Cruise Tips

[ScottAD]

We have a 5 day Bahamas cruise via Carnival coming up this Wednesday out of Charleston, a fantastic city btw.

What are your experiences and tips? I've read plenty from CruiseCritic but I want some real world goodness here!

 

[highland145]

Left out of Port Canaveral, Royal....so I ain't got crap.


However, S.C, ftw. Local or drove in?

 

[ScottAD]

Left out of Port Canaveral, Royal....so I ain't got crap.


However, S.C, ftw. Local or drove in?

Driving in. We honeymooned there. I'm smitten with the city. Reminds me of my hometown Baltimore

 

[Cappuccino]

I've been on a cruise 2 times. Royal Carribean and Princess.

All the staff is Philliapeno and Asian. When I first went on my first cruise with my family, I was surprised I was like wtf is this and then someone explained to me that they ONLY hire people that need work in the third world countries, so made a lot of sense. 10/10 they are all friendly.

Are you planning to go off board each stop? If yes everything is not free and sometimes the bus is free and everything is up to you. I went to Europe so I guess it's different.

I don't have any tips because when you step inside the ship you will feel like you are entering a 5-star hotel. Then when you go in deeper it feels like you are going to a big shopping center

Don't bother signing up for wifi its not free and its super duper expensive. Even if you are rich the wifi is slow as hell. Google search takes like 2 mins to load lol.

The food is nice. You have to be suited and booted one day because they host a special dinner for everyone and everyone wear their best suit and dresses. So make sure you bring your best clothes for 1 day.

Cruise is awesome I am planning to go again with Celebrity next year for 7 days.

Have fun!

Sorry for my bad english I am Swedish and my grammar is good

 

[ScottAD]

I've been on a cruise 2 times. Royal Carribean and Princess.

All the staff is Philliapeno and Asian. When I first went on my first cruise with my family, I was surprised I was like wtf is this and then someone explained to me that they ONLY hire people that need work in the third world countries, so made a lot of sense. 10/10 they are all friendly.

Are you planning to go off board each stop? If yes everything is not free and sometimes the bus is free and everything is up to you. I went to Europe so I guess it's different.

I don't have any tips because when you step inside the ship you will feel like you are entering a 5-star hotel. Then when you go in deeper it feels like you are going to a big shopping center

Don't bother signing up for wifi its not free and its super duper expensive. Even if you are rich the wifi is slow as hell. Google search takes like 2 mins to load lol.

The food is nice. You have to be suited and booted one day because they host a special dinner for everyone and everyone wear their best suit and dresses. So make sure you bring your best clothes for 1 day.

Cruise is awesome I am planning to go again with Celebrity next year for 7 days.

Have fun!

Sorry for my bad english I am Swedish and my grammar is good

Thank you, we have two stops, Freeport and their private island. I plan on getting off at both. I have to connect to wifi on an island to do school work.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Carnival is the shit of the shit as far as cruise lines from what I hear.... toodles!

 

[brianmanahan]

Carnival is the shit of the shit as far as cruise lines from what I hear.... toodles!

in a good way, or a bad way?

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

in a good way, or a bad way?

In a bad way. I would go more mid-tier at least and go with something like Royal Caribbean.

 

[ScottAD]

Carnival is the shit of the shit as far as cruise lines from what I hear.... toodles!

That may be, we don't know. Again, our first cruise. If it goes poorly our next will be with another line simple as that. Imagine if we all bought things because of what we have heard only without any self thought.

 

[UglyCasanova]

Have fun and enjoy yourself.

 

[ponyo]

That may be, we don't know. Again, our first cruise. If it goes poorly our next will be with another line simple as that. Imagine if we all bought things because of what we have heard only without any self thought.

If it's your first cruise, don't worry about anything and just enjoy. I would recommend taking and using motion sickness pill or patch as precaution but I'm pretty prone to seasickness. Other than that, enjoy yourself. You can order more than one item each from the menu so if you can't decide what app to order at dinner or what you want, order a bunch.

 

[Cappuccino]

If it's your first cruise, don't worry about anything and just enjoy. I would recommend taking and using motion sickness pill or patch as precaution but I'm pretty prone to seasickness. Other than that, enjoy yourself. You can order more than one item each from the menu so if you can't decide what app to order at dinner or what you want, order a bunch.

My dad ordered every item on the menu lol. Other than that the rest is just all you can eat buffet. The suit and dress day are when you eat like James Bond.

 

[Cappuccino]

That may be, we don't know. Again, our first cruise. If it goes poorly our next will be with another line simple as that. Imagine if we all bought things because of what we have heard only without any self thought.

What is the ship size? How many people on board? If it's over 3k then your all good

 

[ponyo]

What is the ship size? How many people on board? If it's over 3k then your all good

Doesn't matter for the first cruise. He doesn't have anything to compare it to so any size cruise ship will feel big and impressive. The first cruise I went on, it was small Royal Caribbean ship. It felt huge and majestic because I didn't know better. And I was wowed by the mountains of food. Little did I know that's nothing compared to some of the bigger ships. If I went on the same cruise now, I would hate it. But at the time, I thought it was great.

 

[ScottAD]

What is the ship size? How many people on board? If it's over 3k then your all good

It is the Carnival Esctasy, an older ship, actually second oldest in their line. We've already discussed that if it goes over fairly well we will book something else in the future. Charleston is the closest port to us, we chose it mostly from that convenience. That and two kiddos who make the drive to Myrtle so an extra hour to Chucktown shouldn't be too bad.

Our plans are to give this a go and if it is great maybe do something in Florida next year. Disney even in the future. I've heard its the bees knees for families.

 

[Jeeebus]

Our plans are to give this a go and if it is great maybe do something in Florida next year. Disney even in the future. I've heard its the bees knees for families.

We've done a lot of cruises (helps to live close to 3 major cruise ports) and I would probably rank Disney near the bottom. We have 2 kids that are Disney age (6 and 8), and don't get me wrong, the ship and the service is top notch. That said, the added cost for Disney just isn't worth it. I thought the food was too frou-frou, the entertainment was nothing special, etc. The kids' club was excellent, but we mostly prefer to have our kids with us.

Compared to Disney, I find Royal Caribbean to be exponentially better. For the price of a Disney porthole, we recently did a week in a suite on Harmony of the Seas (biggest ship still?). Food was excellent. Entertainment was excellent. Ship had a million things to do. It's difficult to comprehend just how big some of these ships are.

We've done small (400 passenger Princess cruise in Tahiti) and we've done big (6,000 passenger Harmony of the Seas). There's something to be said for both and everything in between.

 

[kage69]

My advice is to take a larger emergency kit than you might normally. Plan for more than one member of the family getting taken down with norovirus, or something similar. Make your family get really motivated about washing their hands while aboard.

 

[spacejamz]

On the surf or turf night (on previous carnvial cruises, it was either prime rib or lobster), you can order both of them...it is easier if you have become buddies with your server though...if you are super friendly with him, he might even bring you an extra lobster tail or two...

 

[Exterous]

[UOTE="ScottAD, post: 39053691, member: 208896"]That may be, we don't know. Again, our first cruise. If it goes poorly our next will be with another line simple as that. Imagine if we all bought things because of what we have heard only without any self thought.[/QUOTE]

I think they have a broader range of ship quality than some of the other lines so your experiences with them can vary more widely. We did a Carnival cruise out of Puerto Rico on one of their newer ships and had a fantastic time and I would rank it as a better cruise experience than our most recent Royal Caribbean cruise. If you have a bad cruise I would look at it more along the lines of now you know what you like and don't like and can use that to plan more appropriately as opposed to writing off cruising or a cruise line.

If you like drinking we've noticed crew is getting more lax about enforcing alcohol rules in ports of call. The first day is pretty strict but we've brought alcohol onboard with no issues on both RCL and Carnival recently. Hell in the Caribbean I just put the bottles of rum on the security conveyor belt by themselves and no one batted an eye. They were for gifts\souvenirs so I hand't been planning on drinking any but not all of them ended up making it home. YMMV of course. Also checkout the rules for bringing wine on board. I believe Carnival still lets you do 2 bottles per stateroom.

Often they will have the Main Dining Room or one of the other specialty restaurants open for breakfast and lunch in addition to the buffet. If the buffet is super crowded going at different times can greatly affect how busy it is. Splitting up and having one person grab a table while the other goes to the buffet and then switch can help too. We also felt the additional charge restaurants were worth it

 

[KMFJD]

On the surf or turf night (on previous carnvial cruises, it was either prime rib or lobster), you can order both of them...it is easier if you have become buddies with your server though...if you are super friendly with him, he might even bring you an extra lobster tail or two...

In the formal dinning room i would order multiple steaks/appetizers with every meal, i was never told no or given any indication that this was frowned upon.

/yes i got fat on the cruise

 

[ponyo]

In the formal dinning room i would order multiple steaks/appetizers with every meal, i was never told no or given any indication that this was frowned upon.

/yes i got fat on the cruise

That's something I didn't know on the first cruise. But after I learned, I ordered multiple apps and entrees. Even at premium additional charge restaurants, you can order much as you want. My waiter offered to bring me as many lobsters as I wanted. I actually had to stop him from bring me more as I was stuffed.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

If you're a drinker, buy the alcohol package.

 

[rh71]

Carnival is the shit of the shit as far as cruise lines from what I hear.... toodles!

We've done Princess, Royal Caribbean, Carnival, and Norwegian (I know Ruby works there) in that order. I'm sorry to say the NCL ship (to Bermuda I believe) was my lowest ranked - one of the rooms next door had some kind of audible air/water leak the entire trip, and it felt like a dated ship too. Nothing that made it feel grand/majestic. On top of that, rough seas made me sea sick enough to grab a pill. Carnival wasn't as bad as we had heard, especially for the cost. Enjoyed every minute of that cruise to Alaska. They did a good job showing off Glacier Bay themselves. RCL was the best with entertainment, presentation, and frills - with Princess following a close second. We haven't gone in quite a few years though - don't think the kids would like to be stuck on a boat for a week.

Do the excursions, but don't book it through the ship as it may be higher priced... get off and book/sign-up locally.

 

[KMFJD]

We've done Princess, Royal Caribbean, Carnival, and Norwegian (I know Ruby works there) in that order. I'm sorry to say the NCL ship (to Bermuda I believe) was my lowest ranked - one of the rooms next door had some kind of audible air/water leak the entire trip, and it felt like a dated ship too. Nothing that made it feel grand/majestic. On top of that, rough seas made me sea sick enough to grab a pill. Carnival wasn't as bad as we had heard, especially for the cost. Enjoyed every minute of that cruise to Alaska. They did a good job showing off Glacier Bay themselves. RCL was the best with entertainment, presentation, and frills - with Princess following a close second. We haven't gone in quite a few years though - don't think the kids would like to be stuck on a boat for a week.

Do the excursions, but don't book it through the ship as it may be higher priced... get off and book/sign-up locally.

There will be plenty of local taxi's available, for the price that the cruise line charges for 1 person we would usually get a minivan for 3 people for the same time and see the same excursions and it was usually less crowded and we get to see more.

If doing a Panama Canal crossing and on HAL get a the day pass for the spa, way less crowded there and great view while sitting in the hot tub.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Freeport is a huge port, you will need transportation from the dock by the ship to wherever you want to go on the island. (Otherwise you'll just be wandering around a big industrial seaport.)

Lots of places to see in the Bahamas though.

Enjoy your trip!