Glory Review!! September 20-27th

[htowncruiser]

Let me start off by telling you a little bit about myself. I am a single lady (38) travelling with my best friend (35). We travel a few times a year together, often on cruises but not always. This was my 10th cruise overall, and my 5th cruise with Carnival. We most recently travelled on the NCL Breakaway (in April) which we loved but was kind of boring so we decided to try Carnival again. Sorry this will be a long review, I will try and categorize it…

 

Embarkation:

We arrived at the port at 11:00am and this was by far the easiest and quickest embarkation I have ever had! As soon as we stepped onto the ship we saw a big table with people selling the Cheers! package and headed straight there, purchased the package and vacation began! We were eating a guy’s burger and sipping our first drink by 11:45.

 

Stateroom:

We had a balcony room on the 7th floor midship. Yes, it is a little bit dated but the room was clean, the room steward was attentive and the balcony fantastic for a little extra space and a morning coffee. The room steward emptied out our fridge upon request and by the second day pretty much got our routine down. The 7th floor was an awesome location for us, we didn’t have to use the elevator at all.

 

Activities:

I will break this down to daytime and nighttime:

 

Daytime activities: This is an older ship so there isn’t any crazy zipling or rock walls but there is still plenty to do on the ship. We did quite a few games and trivia competitions (we won 3 ships on a stick and a medal!). The mini putt and waterslide were both fun. The main pool always had a fun vibe. There are many quiet corners around the ship as well if you want to nap or do some reading.

 

Evening activities: The comedy shows were good and there were multiple shows per night so you can easily work it into your schedule. I did not go to any of the play list production shows so I can’t comment on this. The seaside theatre was great and played some good newer movies!! Oh we did the adult gameshow, which was an ABSOLUTE BLAST!! We won! Do it! Bars/nightlife: see below :D

 

Bars/Nightlife:

So, as I mentioned I was on a trip with my best friend and WE HAD FUN!!! We did spend a lot of time drinking and generally carrying on… this was clearly a party cruise for me. I’m sure if you were not interested in a party cruise you would still have a fantastic time on this ship, however, we were looking for some fun and we found it!!

 

Casino bar: Went here every night for a pre-dinner drink. Also a lot of the trivia and planned daytime activities were at the casino stage so we spent a lot of time here with one of my favourite bartenders Olga. For those who are interested yes, they still have match play when you order classic cocktails. This is also one of the few places you can smoke (on one side of the bar which makes no sense but whatever).

 

Alchemy: This was our usual after dinner spot. The bartenders were fun and the drinks were delicious. One night they had a magician doing card tricks and other things which was fun. A good spot for something a little bit different.

 

Blueiguana Bar/Red Frog Rum Bar: These were interchangeable to me. I am not a beer drinker though which is where the difference is in these 2 bars I think… They did have some specialty cocktails that I really enjoyed though.

Bar Blue: This was the cigar bar. There was never anyone in here, we only went in once because the people we were with wanted to smoke. It was very smoky but very quiet so if you are a smoker who wants to be alone this is your place!

 

Cinn-A-Bar: This is the piano bar. I will start by saying I love a good piano bar…this was not good, we only went in here once and stayed for a few songs. I rarely saw anyone in here so I don’t think I was the only one who didn’t enjoy it. Too bad :(

 

White Heat: This is where we spent the majority of our nights. Midnight-ish until 3:00-3:30. Ok so the music was pretty much the same every night (which was ok, not the greatest but good). However, the drinks and bartenders (Katerina rocks!) and fellow cruisers made this a super fun place! This is my 10th cruise and the nightlife on this cruise was the best that I have ever encountered!! I think it might be the fact that more people seemed to have the Cheers! package!!? It was super fun every night. I love to dance!

 

Food (this is so subjective):

 

Dining room: We ate in the dining room every night. We had late seating dinner at a table for 10 however only 4 of us ever showed up, which was fine by me we had a great time with our tablemates at dinner and during the entire cruise. Carnival did a good job seating us with them! Back to the food… the staff in the dining room (for dinner) rocked! They were very accommodating, knew what drinks we would want, anticipated our needs, and were friendly and entertaining! Loved the staff. The food was good, nothing extra fantastic but always a good meal! I personally liked the new menu! I thought there was lots of variety and I got to try some new things. Desserts are the weakest part of the meal but you can always get chocolate melting cake or a banana split so I can’t complain!

 

Lido Buffet: I had breakfast here twice and both times there was such a huge, huge line. The food was fine, buffet food. The biggest complaint I would have with the Lido buffet is the hours!!! They aren’t open very long. IMO, they should have one section of the buffet open at all times, many times we wanted a snack after coming back from a port or in the middle of the day and there was nowhere at all to get food except for guy’s and pizza and the lines to get those were insane. They need to fix that.

 

Guy’s Burgers: This was a delicious addition to the cruise. We ate there a few times during the week. The toppings bar was great, I loved the fries and the burgers were super yum

 

Blue Iquana: I had a breakfast burrito here one morning. There was never a line, it’s a good breakfast. I wanted to lunch there but unfortunately everything in the tacos had cilantro in it and I CANNOT stand cilantro so I was not able to eat here for lunch :(

 

Sea day Brunch: This was hit and miss for me. I ordered the eggs benedict the first sea day and it was underwhelming (here is a tip, order them with the hollandaise on the side and they will be delicious, I did not do this). The service at the brunch was poor both times we went. The first time it took forever to get any kind of service from ordering, to getting coffee, they forgot to come back for over a half hour to get our dessert. The second time they forgot to bring me my entrée and it took almost 20 minutes to come and by then everyone was done eating so I didn’t even bother. The banana cream pie was worth the wait though, was the best dessert by far.

 

Sea Day Tea: This was a miss for me. I was looking forward to it because I really enjoyed it on my last cruise, however, there were no little sandwiches or anything just a few desserts and none of them were very good, so we skipped this on the second sea day.

 

Room Service: We ordered this for breakfast a few mornings and late late late at night a few times and it was always good and on time and what we ordered!

 

Pizza Pirate: This is 24 hours and we took full advantage of this in the late/early hours. Always good, always open!!!!

 

Ports

 

This was the Eastern Itinerary so we did HMC, St. Thomas, San Juan and Grand Turk. All of the ports were amazing. HMC is the only tender port and that is a pain but overall was a wonderful stop, beautiful beach, nice bbq lunch, it was just gorgeous there. We took a cab to Megan’s Bay in St. Thomas and really enjoyed that beach and the water, absolutely amazing (you can rent a lounger and there is a bar/restaurant there as well). We did the ATV excursion in San Juan which was expensive but so so so much fun (even though I only got an hour of sleep before it was time to wake up and go). In Grand Turk we just got off the boat and hung out in the free loungers at the beach. We stopped in at Margaritaville for a bit which had a fun party vibe but we are more nappers than partiers during the day so we stuck to the beach. The beach in Grand Turk was very rocky so you might want to pack some water shoes for this stop.

 

Debarkation

The worst part of the trip…it was time to go home :(. We walked off with our own bags at around 8:30, went through customs and were out an on the way to the airport by 9:00. We used SAS transportation both to and from the port to FLL. Easy peasy.

 

As you can probably tell this was a fantastic trip for me! The best cruise I have taken. I was worried about it being an older ship, but the upgrades are awesome and the vibe and passenger make up of this particular cruise was fantastic for me!! I met lots of fun people and if I am to go on another “fun girls trip” I will 100% choose Carnival again.

 

If I missed something or you have any questions about the Glory – just let me know!

 

Carla

[Bringonthesun01]

Thanks for the review!! We travel on her in Jan 2015.

[rok233]

Great review, thanks so much! I'm going on the Glory this month!

 

Did you like the Alchemy bartenders and did you have a favourite? Also, do you know who the piano bar player was? I love the piano bar but they need a good entertainer to get an audience.

[lcp9984]

Was the ATV excursion booked through Carnival or on your own? How long did it last? LP

[kona_wahine]

We've decided to go to Megan's bay on our next cruise. Did you have to share a cab or did you get one in your own? How much did it cost? We're there plenty when you went back?

[jackparts]

Do you remember if the laundry took quarters or the sail & sign card?

[Seany527]

Nice review.

 

Any chance you have the fun times?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[maxydu]

Going on the Glory for the 4th time in Dec. I was bummed to hear that the piano bar

was empty; due to the entertainer. I hope they change things up by Dec.

Do you remember the guys name by chance?

In the past we spent our eves between the comedy clubs and the piano bar and had a blast!

[elainmir]

We sail on her again in March..can't wait! I also would like to know if I need quarters for the laundry or not...thank you!

[Seany527]

White Heat: This is where we spent the majority of our nights. Midnight-ish until 3:00-3:30. Ok so the music was pretty much the same every night (which was ok, not the greatest but good). However, the drinks and bartenders (Katerina rocks!) and fellow cruisers made this a super fun place! This is my 10th cruise and the nightlife on this cruise was the best that I have ever encountered!! I think it might be the fact that more people seemed to have the Cheers! package!!? It was super fun every night. I love to dance!

 

 

Can you smoke in White Heat?

[ChicoCA]

Thank you for your Glory review! I will be on her Oct. 25th.....cant wait!!

[092306]

Thanks for the review, glad you had a great time!

[htowncruiser]

Let’s see if I can answer some questions:

 

I am terrible with names so I don’t remember the name of my bartender in Alchemy, she had long dark hair. Really, all of the bartenders were good there! Alchemy was fun, cool drinks with a fun twist!

 

I know a few asked about the entertainer at the piano bar and I have no idea what his name was because I didn’t stay longer than a few songs. I honestly didn’t see many people in there so I didn’t bother to give it another try, maybe it was just the time of night when we were there.

 

We took a cab to Megan’s bay. I think it was $7 per person plus $4 to get into the beach. Cabs are just found outside of the cruise port. There were plenty of cabs leaving from Megan’s bay to go back to the ship so no worries there.

The ATV excursion we booked through Carnival. It was around 4 hours in total. It took 30-40 minutes to get there, then there was some paperwork and instruction and maybe 1.5-2 hours of actual ATV’ing. It was really good, it rained for about an hour (which I was thankful for), it was really muddy and fun, if you do this excursion plan on getting really wet and dirty.

 

I didn’t save any of the fun times and I have no idea about laundry – sorry!

 

Yes, you can smoke in White Heat!