Flood me with info

[firstcruiseoct11]

Basically a newbie. My husband and I have been on one cruise and it was in 2011. We are thinking about doing a 7 day western Caribbean cruise for our family vacation this year. It will be my kids first cruise. They will be 9 and 11. 

* What's changed since 2011 that I need to know?

* The boat we are looking at is the Glory out of New Orleans

* Looking at May Dates

* Ports would be Cozumel, Belize and Mahogany Bay 

* The one excursion my son wants to do is the ATV in the jungle. Anyone know if there is an age restriction on this one? 

[BS Criusers]

glory is a huge ship compared to ecstasy we have had kids at that age before the like the kids club lots for them to do 

[ProgRockCruiser]

What's changed?  Well, probably a lot, but it also depends on what you remember as being relevant.  For example, in the last year or so certain things are now an added cost that were free previously (e.g. late-night room service).  Check-in and boarding procedures have probably changed since you last cruised - there is now a check-in time you book, and you are supposed to show up in that window - this helps spread out the load of passengers that used to all rush to the port at 10am.  Boarding is then done by zone.

 

Guy's Burger is now on board most ships - check out your ship for amenities (free and upcharge).

 

As for excursion age limits - check the specific excursion on the Carnival website - age limits are stated.

 

The Carnival website really is the best source for a lot of your information.  "Explore" the ship and the ports.

Edited January 8, 2019 by ProgRockCruiser

[firstcruiseoct11]

29 minutes ago, ProgRockCruiser said:

What's changed?  Well, probably a lot, but it also depends on what you remember as being relevant.  For example, in the last year or so certain things are now an added cost that were free previously (e.g. late-night room service).  Check-in and boarding procedures have probably changed since you last cruised - there is now a check-in time you book, and you are supposed to show up in that window - this helps spread out the load of passengers that used to all rush to the port at 10am.  Boarding is then done by zone.

 

Guy's Burger is now on board most ships - check out your ship for amenities (free and upcharge).

 

As for excursion age limits - check the specific excursion on the Carnival website - age limits are stated.

 

The Carnival website really is the best source for a lot of your information.  "Explore" the ship and the ports.

Thanks. I found the info on Carnivals site about the excursion info I was looking for. Unfortunately no on the ATV excursion, but there are many other choices that I think he will be ok with. 

[auburneyes]

1 hour ago, firstcruiseoct11 said:

Basically a newbie. My husband and I have been on one cruise and it was in 2011. We are thinking about doing a 7 day western Caribbean cruise for our family vacation this year. It will be my kids first cruise. They will be 9 and 11. 

* What's changed since 2011 that I need to know?

* The boat we are looking at is the Glory out of New Orleans

* Looking at May Dates

* Ports would be Cozumel, Belize and Mahogany Bay 

* The one excursion my son wants to do is the ATV in the jungle. Anyone know if there is an age restriction on this one? 

How fun!  I travel with my husband and twin (boy/girl) 13 year olds.  We did a Jeep Excursion in the Jungle of Belize and it was so much fun!  We did not book through Carnival though (much cheaper).  www.cavetubers.bz  One person in your party will drive the jeep (hopefully can drive a standard, they do have 1 automatic though.)  We LOVED this tour so much!  We went mudding basically and the Jeep was deep in water and mud most of the time within the jungle.  There was also a cave that we hiked up to that had thousands of bats. After driving the Jeep for about 45 minutes through a jungle, you go have lunch prepared by Beliezean women - chicken, rice, beans, potato salad and plantains.  

 

In Hondoras, we haven't booked an excursion because there is shopping, a chair lift to ride down the hill and a beach within walking distance of the port.

[firstcruiseoct11]

18 minutes ago, auburneyes said:

How fun!  I travel with my husband and twin (boy/girl) 13 year olds.  We did a Jeep Excursion in the Jungle of Belize and it was so much fun!  We did not book through Carnival though (much cheaper).  www.cavetubers.bz  One person in your party will drive the jeep (hopefully can drive a standard, they do have 1 automatic though.)  We LOVED this tour so much!  We went mudding basically and the Jeep was deep in water and mud most of the time within the jungle.  There was also a cave that we hiked up to that had thousands of bats. After driving the Jeep for about 45 minutes through a jungle, you go have lunch prepared by Beliezean women - chicken, rice, beans, potato salad and plantains.  

 

In Hondoras, we haven't booked an excursion because there is shopping, a chair lift to ride down the hill and a beach within walking distance of the port.

The jeep excursion sounds fun! My kids love adventure. I was scared to book with an outside company for our first cruise. Maybe I'll look into one for this trip. I'm thinking doing excursions for 2 of the stops due to cost. After reading Belize seems to be one to book for. Our first cruise we do Cozumel and progresso. 

[auburneyes]

1 minute ago, firstcruiseoct11 said:

The jeep excursion sounds fun! My kids love adventure. I was scared to book with an outside company for our first cruise. Maybe I'll look into one for this trip. I'm thinking doing excursions for 2 of the stops due to cost. After reading Belize seems to be one to book for. Our first cruise we do Cozumel and progresso. 

I used to only book Carnival excursions for the same reasons that you are probably thinking but honestly, I finally took the plunge and have not looked back.  The others are much cheaper and they care just as much about getting you back to the ship in time, etc because seriously - their life depends on it.  Tourism is the main income for most of these ports and they relay on Travelocity or Trip Advisor reviews to stay in business.  The biggest bonus for me though is that the tours are much smaller so you get a lot more personal attention.   You can ask a ton of questions and not worry about staying with a large group all day long.  The Carnival excursions always have convenient little stops at shops where they try to make you buy stuff - that is not my cup of tea.  We have really loved our excursions more once I stopped booking through the cruise line.

 

Cozumel has an excursion where you ride in a dune buggy and go to various places around the island that we like. Swimming with the Dolphins is always amazing but more expensive. 

 

Progresso is a tough port - there isn't much to do.  You can easily take a bus to the shopping area and walk to the beach.  They have a double decker bus tour that goes in a circle and kinda tells you about the place but its pretty short and you have to duck to avoid the telephone lines that go across the street. You can get cheap massages, hair braiding and stuff like that but there is not much else to do there unless Carnival has come up with some other excursions.

[firstcruiseoct11]

27 minutes ago, auburneyes said:

I used to only book Carnival excursions for the same reasons that you are probably thinking but honestly, I finally took the plunge and have not looked back.  The others are much cheaper and they care just as much about getting you back to the ship in time, etc because seriously - their life depends on it.  Tourism is the main income for most of these ports and they relay on Travelocity or Trip Advisor reviews to stay in business.  The biggest bonus for me though is that the tours are much smaller so you get a lot more personal attention.   You can ask a ton of questions and not worry about staying with a large group all day long.  The Carnival excursions always have convenient little stops at shops where they try to make you buy stuff - that is not my cup of tea.  We have really loved our excursions more once I stopped booking through the cruise line.

 

Cozumel has an excursion where you ride in a dune buggy and go to various places around the island that we like. Swimming with the Dolphins is always amazing but more expensive. 

 

Progresso is a tough port - there isn't much to do.  You can easily take a bus to the shopping area and walk to the beach.  They have a double decker bus tour that goes in a circle and kinda tells you about the place but its pretty short and you have to duck to avoid the telephone lines that go across the street. You can get cheap massages, hair braiding and stuff like that but there is not much else to do there unless Carnival has come up with some other excursions.

Yes those are definitely some of my concerns, but that makes sense. I'm going to do some research on some outside companies. On our 1st (and only) cruise we did the dune buggy excursion and loved it! We also did the double decker bus tour in progresso. This time I want to do 7 days and hopefully show the kids some beautiful beaches.  They have seen the mud waters of Louisiana and the so so beaches of Alabama and Mississippi. 

[WashCoCruisers]

Cozumel has an excursion where you ride in a dune buggy and go to various places around the island that we like. Swimming with the Dolphins is always amazing but more expensive. 

We did the Dune Buggy's in Cozumel too!  Thru Wild Tours, we had a blast and they let us customize it how we wanted to do it!  So we also tell these Iland Tour Guides that we want to be back a couple of hours before we are supposed to leave the island.  We tell them so we can do some shopping in town and they are very obliging since we are spending money!!  These Buggies though were awesome!!!

[ricew001]

4 hours ago, firstcruiseoct11 said:

Basically a newbie. My husband and I have been on one cruise and it was in 2011. We are thinking about doing a 7 day western Caribbean cruise for our family vacation this year. It will be my kids first cruise. They will be 9 and 11. 

* What's changed since 2011 that I need to know?

* The boat we are looking at is the Glory out of New Orleans

* Looking at May Dates

* Ports would be Cozumel, Belize and Mahogany Bay 

* The one excursion my son wants to do is the ATV in the jungle. Anyone know if there is an age restriction on this one? 

You should read some reviews of both the ship and the excursions.

I really enjoyed Cozumel. We don't have kids so we did the all inclusive Mr. Sanchos. I do think it is open to kids and they have a lot of water toys. You may want to check them out online.

[3smithboys]

5 hours ago, ricew001 said:

You should read some reviews of both the ship and the excursions.

I really enjoyed Cozumel. We don't have kids so we did the all inclusive Mr. Sanchos. I do think it is open to kids and they have a lot of water toys. You may want to check them out online.

We do have kids, 3 boys, and we all love Mr. Sanchos! It’s our must do stop in Cozumel... check it out!

[meester_jamie]

8 hours ago, auburneyes said:

!  We did not book through Carnival though (much cheaper).  www.cavetubers.bz  One person in your party will drive the jeep

snip 

. After driving the Jeep for about 45 minutes through a jungle, you go have lunch prepared by Beliezean women - chicken, rice, beans, potato salad and plantains.  

 

 

You sure it was chicken? Or just tasted like chicken ?  Lol 

 

btw,  https://cavetubing.bz/ are excellent, I’ve been on a number of their excursions, some issues that arose , they took care of them ASAP 

one group of 4 were left behind from another company , the .BZ bus we were on had room and timing to get them back to their ship just in time, they made sure it didn’t offend the primary passengers before they confirmed the stranded ones could ride ,,, top notch, 

i love their “chicken” dinner and beverages as well 

 

Edited January 9, 2019 by meester_jamie

[TPG40]

Echo the cavetubing.bz recommendation. I did a cave tubing excursion through them a couple of years ago, and they are excellent, and the food is DELICIOUS! At Mahogany Bay, I would suggest getting a day pass at one of the all inclusive resorts on West Bay Beach(the prices vary, check the websites and call the resorts. The resort I went to actually stopped providing day passes, but I had called months in advance, so I still got mine). West Bay is beautiful and the day passes give you use of the resort's facilities. The locals have their tour stuff set up to the right of the port facility, they have cabs and stuff to take you, and they'll set up a time to pick you up and take you back to the ship.

[jbyrd72]

Welcome to the wonderful world of cruising ....  I would recommend Victor Bodden Tours in Roatan.  They were fantastic.  We did the Zip and Dip and even got to hold a sloth at their compound.  The Zip lining is for all ages..check them out at boddentours.com.  They took us to the west bay beach after zip lining.  

In Cozumel, we did the Nachi Cocom Beach Club which is just a little down the beach from Mr.Sancho's. www.cozumelnachicocom.com. 

Never been to Belize so I can't comment there.  Hope this helps

[meester_jamie]

1 hour ago, TPG40 said:

At Mahogany Bay, I would suggest getting a day pass at one of the all inclusive resorts on West Bay -snip- it is beautiful and the day passes give you use of the resort's facilities. The locals have their tour stuff set up to the right of the port facility, they have cabs and stuff to take you, and they'll set up a time to pick you up and take you back to the ship.

 

Rony! http://www.barefeetbar.com/

On west end beach area ! Great place ,, 

 

Cozumel has barhoppers .. east side of island the have no electrical power, wonderful views and booze! 

We do a couple of bars , like coconuts by taxi cheaper than barhoppers 

 

On 1/8/2019 at 12:25 PM, auburneyes said:

  We did a Jeep Excursion in the Jungle of Belize and it was so much fun!  We did not book through Carnival though (much cheaper).  www.cavetubers.bz  .

 

Sorry! I didn’t realize there is a cave tubers, and a cave tubing dot BZ 

[firstcruiseoct11]

As of last night we are officially booked! Thanks for all of the great info! We kind of know what we want to do while in Cozumel and Mahogany Bay. Belize is still up in the air. I looked on www.cavetubers.bz and don't see a jeep excursion. Anyone know if they just don't offer it anymore. We like adventure and are actually jeep owners. I know my kids would love something like that. 

[crazyaae]

Just on the Glory in OCT, check out my videos on my Youtube channel link: http://Youtube.com/c/wheresmondo and there are several more out there to help you. and For tips on items to bring you can my list i use on kit.com
Cruising Must Haves https://kit.com/WheresMondo/cruising-must-haves
Cruising Optional Items https://kit.com/WheresMondo/cruising-optional-items Hope that helps 😀😀

[firstcruiseoct11]

2 hours ago, crazyaae said:

Just on the Glory in OCT, check out my videos on my Youtube channel link: http://Youtube.com/c/wheresmondo and there are several more out there to help you. and For tips on items to bring you can my list i use on kit.com
Cruising Must Haves https://kit.com/WheresMondo/cruising-must-haves
Cruising Optional Items https://kit.com/WheresMondo/cruising-optional-items Hope that helps 😀😀

Love your videos!! Makes me even more excited to go. The crystal clear water is calling my name. Thanks. I'm gonna ck out your must haves too

[momof4girls]

How exciting for you and for your kids! I can still remember my girls’ first cruise. Loved their excitement about every little thing. SO many memories that I will hold on to!

 

We are not big “excursion” people as we all love the ship and the beaches. However, my older daughter did a dolphin swim excursion in Cozumel and still talks about it today. 

 

We LOVE Roatan and on our next cruise we are heading to Daniel’s Sloth so we can hold a sloth. Always wanted to do that!

 

Since 2011, I feel like the optional food items from the MDR have greatly improved. The MDR is now our second choice to most other places, which is a huge difference from 2011. I think we only ate in the dining room twice on our last 7 day cruise (first and last night). Don’t forget there are two “Cruise elegant” nights on your cruise. 

 

Edited January 11, 2019 by momof4girls

[firstcruiseoct11]

23 hours ago, momof4girls said:

How exciting for you and for your kids! I can still remember my girls’ first cruise. Loved their excitement about every little thing. SO many memories that I will hold on to!

 

We are not big “excursion” people as we all love the ship and the beaches. However, my older daughter did a dolphin swim excursion in Cozumel and still talks about it today. 

 

We LOVE Roatan and on our next cruise we are heading to Daniel’s Sloth so we can hold a sloth. Always wanted to do that!

 

Since 2011, I feel like the optional food items from the MDR have greatly improved. The MDR is now our second choice to most other places, which is a huge difference from 2011. I think we only ate in the dining room twice on our last 7 day cruise (first and last night). Don’t forget there are two “Cruise elegant” nights on your cruise. 

 

My daughter would love to hold a sloth! I read that the sloths are only awake til like 11:30. I would love to do that but I also want to have some beach time. 

 

I didn’t realize there was 2 elegant nights! Thanks for that info 

[momof4girls]

3 hours ago, firstcruiseoct11 said:

My daughter would love to hold a sloth! I read that the sloths are only awake til like 11:30. I would love to do that but I also want to have some beach time. 

 

I didn’t realize there was 2 elegant nights! Thanks for that info 

 Yes, which is why we have the early time with the sloths and will be back to Mahagony Bay for some beach time by noon! 🙂

[Gumbo4Life]

In Progresso, we booked an excursion with the folks at https://www.yucatancenote.com/ and had a fantastic time.  There were 4 of us, we got a private tour, saw the ruins and had lunch and private use of a Cenote for the afternoon.  If you are not toured out by then this would be a nice addition to your cruise. 

 

[firstcruiseoct11]

13 minutes ago, Gumbo4Life said:

In Progresso, we booked an excursion with the folks at https://www.yucatancenote.com/ and had a fantastic time.  There were 4 of us, we got a private tour, saw the ruins and had lunch and private use of a Cenote for the afternoon.  If you are not toured out by then this would be a nice addition to your cruise. 

 

Thanks for the info but we aren’t going to progresso on this trip

[MomSwag]

On 1/8/2019 at 10:09 AM, firstcruiseoct11 said:

Basically a newbie. My husband and I have been on one cruise and it was in 2011. We are thinking about doing a 7 day western Caribbean cruise for our family vacation this year. It will be my kids first cruise. They will be 9 and 11. 

* What's changed since 2011 that I need to know?

* The boat we are looking at is the Glory out of New Orleans

* Looking at May Dates

* Ports would be Cozumel, Belize and Mahogany Bay 

* The one excursion my son wants to do is the ATV in the jungle. Anyone know if there is an age restriction on this one? 

In Honduras, use Victor Bodden and do the sloth farm. They offer much more, but that is the highlight. My 14 yr old said it was the best part of the whole cruise!

[MomSwag]

In Belize, we did a mission trip and collected school supplies for 50 students. A guide took us to visit the local schools and deliver the supplies. In Cozumel, we went to Mr. Sanchos. It was all inclusive and the food was delicious. In Honduras, we booked with Bodden tours. For about $50 pp, we had a private guide who took us on a tour of the island, took us to do some shopping for souvenirs made by the locals on a mountaintop, took us to eat local cuisine, took us to the chocolate factory, took us to the sloth farm and then ended the day at a beach. It was awesome!