My husband and I just returned from a 5 day cruise on The Glory to St. John, NB and Halifax, NS. Prior to embarkation, we read pages and pages of reviews. This was our 5th cruise, 3rd on Carnival, but the first that was booked on a spur of the moment. That being said, we had few expectations, and were extremely satisfied with this cruise.

One of the reasons we chose to travel on The Glory was the ease of access from the NYC port. The port is easy to find and we appreciate being able to park a stones throw away from the ship ($30/day, prepaid). Despite Monday morning rush hour, we did not have any problems with traffic. We arrived at the port at 9:30 (for a 12:00 boarding call) and were asked to park in an adjacent garage for 15 minutes until the remaining passengers had disembarked and moved their cars. During this time, we were able to walk around and enjoy the scenery, grab a coffee from a vendor and use the restrooms at the port. After a few minutes, the second garage opened up and we parked literally 50 feet from the place where we needed to put our bags.

The embarkation process was well organized and efficient - after passing through security, we only waited until about 11:00 when they began boarding. Although the rooms were not ready until 1:00, we were able to enjoy lunch at the buffet, the deli, the Mongolian Wok station, and the burrito bar. The food was exceptional, plentiful, and at this early hour there were no lines. We enjoyed the pool, hot tubs (which were plenty hot), and napping on one of the double hanging hammocks on the Serenity Deck. The ship set sail at 6pm with a wonderful view of the skyline, and a heart attack inducing smokestack-just-barely-clears-the-Verrazano-Bridge. Read more