Any cruisers out there with advice...

[S. C.]

Thank You everyone for the great info. I will be checking out that site next.

Our ports are: Cozumel, Belize, Costa Maya and Nassau

My biggest concern is dinner. We are not formal people at all ( most nights we can be found in jeans/shorts and Harley shirts - even when we are not on the bike ) and the ship has 2 formal nights where they require suits, evening gown, cocktail dresses. Even their casual nights are dresses, skirts, etc.

I did get a book from the library and one thing it does is rates all 7 big cruise line and Carnvial scored the lowest on just about every category ( food, dining room, bars, cabins, open decks ) That concerns me a little but being this is our first cruise, we wont have anything to compare it to.

We are not dress up people either. When we cruise we will go to semiformal nite & i will wear a nice pair of black dress slacks with a silky blouse tucked in. Husband will wear a pair of black dress pants & a nice shirt tucked in.

For formal nite we will eat elsewhere on the ship. There is normally a buffet always going on for the ones that don't want to dress up & 24 hr room service, also you can get food by the pool area hotdogs, burgers, pizza. At least on the 4 cruises that we have been on. Never been on glory but have been on 2 other carnival cruises.

I agree with everyone else cruisecritic.com. Have fun on your cruise.

 

[ibouncetoo]

Excursion recommendation:

I'd like to recommend an excursion for Costa Maya. The Mayan ruins tour booked with David & Ivan (NOT through your cruise line). David & Ivan are natives (Ivan actually used to LIVE right where the ruins were discovered) and give a wonderful, in depth tour. You can book directly with them at

http://www.chacchobenruins.com/

on our November Magic cruise, we had sold out their tour with DISers!

 

[AMClvsMKY]

ibouncetoo - thank you so much for the recommendation. Having never been to any of those ports, we were just discussing what we should do. I will check that site out.

 

[Pugsley]

Excursion recommendation:
I'd like to recommend an excursion for Costa Maya. The Mayan ruins tour booked with David & Ivan (NOT through your cruise line). David & Ivan are natives (Ivan actually used to LIVE right where the ruins were discovered) and give a wonderful, in depth tour.

Yay, we’ve already signed up with David and Ivan for our Feb. cruise. In Belize we’re doing the cave tubing (with cave-tubing.com) which seems to be the most popular choice on cruisecritic. In Cozumel I think we’re just going to relax and go to the beach (Paradise Beach is very popular but if there are a lot of ships in port when you’re there it will be crowded. You can check cruisecal.com to see how many ships will be there when you are.) We’re not going to Nassau – our ship (Carnival Miracle) goes to Grand Cayman where we’re snorkeling and swimming with the stingrays. We’re not booking any excursions through the cruise line since they’re much more expensive than doing it on your own, and I also hear that the private excursions are often better that the ship’s (and less crowded).

As far as the formal nights, at first I thought it was silly to get all dressed up on vacation and didn’t want to do it. But, now I’m really looking forward to it since I don’t get to get that dressed up any other time. And you can get some great pictures taken of yourselves. I've gotten some gorgeous brand new gowns on ebay, dirt cheap (my favorite one was $13). In fact I can't stop buying them now! I've already bought six gowns and there are only two formal nights! Uh oh, guess we'll just have to go on more cruises!

 

[AMClvsMKY]

We have also looked into the cave-tubing and it sounds like fun but they only give rates for 5 or more people - there are only 3 of us so I'm not sure how to proceed with it.