Cruise was good but 2 stops in Domicincan Republic at least 1 too many

I will start with the good and end with the bad...

The Conquest is a nice boat.  We have been on several smaller Carnival boats. We were impressed, as always, with our room steward's attention.  We were also pleasantly impressed with the food in general.  We have never really liked the food on prior Carnival cruises but we found the selection much more palatable.  Of particular note was the Blue Iguana, where you can get made to order burritos and tacos, with chicken, shrimp, beef, and pork, as well as almost endless toppings.  The buffet food was still not too much to our liking.  The dining room food was excellent, although there were several nights that they just did not have anything that we wanted so we grazed the buffet.  We were not impressed with the onboard entertainment.  We did like the comedians but the shows were not so good.  We have had better shows on other lines.  Overall, the "cruise" part of the trip, I would give 4 stars, dropping 1 star for the entertainment.

Ports of call:  Amber Cover, Dominican Republic.  We usually book stuff outside the cruise line but we were unable to find anything that looked interesting so we did a shopping and sightseeing tour that was cheap.  It went to a jewelry store, the amber museum, the fort and a rum factory.  I was keen on the rum factory tour only to be disappointed that all we saw was the finishing packing plant.  I wanted to see 200K barrel of rum stored for aging or the mixing process, etc.  We just saw bottles being put in boxes.  Not a great tour.  Weather was bad so most water tours had been cancelled. 

Due to the weather, we were told that we would have to skip the second stop in DR, which did not hurt our feelings much because we had again found nothing we really wanted to do and it meant we would arrive in Bonaire early (more on that below).  However, when we got back on the boat, we were told that we would be making a second stop in DR but at a different port, La Romana. They put out a list of excursions, none of which looked interesting. We caught a bus to town and hired a private taxi for the day who took us to Cueva de las Maravillas, a nice cave tour.  We enjoyed the tour.  The driver also took us to a tourist shopping place where we saw nothing interesting.  I did but a pretty piece of larimar jewelry for my wife.  At my request, the driver took us to a place for lunch and a grocery store, which I always like to do.  Oddly, we found the DR people to be generally rude.  We try to fit in where we go and not act like typical tourists.  I was very surprised that the overall feeling was so rude.

In all, we were not impressed by DR and were disappointed that we made 2 stops there, as opposed to another country.

Bonaire:  We chose this trip to sample Bonaire and Aruba for possible return for a longer stay.  We were not happy that we were not scheduled to arrive in Bonaire until 2:00 since we were going on a private snorkel trip and sunset was around 5:00 so we were happy when we were told we woudl skip the second DR port and arrive in Bonaire early, but that was not to happen.  As we watched the trip from DR to Bonaire, we saw there was no reason we could not have arrived in the AM, except possible to save fuel.  We had arranged a snorkel trip with a company called Woodwind.  I give that trip 10 stars on a 5 star system!  Although I have snorkeled in much better waters, I have never had such an impressive experience with the snorkel trip itself.  It was a catamaran trip with out 25 people, which I usually dont like but they broke us into small groups based on experience.  However, they did a nice safety briefing and they even had masks with corrective lenses!!!!  Our main reason for the trip was to snorkel Bonaire.  The snorkeling was OK, but does not compare to Roatan (Honduras) or Belize.  We had to quit snorkeling when it got dark, thus my complaint about arrival time. Bonaire is small and quiet.  Once it gets dark, almost everything shuts down.  We were in port until 10pm with nothing to do. :(

Aruba: We book a private snorkel trip with just us on the boat.  Another great review for the snorkel trip. Found the guys at privatesnorkeling.com. Our guide was Mike.  We had a nice boat to ourselves and Mike took us to the Antilla shipwreck and several other sites.  He was honest that Aruba is not great for snorkeling as there is really not much coral.  I suppose the water chemistry is wrong.  All the snorkel trips go to the same handful of stops and he tried to take us in an order to avoid other boats, whcih was great.  We were aware that the currents were known to be difficult and found that to be very true.  Not much to see but the Antilla wreck was cool.  Ate lunch on the beach at a place Mike suggested and then went to a grocery store.  Aruba was very Americanized.  Beautiful beaches.

Now, for the BAD:

Some time prior to the cruise, I received an email instructing me to select a boarding time as Carnival had initiated staggered boarding.  I was able to select the earliest time.  When we arrived, we found a cattle call with everyone already in line with no regard to the scheduled time.  It took close to 2 hours to get through the line.

Even worse was getting of the ship at the end of the cruise.  We docked early but they did not start letting people off until the scheduled time.  They let a small group off and then stopped for an hour, then repeated 3x.  They kept apologizing, asserting that there was congestion in the terminal and the authorities had shut down the line - 3 times for an hour each time??  Our group (18 of 36) was finally called around 10:30.  Based on what they had called, there should have been a few hundred people in the terminal.  There appeared to be over a thousand.  IT was clear that (1) Carnival had made no effort to enforce the scheduled disembarcation (2) there was utter chaos in the huge room with all the luggage in not particular group order and (3) Carnival does not pay for sufficient gvt agents to handle the process.  There was a RC boat next to us which had almost 2x the capacity as ours and it was completely emptied and everyone gone by 10:00.  There are many complaints specific to Carnival and Carnival at this terminal that this is a real problem for Carnival over others and this particular port for Carnival.  Everybody complains about the process but Carnival seems to be the worst and this port seem to be the pinnacle of bad.

Final gripe:  The safety drill at the beginning of the cruise.  I have had various experiences with these.  However, this was about the worst. The drill itself was typical but after the drill was over, they made us stand on deck for about 30 minutes before we were allowed to leave.  I am pretty sure Carnival delayed the drill to keep people out of the halls and elevators so luggage could be delivered. 

Overall, we greatly enjoyed the trip.  However, we will consider other lines over Carnival in future.