10/22/05

By gogetter

• February 8, 2007

Hello,

WOW......where to start.............i am just overwhelmed......................

We were to have sailed the western route to Key West, Belize and Cozumel. Good luck to you all. Instead we went to Nassau, St. Thomas and San Juan. The reasoning for San Juan was St. Maarteen was already full. We did not know the change until about 4 pm Friday. No problem we wanted to cruise!

Got to the pier a few minutes after noon and had a short wait to drop off bags. Then i paid the $70 and parked on the 4th floor of the parking garage. Nice and easy to get around no problems at all.....went through a few lines and viola we were on the ship! The whole parking and emabrkation process took us all of about 40 minutes or so. I did the Funpass and that seemed to save a few minutes.

The ship...........

Very nice and new looking. Seems like Carnival has upgraded tremendously from the Fantasy class ships. Promenade deck was great..........sushi bar, casino, picture taking and a few bars made it a nice place to be and not too overcrowded. Pool area...after 11 cruises now, i can make a challenge of sorts....take me on any cruise and no doubt i will find you deck chairs to sit in. There were many chairs around the pool areas and tiers. I personally counted 23 at one time in the immediate pool area. AGain, never ever a problem.

Cabin.........1st balcony cabin......nice! I had it decorated and a bottle of champagne. Wife loved it. MR. G was our room stwerad. Did an excellent job and hardly ever really saw him. We tipped him frequently throughout the cruise. Thanks. Plenty of storage space for empty luggage, seemed roomy and the balcony was a special treat. Shower and bathroom was nice. Never had a problem with the shower curtain getting stuck to me. Wife did not care for the supplied hair dryer, she did bring her own with an extra extension cord. Seemed to be enough lighting in the room. More than enough space for all clothes.

Dining.............Excellent.......Bierslaw our waiter and Mille the busboy were awesome and did an excellent job. My wife got a kick out of berry....our waiters nickname....ordering for her! He even got mine right a few times.....calling me traditional...lololol.....3 minor snafu's......one night i ordered Salmon and wanted a lobster tail also. Never got the lobster tail, but didn't really care.....too much......wasn't served water one night......no biggy i guess.....and the bar waitress didn't come back for a 2nd or 3rd drink order. All minor of course and did not take away from my excellent thoughts of them. Saw all kinds of dress....from short and tshirts the 1st night to any kind of dress imaginable for ladies on formal night. ME.....jeans every night and never a problem.

Our daily routine seemed to be waking between 6-7 am.....why i don't know...i cant ever sleep in on a cruise. We love the mornings on deck, or in this case on the balcony with our coffee and Baileys that we brought. Then we have some breakfast and prepare for the day. We just go all day and in this case, dinner was at 8pm. By the timne we eneded dinner....9:45 or later we were tired. I was allowed to go to the casino a few nights, but still back in bed by 12:30ish. Even with 5-6 hours of sleep a night i felt rested. Before dinner every night we woud go to the Promenade deck and have sushi and drinks and people watch. Very nice!

Debarkation......good....it took over an hour to find my last bag. It was sitting off to the side, don't know if someone took it by accident or where it was.......

Ports............

Nassau.....did the Yellowbird booze cruise. We were in Nassau from 8 am to 2 pm and this booze cruise was from 9 to noon. Took a walk to catch the Yellowbid and this one took us to Blackbeards Cay across from Cable Beach. We paid $35 a person from Carnival, but saw someone pay $30 a person for them directly. Plenty of rum punch and i was happy. Did a little linbo...and danced, just fun.

St Thomas...........went to Maegans Bay....been before and still like it...$8 bus ride there and a $3 admission fee. John and Shannon were excellent bartenders and the food good. They were open from about 8 am to 5 pm. Food prices from $4 to $28.95 for pizza. Gas was $3.00 a gallon. One bit of dissatisfaction......cabbies are getting rude there. All we encountered seemed to have an attitude and not a good one......

San Juan.....went walking around at first...blah.......found a cabbie to take us to a beach. I asked the name of the beach and i guess it was El ALambique. A bar was across the street where i spent some time. Tony was good to me. On the return trip we stopped at Senor Frogs and had a good time.

All in all a great time and some special moments with my wife.

Any and all questions welcomed!

Thanks again for all the help.