Give me your Cruise Ship Experiences

sharky99 · Mar 30, 2009

Went on my first cruise recently......Carnival Destiny, was impressed with Customer Service, Food....Half Moon Cay Island that Carnival Owns....Never realizes they are such a marketing empire. F... hated the fact they constantly take pictures.....on the boat, off the boat, at dinner....etc.... real pain after awhile.........spent $130 on booze the 1st night, bs some of the drinks had to be watered down but for the most part it was a good experience!

Any suggestions for future cruises or cruise lines, thinking of getting to Puerto Rico and heading to St-Lucia, Martinique....etc....or maybe a transatlantic one?

gtc08 · Mar 30, 2009

wtf, carnival. you a 10 year old? lol

sharky99 · Mar 30, 2009

actually thought there would be more young people 20-40....but it was mostly an older crowd.......lots to do, I liked the different lounges with different types of music

bigtendominator · Mar 30, 2009

gtc08 said:
wtf, carnival. you a 10 year old? lol

He said it was his first cruise, he probably didn't know.

whalewager · Mar 30, 2009

been on carnival and royal carribean

not much difference to me...

food is always plentiful...lot of sun...its ok for a vacation but I would rather be on a beach somewhere

Betallsports · Mar 30, 2009

sharky99 said:
Went on my first cruise recently......Carnival Destiny, was impressed with Customer Service, Food....Half Moon Cay Island that Carnival Owns....Never realizes they are such a marketing empire. F... hated the fact they constantly take pictures.....on the boat, off the boat, at dinner....etc.... real pain after awhile.........spent $130 on booze the 1st night, bs some of the drinks had to be watered down but for the most part it was a good experience!

Any suggestions for future cruises or cruise lines, thinking of getting to Puerto Rico and heading to St-Lucia, Martinique....etc....or maybe a transatlantic one?

Been on 14 Cruises Now, but never been on Carnival. As they are Not known for their food, and I guesss they are on the younger side.

Met you last year at the Bash, so I know you are much Younger than I.
With that said, I think you would enjoy trying Royal Caribbean.
It's a Mixed group of Ages, and depending on which part of the year you go. You will find Many people your age group.

Much better food, and I believe a Much better Ship.

Not sure where you left out of, but Leaving out of Puerto Rico is the Best.
Because you are close enough to the warmest weather possible.
Makes the trip start out right.

Celebrity Cruises is my fav. but a much older group.

Princess Cruises is nice, but again a older group.

Costa is owned by Carnival, but are Smaller ships.

DO NOT go on Norwegian !! That Suck !
Same goes with Holland America...

You going to like Royal :103631605

And if I can do a Search, I posted Pictures of my last Cruise, which was this past Jan.

Try one of Royal Caribbean ships that have the FlowRider...That was Fun

sharky99 · Mar 30, 2009

Great info...thx I'll check out the pics

TheKinz · Mar 30, 2009

I have been on close to 20 cruises. My favorite was the itinerary you mentioned for your next cruise. We flew to San Juan went to Barbados, Martinuque, St Thomas and St Lucia and Antiqua. Was absolutely awesome. Best vacation of my life. We went on Celebrity for that cruise.

GTC is right- Carnival is a dump BUT it has its place. Quick 3-4 day parties around the Bahamas when you don't have a lot of money. Next is Royal Caribbean. A step up in passengers and staff. Still has its downfalls.

We are planning our next cruise for 2010 and doing a Princess Alaskan cruise with the kids and 2012 Greece without the kids!!

BTW I think Carnival has a policy you can bring 6 16oz bottles of water or Gatorade on board. Fill the bottles with Crown and Ketel One and your booze bill turns into pennies!!!

Glad you had fun. There is no better way to vacation in my opinion.

sharky99 · Mar 30, 2009

Appreciate the feedback, I'm definitely going to go down there next time..thx!~~~!:drink:

C-LO · Mar 30, 2009

Princess Cruise for me on my Honeymoon. "Grand Princess" was the ship we went on around the Eatern Carribeans. Stayed a week and dont think I could stay less then that on a cruise as great as it was. Best vacation ever taken and will be till I go back again. Took Princess so it would be a more laid back crowd, not too old on this one and it was very relaxing :103631605

SportSavant · Mar 30, 2009

I went for my honeymoon on the same cruiseline I think.

There are some other threads I beleive on it

TheKinz · Mar 30, 2009

I can tell you one thing I am not a fan of the Western Caribbean. Mexico was Mexico, Belize (Belize City) was a dump and Cayman was way overcrowded with all the cruise ships not to mention outrageously overpriced.

My in laws went on the Panama Canal, Alaska and a cruise out of Turkey and they gave all of them two big big thumbs up.

SureGuy · Mar 30, 2009

tip your porter

sharky99 · Mar 30, 2009

Done@)

Bryan24K · Mar 30, 2009

The Kinz said:
BTW I think Carnival has a policy you can bring 6 16oz bottles of water or Gatorade on board. Fill the bottles with Crown and Ketel One and your booze bill turns into pennies!!!

This is definitely the way to go. No point in blowing all your money on drinks, when you can bring a few bottles with you.

FYI cnbc did a special on cruises yesterday which was pretty good. They will be re-airing it a few times next week if your interested.

gijoe · Mar 30, 2009

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<HR style="COLOR: #fdde82; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #fdde82" SIZE=1>I have been on close to 20 cruises. My favorite was the itinerary you mentioned for your next cruise. We flew to San Juan went to Barbados, Martinuque, St Thomas and St Lucia and Antiqua. Was absolutely awesome. Best vacation of my life. We went on Celebrity for that cruise.

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I went on this cruise too and it was the best vacation I have ever had.

GoSooners · Mar 30, 2009

I've been on a few cruises, and I have to agree with some of the posters up above about the cruise to St.Thomas, Puerto Rico, Martinique, St. Lucia, St.Johns and Barabados. This is one of if not the best leg of the Caribbean cruises. All I can suggest is get your ass off the boat and explore all of these islands when you port. They are all very interesting sites to see. And be sure you go to the French side of Martinique where they have the nude beaches. And take the tours up in the mountains of St. Lucia. This is an absolutely island that is both beautiful and primitive in some places where the local natives still wash their clothes in the streams. I'm getting ready to head out on a cruise myself in just a few days. I'm going on the Panama, Cayman Islands, Aruba, Costa Rica leg for an 11 day cruise.

By far the worst cruise that I've ever been on was an Hawaiian Islands cruise. I loved everything about Hawaii. But we used the cruise line Norwegian. And this has to be the worst cruise line around. The boat that we were orginally suppposed to be on was going to be a brand new boat. But 2 months before they put the finishing touches on this ship it sunk in port from a storm! Better then than when I was on it I guess. Trouble is they had to give us a last minute replacement ship. They ended up giving us one that was about half the size. And it was built in 1968! And they also put together a ragtag replacement crew that were nothing but a bunch of teenage amatuers who didn't know shit about customer service. Needless to say we were all pissed after that trip. The cruise line knew it and actually gave us a $500 voucher for a cruise on a future Norwegian cruise line. I was so disgusted that I never used it.

sharky99 · Mar 30, 2009

thx for posting, have a great cruise, I guess I know where I'm going for my next cruise!

quantumleap · Mar 30, 2009

Hey, NJ/Rangers game went under tonight. LOL!

My family all went on the Carnival Fantasy ship out of Port Canaveral to Freeport and Nassau for a 4-day cruise. The food was fantastic. You can eat all you want and they had midnight buffets.

My family likes shrimp. We must have had 4 plates of shrimp each. The beef tenderloin was my favorite. They must have had 7 courses for each evening meal.

I was easily bored though since we spent a couple days floating from one island to the next and back to Florida. I swear, Nassau rolled up the sidewalks at night. The ship had good entertainment a couple nights but the other 2 nights was horrible. Some dance routine one night and amateur night the other night. I watched a movie both nights.

The next time I'll fly in to some Club Med-type thing where you aren't floating in the middle of the ocean and you are always at your destination.

squeeze3 · Mar 31, 2009

Trans-Atlantic no good. At one point you are at sea for 6 straight days without any stops. Also, you keep adjusting your clock by one hour every other night and it plays havoc with your sleep schedule. Near the end of your journal it's Midnight and it only feels like 6:00 PM. I understand this is something everyone needs to deal with when going to Europe, bit much better to get it down in one night on a plane rather than dragging it out for two weeks.