Had fun but could have been better

Carnival Glory Cruise Review to Caribbean - Eastern

sharonmomx5

Contributor Level: Purser

Cruises: 4-6 cruises

Reviews: 2

Helpful Votes: 15

Overall rating:

3 out of 5

7 Night Eastern Caribbean (Miami Roundtrip)

Sail date: October 17, 2015

Ship: Carnival Glory

Cabin type: Balcony

Traveled as: Family (young children)

Reviewed: 9 years ago

Review summary

We have been on 5 Carnival cruises. This was the 2nd time on the Carnival Glory. The last time we went we enjoyed the itiniary and our balcony room so much that we decided to go again and get the exact same room. We had an extended balcony on the back of the ship and the room we chose, which we were lucky to get the first time, is bigger than all the other balcony rooms on the back by almost 50%. We had family having the two rooms beside us as well. We mainly cruise for the balcony and the stops as well as the price. If not for that we would definitely not choose Carnival. It was so neat sitting out on the balcony reading and watching the water and the sunset. There was a little yellow bird that stowed away on the ship and rode with us all week. When the room was too cold I could go outside and warm up. We had great weather in the upper 80's each day. We did have to miss Half Moon Cay due to the Hurricane. We got $18 off a person for that and an extra hour in St. Thomas. I thought they would have the barbque on ship but they did not. Our room Stewart was great and knew our names. Our two daughters ages 10 and 13 had their own inside room across the hall. We used a baby monitor to communicate with them. Our 13 year old had a broken foot so that really slowed us down. I was hoping she could go to camp carnival with her 10 year old sister but they would not allow it. She could not do much on the islands with us and we did not want to leave her on the ship alone. Circle C sometimes didn't even open until noon and they are all over the ship so there was no way she could stay with them. I really think the age for camp should extend to 16 with the parent given the choice of allowing their child to be allowed to check out or not. My 10 year old went to camp a few times but did not care for it. She mainly went to dinner and the shows with us. Our 5 year old absolutely loved camp and never wanted to leave. We would take her each morning by 9 and pick her up at 12. We would then go swimming and back to the room for a nap at 3. We would take her to eat with the kids at 6 and pick her up at 10. She loved the workers who were called Mrs. Milk Shake, Mrs. Shake Shake, Mrs. banana, and Mrs Apple. They all complemented us on how smart and enthusiastic she was and asked us each day when she was coming back. I did not like the shows at all on this cruise. Two years ago they were pretty good but not this time. The first one called Motor City which was the worst on the last cruise was the best on this one. The next show which I think was Divas was very sexualized with the singers touching their butts and just doing a lot of nasty dancing. That was the whole show. My 10 year old went to all the shows with me and if I had knows she would see all that I would not have taken her. The next two shows hadamazing graphics for the background but were so loud you almost needed cotton in your ears. The same actors were in all the shows. I think there were 8 of them. There was just not enough variety in the shows. I was bored by the 4th song. Also, I hesitate saying this but the last two shows seemed evil. The main character had spiked hair with red in it with a black cape and fire came out of his hands (in the background) and the other people had crazy hair and makeup and ugly black costumes. They all looked like street people you would find in bad areas. I did not enjoy watching them. Half the audience was clapping and seemed to enjoy it and the other half sat there not clapping at all. I thought the 70s and 80s show would be good. I loved the songs but not how they portrayed them. If I took this cruise again I would not go to a single show. We did go to one of the early comedy shows with the older girls and it was good. We also enjoyed watching the movie by the pool at night. They had pretty good shows playing including the latest Jurassic Park show, Inside Out, Ant Man and St. Andreas Fault. It was neat watching the last movie. It started raining and we huddled under our robes on the top deck watching a Tsunami in the show knock a cruise ship over sideways. we knew from our last cruise that the food would not be that great. They had just started the new dining menu on our prev. cruise. We ate in the dining room 3 times. The first night was the best. I got the corn chowder and strawberry soup for appetizers. I got the brisket for the main course and it was amazing. It tasted better than steak. It had a wonderful sauce and was cooked with carrots and potatoes. They also had a choice of about 6 side items. The mac and cheese was good. the next nights were not as good. On formal nights you do not get a choice of side items you have to take what comes with the meal. I did not care for any appetizers the rest of the cruise. One night I got Prime rib and it was tasteless. It came with a baked potato. If you like seafood, which unfortunately I don't, then you will be happier. They did have shrimp cocktails and several seafood choices each night. There was Lobster and salmon. Once they had frog legs or escargo or the tongue of some animal. The other 4 evenings we ate at the buffet for dinner. During dinner there is only one buffet open. It has about 5 salads and 7 hot items of which one or two taste very good. Then there is always salad, cheeses, and mixed fruit. Lunch was much better than dinner as you had two seperate buffets, guys burgers, and the burrito bar and fish and chips. Most of the deserts were not good and were tasteless. I mainly ate the choc chip cookies. I got the choc. melting cake twice but it was not cooked enough each time. Some of the cheesecakes were good. The last day there was a chocolate extravaganza from noon until two. Only one or two items were any good. There was chocolate expresso (yuck), orange chocolate, diet chocolate but only one or two chocolate chocolates. there was achocolate fountain which was good. I was not very impressed with the deserts on the cruise. Most of the cakes were tasteless. We loved the location on the back of the ship. We did hear a little chair scraping above us and had a lot of vibration from the ship but it did not bother us. We miss the sounds now that we are back home. I did wake up at 4 in the morning one morning with a guy screaming outside for 30 minutes yelling for people to look at him that he was "on the edge". I seriously thought he was going to jump and phoned it in. We had one lounge chair, two upright chairs, and a table on the balcony. We had room for more than that. I would not pay extra for the side wrap-around with all the space we had. We did the Catamaran tour in St. Thomas with just me and my husband. We got to snorkel for 45 minutes. We were told it would be an hour and 15 min. but they called us back in after 45. We had a good time. The bus ride to the sailboat was 30 minute there and back. The roads were full of exhaust. I had to hold my breath at times. We saw some of the run down areas of St. Thomas. In San Juan we took a taxi to the fort and walked around for two hours. Last year we went to fort Christabel. It is the better of the two forts. We then took a taxi to a small beach by the Hilton (The one right across the bridge into Puerto Rico). It was very nice and calm blocked off by large rocks to keep the big waves out. It was perfect for little kids. The taxi driver gave us his phone number and we called him when we were ready to be picked up to go back to the ship. In Grand Turk we snorkeled right there at the beach by the cruise ship. The water was about 20 feet deep by the rope. My 5 year old rode on daddies back with a life jacket on. She could see the fish under the water without a snorkel. It was not the best snorkeling but we did see quite a variety of fish. We saw some squid, a flat fish that hides on the bottom and some other fish I had never seen before with a pointed nose that was totally flat on the bottom. After that we swam in the pool at Margaritaville. The pool temperature was perfect. It has a zero entry side perfect for young kids. Two years ago in February, the temperature was kind of cold. We did not eat at Margaritaville as it was very expensive. We went back on ship and got the lunch buffet before it closed at 3:30 that day. It was a very hot day and we had all the sun and heat we could handle. We also did the walking path on the ship once. The kids played basketball and Putt Putt. They enjoyed ping pong outside the childrens area and my 5 year old played in the outside kids play area. I loved the chocolate yogurt ice cream cones. They were a really dark chocolate. We called room service nightly for my 5 year old when she came back from camp. She got peanut butter and jelly and grilled cheese sandwiches. Me and my husband got Blt's. They also had cheesecake, choc cake (it was good), and my choc chip cookies. Sandwiches came with chips, pretzels, potato salad or coleslaw. We usually got chips as the others were no good. The pretzels were stale. It also came with a pickle. They did have some veggies and dip but they did away with the fresh fruit on room service that we had last time. Two times we had to wait an hour and were almost asleep when it came. The other times it took about 20 minutes. One morning we ordered breakfast to our room. The other room didn't know they could do that because they had no forms in their room. We requested it arrive bet 7:30 and 8. By 9:00 we gave up and went to the dining room. I think breakfast is the worst meal. It is the same thing every morning. The eggs don't taste normal unless you have them cook you an egg or an omelet. You will have to wait about 20 minutes at times to do that. The pastries are plain and the waffles, french toast, and pancakes are soggy. I finally just started eating cereal like I have at home toward the end. We did do the cat in the hat breakfast which was fun. If you order the green eggs and ham you will get green eggs else they are regular. My older daughter got steak and eggs. The steak was too red for her to eat. My waffle said it came with berries or without. I guess I should have requested the berries because it came without. I was never asked if I wanted any. I found that with all the meals in the dining room you had to be very specific. They will not ask you what you want to drink. They will only ask you if you want water. If you want tea or lemonade you better speak up. They seemed irritated when we had to later ask for our drinks. Of course you are offered wine and other drinks which you have to pay for. We did take 24 cans onboard with our carryon of sodas. We drank them for lunch. I like tea but hot theirs. It had a wierd taste like instant mixed with lemon and I do not like lemon in my tea. Lemonade gets tiring after awhile. There was passion juice for breakfast as well as orange juice and apple juice but it was very sweet. We liked mixing it with orange juice and took a couple insulated cups with us and took it with us off the ship on the islands. They did carve two blocks of ice and the hairy chest contest was interesting (not for kids). I think my next cruise will be Alaska. It will not be on Carnival. I like cruising but would prefer to take a vacation to one of the islands and get to have more time at it. We will probably do more land vacations now that my two older girls will be too old for camp carnival. There is not enough for them to do on the ship as the shows are not appropriate. I do not want to pay more for another cruise line which would probably be better. I had a great vacation for the price. We got on the ship a little later than normal. We arrived around 11 but had to wait 45 minutes to start boarding. We were off the ship by 9am at the end of the cruise.