Carnival Conquest Review

Carnival Conquest - Western Caribbean

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

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Sail Date: Mar 2007

This was the first cruise for my wife and me, scheduled in honor of our 25th wedding anniversary. We live in Houston, and thought we'd keep it simple, so we looked for a cruise leaving from Houston or Galveston, and quickly decided on the Carnival Conquest, sailing on March 25.

PRE-CRUISE AND EMBARKATION - I booked the cruise myself through the Carnival web site in early January. This turned out to be a mistake. There are not enough instructions on the web site to do it correctly, and if you make a mistake you can find yourself charged extra administrative fees to make the needed corrections. In our case, I put my wife's name down as the name she goes by - her middle name - rather than her name as it appears on her passport. When this 'problem' was discovered about a month before the cruise, they said it had to be fixed or else we would not be able to board, but they refused to fix it unless I paid another $50. I eventually managed to complain enough to get the fee reduced to $25, but it still seems unfair, given that the web site did not warn about this requirement up front. Also, I've heard stories from others who booked directly through Carnival - but on the telephone - getting free upgrades, etc., which were not offered on-line. If I take a Carnival cruise again, I'll certainly start with a phone call to one of their 'Personal Vacation Planners' rather than booking myself on-line.

When the day of our cruise finally arrived, our plans were to leave our home in Northwest Houston about 9:30, which would get us to Galveston by 11:00. However, Sunday morning, a few last minute things came up at home, and we ended up not getting away until about 11:30. Well, that should still get us there by 1:00, so no problems. It was a smooth drive down I-45 until we were in sight of the bridge crossing into Galveston. But, then, traffic stopped! The causeway into Galveston was closed down for the next hour and a half. We sat there looking at the bridge we couldn't cross until almost 2:30. Worse, we didn't know what was going on, so didn't have any idea whether the bridge would reopen in time to make the ship or not. Fortunately, it did - but it made for some tense times as we worried. Lesson: do plan to get there early!! Had we left home when we planned at 9:30, or even 5 minutes earlier than we did, we would have had a much less stressful start to the vacation.

Cabin Review

Cabin 11
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