Wonderful time with pros and cons
Carnival Breeze Cruise Review to Caribbean - Western
Contributor Level:
Purser
Cruises: 2-3 cruises
Reviews: 2
Helpful Votes: 49
7 Night Western Caribbean (Galveston Roundtrip)
Sail date: August 13, 2017
Ship: Carnival Breeze
Cabin type: Balcony
Cabin number: 6339
Traveled as: Large Group
Reviewed: 7 years ago
Review summary
So glad we chose to take this trip on the Carnival Breeze. Our group consisted my niece, her husband, my niece in law, great nephew, my husband and I. We had a great time and Carnival makes it easy to enjoy time with family.Embarkation
Embarkation was very smooth. There were 6 of us in our group and we all checked in quickly. We all had FTTF and walked right on after check in.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
The food on the Carnival Breeze was great. There are a few things that could use some improvement, such as the desserts. A lot of the desserts that are offered in the buffet all tastes the same. Not a lot of flavor. My husband and I enjoyed trying different things in the main dining room. And the Chocolate Melting Cake in the dining room is a must have. The burgers at Guy's Burgers are awesome! (My husband had 9 of them throughout the week). The fish tacos from Blue Iguana are great. All the staff in the main dining room were great. We had a small problem the first night and it was addressed and they were great about it.
We purchased the Cheers package even though neither one of us are big drinkers. It was nice to not have to worry about paying extra for sodas, bottles of water, milkshakes, special coffee drinks, and of course...alcoholic drinks. My favorite bar was the Alchemy Bar. Oscar, the bartender there was great. After ordering a drink off the menu and not liking it, he made me a special drink not on the menu. I loved it and every time I went back, he would just make it for me, I didnt have to say a word.
We had lunch a couple of times in the Italian place (lunch is included, dinner costs extra) The food is good, but unfortunately the basketball court is above the place and all you hear the whole time you are eating is the pounding of the basketballs.
The food on Carnival is so much better than other cruise lines.
Onboard Activities
One of the great things about Carnival ships is that there is alway something to do. There are fun trivia contests with various topics. There were lots of seminars from the spa deck, which would have been better had they not constantly been trying to up-sell their products and extra over priced services. Even when you do pay for spa services, they spend half the time trying to get you to buy more. They had raffles for services, I won $150 spa credits. I used to those credits to try acupuncture. It was interesting, but they wanted me to buy some Chinese herbal supplements for $95 and wanted me to make more appointments to continue treatments before the trip was over...at $150 each.
The pools and the hot tubs were full all the time so it was hard to get a chance to enjoy them.
Entertainment
The shows on the Breeze were good. All except a new show called Flick, which was terrible. The concept of the show didn't make sense. There is a creepy guy in all the scenes and at one point a lady sang the Somewhere Over the Rainbow song with a solid red "rainbow" in the background, no idea why. One of the singers sang a song that had a high note that he couldn't hit so there was another voice that sang that note like a voiceover...for just that note every time it came up in the song. Why not just have that person sing the whole song? I've seen better musicals at the high school. Only a few of the performers could actually sing.
Mike the entertainment director is great and so much fun. The 80's Glow Party was fun and the band that played during the party was pretty good.
Children's Programs
I wasn't traveling with children.
Service and Staff
Almost everyone on the ship was very nice and attentive. Our room steward, Chito, was great. My favorite bartender, Oscar, was awesome.
Ship Quality
The Breeze is a beautiful ship. Most of the ship was always clean. We did notice a funky smell in one section of the buffet area. It smelled like old dirty mop water, every day. You also need to be careful walking on tile floors because they become slick from moisture in the air.
Cabin / Stateroom
The good things about the cabin: The size is nice. It's not too small and has plenty of storage areas. The balcony was nice except for the view. The room is in a good position to the elevators. Not too close and not too far away.
The bad parts: the balcony over looks a hot tub on deck 5, which makes it awkward to sit out on the balcony when there are people in the hot tub. The shower curtain doesn't reach to the bottom of the shower so every time you take a shower the bathroom floor gets soaked. The bed was very uncomfortable for me. (I have fibromyalgia and am used to sleeping on memory foam) But my husband didnt think it was that bad. The walls are thin, probably because this is a connecting room. We could hear the neighbors talking at all hours and even heard them snoring when they finally went to sleep. The only other thing we had a problem with was the amount of channels available on the TV. Sometimes you just want to chill out in your room and relax watching TV. It would be nice to have more channels to choose from.
Ports of call
There are a lot of things to do in Galveston, TX.
Thumbs Up
3
My family and I did the Hop On Hop Off tour and it was nice. This excursion cant be pre-booked, you buy it once you get off the ship. We learned a lot about the area from our guide. We got to visit a few places and saw some beautiful areas as well as some very poor areas.
Grand Cayman is beautiful. We bought the excursion called Explore Cayman by Land and Sea. We had a great time. Saw some beautiful fish and had fun learning about the turtles.
Cozumel offers a lot of shopping and some great beach areas. We bought tickets for Mr. Sanchos all inclusive beach resort. Clear waters, great beach, two pools with swim up bars, all you can eat and drink...all for only $55! Go to their website to book a reservation.
Disembarkation
Fortunately we had FTTF and we were off the ship by 8:30am. We chose to carry our own luggage off the ship which made it so much easier than putting those out the night before.