A Date With Destiny & the balcony club

[BadJelly]

Get your mind out of the gutter!!! Not “that” balcony club (though there is a story to tell about that!), the “OMG now that I’ve had an aft wrap I’m never going back” balcony club.:D

 

A Destiny review seems a little pointless at this late stage, but a few stories, tips and the obligatory grizzles may be helpful – or even amusing to some.

 

This was a cruise that wasn’t supposed to happen in the first place....I was originally booked on the Spirit relocation cruise to Australia, and had been booked on that for approximately forever!!! Meanwhile my marriage came to an end, but not the cruise – I was still going to go on that. Then 3 months before final payment my BFF tells me she is getting married – in Key West in January....well, I can’t miss that, so know that I will have to cancel the cruise to Australia.

 

Much planning – well much talking and some planning (OK, I detest BFF/DS/DD/DH etc I’m using names) Elle and I decide a pre-wedding cruise would be perfect, at least it goes some way towards making up for the cruise I’m not doing. Elle & I have cruised together 3 times before...in fact I “made” her come on the first cruise....I’d never done one before and was forced into it, I just knew I’d hate it so figured that she would as well and I couldn’t think of a single reason why I should suffer alone – or in silence. Well, by the second day we were buying future cruise certificates and the cruise disease had taken over.:rolleyes:

 

After too much talking and still insufficient planning....which we will put down to “internet wine”...for the uninitiated this is a distant relation to phone sex, but involves drinking and typing and attempting to plan....we rather brilliantly decide that we may as well make this a pre-wedding party cruise and see who else is interested in joining us. The numbers fluctuate up and down from an original possible 14 to 7 who ended up actually boarding – as only the two of us have cruised before and the bride to be can’t possibly organise a cruise finishing the day before her wedding I end up as the “Cruise Director”.

 

Let me take a minute here....do NOT do this unless you like getting grey hair and deeper wrinkles....OMG it was like herding cats!!! :eek:You can give them spreadsheets and copious amounts of details and links to follow. You can rest assured that your time is wasted and if it is read it is not comprehended, which leads to inane questions that have already been answered. This is what I mean by insufficient planning – we should have stuck with a cruise for two.

 

Where was I???? Are you confused yet??? It gets better....or worse.......

 

Right, so I cancel (the early saver) cruise to Australia – well for a fee of $50 I move to the booking to the Destiny sailing on the 12 January...and manage to get one of the aft view balconys....woohoooo. Point of interest with changing the early saver booking, I had booked that cruise as a solo, had paid the deposit and a further $200 off the balance. With the new cruise being for two in the cabin I still had to pay a further deposit for the second person even though the funds transferred/applied from the first cruise was higher than the amount that would have been taken if it was a new booking. Not a big deal as it needed to be paid sooner or later, I just thought it was a little strange.

 

After more internet wine I decide that a 5 day cruise is really no replacement for the cancelled cruise. Seriously – a 5 day does not replace a trans Pacific!!!! Back to the Carnival booking site and lookee lookee....I can do a B2B and do a 5 day cruise before that one.....hmmmmm....still doesn’t replace the number of days I’ve “lost”.....ohhhhh, lookee here again, there is a 4 day one.....now I can do a B2B2B and not have lost many days......and it gets better......and to prove I can justify just about anything, the trusty calculator comes out and for the cost of the original cruise I can do the three cruises and treat myself to an aft wrap for the first two and the aft view for the third. At this stage I was also kind of looking forward to having a taste of solo cruising as well.

 

At the risk of sounding like a sappy Mills & Boon romance, this bit needs to go in here as well....actually you don’t need too much information..... a friend of 13 years standing turns out to be more, actually way more, than a friend and from May I’m no longer cruising alone. Gawd, that booking phone line must really, really love me – not – more phone calls to add Paul to the first two sailings.

 

I’m a little worried here, I “need” him to like cruising – is 9 days going to be too long? Is he going to be bored? I keep reading reviews on the drop in food quality and service, and some not so good reviews on Destiny herself – getting old and tired etc. Oh, well, great romances are one thing, worst case I’ll go back to “girls” cruising.

 

Bear with me I’m getting to the cruise bit....soon....one more little bit of background.....in October Elle cancels the wedding. Opps. Better to realise it is a mistake before than afterwards – right? But the girls pre-wedding cruise will still take place – just not with me on it because I now figure that if I take that cruise, and Paul wasn’t going to – there is after all no room for men on pre-wedding girls cruises – he works offshore and we wouldn’t see each other for another 6 weeks...not happening and as I may have alluded to earlier I was being driven a little tiny wee bit batty with trying to organise the last cruise. So I cancelled myself out of that one. And less the magic $50 fee got Elle a cabin on the second of our cruises so we could spend some time together.....

[BadJelly]

We spent Christmas in Arizona with my new grandson, so needed to get from Las Vegas airport to Miami to board on the 3rd of January. I really didn’t think it would be so hard to get a direct flight from Las Vegas to Miami, and we are kind of forced into Delta as they link to our frequent flyer programme here and gets us free luggage – you travel for a month and I defy you to go carry on only!! The flights had us going via Los Angeles – love the logic of going backwards to go forwards. :confused:

 

Now I know all the horror stories of flying in the day of, in fact when I was cat herding I warned all those other women against doing it. But, of course, I know better – or have a stupidly high risk aversion. What on earth could go wrong? Unlikely to get weather delays in LAS, LAX or MIA so no problems likely. The only thing I was worried about was filling in the three hours between landing at 0730 and being able to check in at the port. Ha.

 

We check in fine, kiss the bags good bye and tell them we hope to see them in Miami in the morning. Sitting at the gate, while Paul is in a shop, I hear our names being called. WTH???? We are not late boarding, which is usually when I hear my name.....

 

Gate Agent: You are flying with us to Miami tonight correct?

Me: Yes....

GA: Well, we are overbooked

Me: (thinking) Surprise, surprise, but I have first class tickets and know you can’t involuntarily deny me boarding, and I NEED to be on a cruise ship in the morning.....

GA: Would you consider changing to fly from here to Georgia at 2330 tonight a short layover there and we will have you in Miami by 1030 in the morning. First class all the way of course.

Me: (thinking) Of course it is going to be first class the only leg that wasn’t was the one to LA, and this solves my problem of what to do to fill in 3 hours in the morning.

Me: What is going to happen to our bags? It is vital that they get to Miami with me.

GA: The bags will take the original flights so will be waiting at the luggage office for you. We will give you $400 and a dinner voucher.

Me: (thinking) Hurry up Paul, we need to make a quick decision

GA: That is $400 each

Me: (thinking) Too bad Paul, I’m making the call, this will go a long way towards covering our internal flights next time

Me: OK, thank you

:D

Lesson # 1 – if you find yourself in this situation do not take the change unless they are going to give you seats together if that is important to you. We weren’t and it really didn’t matter at the end of the day as I can snore next to anybody.:p

 

Board the connecting flight from Miami to Georgia.

 

Lesson # 2 – do not wear boots when flying, take them off to sleep and then expect them to go back on with any degree of comfort.

 

Sitting down buckled in and I’m ready to get on this ship. Announcement from the cockpit – some vital piece of equipment, that I can’t spell, is broken and we can’t go until it’s fixed. It should be ready in 50 minutes, we don’t want to de-plane you as that will mean further delays if it is fixed earlier.

 

Half way through a fresh coffee, another announcement....sorry folks, there doesn’t appear to be a spare whatsit available, so we are going to try and find us another plane and get underway as soon as possible. Please report to gate # blah blah blah and we’ll have information to you when we can. :eek:

 

***??? This is a little too much for my risk aversion levels...”try to find us another plane”?????... I’m starting to break out into a sweat here....head to gate # whatever and pass a smoking lounge, dive in there and just really need to breathe and not light up....have time to sit and think that all is not lost...worst case scenario if we don’t make check in time we can hire a car, drive to Key West and get on board in the morning.....breathe, breathe, breathe.......

 

Lesson # 3 – free Delta dollars are not all that they are cracked up to be if it turns to the brown stinky stuff

 

Arrive at the gate and boarding has started!!! Yay!!! They must have burnt a ton of fuel to get down there so fast, we landed only an hour late at 1130. And the luggage was all there waiting.....I love flying into cities where the taxi’s charge a set rate, you can long haul my butt all over town if you wish.

 

Now this will probably stir some people up judging by some of the comments on here, but I paid for FTTF. Let me tell you this was probably the best $50 I spent all cruise. Never had call to use any of the other perks apart from the boarding, in my opinion this by itself was worth it and I would do it again in a heartbeat. The main reason I booked it was I’ve stood in some horrendous lines to board, hate the crush on Lido on boarding day before the rooms are ready, and have this thing about wanting my luggage “now” to get it all unpacked, and remember I want Paul to like cruising – he who is ex-navy and couldn’t see any reason to get on another big boat and hates queuing at the best of times.

 

Listen to this...the plane landed at 1130, we had to go to the office to collect the luggage, went and had a cigarette, got in the taxi line, were driven into the port, got the porter to use his stapler to attach the luggage tags, got through the non-existent lines, the bags were all sitting outside the cabin door waiting for us and we were on the balcony by 1225!!! Just be aware that the actual check in line is roped off, you need to find the person standing nearby and get them to check your name off and open the rope for you. It may have been busier if we’d gotten there an hour earlier, I don’t know but this was perfect.

[BadJelly]

Sorry, I'm having photo uploading issues...I thought I could put them on from facebook....at the moment that is a fail :mad:

[BadJelly]

I loved leaving POM – so many other ships, sailing so close to the traffic. What I didn’t love so much was the turn we made a few hours out. One of the crew was sick/injured and needed to be returned to Miami. You may want to re-consider ever cruising with me, there has been a medical emergency on every cruise I’ve been on so far. I’d estimate that we lost in total four hours to get back to the turn around point.

The announcements kept coming about why we were heading back and that they would update us in the morning about our arrival time in Key West.

We woke about 0430, turned the TV on to see where we were. Hmmmmm....level with Key West, doing 13 knots and NOT on a heading to be going to Key West. My nasty, sceptical mind starts thinking......you can drive to Key West from Miami in 3 hours, heck you can sail it in a not overly fast yacht in a day....Carnival has just lost a lot of money, extra fuel burn, casino shut down for 4 hours, extra port fees in Miami.....a quick mental calculation of time/speed/distance from what the map was showing would have had us comfortably in Key West by the due time, but the heading is all wrong for that....what’s the betting they turn this into a sea day and recoup some money?

Uh huh, that is the announcement later on....”we can’t make Key West on time, so we are going to have a wonderful fun day at sea” Really? Please Carnival don’t insult general commonsense and intelligence and outright lie, or make the assumption that nobody with a general idea of how to read a chart is awake early and watching the TV. Personally I love sea days...I’d happily to a 7 day cruise to nowhere...just don’t lie to us.

Lesson # 4 – don’t make the assumption that you can get the ship at the next port if you miss it at the first one. We would have been sunk if the plane hadn’t made it on time.

Cozumel was fun. We walked a little way out of the port area down to a new, and not quite finished shopping area, which I guess is more or less across from the other pier to look for a pair of binoculars to buy. Nothing there, so we got a taxi to take us to the main shopping area. Asked him if he knew where to possibly get some, he thought of one place and actually got on the radio to see if anybody else had any other ideas and came up with a further two places. None of them stocked them and since we didn’t have anything else planned, we asked how much for a couple of hours tour with him. $60 got us a three hour tour and it was great, he took us around the residential area and then to a tequila tour...I hope he got some sort of kick back from the money we spent there!!....then to Coconuts out on the Atlantic side for lunch, really nice laid back place with strong drinks and great food and then drove us back around the coast. He had great information about the island and was entertaining. This is the third time I’ve taken tours in Mexico this way and love it.

Since this is not a review I’m going to jump around a little.....

I was excited to see the Cheers programme and was 100% sure it was available on the Destiny....that must have been a case of too much internet wine again and I misread...nobody knew anything about it. I was sure we would have got our money’s worth from it, so much so that it would have probably required Carnival to throw in another sea day to get other people to spend more. In retrospect I don’t think it would have saved us very much at all, and this is even considering we didn’t carry any wine on at all or smuggle anything.

We did Anytime Dining. I selected this because of scary table mates on a previous cruise and thought it would be a nice romantic time to have a table for two. Which we only ended up doing on one night. The first night we were seated at a table for 8, a couple were already seated when we got there and the hostess lead six of us to the table at once. The first couple I think were a little surprised to get to the table and see it was so large and that there was already two seated, they left...so that left 6 of us.

What I found very odd was that after taking the orders from three the waiter disappeared to go and do the dancing waiter show.....broke things up badly....please either don’t start when you know you aren’t going to get through it or keep going....yeah, I’m a grouch and detest the singing/dancing thing anyway and was hoping to avoid it full stop.....fail

We never had good enough service to request the same servers again a following night, I think though this is a problem with them having too many tables to cover. I missed having the same wait staff every night that knew I wanted iced tea and lemon, it was just little things like that.

The food quality and taste has really dropped though everything we had was delivered hot. I totally detest the charging for good coffee at dinner. For heavens sake, apart from the coffee shop it is the only place on board to get decent coffee – yes I know it is cheap, but that is beside the point.

We did the Chef’s Table....I’m not going to review that as there is a wonderful recent review on that on here at the moment and I can’t even come close to doing it justice. Have a look for Italianfemme’s review, it was her review that sold me on it and I cannot recommend highly enough that it’s something everybody needs to do at least once. Having said that if you think it really is an appropriate place for a 9/10 year old, please do the rest of us a favour by not glaring at us as the night wears on and the wine loosens tongues and conversation topics. It is an adult environment.

[BadJelly]

Turn around day.....we had the letter delivered the night before with instructions to meet by guest services at 0945, to bring our travel documentation and completed customs declaration. I think there was only about 10 guests doing the B2B, but a large number of crew members that looked like they were on board to make a start on the refitting work.

I had asked the night before at guest services if it was possible to get off in Miami – Paul is still looking for the elusive binoculars – and to be able to re-board quickly without queuing. The amusing reply? “You mean you want to jump the queue to get back on board” “Umm, yes, I guess so” “No, not possible, you will have to queue” Really???? LOL Oh, well I guess the binoculars will have to wait.

Guess what else was in the instruction letter? Two passes to go directly to the VIP area for quick re-boarding.

It was somebody else’s turn to become the cat herder and get us all down and back again. This was relatively painless and quick. The longest part was getting the crew through and have them hand their passports back to the cat herder.

It was nice to go straight back to the balcony and chill out there. The bottle of champagne was waiting but not the fruit basket I’ve read about....maybe you need to be doing a longer cruise.

BTW the tequila that we handed in coming back from Cozumel was delivered the night before which I really wasn’t expecting and we bought two bottles from the shop when you could carry it out to have in the room for the next cruise.

Lesson # 5 – actually arrange an approximate boarding time if you are meeting somebody. This will eliminate the need to sit in the chairs by the boarding area trying to watch two doors at once.

Enough for tonight, I’ll cover the second cruise tomorrow.....

[gapearl]

Very entertaining so far. :D

[Julia’s Journey’s]

Looking forward to cruise #2:D

[BadJelly]

One more try of the photo's....sorry, I'll try one more time

[BadJelly]

[BadJelly]

Now I just need to figure out how to add more than one without blowing up the site :rolleyes:

 

The second cruise was odd in the respect that the service levels, especially in the dining room were way down on the first cruise...we actually walked out twice before dessert was served....I figure after waiting 30 minutes from the order being taken and still not having received anything was excessive...my waistline probably thanks me for this, but that's not exactly the point!!! :)

 

It seems that the trash bins in the cabins are obviously considered by some cruisers to be storage containers... I can't think of any other reason for what happened, both in our cabin and in Elle's who had a different steward. First cruise we (Paul really, but I'm being nice!) had screwed up and bought what we thought was coffee bags so we could make coffee in the room with hot water from the buffet...ummm..no those are not bags but the capsules for the coffee machines. The joys of grocery shopping in a different country which is really when you realise that you spend a lot of time shopping by label :D And a FYI - no matter how much you stir and curse this does not make a drinkable cup of coffee!!! So we send Elle an SOS email to bring actual coffee bags with her and throw 3 boxes (yes boxes of these damn things!!) into the trash can. We come back to the room after dinner and the trash can has been emptied....except for the coffee (two complete boxes and one opened one)...which had other items on top of them to start with....hmmmm.....strange....let's try this again tomorrow....still there after the morning room make up. I ended up putting them into a plastic bag, inside the trash can and they were gone that evening. Second cruise same thing with an empty can of shave foam in the bathroom can...two days later when we left it was still there...I hope they don't mail it back to us! :D I guess there have been long and loud complaints about stewards atually having the nerve to throw out items put in the trash can previously.....

 

The line up leaving Miami, there was also a NCL boat behind us

 

[BadJelly]

Destiny's best kept secret!!!! And I'm sure on the other ships I've sailed on and I can't believe I didn't notice!! Go stand in front of the coffee shop, to your left as you are facing the shop there is a curved wall....this wall is mirrored....Oh My!!! This has to be the world's most flattering mirror...you are tall and thin and gorgeous :D Talking and thinking about a dream house now has put the kitchen and bathroom into minor detail, I just want walls and walls of these mirrors!!! LOL We walked passed that place at every opportunity!!!

 

 

First port was Grand Turk, again nothing booked or organised, so we took a short walk around the port area, bought the obligatory (for me anyway :p) fridge magnet and took the obligatory photo's....which I'll try and attach more than one this time...fingers crossed!!!

 

 

The first is the "must have" look where I am, second is toes in the beautiful clear water - which would have probably been warm enough to swim in after an initial gasp. There is a bit of a story to the third one...for the pre-wedding cruise internet wine had led us to believe that it would be fun to wear tiara's...all the time...so we need three each, a day one, a night one and one for elegant night...yeah right LOL With pulling out of that cruise I still felt the need to wear one, so what better place than at Grand Turk....so the height of decadance, well that is what it felt at the time, was Caribbean sand on the toes, wearing a tiara and holding a Cuban cigar...no it wasn't mine!!! :eek: I just held it while Paul was shopping

 

[BadJelly]

Halfmoon Cay, we never got off the ship. Shock, horror, yes I know it’s just about everybody’s favourite place, however, we live at a beach and the thought of tendering in does absolutely nothing for me. The weather was warm, the water looked pretty....but our balcony was better.

I just remembered I promised the “balcony club” story. Well, let me say that if you are going to join that club, early in the morning, bear in mind that there are other people around you who wake up early as well....probably pay to even peek over the balcony divider to see if anybody else is out, the glow from the ipad would have told you others were out. Also, do not assume that the man sitting out there will not applaud you when you are finished, we will grin at you every time we see you coming in and out of your room and your poor wife will blush redder than the whale tail.

That’s hard to follow on from......:D

 

 

We were in one of the rooms that had already been refitted, much nicer look. The cabin door is now a nice wood, the drawer fronts and wardrobe are a pale wood, blue carpet with a gold motif, blue and gold curtains, cushions and the runner on the bed. The awful salmon colour is gone from the bathroom and both the floor and vanity are a nice deep blue. I don’t think the bathroom floor is going to hold up very well...already there is quite bad fading from cleaning products on the shower floor. No bathroom photo’s sorry but a couple of the room

[BadJelly]

Nassau, not a port I was looking forward to....been once before and found it dirty and the straw market area overwhelming....do NOT put that necklace around my neck...no I do NOT want to buy any gunja...and again no desire for a beach day or a day at Atlantis...so we had only the intention of getting off quickly to get some Cuban cigars that I’d seen being rolled just off the ship outside a bar/coffee shop.

On turn around day we met a nice couple from Canada and were recommending the Chef’s Table to them for the coming cruise. They told us about a place they had been to in Nassau and said it was a once in a lifetime opportunity that shouldn’t be missed if you like good food and fine wines. They were spot on!!! Graycliff Inn. We emailed and booked the wine tour lunch - $90 per person, and wow!!! Were they correct. Nassau has gone from the least favourite port to the most favourite.

Graycliff has the world’s second or third largest private wine collection, beautiful grounds, a chocolate factory and cigar rolling with Cuban’s using Cuban tobacco. You are greeted with a champagne cocktail to take with you on the tour. The tour takes your through all of these places and into the cellar. One section of the wall, only a little larger than a door, holds wine worth $1,000,000.00, yes that much!!! And should your pockets be deep enough you can purchase any of it. I was terrified walking through there in case my normal clumsy self knocked anything.

After the tour it is into the dining room for lunch. The tour price gives you a three course meal, each course matched with wine and port for the cheese course. I’ll let pictures tell the rest.....

[BadJelly]

World's oldest known bottle of white wine, due to go to auction this year and fetch around $250,000. The bottle of 2000 Crystal Champagne (6 litres) is yours for $26,000.00 :D

 

[BadJelly]

Lounge area and dining room.....

 

[BadJelly]

We used luggage express, with some initial trepidation....again an excellent $20 per person....luggage was waiting for us in Las Vegas, so had safely via Carnival got to the Miami airport, Delta managed to get it from Miami via Atlanta to Vegas....too bad they had to beat one of them to total death, but have replaced it. The tequila survived that flight, a car trip to San Francisco and back to LA and the flight home...it was wrapped in cardboard from the initial purchase and then packed into the cardboard box that the 2 bottles purchased from the gift shop were in. I’d use the luggage express again without hesitation.

The group using luggage express had to meet in one of the dining rooms at 0800, we were lead off the ship in a group and straight up to the customs line, it was quick and easy.

Our biggest mistake was taking a cruise to a warm place while spending the rest of the time in cold environments....it added too much to the luggage that was required by having to have different clothing types....having to pack everything from shorts and t-shirts, to hats, gloves & scarves – plus the appropriate shoes was a total pain in the rear end!!! We were probably excessive in packing a tux and two formal gowns for the elegant nights, but I love dressing up if the opportunity is there and found the dresses online for an excellent price...between those three outfits and the shoes required for them, it was half of a suitcase...I’d still do it again, but get my act together and ship those items home directly instead of carting them around for another week.

I think this will be the last cruise for a while on Carnival, we are going to try either NCL or HAL next time and see if an increased price gives a better quality experience. It’s not that it is shockingly bad...it’s just an obvious decline in service and standards since the first cruise in 2009. Several other people we talked to on board were saying the same thing, so I guess that Carnival’s business model is working...get us hooked with an inexpensive experience and then expect that eventually some will move up to the more expensive lines in the company.

Hopefully this was helpful to some, I have gained so much information from this board...