Breeze - short review

[10XCRUISE]

33 cruises over 20 years and this was our 8th Carnival trip.

 

We enjoyed our 8 day cruise last week but Carnival has many opportunities to enhance the experience.

 

We flew into Miami the day of and fortunately we did the airport check in: it took all of ten minutes. Upon reaching the overcrowded/jammed pier the masses were standing in line up to 2 hours. Best kept secret; check in at the airport!!!!!

 

Cabin:

8th floor balcony room was the standard run of the house found on all of the ships in the Caribbean. Plenty of storage and well functioning facilities. Our room steward did the expectedly decent job of serving our cabin. $15 laundry service everyday. Good value.

There are no amenities in the bathroom other than shampoo and shower gel. The chocolates on the pillow at night were eliminated.

 

 

Food:

Generic food nicely presented and served well by the staff but......... There was not a single meal or menu item "to die for" .Yes we are foodies and it got to the point that we had the head waiter sit with us and sample some of the meals. He was rather surprised to taste our dry and cold fish on several occasions. To stay outof negative territory I will say the specialty restaurants did produce an decent meal at all locations. We were disappointed in the Steakhouse. As always, food is subjective. By the way on Formal Nightsthere were no more that 10% of the men wearing jackets. Shirts and slacks were the norm.

 

 

Entertainment:

Saw them all. Some excellent some not. Different tastes for everyone. Carnival has eliminated the live music in the main theater and instead of multiple scene changes they have integrated visual technology in its place. Nicely done.

 

The Breeze has not succeeded in accommodating 4000+ passengers in the entertainment venues in the evenings. Standing room only and long lines throughout the ship.

 

Ports:

Grand Turk. Thanks cruise critic for steering us to Jack's Shack

LaRomana. Better get a shore excursion because there is nothing to do or see at the pier.

Curacao. Goof around the town during the day. No evening events/attractions at night

Aruba. Lots of stuff to do. In town or touring around. Always a great port.

 

Debarkation:

The same as embarkation. Total gridlock. The Breeze's exit procedure was running almost45 minutes behind. Lots of room for improvement.

 

All in all a pleasant week. The staff exceeded our expectations in service. The Breeze is very understated and 'plain jane' as compared to the rest of the Carnival fleet.

[Catrin]

Thanks for your quick yet detailed review! I couldn't agree with you more on those four ports.

Catrin

[mediccruzin]

Thanks for the review. Looking to book that same cruise for summer of 2016. Haven't been on a Dream class ship yet. I'm not much on shows so that won't bother. I'm a foodie also so that was good to know.

[cruiseclues]

Always enjoy a frank review...thank you. We are also foodies...& our food experience on the Carnival Breeze was very good...we did have great waiters, however...and our cruise was a couple of years ago...things can change of course...new restaurant staff...new cooks...etc. :):):):)

Edited May 22, 2015 by cruiseclues

[legion3]

We were lucky the last week of April, getting on and off the ship was very painless, of course I did have FTTF :cool:

 

I had some very good meals in the MDR, a great wait staff and no real food complaints.

 

Had to learn that if you want your meat medium, warm pink center, you need to ask for medium rare, and even then it might be more done than it should be.

 

Beef Wellington was good.