Carnival Cruise Lines
Carnival Glory Cruise Review
Eastern Caribbean

Casey

Let me first start by saying this was our first cruise. Our family of four sailed on the Carnival Glory and had a ball. (We sailed to Eastern Caribbean) The ship was awesome. We were able to board about 12:30 which was a surprise to us since we were told about 1:30. We booked two connecting ocean room staterooms and this was well worth the money. I have two teenage sons. I found this website to be helpful about tips. Our luggage arrived in our cabins about 6:30 pm that night, so you definitely want to pack a small overnight bag to change for dinner. The first night everybody is in casual attire because luggage is still showing up in staterooms as late as 8:00pm. The 2 formal night are Sunday and Thursday. Most men were wearing suits and women were in pantsuits or dresses, I did not see many tuxedos or cocktails dresses. My 2 sons wore suits the 1st night, and shirt and ties on second formal night. We packed kind of heavy and I would not do this on my next cruise. After dinner we would change into casual clothes. For women, 3 pairs of dress pants would be plenty, just change the tops, same for men. I did bring a dress with a blazer that worked for both formal nights. We loved all the ports. We did one excursion on St. Thomas that we booked with Carnival. I did not care for it. We paid $200 to snorkel and found that it was not worth the money, plus it was not the 3 hours they promised. It was about 1 hour after they got you off the ship, on to the bus, to the dive shop, then to the public beach. We had a much better time on our own. we took a water taxi in Nassau over to Paradise Island. A family of four was $24 round trip. My boys loved the beach. In St. Marten we took the water taxi again, $20 round trip and you can go back and forth to the ship as many times as you like on this $20. My husband and boys rented jet skis for $45 each for 45 minutes. They had a ball and it was way better than the $200 I spent to snorkel. We found we were much better off doing our own thing.
The food on the ship was good. I found dinner to be better than average. As far as the buffets, they are just that: Buffets: They have your standard fare. Plenty of food. Most mornings we ate in the Platinum dinning room instead of buffet. My boys used room service a lot, the only thing they charge you for are sodas and any alcoholic beverages, other than that it is free. If you drink anything out of the in room fridge, they do charge. Be prepare to have you photos taken a lot. Every time I turned around they are taking your pictures. You do not have to buy them, but I'm a sucker for photos since I take all of ours, it was nice to finally have me in some of the pictures. The pictures cost about $20 for 8x10. I bought both formal nights. Overall it was a great vacation. Both of my boys had a great time, but both said it would have been more fun if we were with other families. They did enjoy using the sail and sign card. (The older one went to the SPA and treated him self to a massage) You can keep an eye on your sail and sign card on your TV. It is a good way to see how much you are spending everyday since you do not used cash on the ship. Everything you purchase on the ship is done by using the sail and sign card. We did do laundry on the ship, and found that a lot of veteran cruisers take less clothes and do laundry, we would do the same next cruise. We stayed on the Rivera Deck. I will say in some places on the ship you can smell sewage. Not all the time, but more often than not. Other than that, we had a ball and we are looking to cruise again next August. Glory is a great ship and I would definitely cruise her again.