As cruise-ship newbies, we relied heavily on online forums and anecdotes from colleagues to help us select a cruise. Endless options exist on the market at different price points, target markets and on-board experiences. The Caribbean was our overall destination, but more decisions were required to pick the islands we wanted to visit. Luckily, our criteria involved incorporating a Christmas Day sailing so that limited the choices. In the end, we booked a 7 day Carnival Conquest Eastern Caribbean cruise and this blog post outlines part one of that trip.
Booking the cruise
On returning to London in January 2014 after spending time in Madeira for New Years and enjoying the cruise ship themed celebrations; we scanned the forums (TripAdvisor, Cruise Critic) and settled on the cruise we wanted to book. The Carnival website is user-friendly and after registering our details, we popped down a deposit and selected a stateroom. The choice of which floor and what type of room is dependent on personal preference. Rooms that are closer to the main deck may experience some noise; as might rooms that are located near the on-board theater, casino or nightclub.
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| Our ship, the Carnival Conquest |
Checking in
Closer to the departure date, we were reminded to pay the balance and given instructions on how to check in on the day. As we were in Miami the day before embarkation, we had a fair idea of where the port was located. On the actual day, a taxi picked us up from South Beach, crossed the causeway and dropped us off at the terminal where a large line of people had already built up after 30 minutes into the check-in time.
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| The queue to collect room keys and get onto the boat |
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| Other boats at the Port of Miami departing the same day as us |
Balcony Stateroom
Our room was located on Deck 7 (out of a total of 13) and selecting a room with a balcony was 100% the right decision. We made use of this feature with many lazy hours drinking wine, watching the sunset and just lounging around on the deck chairs. On our cruise, there were plenty of chairs on the main deck, as the ship didn't seem to be at full capacity, but it was nicer to have chairs of our own to relax in so we would recommend getting a balcony stateroom.
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| Our stateroom on board |
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| Our BYO entertainment and beverages |
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| Enjoying the view from our balcony |
As the Carnival Conquest has a passenger capacity of close to 3000, and a crew capacity of 1150, it took a while for everyone to get on-board. During this time, we met our housekeeping staff, settled into our room and waved off the other cruise ships at port including a Disney ship full of excited children.
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| Disney ship |
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| Lots of checks each time the doors are opened/closed |
By early evening, the ship started moving towards to the Caribbean Sea and we had a panoramic view of the Miami City skyline.
First Night on-board
To facilitate on-board communication between the Cruise Director and the passengers, a daily newsletter was dropped into our room letterbox that outlines: onboard activities (bingo, competitions, movies etc); dining times / locations and key information about offshore excursions.
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| The newsletter for day 1 |
After a compulsory safety briefing so that we knew the specific lifeboat we were allocated to in case things went pear-shaped; we had free time to explore the ship. Most of the retail outlets and bars were located in the middle decks and at night, the big TV by the pool turned into a movie theater.
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| Watching a movie under the stars |
On-board dining
All meals on-board are included in the cruise ship ticket, including a buffet breakfast, different lunch options: buffet, burgers, pizza, mexican food. There was a temptation to eat a lot of fried food on-board with the excuse that we were on holiday and we could indulge ourselves.
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| ceviche and fried fish cakes with chips |
As there were only two of us, we went for the casual dining option for dinner, this gave us flexibility as we didn't have a set time to eat but queued if it was busy. Dinner was served as a three course meal (drinks were an extra cost) with a multicultural range of dishes or the option for £20 supplement to visit the steak house restaurant.
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| Prawn cocktail |
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| Beef stroganoff |
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| Turkey with stuffing |
Sunsets
During the cruise, we were treated to some beautiful sunsets that we enjoyed from the main deck and also from our balcony.
Towel animals
As a nice touch, every time our room was cleaned, the house-keeper would create a new towel-animal with the linen.
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| One of the towel animals made by our housekeeper |
On-board entertainment
The Cruise Director and his team of staff had a busy job keeping all the passengers entertained. There was an in-house TV channel, plenty of announcements and theme nights, including two whereby formal dress was encouraged and photographers were hired to take portrait shots.
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| At the lobby bar during a formal night |
Other activities were held at the main pool, including dancing competitions and other stunts that appealed to the younger crowd.
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| Main deck near the pool |
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| Standing room only during a competition |
Every night, there were two on-board stage shows starring a group of talented performers. We attended one and were impressed by the level of energy of the dancers considering that they did two shows back-to-back each night.
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| The cast of the show taking photos |
Gym and Fitness
The Conquest has an on-board health spa and gym, plus a running track and other sports related areas. We both visited the gym a number of times (to burn off some of the calories we were consuming) and attended a health seminar where we were convinced to take an audit of our health, that led us to change our eating habits (we bought a Nutribullet on returning to London), purchased seaweed diet pills and pledged post-New Years to cut out alcohol - that lasted for 21 days.
Our first port was Nassau, capital city of The Bahamas. We arrived at sunrise and our first view of the port included the iconic Atlantis hotel.
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| Good morning Nassau |
When we arrived in Nassau, there were two other cruise ships in port - a Royal Caribbean ship and the gigantic Norwegian Epic that has a passenger capacity of over 4000.
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| The Norwegian Epic |
Cruise ship terminal
After disembarking the ship, we took the obligatory photo with the 'welcome to The Bahamas' sign and walked through through the cruise ship terminal to our waiting mini-buses.
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| Welcome to The Bahamas |
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| Cruise ship terminal |
SNUBA shore excursion
We had pre-booked our shore excursions before the trip, as this ensured availability and the queue to purchase at the desk was always busy. You could also buy shore excursions using the in-room remote / TV and billing it to your on-board account.
Our first excursion was SNUBA - a cross between snorkeling and SCUBA whereby there is a single tank and you are allocated into groups of 4 people. With a respirator, mask, fins and weight belt - you are lowered into the water and get a feel for the SCUBA experience. Olie was a natural and explored the ocean floor, whereas Mei found this challenging as it was the first time using a respirator.
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| Waiting to be organised into our shore excursion groups |
Stuart Cove
The SNUBA activity took place in a remote part of Nassau called Stuart Cove. We were given a safety briefing and then allocated into our groups. The cove was also the launch point for snorkelling and certified diving activities.
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| Nice real estate |
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| The boats used by the company |
Our boat took us near a sand island about 20 minutes away from the cove. The water was beautiful and blue, but visibility wasn't great and the corals were less than impressive in comparison to what we have seen in the Great Barrier Reef and what Olie had experienced in Fiji.
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| The island near the SNUBA site |
After a 30 minute session of SNUBA, we did another 30 minutes of snorkeling before it was time to go home. Shore excursions like these are good if you want to do a specific activity, but there is a lot of time spent waiting for buses, briefings, transport - that in the end you only get a short amount of time to participate in the activity and no opportunity to see the township of Nassau.
Journey back to port
We were soon back on our minibus and heading back to Port. However, we were running late and traffic in the side streets was bad. The driver assured us that there was no need to panic as we were on an 'official' shore excursion meaning that the boat would wait for our return. If we had booked privately, it wouldn't be the case. |
| Transport by minibus |
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| Baha Mar construction site |
Then all too soon our ship set sail again and we waved goodbye to Nassau.
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| Yachts and white mansions - the well known images of Caribbean islands |
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| Hotels dominating the island skyline |
Day 4 - St Thomas
The 3rd day was spent at sea and in the morning of the 4th day, we arrived at the US Virgin Islands where we disembarked at St Thomas.
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| St Thomas cruise ship port |
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| Other cruise ships in port |
St John Catamaran cruise
At the ferry terminal we were allocated into our shore-excursion groups: a catamaran cruise and snorkeling around the island of St John. Our transport to the site was in a vehicle that was a cross between a trailer and a bus.
The scenery was nice, although the roads were quite bumpy, taking about an hour to get to our destination.
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| Our transport vehicle |
The scenery was nice, although the roads were quite bumpy, taking about an hour to get to our destination.
When we arrived at the marina there was a slight mix-up in the boat we were supposed to board and this frustrated some of the passengers. However the crew quickly sorted things out and equipped us with fins, snorkels and masks.
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| The catamaran |
When we arrived at St John, we had over an hour in the water to explore the corals. Again the underwater scenery wasn't as good as what we had seen before perhaps due to the over exposure to mass tourism. There were plenty of sea urchins and fire coral so you had to be careful to not touch any.
After the swim, we climbed back on-board for fruit and some punch. It was then that Mei recognised one of the other passengers was AFL commentator and ex-coach and player Danny Frawley who was on holiday with his wife and kids. We had spoken briefly to the family (unaware of who they were) as we caught on to the Australian accent and they mentioned their hometown was Melbourne. After some thought, Mei dared Olie and another passenger to ask for his name. This turned out to be correct and it was our little brush of celebrity on the trip.
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| On the catamaran |
Next blog post:
Caribbean cruise - Part 2
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