Last year we took an 8 night Carnival Breeze Eastern Caribbean cruise, so some of this review will be in comparison to that one. Overall, we had a great time and were happy with the somewhat older Conquest. We booked this as a last minute (5 weeks out) winter getaway based on the price. I researched the ship here on CC, so I knew what the main differences would be compared to the Breeze. We have been to all of these ports in the past, but it’s been a while for a western Caribbean itinerary for us. We are budget travelers, so we tend to tour on our own and not do any upcharge services on the ship. This review might seem long as it also serves as my personal journal of the trip. Although, I take a lot of pictures, I don’t have the capability for posting them here – sorry about that.

Embarkation

This was our 14th cruise total, with 4 on Carnival and the rest on NCL, Royal Caribbean and Princess. We decided to keep costs down this year and fly out the day of the cruise and avoid the expensive high season prices of the FLL hotels. We always purchase trip insurance on our own. We also took the Carnival transfers one way to the port this time, even though they are more expensive than a cab, in case we had a flight delay, we knew there would be a Carnival rep at the airport to speak with. Carnival was in the baggage claim area to greet you and we only had to wait about 15 minutes for them to gather more Conquest passengers at about 10:30am and lead us and our luggage to the bus. Of course, you have to wait for the driver to load all the luggage on the bus and they stopped at one more terminal for more passengers, but then it was off to the pier. We had a very nice Jamaican bus driver who immediately put us in the cruise mode. At the port, he unloaded our luggage and we just had to identify it and he loaded it on the carts with some of the port employees and we just tipped the bus driver. Check in was fairly quick at about 11:30am and we were called to board about 12:30pm. Since we wouldn’t be able to purchase our wine in FLL this trip, we packed it securely in bubble wrap from home in our checked luggage and then transferred it to our carry-on to check in at the ship. We really like that Carnival still allows you to carry on one bottle of wine per person for use in the cabin. Read more