Our Super Last Minute "Breeze"y Adventure - 6 Days in the Western Caribbean Review

[ktinnc]

Thanks for the review. I will be taking a six day cruise on the Breeze next month. Looking forward to reading the rest of your review. Great pictures!

 

Thanks! You'll love the ship - I'm spoiled going forward!

[wrigley80]

Yay; can't wait to read about your newest adventure. I hope you have a great time! Does this mean Dad is feelin better? :)

 

We went to Grand Cayman on this cruise and you'll enjoy what we picked to do (thanks to some of your reviews it was a no brainer) :)

 

 

Yeah my dad is feeling better...thank you for asking. He has good days and bad days. We are gonna go and enjoy the cruise and just relax. I am taking my mom and dad to celebrate their 37th wedding anniversary.

 

I can't wait to see what you did in Grand Cayman.....I think I have an idea of what it may be ;-)

Edited July 12, 2014 by wrigley80
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[ktinnc]

Yeah my dad is feeling better...thank you for asking. He has good days and bad days. We are gonna go and enjoy the cruise and just relax. I am taking my mom and dad to celebrate their 37th wedding anniversary.

 

I can't wait to see what you did in Grand Cayman.....I think I have an idea of what it may be ;-)

 

Wait what?!? Mom is going!??! How fun :)

[wrigley80]

Wait what?!? Mom is going!??! How fun :)

 

 

Yep she sure is. Her last cruise was in 2007 on the Victory. She is excited to cruise again

[Irishgrl68]

I'm looking forward to the rest of your review, I'm going on the Breeze in August, same ports you did, with my 2 boys, 14 and 11. Did you meet other people to hang out with? Did your son make friends with other kids his age? Btw, he is adorable :)

[Momma1980]

Great start! Subscribing to see the rest:)

[anewmac]

Were on an 8day on the breeze & i love ur review! How fun a mom son vaca!

 

 

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[thesanders08]

I am loving your review! Looks like you guys had a blast!! =)

[KristiandEvan]

I probably misswd this earlier in the review, but do you have a dietary restriction? I ask because we got off the Breeze in May with a friend who has a gluten allergy and she had a tough time in the dining room. I was wondering if you had any issues?

 

Great review so far!

 

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[erewhon]

Thanks for taking time to write and post your review.

Great photos.

[ktinnc]

Thanks for the report!

 

You're welcome; glad you're reading along my fellow NC CC'er

[ktinnc]

I'm looking forward to the rest of your review, I'm going on the Breeze in August, same ports you did, with my 2 boys, 14 and 11. Did you meet other people to hang out with? Did your son make friends with other kids his age? Btw, he is adorable :)

 

Thanks so much! You'll have such fun with your boys! Anthony is a pretty outgoing kid but this time he wanted to hang out with me most of the time instead of go to Camp Carnival. But he made a friend one morning on the Sports Deck and hung out with him for awhile...

[ktinnc]

Great start! Subscribing to see the rest:)

 

Thanks Momma!

[ktinnc]

Were on an 8day on the breeze & i love ur review! How fun a mom son vaca!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 5 using Forums

 

Thanks Drea! I don't know why I didn't do it sooner - it was so fun! Have a great trip!

[ktinnc]

I am loving your review! Looks like you guys had a blast!! =)

 

Thanks for reading & commenting. We did have a blast :)

[ktinnc]

I probably misswd this earlier in the review, but do you have a dietary restriction? I ask because we got off the Breeze in May with a friend who has a gluten allergy and she had a tough time in the dining room. I was wondering if you had any issues?

 

Great review so far!

 

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Forums mobile app

 

Hi there!

Thanks for reading & commenting! I guess I didn't give too much info on my "diet" (although I consider it a way of life). After a lot of research I eliminated all grains and sugars from my diet in January...I feel so much better and have lost weight (yay) and a lot of inflammation etc. The times I've gotten wheat in my diet (accidentally) since then I have gotten super sick. So while I haven't been diagnosed with a gluten allergy I definitely can't eat it. I ate the same things pretty much every day on the cruise just because I knew what the "safe" options for me were. I did have a few fruity drinks which means I had sugar and I paid for it dearly (you'll see when/how if you keep reading :))

[ktinnc]

Thanks for taking time to write and post your review.

Great photos.

 

Thanks for reading & commenting! Knowing people are actually reading makes me want to keep going :) And with that...it's time to post Key West day!

[ktinnc]

Thanks to everyone for all your comments! I definitely need to comment more on the reviews I read because as the person doing the writing this time every single comment makes me smile so I have to imagine other reviewers feel the same way. It also makes me want to keep going...sooo....working on Key West right now :)

[ktinnc]

Key West

 

I woke up around 7:30am….I was going to just read for a little bit and let Anthony sleep and then I remembered…duh! I have the Lido deck right above me – why not read up there? So I threw on my bathing suit and a cover up…grabbed my Kindle, phone, sunscreen, towels and my Carnival cup to get my morning Diet Coke in and headed upstairs. I woke Anthony before I left and asked him if he wanted to get up or sleep in. Big shocker….he wanted to sleep. Since we were in Key West I had phone service when I got upstairs so I called Brian for a little bit… uploaded a “Key West” photo and then found myself a spot on the deck to call my own for the day.

 

 



 

For the first time on a cruise I was staying on the ship on a port day. I/we loved it!! I’ll definitely do it again! It was pretty quiet on the ship all morning…so much so that the deck chairs next to us stayed open until about 2pm! I was surprised! (For the record it wasn’t just our row of chairs that stayed empty – we didn’t stink or anything lol).

 

 

I read for about an hour or so and then went and woke Anthony and we went to the main dining room for breakfast. I love going to the dining room versus the Lido Deck buffet. It’s so relaxed and they bring you the food instead of having to wait in line for your omelet. We had a nice table by the window….and then the guys came along washing the window and outside deck so we had to take a pic lol

 

 



 

 

[ktinnc]

Key West Day

 

After breakfast it was back to Lido…. I read for a long time and Anthony decided to go back to the ropes course….he was on it for quite a while. While he was up there he made a friend with a 12 year old boy and they played some basketball. After a while we were both sweatin like crazy so I did something crazy…I went in the pool! Yes it’s crazy for me cuz in all my cruises I think I’ve only gone in the ship pool once? I let my insecurities keep me away because all the “pretty people” were in there ….so I couldn’t possibly go in. Screw that! I can’t count how many times we went in the pool this cruise. I even went in when Anthony didn’t … seriously..a big deal for me to not care what other people thought. And it’s not like anybody pointed and laughed at me…everybody just did their own thing and enjoyed being on a cruise! I don’t know why I sat in the heat instead of cooling off in the pool all those other cruises!

 

Anyways…. We sunned, we went in the pool, we had lunch, we went back in the pool, I read, he went on the ropes course….it was a blast! We had been contemplating going into Key West after lunch but when that time came neither of us wanted to. So we kept sunning and swimming and reading and whatever we wanted. We stayed out there until a little after sail away at 4pm!

 

 

 

We headed to the cabin to take showers and get ready for “Elegant Night” dinner. I let Anthony go the arcade for a little bit again too while I got ready. We headed to the dining room at 6pm and had a nice dinner with our table mates. We left again before dessert and went upstairs to get seats for the family friendly comedy show. I’ve been to the adult comedy shows before but never the family one. It was pretty good and Anthony enjoyed it so that made me happy!

 

[ktinnc]

Elegant Night

 

After the comedy show we headed to the Thrill Theater. The Thrill Theater plays the same 15-20 min show every half hour between 7-10pm each evening (and they play a different one each night). Sometimes they also have shows during the sea days and early evening as well. Tonight’s show was “Speed Racer & Extreme Log Ride,” so the first 6-7 minutes was the log ride – which was a lot of fun. It was like you’re on an actual ride and it’s filmed in first person. The Speed Racer one was next – It was ok but it really jerks you around a lot. They warn if you have back problems you should avoid the rides. It wasn’t too bad in the other 2 we saw but Speed Racer was definitely more aggressive. It made my back sore but nothing too bad. I couldn’t miss the fun!

 

After the Thrill Theater we headed to the Ovation Lounge for the show “Latin Nights.” The Fun Times read, “The passion-infused Latin culture is brought to life through music of superstars such as Gloria Estefan, Santana, JLO, Shakira, Enrique Iglesisas; y mas.” They did a great job and again it was a lot of fun to chair dance and sing along at times. We went up to the Lido and got a little snack – Anthony wanted to try the pizza and then we headed back to the cabin to chill/watch tv/read and go to bed!

 

Oh at some point during the night we stopped and had our pic taken by the photographers. I really wanted a nice pic of the 2 of us from Formal Night but they kinda sucked lol. So my mirror/selfie will have to do! I should add here that in January this year I made some big changes and I've lost a good bit of weight so it was fun to get dressed up in smaller clothes!

 

We took that pic before dinner but when we got back to the cabin I asked Anthony to take a pic of me to show to hubby. The little stinker took this instead:

 

 

He thought was was soooo funny…lol…

Then he managed to take one with his finger in the pic...sheesh...photographer's kid or what lol

 

 

We got our first towel animal too. The first night they didn’t service our cabin – I was kinda bummed because I love coming back to the cabin after a night out and having the beds turned down, the Fun Times waiting for me to read through and a towel animal. I might’ve left a note for our cabin steward expressing my disappointment (in a light hearted way) and we had our towel animal and fun times in our room mid morning!

 

We headed to bed ….we needed our rest for our first day at sea!

[ktinnc]

Our First Sea Day

 

I got up early cuz I wasn’t sure how bad the “chair hogs” would be on Lido Deck today since it was a Sea Day. Since I had spent the entire day in the sun on Monday and we were doing excursions in the sun Wed and Thurs I wanted to try and stay in the shade. There were these super awesome comfy chairs with ottomans (and cushions on both) on Deck 11 in the shade. There were only 28 of them total on the whole ship (14 on each side – yes I counted). By the time I got up there at 7:30am 24 of them were taken…. I put our towels on 25 & 26 at the same time somebody else took 27 & 28. So I’m glad I didn’t sleep any longer or I would’ve missed out. It was such a great spot – I could look down on the activities of the Lido deck all day (i.e. Men’s hairy chest contest and the Mixology contest etc) yet was close enough to the stairs that led to the pool. Oh and did I mention the shade? And the breeze?

 

 

I let Anthony sleep for quite a while….I think close to 10am. I read and watched the morning show by the cruise director and assistant CD on the big seaside theater screen. I went down and woke Anthony and told him to get ready and come upstairs. After he joined me we went to the dining room for brunch. You can take up to 40 minutes away from your chair before being considered a “chair hog” and risk your stuff getting moved and you losing your seat…so we were very conscious of the time and just to be considerate we made sure to get back on time. Brunch was busy but good. We both got the same things to eat pretty much every day…omelet, bacon/sausage and fruit for me….. fruit/bacon/pancakes for Anthony.

We went back to Lido and I got comfy in my chair again and Anthony took off for the ropes course again. For some reason he didn’t want to go on the waterslides even though they weren’t too busy. Eventually we both got hot again and went in the pool and we just repeated everything over and over again. Told ya it was relaxing! I got a lot of my book read (it was a good one!)

 

[ktinnc]

More Sea Day Fun

 

We had had a late breakfast so I just had a little snack from the Blue Iguana cantina – they have burritos and tacos so I had them basically make me a burrito bowl (so no wrap). It was pretty good but I never got back there the rest of the week. We left around 2:30/2:45ish to go to the cabin and change into dry clothes. The Hasbro game show was at 3:30pm and Anthony wanted good seats so he’d have a chance to be one of the contestants. We got there at 3pm (30 min before show time) and the only open seats were in the 2nd from the back row (or upstairs). I guess Hasbro is popular! The show is hosted by the cruise director, Matt and they make it like it’s a real show airing on tv – it “airs” on the carnival tv on the ship. It had 3 rounds with commercials in between each. They choose contestants from the audience. They choose a boy, girl and then a mom and a dad (all from different families) to make up each team (red team and blue team). They played games like a giant connect 4 where you have to shoot your game pieces into the board like a basketball/hoop. It was fun to watch and again the CD is super funny/entertaining so the time flew by.

 

After Hasbro I let Anthony go back to the arcade for a bit and I read for about 30 min in the cabin and then when Anthony came back we headed up to the Lido deck. We skipped dinner in the main dining room and instead got a Guys burger (Guys closes at 6pm). Tonight they had 2 movies on the Lido Deck – Grown Ups 2 and Ride Along. Anthony wanted to watch both of them so in lieu of going to dinner and the show in the main theater….we got comfy on deck chairs and ate dinner and watched the movies. They even had popcorn!

 

 

 

The movies were over around 9:45 and then there was a deck party that was to start at 10pm. Sadly we were tired from our lazy day lol…. And we had an early wake up call for Grand Cayman so we decided to go to our cabin early. Well…that was a mistake.

 

Remember I mentioned how our cabin was in an awesome location at times and a horrible location at times? The nights of the deck parties was the “horrible” location. When everyone was partying/dancing right above our heads it was SO FREAKIN LOUD!! It sounded like elephants jumping on the ceiling! I mean there were probably 1000 people right above our cabin line dancing so it makes sense why it was so loud but holy moly! Ear plugs wouldn’t have helped in the least. We found a show to watch on tv for a little while and then we were both really tired so luckily we fell asleep despite the party. We vowed we would just go to the party next time lol.

Our towel animal…

 

[Carnival Cutie]

I have been reading your review and am thoroughly enjoying it. I do have one question, though. Why did you opt to stay on board in Key West? I went there last year on my anniversary cruise and thought it was beautiful. Best place in Florida I've ever been to. One of the reasons I booked the Breeze for my next cruise was that I wanted to go there again, as well as the fact that my cruise companions have never been there and want to go. Looking forward to the rest of your review.

[Shaded Lady]

Loving your review... hoping you'll also find time to finish the Valor review- it is great!