Carnival Conquest Review

Carnival Conquest - Western Caribbean

Review for the Western Caribbean Cruise on Carnival Conquest
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k&j
First Time Cruiser • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Nov 2006

It was just myself, 25 and my hubby 27. This was our first cruise. Reading member reviews made our decision to cruise with Carnival. Unfortunately I don't think we will cruise with Carnival for a while. We drove to Galveston on Saturday, we got lost in Houston. There is allot of construction going on the roads in Houston and there are not very many signs that lead the way to Galveston. I suggest taking a map if you are not familiar with the area. We arrived to the La Quinta Inn and Suites late that Saturday night. The hotel rooms were nice, we paid $68 for the night with free parking for the week. Shuttle is $10 roundtrip. Staff could be friendlier. Breakfast is normal continental with waffles. If you are going to use the shuttle, you have to get up Sunday morning and sign up on the list and be waiting in the Lobby. My hubby was the second to sign up around 8 am, but we did not wait in the lobby. We didn't go down from our room until 11 am and we didn't get to leave the Hotel until 1pm. Verses my inlaws were the first to sign up and were waiting in the lobby area since 8 am were able to leave before 9 am to the cruise terminal. The waiting in the hotel for 2 hrs was ridiculous, better off taking a taxi or parking at the terminal. We arrived at the terminal after 1 pm and the line was HUGE. Our luggage was immediately taken from us, we were not allowed to carry on the big luggage with us. We had no idea what the line was for, until we got closer, Security, they were scanning all items.

We were in the Security line for over an hour. After that we went to another line. The Fun Pass line, which is suppose to speed up the process, AGAIN HUGE LINE. The Fun Pass line was longer than any other line. We were probably in that line for almost an hour. Finally after going thru that line, we were asked for our vouchers and ID and Credit card that will be used with Sail and Sign Card. Sail and Sign Cards are premade, well our cards were not premade. At this time we were very tired of waiting for 4 hours now and we were very very hungry. We were given special passes to get on board from there we were told to go to the Pursers Desk (Information Desk). AGAIN ANOTHER HUGE LINE. At this time my hubby was very unhappy. We waited for almost another hour and we got to the desk and let them know we didn't have Sail & Sign cards. They wanted to know a reason, and we didn't know, that was Carnival's fault, how are we suppose to know why they weren't printed, we had booked our cruise since Feb 2006, we thought that was plenty of time to have everything straight. The dinner time on our cards was wrong, we were given the early time of 5:45, when we had requested the later time. We were told to speak to the maitre D. My hubby just said forget it. Well, we were given our cards and we went up to our Cabin, 7444. Cards did not work to open door, they were not activated. We go back down to deck 3 to the Pursers Desk and my hubby walks straight up to the information desk and says "My cards don't work to get into my cabin" the woman, who spoke little english tells my hubby to get in line and then we will be helped. My hubby says NO and told her we were not wanting in another line. My hubby explained that we were just in line and we were just given the cards, she went ahead and activated them, but not in a friendly manner. As we were going up to our Cabin, over the intercom they were going over the procedures in using the life jackets and lifeboats. So we quickly went to our cabin and got our life jackets and went down to the appropriate deck. By this time, over 5 hours have gone by since we had walked out of our hotel room and we are tired and starving. After the drill we went up to the Lido deck to the Grill and ate hamburgers, hotdogs and pizza. The best thing from the Grill are the hamburgers, the hotdogs and pizza are ok. The icecream is the icy kind, we prefer soft serve. We were wanting an itinerary, we were told to go to the Pursers desk to get that, NOPE, not happening. We instead went to our cabin and check it out and our luggage was there so we unpacked. There is plenty of space to put all items. Our balcony was great, a little bigger than the normal balcony cabins. I would suggest taking an alarm clock, bungee cord to hold balcony door open, an outlet strip (only 2 in the cabin). We took our own sodas in plastic bottles and water too and had them put in the refrigerator (Soda card is about $39 a person). In the bathroom, they have complimentary shampoo, soap, razors, toothpaste, lotion, and Vitamin C Energy powder. We suggest taking some kind of antibacterial wipes or sprays to wipe down the room. There are washers and dryers in every level, $2 to wash and $2 to dry. Detergent is $1 a box. The TV satellite is running on Mountain Time (Denver Colorado stations. Our steward was Joanna from Poland and her helper Eddie. They were great, more like excellent. She kept our cabin cleaned at all times.

The Gulf waters are not smooth, to me they were very rough. Sunday night and all day Monday I felt horrible, even though I had a patch on behind my ear. If you have a weak stomach, I suggest a shot or pills. My hubby was fine with the movement. We thought the Las Vegas type shows were okay. The Motown was good. My hubby liked the Magician. We also liked the last night, Star Legends. Most of the time, we would go see Blood Power, either in the Degas Lounge or Vincents lounge. They are a Filipino band, but they are awesome. They can play just about any song. Overall, that was our favorite entertainment. I would suggest seeing Blood Power at least once. The Spa is overpriced. I did go to Lady's Night, $49. Its a 2 hour pamper your self (mini facial, full body exfoliation, condition hair, under eye treatment). What they do at the end, the pampering is free the $49 goes to any product you want to purchase at the end. Of course they don't tell you that until the very end. I purchased Devils Mint for $50. The fitness center is nice and not many go. I went to some seminars on how to be healthy and detox. Just to let you know the food on the ship is NOT THAT GOOD. Its quantity not quality. We paid $30 bucks a piece to eat at The Point, Yummy, we had lobster and steak. Its sad you have to pay to eat yummy food. Most of our days on the ship, I ate cereal for breakfast and Turkey sandwiches from the Deli. The chinese was ok. The fish n chips were very fishy. The breakfast and lunch buffet at the Cezzane was the same everyday. And my hubby and I are not buffet people. We ate at the Monet a couple of times, our waiters were excellent, Reilto and his helper. Food okay. We noticed allot of the food was recycled and made different ways the next day.

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