Conquest March 13th-19th

[CJDepew]

This was our first Carnival cruise and we were traveling with a group of 17. We were blessed with great weather, from our flight from Latrobe, PA. until our flight home from Ft. Lauderdale. I plead temporary insanity for choosing dates during Spring Break, but we made the best of it in spite of the loud college crowds. This is my first review and it will happen in several different installments, and I'd be happy to answer any questions along the way.

 

Embarkation was relatively simple. We arrived at the port around 11:00 am and went through the line fairly quickly. We were assigned to Zone 4 to board the ship and were onboard and had our drink packages activated by just after noon. After that we quickly made our way to the Lido deck for some sun.

 

 

 

 

Muster happened on time and was relatively short, and then we were on our way from Port Everglades.

 

 

 

 

More to come in the morning because I'm a little cross-eyed tonight.

[momonthego17]

What ports? Thx!

[CJDepew]

Montego Bay, Grand Cayman and Cozumel.

[Clarea]

Nice start, looking forward to following this.:)

[sanmarcosman]

Thanks for the report.

Kirk

[Dave994]

We were also on this cruise. Can't wait to read your review. The college kids certainly looked like they enjoyed themselves:)

[cincicruisers]

Looking forward to your review.

[Keith1010]

Will continue to follow your report.

 

Keith

[nnettepos]

Grand Cayman and Cozumel.

[KirkNC]

Thanks for your reports.

[luvs2beachit]

Looking forward to your review!

[CJDepew]

Monday was a day at sea, and my first real disappointment. I'm not a food snob. Honestly. I'll belly up to the counter at Golden Corral and fill my plate with the best of them, but I was disappointed in the breakfast buffet offerings. The good news, however, was that I found out the next day that the breakfast in the MDR was excellent, and the servers we encountered there during breakfast each day were some of the most fun staff we interacted with all week.

 

Not normally a breakfast eater, but with everything we had planned it was important to start the day with some fuel. These pancakes were the best I've ever had, and if you're going to eat bacon, don't kind yourself. Make it a double order.

 

ETA: ARGH!!!!! Having problems posting photos from the daytime computer. Will resume this tonight from my trusty old laptop.

Edited March 25, 2016 by CJDepew

[CJDepew]

Yay! Got my photo mojo back! Anyway, here was the pic I was trying to post in my breakfast discussion:

 

The other thing I ate a lot of was Guy's Burgers. Some of the best I've ever had. And the fries are pretty darn good too. In case you are wondering, that's Ranch dressing on the fries.

 

 

As far as I was concerned the MDR dinners were okay, but just. My prime rib could have been mistaken for ham if I'd have closed my eyes. The glazed pork loin was okay, but somewhat dry. I do give them props for bringing as much food as one can possibly order though. And the chocolate melting cake...mmmmmmm!

 

My experience in the buffet for dinner wasn't what I had hoped for. While food was plentiful there seemed to be no cohesive menu. For example, vegetable spring rolls next to an Italian chicken offering, next to something made of fish that didn't match either of those selections. The cold salads seemed to be the same each night and anything made with orzo or cous cous was mushy.

 

The pizza shop did have very good pizza and was open 24 hours, in case anyone had late night cravings. I am still kicking myself for not getting a taco or burrito at the Blue Iguana, but it was only open until 2:30 pm each day and it just didn't fit into our schedule.

 

The adult beverage menu offered many delicious choices, some of which were more alcoholic than others. I did love my Lemonade daiquiris. The downside was that sometimes it was very difficult to get served at the aft adult pool bar, and waiter service on the upper decks was sketchy and slow at best.

 

[CJDepew]

Our first port was Montego Bay, Jamaica. Unfortunately we arrived nearly four hours late, due to a mechanical problem. I'm not sure if that added to the chaos when disembarking at the port, but that was chaos on an epic level. There were no marked lines for passengers to wait for the shuttle buses and the buses just drove into mobs of people. Spring breakers were already drunk and adding to the lunacy. There was one passenger screaming about getting in line and he reminded me of the Kevin Bacon character in Animal House when he's about to get mowed over by the parade crowd.

 

Because we were in port so late we missed our tour for a day and took a cab to Margaritaville instead. My hair has finally settled back on my head from those cab rides. Crazy drivers, but I didn't see any accidents. What we did see was plenty of weed and other questionable substances being sold in traffic and at intersections.

 

The beauty of the arrival in port was kind of ruined by the aggressive nature of the rest of our experience in town, and I don't see our group having a return visit there.

 

 

This is actually a shot of the back of Margaritaville from our stateroom deck.

 

 

Swimming area at Margaritaville

[CJDepew]

Our next stop was Grand Cayman. It was fantastic, and a place I'd love to spend more time in.

 

The tender process was very efficient and orderly. There were some shops at the port, but we were mostly concerned with finding our tour guide for the day. We booked the distillery/brewery/beach tour through Viator and the local guide was Leo from Clark's Tours. I'd highly recommend him. He was very prompt, professional and entertaining.

 

Our first stop was Cayman Distillery, where we sample all the rum we could drink and took a tour of the operation. Moses was our host and we spent a very enjoyable hour with him.

 

Moses setting us up at the bar

 

 

 

Next stop was the Tortuga Rum shop for some rum cake. That stuff is yummy!

On to the only brewery on the island. Free samples and a tour of the operation, which was obliterated by Hurricane Ivan and rebuilt.

 

And finally to 7 Mile Beach via the Royal Palms resort. We had less than an hour there, which was really disappointing, but we chose the tour. The sand is powder soft. One day we will return there.

We finished up that day by doing some shopping in town, near the port. There's something for everyone there, from jewelry to Harley Davidson apparel.

[CJDepew]

On to Cozumel. I'll probably break this one down into multiple posts because of photos. Getting off the ship at the port was very orderly and easy. A quick walk through customs had us in the shopping area at the port. Another place there is something for everyone, from jewelry to, um, well, er, boner pills.

 

 

Customs and duty free:

 

Near the entrance to the shops:

From here we took a taxi to Mr. Sancho's Beach Club. The nice thing about taxi rides here is that it's a flat fee divided by the number of passengers in the van. Our cost was $25 for our group of five. Mr. Sancho's gets it's own post, which will be next.

[CJDepew]

Mr. Sancho's Beach Club. There's a reason they call it the best day ever. Reservations are strongly recommended and they can be easily made online for $5/person. All inclusive is $55/adult and well worth the price. The food is delicious, the drinks tasty and generous. Edwin was our waiter for the day and provided excellent service. We had a table for 16 under some shade right on the beach.

 

 

This is my crazy husband getting a temporary tattoo. The wait staff kept saying he looked like Brock Lesnar (+15 years and more than that amount of pounds) so he got Brock's tattoo.

 

That's me with the green drink, which made me smile all day long. I think it was called a Green Monster. It was very delicious. That purple stuff? That's their "special Long Island Iced Tea". That stuff will peel the paint right off a wall, but there was plenty of food being served to soak it all up. My friend next to me? He's always smiling!

 

 

The Terrible Towel had to come along with us. The husband loves his Steelers. These musicians strolled the beach, performing for each table.

 

There are shops at Sancho's as well, and haggling is all part of the experience. The items they carry are varied and very nice.

 

And finally, the walk back to the Conquest along the pier. We met up with some of our group there, who had left Mr. Sancho's a bit earlier than we did. From the sound of things you can get a great deal on some fine jewelry in those shops by the pier.

 

[parttimr]

Following

[vabeachlady]

Excellent and fair review so far. I was on this cruise with you as well, and with 11 Carnival cruises under my belt, I can say with some authority that the food on this cruise was not up to the standard that I have found on other Carnival cruises. :o

 

:eek::confused:Though you didn't touch on it, I am still perplexed as to why we switched from Daylight Savings Time back to standard time one day after we got onboard. A number of people missed excursions because of wrong times printed on tickets (the tickets were printed prior to the time switch onboard!).:confused::confused:

 

Interested in hearing more of your impressions!:cool:

[dna529]

What was the mechanical issue and did you have any more problems? We are sailing on Sunday.

[CJDepew]

vabeachlady...I'll be ending my review with some general observations, and some of what you've mentioned will be included.

 

dna529...they never said what it was that was keeping us from optimum cruising speed but it was repaired while we were in port in Jamaica and no further problems were encountered.

[bakersdozen12]

Though you didn't touch on it, I am still perplexed as to why we switched from Daylight Savings Time back to standard time one day after we got onboard. A number of people missed excursions because of wrong times printed on tickets (the tickets were printed prior to the time switch onboard!).

 

We had a similar experience with Daylight Savings Time this past fall on the Dream. They decided to set the clocks back a day early, but there was little communication to that effect. No announcements, just a tiny little line printed in the Funtimes for the next day. Which wouldn't help my husband and I because we were always too tired to read the Funtimes at night. So we ended up showing up to our Behind the Fun tour an hour early. Not as bad as being an hour late, of course, but an inconvenience nonetheless.

 

 

Anyway, CJDepew: thank you for taking the time to write this review! I'll be on the Conquest in July, so I appreciate it. Also, the more pictures, the better! :)

Edited March 25, 2016 by bakersdozen12

[CJDepew]

Our last day at sea was fairly uneventful. The spring break crowd was still partying hard and leaving a mess everywhere they went. Our group still had fun, in spite of the shenanigans. Included in the group were three USA Today and NYT bestselling romance authors and they used their time wisely. One of them took the "behind the scenes" ship tour and as a result of that, and their on-board experiences, they will be writing books with a cruise ship theme, due for release in July.

 

Debarkation was a snap with self service. We were out of the parking garage by 8:15 am.

 

Some observations and then my last few photos...

 

I've seen complaints that the Conquest is shabby and the a/c is lacking. I didn't experience any of that. Our balcony stateroom on deck 6 was pleasantly cool, and the ship appeared to be in very good condition.

 

The comedy shows by Cee Jay Jones were downright hilarious. Don't miss him if you've got the chance to attend one of his shows.

 

We had some strange time zone changes with EST and EDST and I have no idea why it happened but it was pretty darn confusing. We were never given any explanation.

 

As you can see by my signature, I've only been on two cruises. But I have to say the RCCL service was delivered with a smile and much more promptly than experienced on the Carnival ship. There was a significant difference in food quality as well, with Carnival coming out on the bottom.

 

While many seem to like him, I was not a fan of cruise director Josh. His commentary seemed more caustic than good-natured ribbing to me and I didn't enjoy it.

 

Most likely we won't return to Carnival again, but that doesn't mean we didn't enjoy our vacation with a group really wonderful folks. If you have any questions I'd be happy to answer what I can.

 

 

 

 

Our group plus the awesome crew member who was in charge of keeping the smoking side of Deck 10 clean. If he needed someone to move he'd go to the railing and point and holler "dolphin" or "shark" and people would run over to look, leaving him free to tidy up the area.

 

[CJDepew]

We had a similar experience with Daylight Savings Time this past fall on the Dream. They decided to set the clocks back a day early, but there was little communication to that effect. No announcements, just a tiny little line printed in the Funtimes for the next day. Which wouldn't help my husband and I because we were always too tired to read the Funtimes at night. So we ended up showing up to our Behind the Fun tour an hour early. Not as bad as being an hour late, of course, but an inconvenience nonetheless.

 

 

Anyway, CJDepew: thank you for taking the time to write this review! I'll be on the Conquest in July, so I appreciate it. Also, the more pictures, the better! :)

 

It looks like I have a few more ship photos at home that need to be uploaded to shutterfly in order to share. I'll try to get to that this weekend, but will for sure by next week.

[golfb4cruzing]

Mr. Sancho's Beach Club. There's a reason they call it the best day ever. Reservations are strongly recommended and they can be easily made online for $5/person. All inclusive is $55/adult and well worth the price. The food is delicious, the drinks tasty and generous. Edwin was our waiter for the day and provided excellent service. We had a table for 16 under some shade right on the beach.

 

 

This is my crazy husband getting a temporary tattoo. The wait staff kept saying he looked like Brock Lesnar (+15 years and more than that amount of pounds) so he got Brock's tattoo.

 

That's me with the green drink, which made me smile all day long. I think it was called a Green Monster. It was very delicious. That purple stuff? That's their "special Long Island Iced Tea". That stuff will peel the paint right off a wall, but there was plenty of food being served to soak it all up. My friend next to me? He's always smiling!

 

 

The Terrible Towel had to come along with us. The husband loves his Steelers. These musicians strolled the beach, performing for each table.

 

There are shops at Sancho's as well, and haggling is all part of the experience. The items they carry are varied and very nice.

 

And finally, the walk back to the Conquest along the pier. We met up with some of our group there, who had left Mr. Sancho's a bit earlier than we did. From the sound of things you can get a great deal on some fine jewelry in those shops by the pier.

 

 

We spent some time in the port area (and some $$$) but the shops will definitely negotiate. If you know your jewelry, some nice quality items are there.