Carnival Victory AGAIN: Days at Sea

Tuesday Feb 4/ Thursday Feb 6

I really don't like sea days. I love being out on the islands and exploring but the days it takes to get there are boring to me. We like to nap and eat and that about sums up our sea days. There are of course lots of activities during the sea days by the entertainment staff; bingo, hairy chest contests; corn hole. I am sure most people enjoy the extra relaxation.

                                                                        We tried our luck at BINGO on our last night.

So what did we do on our two days at sea? We walked around the ship mostly, spent some time in the casino and laid around on the Serenity deck. I love the serenity area but it can be bothersome how loud the Lido deck really is. With that being said, I did get a nap in both days we were up there. The area was packed for sure but there was still a few places to sit in the early afternoon.

                                                                      Rain shower in the distance seen from the Serenity Deck.

We also love to spend time in the secret deck area. It is so relaxing. Each cruise, more and more people are then but it is still just a handful. It is so cool to look over and see rain far out and flying fish jumping along with the boat. It is also very convenient for us. I like to book our room on the lido or panorama deck and they have access to the secret decks. Just a short walk down the hall and we are there. It is nice because my boyfriend is a smoker and it is easier to walk out there than down to the casino. They did install newer cigarette trash cans for lack of a better term. They seem to hold them a lot more than the old boxes that were on the Victory the last time.

 We saw the broadway style show "Vroom" in the Caribbean threatre. This was the first show we have been to out of all our cruises thus far. The talent was definitely there but this show could use some work. It was music related but it seemed that they could use more popular songs for their skits. It was still enjoyable and like I said the singers and dancers are VERY talented.

 We saw Jorge Solano, one of the comedians the first night at sea. Unfortunately, we had seen him on our Glory cruise and his material was 95% the same. Disappointing. The second comedian on our cruise, Al Romero, we saw later on in the week. He was hilarious. The comedy lounge was FULL that night with standing room only. Eventually they stopped letting people in.


The casino was hit harder than usual on this cruise. I usually play a little here and there on a couple of penny slots. They have those temping games where it looks soooooo easy to win, cash crane and the one where you have to fit the key exactly into the slot.  I got addicted to the pirate game, Blackbeards Bounty, that we had never seen before. You were able to redeem pirate themed playing cards and poker chips with a skull & cross bones for cash. I wish I would have read how little they were worth before I got so into it. There were 7 different cards available. If you got all 7 you could exchange them for $100. The elusive card with the pirate was never seen. Typical but it was still fun. Without the pirate, each card you got was worth a dollar and each of those chips were worth $0.25. Womp womp It was still pretty fun. At the end of the week I cashed in any doubles I had of the cards and brought the rest and the tokens back to my nephew.

We also played in the arcade. They had some similar games but instead of cash prizes they offered Nintendo DS's, PS Vitas, Go Pro cameras, etc. My boyfriend noticed one of the games offering the PS Vita was pretty close so of course we played. The game was called the Barber shop and the idea was to get the "scissors" (two plastic brackets with a small blade in between) around the twine holding up the prize. The string for the Vita was cut up pretty good so we tried our luck. My boyfriend got pretty close but decided to give up. I convinced him to try twice more and BOOM he won! AWESOME. The box came down and we had to take it to the casino cage to claim. They watch the video to verify you legitimately won and then you sign some paperwork. My boyfriend was pretty excited. We tried for a couple more things throughout the week with no luck but it was fun. They also had a pacman air hockey table that was so much fun. The arcade never seemed busy but we never went during the day so that could be why. Some of the games you redeemed tickets on your sail and sign card and had different vending machine type games where you could redeem them. Unless you had a lot of tickets what you got was pretty much stickers and costume jewelry but I am sure the kids enjoy it.

You cant find too many cruises without at least two days at sea so we will just have to get used to it :)

Single Digit Dance

Hi:) Shield your eyes! Its time for another embarrassing shimee!! Its me, doing the single digit dance. We leave in 9 days WAHOOOOOOO. I feel like I have SO much to do this week. I haven't started to pack or anything so I will get some of that accomplished tomorrow. I work all week and then it is just a couple days until we fly out to Miami. So far it just looks like rain coming our way. Fingers crossed for good weather!!

Just a little recap of our upcoming itinerary:

Monday Feb 3 Miami- depart 4 pm
Tuesday Day at Sea
Wednesday Grand Turk 7-5
Thursday Day at Sea
Friday Little Stirrup Cay/ Coco Cay 7-5
Saturday Miami 8 am


We cancelled our planned excursion in GT so both days will be relaxing days at the beach. Can not wait!!!!

Carnival Victory: 30 days til we sail

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season! Now that the new year has begun, we are 30 days out from being in the warm Caribbean sun. I can check our airfare off my list of things to do before we are ready to go.

We are flying in to Miami day of the cruise as usual, arriving in Miami around 8 am. This is the same AA flight we took for our cruise on the Destiny and it is great to be one of the first flights out. We are hoping for no winter weather shenanigans on the day we leave but we will monitor the weather closely. Worst case we move our flights to Saturday from Monday and get to enjoy a couple days pre cruise in South Beach!

We are also flying out day of and I will admit I am a tad bit nervous.... our flight leaves Miami at 11:05 EEK! We have bought FTTF so we have priority disembarkation which makes me feel a little better. Carnivals recommendation for flights out of Miami is 11:30-12 butttttt we had zippy options. We couldnt stay an additional day in SOBE and I DO NOT do layovers. So we could either take the 11:05 flight, an 11:40 flight, or a 9:00 pm flight. Decisions, decisions. We considered staying until the 9 pm flight doing some touristy stuff around finding somewhere to store our luggage(FYI MIA has lockers where you can do such). Why didnt we give ourselves a smidgen more wiggle room and book the 11:40 flight you ask??

OH EM GEE I have never ever seen flights to Miami be so expensive from our neck of the woods. The last time we went, we flew down on Thanksgiving and came back the following Tuesday paying $175pp roundtrip. The 11:40 flight alone was $280 and rising. Again, OH EM GEE! CRAZYNESS. So the extra 35 minutes might save my stress levels that day but there was nooooo way I would pay that. We have watched the flights since we booked and they havent gone down at all. Even our booked flights totaled $250 pp.

Hopefully the weather is in our favor and customs doesnt decide they want to crucially inspect our boat. Fingers crossed. My to do list is getting shorter and shorter with me really just needing to figure out what we want to pack. This will be the first time that we arent doing just a carry on each thanks to the lovely luggage I received for christmas! It will be nice to be able to pack everything we want. Oh boy I can see myself overpacking all ready :)

Carnival Victory: 50 days til we sail

We have hit a nice little milestone today. 50 days until we sail on the Victory, again. With the holidays around the corner we are going to be focusing on those so before we know it, it will be January and we will be about 30 days out :)

Just a quick recap of what we have planned.

Carnival Victory February 3-8
Miami Feb 3
Day at Sea Feb 4
Grand Turk Feb 5
Day at Sea Feb 6
Little Stirrup Cay (Coco Cay) Feb 7
Miami Feb 8

We really aren't planning much this trip. We have reserved a spot for beach horseback riding on Grand Turk and then plan on lounging the rest of the day. We will hit up Margaritavilla and then the beach. As far as LSC, it shall just be a beach day. I may try my hand at snorkeling, never done that before.

As far what we are doing on board, we usually don't do much. We arent big on the productions but do enjoy a late night comedy show and ending our evenings in the casino & night club. I was thinking of checking out the spa on this trip.

Anyone checked out the spa on one of their trips? How was your experience? Was it worth the money? Let me know :)

Carnival Victory AGAIN

We booked another cruise !!! We are still interested in going to Bermuda for 2015  but since those schedules aren't out yet we decided to book a short cruise next February to hold me off :)
Carnival had a "National Cruise Vacation Month" sale with pretty good rates as well as offering on board credit so we jumped the gun. In addition to the great sale, we still had our 20% off a future cruise discount from our debacle during Hurricane Sandy last fall good for use on a 6 day or less cruise so we booked a 5 day from Miami.

There were 2 options we were looking at.
Option 1
Carnival Victory sailing from Miami 5 Days February
2 days at sea, 2 port days: Grand Turk , Little Stirrup Cay (Coco Cay)

OR

Carnival Sunshine (formerly the Destiny) sailing from Port Canaveral (Orlando) 5 days April
1 sea day, 3 port days: Nassau, Freeport, Key West

Ultimately the decision came down to the itinerary. The Sunshine is a completely new ship and all it has to offer is amazing BUT the itinerary is terrible. We LOVED Key West but probably wouldn't go back on a cruise. There is a lot to see and the area is 100% different that anywhere else in the US. It is slow paced and fun and there is A LOT of drinking going on. The Bahamas- I feel so so about. On our last cruise we were to call at Nassau & Freeport. Sandy came in and we were left with a couple of hours in Nassau. We had an awesome time at Atlantis but really there isn't much else to see. The vendors were also worse here than anywhere else we have been. From what I know, Freeport is the same deal. A couple of beaches and some shopping, not much else. Nassau is a frequent stop on most of Eastern Caribbean itineraries so I am sure we will go back eventually.

So with the Sunshine itinerary out of the question we ended up with Grand Turk and Little Stirrup Cay (pronounced Key). Grand Turk is the largest of the Turks & Caicos islands from what  I understand and the port area is great. The beach is right off the pier as is a large Margaritaville Party Pool Bar area. I'm sure we will be stopping here ;)


Now there is Little Stirrup Cay which I had seen on a couple of random itineraries. This intrigued me. Turns out that this is actually Coco Cay, one of Royal Caribbeans private islands, that they lease to Carnival sometimes. Having never been to one of the cruise lines private islands before I was excited!


I am also excited to be on the Victory again, we even got the same room! This ship may not have all the bells and whistles that newer or updated ships have but it will always be our first ship. I love it. The layout is great and the Panorama deck is a great location for our room to be.

And of course there is Miami- my favorite place to cruise from and I love South Beach. We aren't sure if we will do a pre or post cruise in Miami since this is a last minute trip, we have to have a last minute budget. 


LET THE PLANNING BEGIN! Interested in following our planning process? Subscribe to get all the latest posts to your email!

Carnival Glory:Debarking & Final Thoughts

Hey Guys! I know it has been a while since this cruise but I wanted to finish up on this post.

We had our couple days at sea with rough weather, lots of rain, nothing but rocking and they announced that we would be coming home a day early. They said the port was closing sunday due to flood warnings and the next weeks cruise was canceled. Honestly, it was such a relief to hear. We were in the dining room when they made the announcement and everyone clapped. After dinner we roamed for quite a bit and then headed back to our room to pack and head to the disco. Debarking was pretty easy, we waited a while since we had driven to the port and then headed out.

A couple of things we learned from this cruise:

- Never ever take a cruise before it goes in to be refurbished, they were out of a lot of knick knack type souvenirs, the shop was pretty bare, they were short on some food, the crew seemed to be ready for a break and didnt seem to mind expressing that

-Although the weather made a huge impact, it was clearly evident that we do not like sea days. A transatlantic cruise has been removed from my bucket list for sure!

- I don't think we will ever ever cruise during hurricane season again- although we didn't get sick, our travel mates were quite sick and it was a very unpleasant experience. It seemed to make a lot of people agitated. The staff were great (except for the front desk people) so that was a real help.

- I am also not sure we will ever cruise with people we know again.  It is so nice to do whatever we want to do when we want and that makes it difficult when others want to do other things. Maybe it will be different with people who are seasoned cruisers, who knows.

Once we returned we were quickly refunded a days fare to the account used to purchase the cruise which was great. We were also given 20% off a future cruise to be used on a 2-6 day cruise which expires in October 2014. There are some destination exclusions but I am sure we will be able to find something to apply it to. We are hoping to use it towards a 7 day cruise, I have been in contact with Carnival so that we can try to work that out. I don't want all 7 days discounted, I would just like to have the 6 days of discount applied. Hopefully it works out, we prefer longer cruises.

Even before the weather we didnt get the same experience we received on previous cruises so we may try to branch out in the future and try a couple of different lines. Our first cruise was AMAZING and I am really wanting to have another great experience like that.


Sorry for the distance since the beginning of this post! Hope you enjoy!

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Carnival Glory : Fun Day at Sea 2 & 3

It started pouring when we got back to the port to do some shopping so we hurried through that and waited in line to re board, in the freezing cold rain. We went back to our rooms to shower and get ready for dinner.  When we were in the dining room this evening, the ship suddenly moved pretty hard and a lot of dishes went tumbling. I believe the ship was turning but it was a shocker!

We were scheduled to visit Port Canaveral on Friday. They ended up announcing that our stop in PC was cancelled and we would remain at sea for the rest of our trip. Although I wasnt thrilled about a stop in PC, anything would have been better than being on a rocking rolling boat for 3 days in a row.

We were bound to make the best of the vaca so we spent our days at sea sleeping in, eating tons of good food and hanging out in the hot tubs. There were a lot of scheduled events that were cancelled due to the Lido being shut down.  It was open to walk across but the wind and wet floor made it quite dangerous. I slipped right onto my tush one night so for the most part we just went down a floor and up in the middle to the buffet. 

They offered some inside activities but mostly kept them in the tiny promenade area of the casino where there is little room. The casino was a good time, although I do not like to spend much so $10 and I am done.

Most of our time at night is spent in the disco. We usually just people watch but this time we did get up and dance and had a ball! The boat was rocking and rolling so people were going everywhere at some points. I will say that they could do a better job of the music selection. It seemed to be more of music from 10 or so years ago opposed to current. They also could make it more dance music. Some of the stuff you just can not dance to. It should be a clue when everyone walks off the dance floor but it happened every night.


They had two comedians on board this trip, the one we saw was Jorge Solano. We chose the adults show and it was very funny. He works with George Lopez and has been doing comedy for 20+ years.

Something else we had never done before this trip was the mini martini tasting. It is $18 for you to choose 4 out of 8 martinis. They come in 2 oz glasses each so it was a pretty good amount of alcohol.  The martini bar always seemed to have a lot of people there and the bartender was great. 

Carnival Glory: "Fun Day at Sea" #1

Today was the day that they changed our itinerary. The day actually started out pretty nice. It was still pretty chilly but we were able to lay out for a little bit on the side of the lido, near the pool was PACKED! We watched a bit of the hairy chest contest, ate and just mingled around until we decided to go to the hot tub in the spa which we fantastic!

That is when the captain came on. We of course couldnt hear so I had to get out of the hot tub and ask. They explained that we had a medical emergency the night before and had to turn around back to Norfolk. We were on the Lido when this happened at about midnight, the coast guard helicopter came down. They closed off the area with the pizza etc. Later we found out a woman was having chest pains and eventually had a heart attack but is okay. He let us know that it would delay our arrival in Nassau until 1 pm.

Then he explained about Sandy (still a TS). We would only get from 1-8 in Nassau, instead of overnighting and miss Freeport on Friday. We would instead would head to Port Canaveral on Friday (eye roll, hardly a cruise stop).  Due to large projections of the storms before we left I really wish they would have diverted us to Bermuda. Thought would have been awesome.

So the announcement really put a damper on the day and I headed to guest services where they allowed us to call for free any pricate excursions that we had booked. I went down to call Atlantis to see if there was anything we could do. We had a room booked and wouldnt be able to use it so we were hoping to be able to cancel it with a refund of some sort and then make new plans for the day.

Atlantis has a 31 day cancellation policy and said that they didnt have any info on the storm being such a threat ( that was obviously a lie seeing as how the storm turned out). They said we had two options, either continue with our plans to stay at Atlantis or they could hold our booking for 6 months. If we chose option #2, we would be responsible for any extra charges or difference in room costs. Since we didnt have any plans for an upcoming trip to  Nassau we were forced to keep our reservation. More on that in the next post.

Tonight was also Elegant Night. We got all dressed up, went to the MDR. Everything was great. We went to the comedy show after, Jorge Solano was hilarious. Afterwards we went to the hot tubs and then the disco.

Next up, our awesome day at the Atlantis!!!

Carnival Glory: Embarkation Day

We went into this cruise with good spirits. We were very excited for this vacation. We had never been to the Bahamas so we were looking forward to that immensely. The weeks leading up to the cruise I watched the weather and storms forming and was very aware of the large probability of a storm changing some of our plans. What I was not prepared for was how large Sandy was going to be. The week before we left, the weather for Nassau on Wednesday & Thursday was 30 % & 40%. Monday morning it was obvious that was not the case, rain seemed to be 100%.

We were bound to make the most of it. With that in mind, we picked up the other couple traveling with us and left for Norfolk. We arrived at the port and parked at the closest parking garage, Town Point. Carnival recommends the Cedar Grove parking facility which is guarded 24 hours. It is also a mile away and you are bussed (for free) to the port, rate of parking is $15/day.  Weeks before our cruise I contacted the division that handles the parking garages about parking at Town Point. They tried to persuade us to park at Cedar Grove and said that regardless of it not being posted anywhere, cruisers would be charged $15/day for cruise parking at the TP lot. To make a long story short we decided to park at the TP Garage for its convenience as it is located across the street. As mentioned before when we got to the garage there was no sign posting the difference in price for cruise parking. We took our ticket and finally found parking. It was packed! For anyone interested, when we left we were only charged $12/day.

We had received an email asking us to arrive between 1 and 3 pm. Since we were driving, that was our ETA anyways so that was no problem. There was a good number of people entering the port at the same time as we were but it went pretty fast. Once we got to security they asked if we had any wine, we answered yes since we had each brought our allotted bottle. They asked to see it but didn't look it over, shake it, or check the cork.  We also brought a pocket knife which I had put in my carry on. When it went through, they asked to see the knife which was no problem since it is under the 4" or less regulation by Carnival. The only problem was that they pulled aside the bag they said it was in and I knew it wasnt in that one, I had packed our bags after all. I kept trying to say it was in the pink bag they kept telling me it was in the black bag. Finally they took the pink bag, I told them it was in the front pocket and they tried to open the top. Very frustrating as it was already holding up the line, all they had to do was listen. They opened the knife, checked it and then we were free to proceed.

Once we were in line to get our sail & sign cards, we hit another minor snafu. The 4 of us were booked in two rooms, my boyfriend in one & I in the other so that both rooms were eligible for the past guest rate. Carnival said to just have them switch the girls in each room here to avoid having to wait in line at guest services for new cards. When we got to the desk the 4 of us went together and I began to explain the situation. Before I could even finish she said we would need to handle that with guest services. I asked her why since Carnival had told us that they would do it and she said they couldnt do it and we would need to do this on board. Fine, we moved on and started to get our paperwork settled. Every time I would give her any information she would remind me that she couldnt change the people in the rooms and I needed to give her the info for one room at a time. I explained we had moved on and that I was giving her the info as it was on he "manifest" that she kept referring to. This happened 3 separate times. Finally she too had moved on and we were able to get our sail and sign cards. It took a couple extra minutes but we were finally on our way.

We skipped the embark photos and headed up the gang way to deck 3. We decided to go ahead and head to our rooms and get the keys settled later. We unpacked and I was shocked by the room. I am claustrophobic and the room was vastly different from our first two. It took a few days to get used to but more on that later. We explored the ship some, got ready for the muster drill and then met up with our friends for sail away. We were on our way to the Bahamas!! Sort of...

Carnival Destiny: Fun Day at Sea

We chose to sleep in again on our fun day at sea and then went to the lido buffet. If you are looking for a less crowded area to sit in the buffet, try upstairs. Afterwards we just walked around and enjoyed the ship. We tried to do the scavenger hunt today but it seemed to be quite unfair. Some teams got half points and whole points for things that others did not receive credit for.  Oh well.  I really am not a fan of the days at sea so I am glad thus far we have only had one on each of out cruises. On our next cruise we will have one at the beginning and one at the end. I would like to lay out for some time on the days at sea but it is quite hard to find a chair or a couple of chairs together and sometimes the wind is unbearable.

For others who like to go go go even on vacation there are plenty of planned activities through out the cruise, especially sea days. Check out your fun times (delivered the night before to your cabin). There are game shows, contests, shows, etc.

What do YOU like to do on your day at sea???

Carnival Victory: Fun Day at Sea

When I first booked this cruise, the "fun day at sea" was actually a stop in Dominca. Due to some sort of problems between Carnival & the island they canceled our stop here. It would have been nice to have a stop at another island but the itinerary is very port intensive with only one sea day, let alone none. Needless to say it was nice to relax, wake up when you wanted, eat when you wanted, no schedule whatsoever.

Carnival has so many different activities available, not just on sea days either! We didnt partake in much, like I said we relaxed but you can do as much or as little as you like. Carnival has swimming pools, jacuzzis, water slides but they also offer a mini golf area (up on one of the top decks which is sort of puzzling). The have a nice gym, library, arcade, casino, adults only areas. Basically, there is something for everyone, lots of fun all around!

*Recommendations on what to do on a sea day*

-Have breakfast or lunch in the MDR (main dining room)
-Try to beat the chair hogs to a nice lounger on the lido or serenity deck
-Explore the ship
-Partake in a scavenger hunt or game type activity to meet new people
-Find a nice shady spot on a lower deck to read a book
-Find the secret decks or hidden coins
-Take a behind the scenes fun tour (sign up at the shore excursion desk)

Leave a comment if you can think of other great things to do during a day at sea!