Easter Glory! A detailed pictorial review of the refurbished Carnival Glory 4/15-4/22

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Looking forward to hearing more. I leave next Saturday on the same cruise!

 

I should be able to continue with this sometime today, thanks for reading along with me. I don't think I will get this finished by next Saturday but I will get as much done as possible before then. Have a great time on your cruise, the Glory is a nice ship and it is a nice itinerary that it is on right now.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Looking forward to your review and photos!

 

Thanks, I should be able to continue with it today. Lots and lots more to come, appreciate you being along for the ride.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Nice pictures, I am on the Glory in July, can't wait!

 

Thanks, I feel pictures help tell the story and are a great way to remember a vacation and a great conversation piece with friends and family when I get back from the vacation. July will be here in no time, you will love your cruise. The Glory is a nice ship with lots to do.

[Baatman]

Enjoying the photos...looking forward to more.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

We were on this exact cruise. 7 days flew by just like that. I am going to look at the pictures carefully to see if I can spot myself or my family!

 

The 7 days sure did go by too quickly. That's for sure. I tried to get pictures of as many activities and venues as possible, so maybe you will find yourself in a picture or two. I tried to get pics with as few people as possible in them, like buffet lines and stuff like that, but for deck parties and lines to get back on the ship, etc, obviously lots of people will be in those shots. I have close to 300 more to post so good chance you will see yourself. I am going to get going with the next part of the review later today, so be sure to check that out. Thanks for reading along and helping re-live the cruise along with me.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Thanks so much we are on the same itinerary and ship in August! Looking to reading more!

 

 

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It is my pleasure to share my experiences and the ship with you. I am glad you are enjoying the review and I should have more done by tonight. Have a great time on your cruise this August!

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Enjoying the excellent photos!

 

Glad to hear that! Have many more to come and some great cruise stories as well.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Loving your review! You are too funny! We sail on Glory on 7/8 with the same itinerary so really looking forward to the rest of your review :D

 

Awesome, I am glad you are enjoying the humor that I try to include with the review and pictures. I should be continuing the review with our Easter Sunday in Half Moon Cay sometime this afternoon or evening so be sure to check that out. Have a great time on your July cruise. The Glory is a nice ship, even nicer after the drydock upgrades and the ports of call are pretty nice as well. Thanks for following along.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

We were on this cruise as well!! Best one so far! We had an absolute blast! Hope

Your trip was as great!!

 

Nice, the cruise was a nice one. Other than the few days of fairly rough seas, the weather was generally pretty good. There was some rain in there but not a total washout. The food and service was very good but our main complaints were with the disorganized embarkation and debarkation and slow gangway management at the ports of call and the loud noise from the cinnabar every night and what kind of troubles we had to go through to get it seriously handled by management. Other than that, it was a very good time. I am glad you enjoyed your time onboard as well.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Following

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

Glad to have you along!

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Enjoying your review. We loved the Glory when we were on it in April 2015. Going again in May 2018, can't wait!

 

I am glad you are enjoying, thanks for reading along with it. I was on the Glory back in 2013 and it was pretty modern then, and they have added a bit since then with the drydock and the waterslides and a few other new restaurants. You will love the ship when you sail on it next year.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Enjoying the photos...looking forward to more.

 

Thank you, glad you like them. I surely do have more coming up. I got lots of pics at Half Moon Cay and that is the next day I will be writing about, so be sure to check that out.

[h0mbr3]

[quote=FlyingCruiserNJ;52989735

 

More to come....

Love this! Did a B2B on the Glory right after its 2.0 upgrades.....awesome review!!!

[tandemcruzr]

Thanks for the review. Looking forward to the rest of it.

 

Just an FYI -- Glory doesn't have a Guy's BBQ. It has Guy's Burgers. It has the "Ol Fashioned BBQ" on deck 10 where the Fish and Chips used to be.

[jewliana]

Thanks for your review!! I have been looking forward to a comprehensive review on Glory since her drydock!

[Sunmist]

Great review so far. We sail in 2 months!

[lazydayz]

Nice, the cruise was a nice one. Other than the few days of fairly rough seas, the weather was generally pretty good. There was some rain in there but not a total washout. The food and service was very good but our main complaints were with the disorganized embarkation and debarkation and slow gangway management at the ports of call and the loud noise from the cinnabar every night and what kind of troubles we had to go through to get it seriously handled by management. Other than that, it was a very good time. I am glad you enjoyed your time onboard as well.

 

We just debarked the Glory on Saturday and experienced the poor embarkation and debarkation, as well as the long lines to get on and off the ship. I wish management would fix these issues. Other than losing AC for a couple of hours and the bookends of embarkation and debarkation failures, we had a great cruise on the Glory.

 

Thanks for taking the time to do a review. It is a fun read.

[oneboysmom]

Love the Glory! Sailed on her a few years back and was an awesome ship and time! Looking forward to your review and pics!! Get to go back to Half Moon Cay next year and cannot wait!

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Love this! Did a B2B on the Glory right after its 2.0 upgrades.....awesome review!!!

 

Thanks, I have never done a B2B before but seriously thought about it a few times. Rather spread out my cruising throughout the year. I should actually be getting to the next part, Half Moon Cay in just a few minutes. It has taken me long enough to get on with the review, hasn't it? LOL.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Thanks for the review. Looking forward to the rest of it.

 

Just an FYI -- Glory doesn't have a Guy's BBQ. It has Guy's Burgers. It has the "Ol Fashioned BBQ" on deck 10 where the Fish and Chips used to be.

 

Is that what it is actually called? I thought it was branded with the Guys marketing stuff honestly. I thought it was OK, but the selection was rather small and the wait could be longer than even the burrito place at peak times. I will talk about it more as we get going with the review, but I honestly thought it could have been much better and I think the old fish and chips, while very greasy and bistro-like, was pretty good and maybe they should have kept it. The Jimmy's C-side BBQ on the Magic was better I thought but it was not open every day either. But thanks for checking out the review and for patiently waiting for the next part, and Part 2 - our day in Half Moon Cay should be coming up in a few minutes here.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Thanks for your review!! I have been looking forward to a comprehensive review on Glory since her drydock!

 

Thanks for the kind words. I am sorry it is taking so long to update it but I have been under the weather between a bad chestcold and allergies and have been just too tired or busy after work each day I have been back to get to writing and I hate to not put my best into each day of the review so I usually kept telling myself I would get to it the next day, day after that, etc. :D But the next part will be coming. I have some interesting observations to make of the post-drydock features of the ship and I will be including them as we move along. I had never been on a ship that had just been in drydock a few weeks before so it was kind of a new experience there.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Great review so far. We sail in 2 months!

 

Thanks, and it is only going to get better. :cool: I am going to get going with the next part tonight and hopefully I will actually get the entire thing done before you sail, lol. These seem to take forever to do but I will do my best to expedite the rest of the thing so those who are cruising in the near future can see the entire thing before they sail.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

We just debarked the Glory on Saturday and experienced the poor embarkation and debarkation, as well as the long lines to get on and off the ship. I wish management would fix these issues. Other than losing AC for a couple of hours and the bookends of embarkation and debarkation failures, we had a great cruise on the Glory.

 

Thanks for taking the time to do a review. It is a fun read.

 

I honestly do not remember losing air conditioning but I have heard a few people mention it now that it did go out for a while. Maybe I was sleeping or off the ship or in the hot tub or something when it happened but I do recall a few nights where sleeping was more difficult than usual due to being very warm in the room. I didn't think anything of it though because I know it does get hot in the rooms a lot and the comforters they have on Carnival are very heavy and you can overheat quickly if you wrap yourself up in them when you sleep. But the lines getting on and off the ship pretty much everywhere were just awful. I will talk plenty about my experiences with that as they put a little curveball into our plans on more than one occasion. Ironically however, the lines for the food stations were insanely short, shorter than I have ever experienced on Carnival, everywhere. But the CD was decent and upbeat although I could have dealt a little less with him always blaring out on the loudspeaker 10 times a day, haha. We did have a personal run-in with him during the cruise and I will talk all about it as we move along. I feel he did what he could to resolve the issues that had to be brought all the way up the chain to his attention, although my sister sort of didn't. Again, that was an issue in itself and I will discuss it as it comes up in the sequence of events, lol. Thanks for reading along and for being patient with me as I finally found a little opportunity to get to updating this thing. Not been feeling all that great the last few weeks and it has taken a lot out of me but I am trying to get by day by day.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Love the Glory! Sailed on her a few years back and was an awesome ship and time! Looking forward to your review and pics!! Get to go back to Half Moon Cay next year and cannot wait!

 

Thanks for checking it out. I would actually say that not much changed outside of the new food options and the new waterworks, I was actually expecting everything to be bright new and shiny honestly. It was a fine ship though and I will get all into that as we roll along. I have many, many more pics to go with the day to day story of the cruise adventure, so be sure to check that out. I tried to get as much of a flavor of Half Moon Cay as possible, so I will be including that with the next part of the review that I am about to get to. It is a pretty nice experience.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

OK fans, we are finally back with the next part of the adventure. I apologize for taking so long to get to updating this but I have been under the weather for a couple weeks and while functional again this week, I am still not totally 100 percent and have just been too tired most nights to get to writing and including pictures with the story, etc. I hate to not put a full effort into these reviews so I figured I wouldn't add anything if I wasn't able to make it the best it could be. But I am finally back and here with the next part of the journey. Thank you everyone for following along and hopefully you enjoy the next part of the review. This would be my first time at Half Moon Cay, Carnival's private island, so here goes. Enjoy.

 

DAY 2: HALF MOON CAY

 

Well, I had never cruised on Easter Sunday, so this was a new experience for me. Usually Easter includes a huge brunch and egg hunt at home (even for us adults, haha) and some reflection of the deeper meaning of the holiday for us. But, we were on a cruise this time around so we tried to find a balance between celebrating the holiday and doing usual cruise activities. I woke up around 1000 as we had already set up off the coast of Half Moon Cay, but since we did not have any excursions planned, it was sort of get up whenever you felt like it on this day. It was a nice day, mostly sunny and low 80s, typical Bahamas weather. I went out on the balcony to see what was going on outside and got a few pics of the general scene.

 

Yeah, calm blue water and all that, lol.

 

 

 

This was a tender port, so that had to be factored in when planning your trip to the island. Unlike RCCL's island, Cococay, I do not believe there are any plans to build a dock here so tenders will be the thing going forward. T and K said they went up stairs to get a lido breakfast and quickly found out that breakfast on Carnival lido deck is the weak spot of the operation, LOL. They said they got enough though and headed back to the cabin to get ready to go onto the island. K wanted to do some snorkeling or something but my mom and I hung out a little later on the ship until the crowds to get off the ship lessened some and got a leisurely lunch on lido around noon instead.

 

You can still get leftover breakfast food at one station on lido until noon, not sure if that is a good thing or not though, ha. It is the usual stuff, nasty pork/turkey/chicken sausages, ham pieces, subpar bacon, imitation scrambled eggs, hard boiled eggs, cereal, fruit, grits, oatmeal, waffles and pancakes, juices. The list is not all- encompassing but it gives you an idea. The problem is that most of what I listed is just not that good. If I am hungry enough I will get a little bit of something from there but I can usually wait until lunch is served to eat, or get cereal and pastries delivered to the room for free from room service as those are usually pretty decent actually. You can, however, get fresh scrambled or fried eggs or omelets if you want to wait in line for them but even those are too greasy and will seriously mess your stomach up if you eat too much of them. As an aside, we hit the MDR for breakfast once later in the cruise and it was much better but the eggs are still crap there. But the rest of the food is a little better. They are open early but not open as late as the lido is.

Besides waiting for the lines to die down some for the tenders, supposedly they required numbered stickers to get off before noon anyway. I never remember hearing about how to get them but looking back, it said you had to go to a certain place to get them and I don't even remember where that place was now. So it was nice for us to just hang out and get some brunch on lido as the ship was quickly emptying out around noon and it was actually cool to have more room to ourselves for a while. Bet the crew liked it too, hehe.

 

Based on what we heard on the PA system the last sticker-required tender left around 1130 and they let general debarkation start at that point. I went around the ship and took some lido pictures and met my mom at noon near the Blue Iguana Cantina for lunch around noon, when it was due to open for lunch (it is open for desayuno as well but it is not as good as the lunch IMO).

One of the many lido drink stations. Coffee, tea, water, etc here. BTW, Carnival hot chocolate is usually good and plentiful but it seemed almost all the machines that make it great were broken this week. A few stations had the Nestle packets that you mix with hot water available but that just is not the same. At all. I never did get my hot chocolate all cruise, sadly.

 

 

 

It being Easter and all, a nice watermelon carving to mark the day on the lido buffet line. Honestly, not a huge deal made about Easter on this cruise, kind of disappointing. I think they had a non-denominational service later in the day somewhere on the ship but I did not go. Not sure how many people actually went as the 1700 time was just not that great for most people as there is too much other stuff going on at that time. BTW, I still have the funtimes and if anyone wants to see them, I can include pics of them later on for viewing.

 

 

The ice cream/frozen yogurt station. A few of these on lido, one at the back near the seafood shack, one near the cantina and I think one right next to Guy's Burgers. Cups or cones available but no toppings such as jimmies or whipped cream. Supposed to be open 24 hours but it seemed that again, at least one of the machines was always inop for some sort of maintenance or cleaning or whatever. I got ice cream a few times during the cruise.

 

 

More coming up....