MITSUGIRLY lets the BREEZE flow through her hair-Spring Break Review/Pictorial

[mitsugirly]

Great review as usual, I am finally all caught up! I have been to those ports so it's nice to see them again through your pictures. We were in Grand Turk and San Juan just this past January. I agree with you about the water in Grand Turk, it was absolutely beautiful!

 

I take my niece on a cruise every year for year for Spring Break, next year we are doing the Vista, and really looking forward to it. Your pictures of the Breeze are having me consider it for 2018!:D Nice looking ship for sure.

 

The water here in Grand Turk is just absolutely gorgeous! I just couldn't get over it...especially at Governors Beach.

 

Definitely consider the Breeze. She's a nice ship.

 

Great review mitsugirly! The Breeze was on my list of ships to sail, but with her moving to Galveston - I don't know if that will happen any time soon. We are sailing the Magic later this year though. :)

 

were there not lat night buffet options? It seems like the last few cruises I have been on (all Carnival), they have been setting up a late night buffet...somtimes themed, sometimes not. Maybe this isn't a thing any more?

 

Yea, she's been on my list for awhile and I was so happy when I found her sailing out of Miami. Magic is probably the next one on my list out of the fleet (unless I find a real cheap one somewhere that I just can't resist). :D

 

No late night buffets that I could find. The latest thing open was the deli and that closes at 11pm. (Other than the pizza of course). I just looked on my Funtimes and they do not show any late night buffets. So, I guess I didn't just happen to miss them. :(

[mitsugirly]

Thanks for the info, sounds like a plan. :)

 

 

 

 

Such bittersweet timing, and what a special cruise memory. I hope you get to return one day.

 

 

(The rainbow in my sig. is in honor of my brother. We had always talked about taking a cruise together, but his health was never good enough. This rainbow was on the last day of a cruise and was so amazing that just about everyone on the ship stopped what they were doing just to look at it. I told my son that it was a promise from God. When I returned from my cruise, there was a message on my phone from my brother sent at the same time as when the rainbow appeared. He told me that he just received a phone call that there was a kidney & pancreas waiting for him.)

 

Aww, what a beautiful story about the rainbow. :)

 

Love it! :)

 

 

Notice the very small whale tail on it? She insisted that it have one and anything bigger than that hanging over came crashing down and would not hold together (even with a little water). She was very proud of it.

[mitsugirly]

Well I have had no luck trying to find a video editor for my videos for this stupid Windows 10. So, I'm having to resort to going back to my old computer and use Windows Movie Maker on it to put some videos together in to one video. I EVEN PUT SOUND TO THIS VIDEO. LOL I have never tried that before. I'm such an amateur so don't laugh.

 

It's uploading now and then I'll continue with my review. :)

[mitsugirly]

I was able to get my video to upload. When I view it on my computer, it's clear as day. However, when I'm looking at the video on my Smugmug, you can see the pixels and it's blurry to me. I'm not sure what's going on or why it uploaded that way. Let me know if everyone else is having the same issue.

 

 

Sakari was off making her own videos (she is probably the one that ran both of my camera's dead because she had them for quiet some time in the water and I ended up with an abundance amount of videos she took on the card) and daddy was enjoying his drink...now in the water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The hubs was saying that he felt some pain under his arm and wanted his nurse to check it out. I found this...

 

 

He ended up with several welts that day and no clue where they came from. He didn't get in the water in the ocean and hadn't got in the water in the pool until just prior to this and he didn't even go under. He said he didn't feel anything sting him and the weird thing was he had a few of them on his back as well.

 

 

[My6Dogs]

Download the version for windows 8 from here - http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/get-movie-maker-download

It works on windows 10 as well.

 

You can un-check all the stuff besides movie maker, unless you want it!

 

Also, I'm really enjoying your review!

 

Mike

Edited April 21, 2016 by My6Dogs

[mitsugirly]

Does anyone know how to get the videos to play within the review? Where you just click them and they play on here? I have yet to figure it out and the only way I can seem to get it to show up is by using the BBCODE within Smugmug. Ugh. :(

[Luke Saint Joe]

Kim, the underwater video is great and Sakari is AWESOME!!! What strength that little girl has!!!

[mitsugirly]

The gate you can not enter from the street.

 

 

 

 

The sun was going down and most people were heading home.

 

 

 

 

Although pretty, it wasn't my idea of watching the sunset go down. I guess I was in the wrong part of the island.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was time to leave and I figured I would go in and settle up on my bill. We had a good day, it just wasn't "the best" day. Nothing to really complain about, but nothing to really brag about either. The staff was awesome and very attentive to our needs. The servers were great, food ok, beach ok, pool great. Would I recommend this place? Sure. Would I go back? Probably not. I don't repeat places unless it's just one of those places that I was blown away by. But I wouldn't hesitate to tell someone to go there for a lovely day.

 

We paid $45 per adult (which included the 12 drinks and 2 lunches plus 2 chairs for us and an umbrella) and Sakari was $15 (which included a chair, sand toys, lunch and 6 drinks). So for $105 for the 3 of us and we didn't have to spend any money, I think it was a good deal and well worth it.

 

We booked online using Island Marketing (referred to us on here) and put down a $25 deposit when booking. Now there was a lot of talk about this 15% gratuity being added to your bill. People were a little unsure if this is if you get anything additional that you have to pay for or if it was just in general. There were people that didn't think any gratuity should be added and they wanted to tip on their own to who they thought should get a tip. Others said they didn't have the gratuity added. It was a mixed ball of emotions about this. So...when I went to go settle the bill, they ASK me if it was ok to add a 15% gratuity onto the bill. I had excellent service that day and they really worked their butts off for us, so of course it was more than ok for me. I rounded off the amount and gave them an even $100, which gave them a little more than the 15% in the end.

 

I ask them if they got a lot of cruise ship passengers here and he said they did. (The lady at the pool earlier, that was staying there, said they didn't realize cruise ship passengers even knew about the place...they come here by cruise ship too at times but only know of the place because her hubby had discovered it during a business meeting and they land vacation here all the time now). I ask if he had heard about cruise critic and he said he had. We are popular there. I didn't dare ask him if he knew who Mitsugirly was because I'm pretty sure that would be pressing my luck. I couldn't take being crushed at that point.

 

 

I ask him to call me a cab at 6:22pm. I barely had enough time to use the restroom one last time and get outside to gulp down my last drink and grab my bags before the cab arrived. He was there within 5 minutes. No lie, I know the times on everything we do...I take a picture of my watch every time and of course there's date stamps on every picture...which we all know is being snapped at least every 5 minutes when it's in my hand.

 

 

I yelled in at the staff and thanked them again for the great service and off we went in the cab back to the port...this time with a cab driver who knew his way around.

[mitsugirly]

It only took us around 15 minutes to get back to the ship.

 

We headed to the room for showers and then took the munchkin to the kids club for what little time she had left before it would be time to pick her up again.

 

We headed to the casino, only to remember that we were still in port and they were not on. There were plenty of people waiting at their favorite slot machine and guarding it as if their lives depended on it.

 

We headed up to the pool deck to take some pictures of San Juan at night before we headed out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Silhouette was docked beside us.

 

 

 

It looked interesting...but where are the slides? Where is the putt putt? Where is the sports deck with the ropes course?

 

 

 

Then we started pulling out. Good bye San Juan. Thanks for a good day and no rain.

 

[mitsugirly]

Airport

 

 

 

 

 

 

We headed to the casino and played a quick $20 each and decided there just wasn't enough time to really get into playing so we headed to Pixels again to see if we could find any of our pictures from yesterday or today. We were in luck and managed to find them all with the help from the staff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

We picked up Sakari from the kids club and tried to convince her that it would be so much fun if she was to stay longer and play with her friends. She wasn't having it and wanted to leave. Sigh. It's really weird getting back on the ship late from a port and not having much time to do anything without the little one in tow.

 

{She wasn't happy going to the kids club on the Jade the month prior and said she was just tired of the same old things and party's they did. I knew that Carnival would not be having the same things that she was use to and figured she'd have a lot more fun this time. However, even when not at the kids club, she really wasn't into doing much. This morning they had the Seuss-A-Palooza Parade & story time. She loved that on the Pride and got all dressed up in her Dr Seuss Thing 1 outfit and hair and participated in the parade and loved the story time. Not this time...she refused. I don't know how many times I threatened her on this cruise to not take her on another cruise after this one. Seriously. She was a party pooper and only wanted to hang out with us.}

 

I guess it was time to eat dinner then. We hadn't ate since our lunch at Pamela's and we were getting pretty hungry and cranky. But wait...nothing was open again. I was starting to get frustrated at this point. We settled on hot dogs, tuna fish and ham and cheese sandwiches from the deli. Not really my kind of dinner and more like a snack.

 

 

 

We went out to the lido and everything was lit up red. It was the Red Frog Caribbean beach party I guess and we watched for awhile, but not many people were on the dance floor dancing. Sakari started getting whiny and wanted to go back to the room. We kept telling her she could have stayed with her friends and had a fun time, but she decided she wanted to hang out with us and this is what we were doing so she'd have to deal with it. She pouted, she whimpered, she was unbearable at this point and we gave in and went back to the room since not much was going on anyhow. (I would later see videos of the huge crowd that must have showed up after we left).

 

She got a little happy when we announced we were going to the room.

 

 

 

This was the towel animal of the night.

 

 

 

Sakari immediately went to drawing and I immediately headed for the bathroom x3 today. I was a little nervous about this new development since the month before consisted of noro and not being able to get off the potty for a week. I was holding my breath with this one and trying to convince myself that it was just all the food I was eating...even though I felt like I wasn't eating as much as I normally do on a cruise, especially with no formal "dinner".

 

We headed to bed without setting the alarm because we knew that we didn't have to be up too early the following day (St Kitts) and I knew my automatic alarm clock from upstairs would have me up anyhow.

 

 

 

 

[keeponcruising]

Another great review! I just love the mermaid video in the pool. What a wonderful way to remember the day. I am sure that will be something you will always look back at.

[cmptrwiz]

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

[Bluemoon319]

I was able to get my video to upload. When I view it on my computer, it's clear as day. However, when I'm looking at the video on my Smugmug, you can see the pixels and it's blurry to me. I'm not sure what's going on or why it uploaded that way. Let me know if everyone else is having the same issue.

 

 

 

 

I absolutely looove this video!!!

 

(It looked only very slightly and only intermittently pixelated at the very beginning, but that's all. And that might have just been because it was just downloading. Otherwise it was absolutely fine. :) )

[mitsugirly]

Another great review! I just love the mermaid video in the pool. What a wonderful way to remember the day. I am sure that will be something you will always look back at.

 

I just showed her the video for the first time and she loved it too. :D

 

I absolutely looove this video!!!

 

(It looked only very slightly and only intermittently pixelated at the very beginning, but that's all. And that might have just been because it was just downloading. Otherwise it was absolutely fine. :) )

 

Hmm, weird because mine becomes pixelated about midway. I wonder why.

[mitsugirly]

Kim, the underwater video is great and Sakari is AWESOME!!! What strength that little girl has!!!

 

Thanks so much. She loves swimming like a Mermaid. She's been practicing for years prior to getting her mermaid tail and had it perfected by then. :p

 

Download the version for windows 8 from here - http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/get-movie-maker-download

It works on windows 10 as well.

 

You can un-check all the stuff besides movie maker, unless you want it!

 

Also, I'm really enjoying your review!

 

Mike

 

 

Tried that several times. It will not install. I get an error message every time saying "Another Program is preventing Windows Essentials from installing. Wait for the other program to install, then try installing again" There's nothing else installing and it's been saying this for days. :cool: I don't know what to do. :(

[mistyinca]

Sakari is adorable! She really rocks that mermaid tail. How does she do that?!

[retiredgram]

Loved the "mermaid under the sea" video. Great review and pictures.

[perfect match]

 

 

 

 

I LOVE this picture!

 

Sure wish I'd been with you at the beach that day. I would have been right out there in the water with Sakari Probably teaching her to body surf. You would probably think I was being a bad influence. :eek: :D Sorry, Sakari and I are kindred spirits when it comes to being in the water. I would have made sure she stayed safe. Mermaids have to stay safe in the water. :cool:

 

I do think you made a great move, though, by going to the pool after lunch. Sakari had fun morphing into a mermaid, and you got some awesome pictures. The mermaid video looked fine to me.

 

I really hope I'm not about to hear more stories about you being sick, especially after what happened to you on your Jade cruise.

[skidawg79]

love your reviews, did my first one 2 years ago on the Valor. We did the southern out of San Juan. San Juan is an awesome place (in my opinion), but you are right as to the brown sand. Check out the pre cruise pictures on my review, can see the same sand and that was in the Condado area. We had a beautiful day, and thoroughly enjoyed the beach, but the pool area where we stayed was amazing.

 

thanks again for your review, I'm looking forward to reading the rest! Also, if you ever get to San Juan again, go have a pina Colada at Barrachina's...best one I ever had ;-)

[TheTravelista]

You're one of my favorite reviewers on CC! NCL, CCL, doesn't matter. I read them all! Sakari is an absolute doll. That Little Mermaid video made my week!!

 

So back to 10pm and picking up Sakari. We are "late night" people and we eat dinner late at home (we just finished eating at 10:30pm tonight). I will say that Carnival has the most messed up times to eat that I have ever come across. With NCL, there's ALWAYS some place to eat. Whether it be the 24/7 Blue Lagoon/O'Sheehans (and we are talking all kinds of food, not just 1 item) and the buffet stays open most of the time with usually only 1/2 hour or so between meals that it's closed. (Or at least that's what it seems like, but I'd have to pull out some daily's to check). But we have never had a problem finding food on NCL at any given time.

 

With Carnival, they would close their buffet down at 9:30pm I believe. So, picking up your child from the kids club at 10pm, there's never anything to eat except PIZZA PIZZA PIZZA or going to the deli, and quite honestly there's not much there that I enjoy and definitely not anything Sakari likes. It made for quite a challenge this cruise and our schedules just never seemed to line up at the right time for dinner.

 

I've been saying that there are serious issues with food availability for a while now. Its a real problem. The 24 hour pizza is great in theory, but there needs to be more. The lines are always unbearable because its the only option so obviously theres a demand for late night food. NCL has O'Sheehan's, RCI has The Park Cafe/Cafe Promenade and Carnival has...? There absolutely needs to be a 24 hour diner/cafe style restaurant in addition to the pizza. Buffets need to be open at least an hour later during dinner hours, and during port days, the buffets should be open up until an hour after the ship has left the dock. Coming back from an excursion to little to no variety of food is so annoying.

 

Its funny because John Heald brings this topic up quite often on his FB page (more late night food options, Guys and/or Blue Iguana being open later, a mini breakfast buffet in the early am hours) and his...followers constantly tell him we don't need more food, there's more than enough food on the ship. It pains me every time.

 

The drink options are ridiculous as well. There used to be fruit punch back in the day but it was taken away with some stupid excuse about staining carpets. They could at least add Vitality's new flavored waters.

 

I'll probably make a separate thread about this lol, but yes I definitely feel your pain.

[FMZ]

Hi,

 

First time posting to one of your reviews although I've read a bunch of them. Thanks for taking the time!! I have a little girl that would LOVE a mermaid tail. Can you recommend where to get one?

 

(Full dusclose I couldn't decide if I wanted to get her one And she peeked over my shoulder while I was reading your review and saw Sakari in her tail and started asking 5000 questions about is she real? How? Can I have one?) lol

 

Thank you again!!!

[crewsweeper]

 

 

I've been saying that there are serious issues with food availability for a while now. Its a real problem. The 24 hour pizza is great in theory, but there needs to be more. The lines are always unbearable because its the only option so obviously theres a demand for late night food. NCL has O'Sheehan's, RCI has The Park Cafe/Cafe Promenade and Carnival has...? There absolutely needs to be a 24 hour diner/cafe style restaurant in addition to the pizza. Buffets need to be open at least an hour later during dinner hours, and during port days, the buffets should be open up until an hour after the ship has left the dock. Coming back from an excursion to little to no variety of food is so annoying.

 

Its funny because John Heald brings this topic up quite often on his FB page (more late night food options, Guys and/or Blue Iguana being open later, a mini breakfast buffet in the early am hours) and his...followers constantly tell him we don't need more food, there's more than enough food on the ship. It pains me every time.

 

The drink options are ridiculous as well. There used to be fruit punch back in the day but it was taken away with some stupid excuse about staining carpets. They could at least add Vitality's new flavored waters.

 

I'll probably make a separate thread about this lol, but yes I definitely feel your pain.

 

Not to hijack Kim's review, but I couldn't agree with you more. Not a late night eater, but certainly think that option should be available in more than one or two venues. Also food availability on port days especially around sailaway time should be a priority. I think the "Heald"-galites, are always pooh-pooh-ing changes. He needs to pay attention to what the majority of Carnival's cruisers have to say, not the few vocal ones. :mad: Nice idea on starting a thread on the issue...go for it:)

 

Now back to our regularly scheduled mermaid review:D:cool:

Edited April 22, 2016 by crewsweeper

[CAC104]

Thank you for taking the time to write such great reviews of your cruises.:)

[mitsugirly]

Sakari is adorable! She really rocks that mermaid tail. How does she do that?!

 

Thanks and lots of practice prior to getting her mermaid tail. :p

 

Loved the "mermaid under the sea" video. Great review and pictures.

 

Thank you.