For what it is worth here is my review of the Glory beginning 11/18/17 and ending 11/25/17. If you want a Cliff’s notes version we had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed the cruise. We celebrated our 25th anniversary in August and this cruise was a continuation of that celebration. Myself, 59, and DW, 51, were the only ones in our party (yay!) and we definitely needed this cruise since the weather in Vermont was turning more toward winter. This was our 7th cruise overall and third with Carnival. We booked a premium balcony cabin, 8442, which is located on deck 8 aft on the port side. We liked the cabin location as it was one deck down from the aft pool and the lido. We also left home in time to arrive a day before the cruise, but I will stick to reviewing the cruise itself. So without further ado, let’s go on a review!

11/18/17- grabbed a free shuttle from the airport to the cruise port thanks to our car rental and we left the airport at 5 minutes to 11. I think we pulled into the cruise port at around 11:25 or so, which was early since our reserved check in time was 12 to 12:30. We gave the bags to the porter and proceeded to walk down to the entrance to find that they had a separate line for early or late arrivals for check in. There was very little line so we were checked in quickly by scanning our passports and since we’d set up our onboard account during online check in we had a seat until they called our zone. By noon we were sitting in the Atrium bar with a couple of cold drinks of the day in our hands and the ship was already decorated for Christmas. I know that lot of posts have been made about the new check in procedure with the sail and sign cards being at the cabin door but I have to say that this was a big efficiency that only helps make the check in process go smoother. We had no trouble using our boarding pass to pay for drinks before getting the S&S cards. We got to our cabin around 2 (they were ready earlier but we were enjoying the conversation in the Atrium) and it is a very nice cabin. It is super huge with a 75 square foot balcony that had two chairs, a lounger and a table on it. Our Funshops orders were in the cabin, but our shore excursion tickets were not. Gerald was our steward and he gave us the infamous “choice” card and it offered three options and had check boxes for extra services needed. We checked “both” and asked for ice and received great service throughout the cruise.

Muster drill was uneventful and didn’t take too long. They do scan an S&S card for someone in each cabin. We walked around a bit then decided to try the martini tasting at the Alchemy bar. It is normally $20.50 but was $19.50 today. You select 4 of 7 martinis from a menu and we liked them a lot (you can share if you purchase it but we didn’t have Cheers so didn’t ask about that aspect). We had early seating in the Platinum MDR at table 666, a 4 top with booths. Our head waiter was Earl who was assisted by Randolf and Mark. I started off with calamari and shrimp cocktail and DW had the tomato soup. I had the honey glazed pork loin and she had the veggie lasagna. For desert I had tiramisu and DW had the WCMC. The food was nicely prepared and very tasty, as it would remain for the rest of the cruise. Dinner tonight took about an hour. We caught part of the Battle of the Genders in the main theater and caught the R rated show for Tony Esposito, who turned out to be my second favorite comedian of the cruise. We decided to skip the Welcome Aboard show and turned in early. Read more