Carnival Conquest Review
Post Dry Dock - Carnival Conquest Review
Rating by category
Additional details
We arrived at the port about 10:30 AM to avoid some of the traffic associated with the Mardi Gras parade being held Sunday afternoon. We parked in the EZ Cruise parking facility (pre-paid reservation) and were quickly loaded into a van (including luggage)and transported to the terminal where a porter took our bags. After a short wait they opened the entrance to the boarding terminal and began processing passengers. The boarding process was quick and painless. After a short wait in the waiting area, we went aboard the ship and were eating lunch by 12:30 PM.
At 1:30 PM, we checked out our room on the spa deck. Everything was ready, including the roses I had bought for my wife. Very, very lovely. We attended the muster drill and went to the CCer's meet and greet. Not as many people attended as had said they would. But, still enjoyable and met some really nice people. As always, we had to change our dinner time to the early dining (they haven't gotten that right on any of our cruises). And, while we were there, we requested and received a nice table for two. The Maitre'd was very accommodating and extremely nice to all the people requesting changes to their dining arrangements. Our luggage was delivered to our room before early seating dinner. After dinner we explored the ship and were shown how to use the new slot machine cards (no coins anymore) by a very nice young lady. Since we didn't use the Casino, we don't know how the new card system is being received.
We spent a lot of our free time on the Lido deck. The large screen TV was great when there were events on the lido deck - an excellent view for all no matter where you sat. The live music was loud enough it made having a discussion difficult, but not so loud that it gave us a headache. Yes, they did have CNN on most of the time without the volume on during the live music. This didn't particularly bother us and the volume wasn't all that loud when there was no live music. I did notice they played movies in the evenings (at least on a few of the at sea days) on the big screen TV, but didn't pay attention to times or movie names since it was too cool and windy for us to sit on the lido deck in late evenings. Instead, we would retreat to our room and use the balcony for fresh air.
Cabin Review
Balcony
Nice room with lots of storage.. at least for the two of us.
Easy access to the lido deck without using the inside stairs and/or elevators.
The balcony has a partial overhang that allows water being used to clean the decks above to filter down onto the balcony. In addition, sea spray can be felt when the ship is moving. This parial covering could definetly be a problem when it rains, limiting its use.
Due to its location, music from the entertainment areas could be heard clearly when on the balcony 24/7. In our opinion, this takes away from the pleasure of sitting on the balcony and enjoying the ocean noises late at night.
It was very, very windy on the balcony when the ship was moving. Since this was our first balcony room, we're not sure it was any worse than elsewhere on the ship.
Overall, this balcony room was a great bargain for us (upgraded due to ship changes made in dry dock) and we definitly enjoyed our stay in this room.
In the future, we'll probably book a balcony room on a lower deck.