Review: Conquest 4th of July & Carnival Live w/ Trace Adkins B2B

[wcrcruiser]

If you don't mind sharing, how much was the cabana at Margaritaville?

[willdra]

Great review! Love love love Cruise Bear!! ❤️❤️❤️

 

 

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[SenatorsFan]

That is a wonderful picture of Topher leaping up in the air! :) I'm enjoying your review.

Heather

[bakersdozen12]

If you don't mind sharing, how much was the cabana at Margaritaville?

 

 

It was $134.99, but I was able to get 20% off for booking it as part of a bundle of three excursions within 48 hours of booking the cruise.

 

 

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[calliejo12]

I love your review! My cousin was on her honeymoon on your last leg.

 

 

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[JaniceB]

Thanks for doing a review, I am loving your pictures. Can't wait to read about the concert and what you thought. I love HMC and Grand Turk, too.

[crusinpsychRN]

The food at Jack's looked really good. Hard to decide. How much is expensive?

[bakersdozen12]

I love your review! My cousin was on her honeymoon on your last leg.

 

 

By any chance, does her husband own a bakery? We met a very lovely couple on their honeymoon one night. I know he owns a bakery and I thought she worked in Accounting. Just wondering if it was them.

 

Thanks for doing a review, I am loving your pictures. Can't wait to read about the concert and what you thought. I love HMC and Grand Turk, too.

 

 

I'm going to try to finish it either tonight or tomorrow. It's been a little rough getting back to reality with work since I work in Finance and it's year-end for us right now. And playing the roll of nurse to my husband, who is still recovery from his surgery, is making me exhausted.

 

The food at Jack's looked really good. Hard to decide. How much is expensive?

 

 

I can't remember the actual price, but it was between $30-$40 for my chicken, my husband's fish, an order of fries, a soda and a nonalcoholic pina colada. I just remember thinking that we could have saved a lot by just walking back to the ship to have lunch. But that would have required me to have to have gotten my S&S card back from the people at Margaritaville just to get back on the ship, and I didn't feel like going through the hassle.

 

 

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[calliejo12]

No but she had blonde and purple hair, pretty easy to spot :)

 

 

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[jimbri]

Enjoying your review. Love the photo of Topher jumping! I'm from the Bronx too but love the water - just got back from swimming in Lake Winnipesaukee NH!!! - how's that for coincidence? :)

[bakersdozen12]

Time for me to finish this review! I'm so sorry that I have been MIA for the past two weeks. As I mentioned earlier, my husband was injured on the second leg of the B2B and had surgery when we got home, so I have been quite busy taking care of him, and was sick last weekend on top of it.

 

Anyway, on to the last couple parts of this review...

 

Carnival LIVE w/ Trace Adkins

 

The concert was scheduled in Nassau, and this would be the only port that was repeated on this B2B. I purposely didn't schedule an excursion this day so that we could sleep in, kind of making it another sea day. I love sea days because they are a great way to get R&R.

 

After a nice leisurely breakfast/lunch, we ventured out to do some shopping in Nassau. The nice thing about having a Carnival LIVE concert scheduled on your cruise is that you are in port really late. Since we were not scheduled to leave until 10 pm, we didn't have to worry about missing the ship, so we were able to shop without any worry.

 

Later that evening, we got dressed and showed up to Henri's Nightclub, as instructed on our VIP tickets. Here, we waited in line for our turn to get our pictures taken with Trace.

 

 

 

I love country music, and I'm a big fan of Trace. And to all of the ladies out there: what a good looking guy he is in person! Seriously, he has a killer smile. :D

 

In researching whether it's worth buying the VIP tickets vs general admission ones, I did read that you really get no time with the singer, and that was definitely the case. First of all, we all had to use hand sanitizer before even approaching him. I'm not sure if this was just a requirement of Trace's, or if they always do this. But when it's your turn you only have time to basically shake his hand and get your picture taken. Then it's on to the next person.

 

 

You don't have time to get an autograph, but they did give everyone an autograph picture of Trace. Which was a nice surprise because I didn't know that this was included with the VIP tickets. Unfortunately this picture would be partially to blame for my husband's injury, but more on that later.

 

Once we were done in Henri's, I noticed that not everyone was heading directly to the theater, giving us the opportunity to be one of the first in line, so we headed straight there. There were probably only about a dozen or so people ahead of us in line, so I knew we would get a good seat. With the VIP tickets, you get to sit in the first 5 or 6 rows, but it's still first come, first serve.

 

While waiting in line, my husband decided that he wanted to go back to the room to bring the autographed pictures. Now, I told him not to worry about it because they were going to start letting us in soon, and our room was at the very back of this ship so it's not a short walk, but he swore he would have time. Lesson to men everywhere: listen to your wife!

 

They started letting us in, and he still hadn't returned. I had no idea where he was, so I had to just go in without him. The first two rows were chairs that were set up in front of the normal seats in the theater. I decided to pass on sitting in those seats because I wanted a table for the drink that I had ordered while waiting in line (they had waiters come to take orders during the wait, which was nice). So I was technically in the third row.

 

[bakersdozen12]

Carnival LIVE w/ Trace Adkins (and the injury) cont'd

 

My husband eventually ended up making it into the theater before the actual concert started, but he had to be brought in via a wheelchair by Carnival staff. Apparently in his haste to get back to the theater quickly (to prove me wrong) he fell down the forward stairs and injured his knee.

 

Now, had we known the extent of the injury, we wouldn't have even stayed for the concert. But the ship's doctor told him it was just a sprain. In reality, he tore his quad tendon completely off his knee and ended up having to have surgery to repair it a few days after we returned home from the cruise.

 

But, we did stay and we both thoroughly enjoyed the concert. Trace really puts on a good concert, and I was so close to the stage I was able to get some great pictures.

 

 

Now, during these concerts, you are told no flash photography, videos or "professional" cameras. I would love to know exactly what they mean by the latter. I had my camera with my nice zoom lens with me, but only noticed one other person with the same. Everyone else was using their cell phones. So, I felt like I was doing something I wasn't supposed to do every time I took a picture, but, at the same time, no one said anything to me. So I have no idea.

 

I think this is probably my favorite picture I got of him because it really shows his great smile!

 

 

In conclusion, while the VIP experience was good, I don't think that I would spend the $150 vs $30 again for VIP tickets. I'm just not sure if it added that much to the night. I think we would have had just as much fun with general admission tickets. And, perhaps my hubby wouldn't have gotten injured! But you can't change the past, so we just have to accept that this happened and move on.

 

On a related note, we never were charged for any of the care he received from the ship's doctor (which was minimal anyway, in my opinion, since they never even gave him an ace bandage for his "sprain"), but I did take a picture of the sign with the prices they do charge. I thought that some readers on this board might be interested to see what they do normally charge.

 

[bakersdozen12]

Freeport

 

The next day was our last port of this cruise, Freeport. My husband and I had tickets for a Carnival excursion called Freeport Kayak and Nature Experience. Since my husband had been injured the day before, I figured him staying on the ship would be the better option. We were scheduled to meet in the theater at 8 am, the same time that the Shore Excursions desk opened. Since I had no idea if they would refund us for my ticket (I figured his wouldn't be a problem), I planned to just go alone while he got the money back for his ticket.

 

But apparently he had different plans and ended up going back to the ship's doctor to see if it would be ok to go on the excursion. Since the doctor was still insisting it was just a sprain, he was cleared, and much to my surprise, he ended up joining me in the theater ready for the excursion, albeit with a can to walk with.

 

The travel time to the mangrove forest where we would be kayaking was minimal. Maybe 30 minutes. Our tour guide's name was Lamont, and he was fantastic. Very knowledgeable, and patient. Not to mention very helpful to my husband the entire day, since he did have difficulty getting around with his cane and hurt knee.

 

Here's a picture of Lamont setting up the kayaks for us:

 

 

Neither my husband nor I had ever kayaked before, but that was not a problem at all with this excursion. The water is very calm. Rather than showing us what to do before getting in the kayak, Lamont had us get in and practice in an open area of water. There's not too much to it anyway, it's mostly about teamwork and trying to make sure that you are paddling in sync with one another.

 

In the beginning of our journey the area was pretty wide and easy to navigate through.

 

 

But as we continued on, it narrowed a lot. The mangrove trees were beautiful, but I'm not going to lie, they were difficult to navigate through. I think that it's probably impossible to make it all the way through without crashing into the trees. A lot of the time we were simply using the trees to push off of rather than paddling. But it was so much fun.

 

 

The only part that was ever difficult was at the end, when you end up at the ocean. The current at that point is working against you, so you have to have good upper body strength. Which neither my husband nor I have. But we made it. The beach we ended up at is called Grand Lucayan beach and it's just gorgeous!

 

[bakersdozen12]

Freeport cont'd

 

This excursion allows for plenty of time to go swimming at the beach, which is a nice plus in my opinion. Before swimming, they provided us with a decent lunch of make-your-own turkey or ham sandwiches, apples, cookies, lemonade and ice tea.

 

 

If you read reviews about this excursion, you might read about the raccoons that some people had a lot of fun feeding. Unfortunately we were told by Lamont that they are no longer allowed to let the tourists feed the raccoons. This is because while the tour guides always instructed everyone to never try to touch the raccoons while doing so, someone didn't listen, did it anyway, and got bit in the process. Long story short, that person tried to make it seem like it was the tour guides fault he got bit, so Carnival told the tour company that they would drop them if they found out that people were still feeding the raccoons. So we couldn't.

 

Poor little guys, through. They obviously have no idea why they can no longer get a free lunch!

 

 

After lunch I couldn't get in the water fast enough because my favorite thing to do on cruises is to go swimming in crystal clear blue water!

 

 

This beach is very secluded. I don't know too much about it, but it seemed like it was only used by a few tours that included it in it's agenda. It doesn't seem to be a beach that people from the cruise ships flock to on their own. Here's a picture that I took looking at the beach from the water. As you can see, not very crowded at all.

 

[bakersdozen12]

Freeport cont'd

 

On the way back to the bus that would take us back to the cruise ship, Lamont taught the group a lot about the mangrove forest. Since my husband was walking very slowly with his cane, he didn't want to hold up the group so we elected to walk ahead of everyone, thus missing being able to hear the nature part of this tour. But, the scenery was beautiful.

 

 

 

 

There were a ton of fish in the water, but I can't recall what they were called.

 

 

All in all, this was a fantastic excursion, and I would do it again in a heartbeat, and would recommend it to anyone. Actually, now that I have done it, every time I hear someone say that they won't even get off of the ship in Freeport, I can't help but think about what they are missing out. Freeport is actually a beautiful island. It's not a developed as other ports, but Lamont explained to us that Freeport simply doesn't want to become a huge tourist-type island. Which is why it doesn't have resorts and the like. But, I can't help but think that it's a good thing. If you venture out through an excursion such as this one, you get to see the natural beauty of this island.

 

Lamont continued to teach us about the island on the way back to the ship.

 

 

At this point we only had one sea day left before having to fly home, and I was getting a tad worried as to how it would be for my husband to manage getting through the airport. Carnival was letting him use a cane, but I had no idea if they would let him take it home. We had mentioned this to Lamont, so he pointed us in the direction of a wood carver that sold canes. Not a souvenir we would normally get, but one that came in handy for the travel home.

[bakersdozen12]

Debarkation Day

 

A little tip for anyone with FTTF doing a B2B: we had only purchased FTTF for the first leg of this trip, since there was no need for it on the second (no tender ports). The only thing that bugged me was that technically the FTTF that I paid for with the first leg was that it comes with priority debarkation, which we wouldn't get the benefit of. So the night before the first cruise ended, I went to Guest Services and asked them if I could get our priority debarkation luggage tags so that I could use them when we actually disembarked after the second cruise. He happily obliged and gave us zone 2 tags. Which was great because we would have been in zone 20-something.

 

At this point my husband was able to walk, but not down ramps. So we decided to ask for assisted debarkation so that he could be wheeled down the ramp in a wheelchair. The process ended up being very quick, and he was wheeled all the way to where there were porters available to help us retrieve our bags. And for some reason, once we had our bags, the porter was able to get us into a line that bypassed all of the other people waiting to go through customs. I'm not sure if this is part of the assisted debarkation or what, but I don't feel guilty at all about it given that standing for long periods was not something that was good for him anyway.

 

Our flight home wasn't until after 4, so I had arranged to rent a car so we could spend some time sightseeing, and so we would have a place to put our luggage while doing so. Port Everglades has shuttles that run from the port right to the rental agencies, so the process was very easy.

 

All in all, aside from my husband's injury, this was a great cruise! Our next one is just a few months away, and right now we are keeping our fingers crossed that he'll be done with physical therapy before then. And while I still can't help but wonder why the ship's doctor was so wrong about the severity of what happened to my husband's knee, I can say that the entire staff was tremendously helpful to us in every other way. They really did a fantastic job making him feel comfortable and cared for. This experience hasn't caused me to feel any differently towards Carnival, and I am looking forward to many more cruises with them!

 

And, once last photo to share. For this cruise, I decided to keep all of the towel animals so that we could get a parting group shot. Somehow, I think Cruise Bear misses his nightly towel animals as much as I do. ;-)

 

Edited August 7, 2016 by bakersdozen12

[cruisingbajan]

Enjoyed your review and photos. Thanks for sharing:).

[karen&roy]

LOVED your review! That expensive cable you got had me cracking up! We too rented a Cabana in Grand Turk but really want to explore the ocean. How far is it to the beach from your Cabana? Thanks in Advance! :D:D

[bakersdozen12]

LOVED your review! That expensive cable you got had me cracking up! We too rented a Cabana in Grand Turk but really want to explore the ocean. How far is it to the beach from your Cabana? Thanks in Advance! :D:D

 

 

The funny thing is that my husband is an IT guy, and he should have known right away that the cable wouldn't work with my camera. Oh well, lesson learned. It's the thought that counts!

 

The cabanas at HMC are extremely close to the beach that's right next to the dock. I want to say maybe 100 or 200 feet from the beach. The only thing about that is in my opinion, the swimming is better if you venture up the beach, away from the dock. Less crowded and no seaweed or rocks.

 

Here's a picture of the beach next to the dock, and the pool and the cabanas are literally right behind those palm trees.

 

Edited August 8, 2016 by bakersdozen12

[TLC371]

I really enjoyed reading your review, especially the Grand Turk part. We will be there in November.

 

 

Now, during these concerts, you are told no flash photography, videos or "professional" cameras. I would love to know exactly what they mean by the latter. I had my camera with my nice zoom lens with me, but only noticed one other person with the same. Everyone else was using their cell phones. So, I felt like I was doing something I wasn't supposed to do every time I took a picture, but, at the same time, no one said anything to me. So I have no idea.

 

 

When they say "professional" cameras, most mean the nice DSLR cameras with the detachable lenses. Normally point and shoot cameras are fine at concerts but DSLRs are big no-no's.

[bakersdozen12]

When they say "professional" cameras, most mean the nice DSLR cameras with the detachable lenses. Normally point and shoot cameras are fine at concerts but DSLRs are big no-no's.

 

 

Thanks for the clarification! I appreciate it. [emoji4]

 

 

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[bakersdozen12]

Enjoying your review. Love the photo of Topher jumping! I'm from the Bronx too but love the water - just got back from swimming in Lake Winnipesaukee NH!!! - how's that for coincidence? :)

 

 

I love Lake Winnipesaukee! I used to take my son swimming there when he was little. So much nicer than the ocean here in NH. Love that you don't have to deal with huge waves, only little ones from the boats.

 

 

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[lovelearnteach]

Great review ,thank-you so much for taking the time to do one :).

[BriBrizzle]

Love love loved your review! I agree HMC cabanas are worth ever penny!

 

 

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[bakersdozen12]

Great review ,thank-you so much for taking the time to do one :).

 

 

 

Love love loved your review! I agree HMC cabanas are worth ever penny!

 

 

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Glad you guys liked it! I can't wait to write my next one, mainly because I can't wait for the cruise! Two months until our next one. Hubby started physical therapy last week, and we are really hoping he'll be out of the brace and walking normally by that time.

 

 

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