 

They then took a couple of bottles and had you hold them and took your picture.

Pretty funny.

 

 

 

In addition to the fish they have a sunken tour bus and an airplane. It was mostly visible but wasn’t bright in most areas. I was amazed that the water was that comfortable (being that far down) and that I felt warm currents in a couple spots on the bottom.

 

If you ever have a chance to do this, it’s worth it!

 

When we were finished, we took off our provided water shoes and made our way to the building where they provided lunch. It was pretty good.

 

 

Here are some more pics of De Palm

 

 

 

 

After lunch, we paid for our pictures/videos and they burned them to a CD for us. We then took the boat back to the short and hopped on a bus to return to the ship.