The Buchanan’s take a Caribbean Cruise!

Neither Miss Laurie or myself have ever been on a cruise, and there are a number of reasons why we have not done so. But because of the travel restrictions during the recent pandemic we were not able to use our timeshare property in Las Vegas so we had banked our timeshare as points but now we had to use those points by the end of 2023 or we would lose them, so after some soul searching we decided to use them towards a cruise and because Miss Laurie gets motion sickness we thought a shorter cruise for our first cruise would be the better idea. So after some searching for west coast cruise departures, we found a four day cruise that sailed out of Galveston with one stop in Cozumel Mexico, and while it didn’t use up all of our banked points it would use up a good chunk of them. We were able to set up a sailing that worked into our schedule reasonably well so we booked it and then adjusted our southern route accordingly.

So let us look at what we have committed to, we are sailing on the Carnival Breeze along with 3,688 of our newest friends, the ship is over 1000 feet long, and is 130,000 gross tonnage (I will try to figure out why that is always listed on all cruise ship write ups), it carries a staff of 1386. We have booked an outside stateroom with a balcony, on the sixth deck, we will be on the port (left) side, near the mid ship area (this was the area suggested to us to best avoid excessive motion) and we also booked a king size bed with a sitting area for me to read and a fridge to keep our beverages cold.

Now one of the many reasons we have never cruised before is the extravagant price that is charged for all beverages and it obviously still remains a major concern. So this cruise line offers a couple of beverage packages so we looked into them, but the packages are still ridiculously priced at $424.46 for a four day cruise (but are not accepted the first day or last day so really it was for three days) and then there are limits, and rules, like everyone in the room has to purchase the package which is about $60 per person per day if we purchased before boarding, it can only be purchased for the whole cruise, it is limited to twelve drinks per day, it also includes sodas, specialty coffees and packaged water. It also has the 18%, gratuity built in to the price, and this is referred to as the “cheers” package. While their “bubbles” package which would only cost us $89.68 but it only includes unlimited sodas and juice, items like coffee, tea, bottled water are not included in this package so would be an additional charge. So I’m kind of starting to understand why this is one of the many annoyances people have expressed about cruising but on the bright side we are allowed to bring 12 cans of soft drinks each on board with us, we can also bring a bottle of wine each (although we were told there could be a corkage fee for opening the bottle and suppling wine glasses) and with it being a four day cruise if we would like a drink or two we will just purchase a drink, no different than we would at any bar or restaurant. But my calculation is the drink package would total close to 50% of the price of the cruise, we were told that we would have an onboard credit because it is our first cruise with Carnival cruise lines (but somehow that never happened either).

On the dinning side of there are seemed to be a lot of choices included in the ticket price, two sit down dinning rooms, the buffet, a deli, a Hamburg stand, a taco stand, a barbeque pit, a pizza place, and of course a soft serve ice cream place. The upcharge places were an Italian restaurant, a steak house, a sushi place, and a seafood shack that are either a-la-cart priced or a flat rate upcharge like the steak house @ $48 per person per visit or the Italian restaurant @ $18. The burger stand and the Barbeque pit are branded Guy Fieri and appear to be popular lunch spots along with the Deli and Pizza place and for Breakfast the buffet, the taco stand or the dinning room are the go to choices.

So lets touch on some of the logistics, most cruisers fly into the port city, then make their way to the port and a few are lucky enough to live in the state and can just drive to the port, but we live in a motor coach which means we have to find storage for our coach and vehicle. Luckily there was a storage yard on Galveston Island that could store the coach and toad, but the fee for five days of storage was $180, so me being thrifty (cheap) I was able to find a campground within 20 miles of the port and their weekly rate was $175 with a full 50 amp hook ups. And if we drove to the port parking for our toad at the dock was going to run over $60 and still involved getting a shuttle van to the port so I book an Uber from the campground to the dock for $28 and it will drop us at the port. Sometimes you just have to think outside of the box, and the campground booking also gave us a few extra nights to prepare for our cruise and will give us the opportunity for a good nights sleep on our return before we hit the road again.

Next concern, we don’t really have any true luggage anymore mainly because we have no where to store it, so we just rent luggage when we want to take a trip. I know you are thinking luggage rental? And your right to think that you have never heard of it because what we actually do is go to a Goodwill and buy a used suitcase, then use it for our trip and then re-donate it, this rental cost us $7.97 CDN and is a nice wheeled bag with a handle.

So it is Wednesday afternoon, we just got back from Galveston Island, I have downloaded a couple of extra e-books onto my iPad for reading on the ship, we still have to pack our luggage for tomorrow morning, and the Uber is booked for tomorrow morning at 9:30 am which should put us at the dock by 10:00 am, our embarking time is scheduled for 10:00 to 10:30 so everything should hopefully come together. We have already printed our boarding passes and our luggage tags, we have our passports and think we have done all the necessary things, as we watched a couple of YouTube videos of people embarking and have heard from a good source that checking into the muster station is a must upon boarding the ship. Our room will not likely be ready when we board, so we have one carry on bag that will carry our wine and soda along with a few items for tomorrow until our room is ready and it is our understanding that some of the restaurants and bars will be open and serving when we board.

Here is the write up on the Carnival Breeze

On Carnival Breeze, fun-fan faves like SportSquare^™, and mouth-watering dining spots like Cucina del Capitano^®, are just the beginning of how this ship keeps the fun blazing.

Speaking of blazing, enjoy the island atmosphere of the very cool RedFrog Rum Bar^®, or south-of-the-border taco goodness at BlueIguana Cantina^™. There are many fish in the sea… and somewhere among the expertly-pruned bonsai trees, Bonsai Sushi^™ proves it. But don’t forget the ambiance of Guy’s Burger Joint^™ — roadside-burger-shack style — featuring hot-off-the-grill burgers designed by celebrity chef Guy Fieri!

Fahrenheit 555 Steakhouse prides itself on premium cuts, cooked exactly the way you like ’em… plus gourmet appetizers and wine pairings. And to go just a little less refined, stop by Pizza Pirate for a hot slice, the Carnival Deli for a true classic, or Guy’s Pig & Anchor Bar-B-Que Smokehouse^™ to get a little messy with some signature — you guessed it — Guy Fieri BBQ. On this ship, you just can’t get enough Guy!

Carnival Breeze has the whole family covered — with water, that is — with a 320-foot-long Twister Waterslide^™ at Carnival WaterWorks^™. Just for the kids there’s supervised youth programs Camp Ocean^®, Circle ‘C’^® and Club O2^®. And for the bigger people, there’s time to be spent doing blissfully nothing at Serenity Adults-Only Retreat^™… after pampering yourself at Cloud 9 Spa^™, of course.

Keep the fun going once the sun’s done for the day by dancing in your seat at Playlist Productions^™… or if you prefer to do your dancing on a dance floor, check out Liquid Nightclub^™. Speaking of liquid, Alchemy Bar^® serves up cocktail concoctions made with ingredients a little less ordinary and flavors a lot more interesting. Then there’s always something funny going on at the Punchliner Comedy Club^™.

If you notice a bit of the outdoors inside, don’t adjust your view. Carnival Breeze’s staterooms — and many of the public spaces around the ship — feature a scintillating tropical décor and contemporary furnishings that’ll transport you straight to warm Caribbean bliss.

What is becoming very apparent to us is that we are not going to be able to experience everything that this cruise ship has to offer, in just four days. But as I have previous stated this is our first time cruising. So we are just hoping to get a feel of whether or not this is something that we would enjoy doing in the future, I also understand that all ships are different and that all cruise lines are not equal.

Thursday morning and we are up at our usual times, some last minute packing, toiletries and such, after some breakfast we are planning to walk to the campground entrance gate to meet our Uber, no sense of confusing our Uber driver with trying to finding our site in the campground. The driver I had scheduled for 9:35 actually showed up at 9:15 and luckily we were ready to go, and after a short twenty minute drive we are in what would best be described as chaos, not controlled chaos just plain no real signage chaos. So after escaping the line up for the returning passengers and finding the line for the boarding passengers, we found ourselves a few hundred people back in a snaking line.

Our boarding time was listed as 10:00 to 10:30 which actually translated to you can stand in a line outside the terminal entrance doors until they open them at ten, then you will get to pass through multiple check points until everyone is completely happy with all your documentation and your carry on items. Then we were dumped into a huge holding corral to wait until our boarding pass number was called, at least there were lots of seats because we had lots of people waiting. And to my delight, all those people with later boarding time who had snuck in to our line early could now just sit and wait longer, because if your boarding group number wasn’t called yet the staff would not let you get aboard.

We had checked our luggage, the cruise line had sent us luggage tags and our Uber driver dropped us in the perfect spot to have our luggage whisked away and on to the ship, oh I’m sure it was x-rayed to ensure that no one was sneaking any liquor on board, we had our soft drinks checked and then they inspected the seals on our wine bottles before letting us even get to the seating area. And having Canadian Passports seemed to throw off their process as well, but after a couple of supervisors got involved we were cleared to head for the seating area. Once our boarding pass group number was called and we had struggled through the crowd of people that were trying to sneak on early we were headed up the gangplank to our ship. Now once on board we headed directly to our muster station, we have heard of people being charged for not attending the muster station, and in some cases the ship can not leave the port until everyone has completed this safety procedure our station was B4 which was located on the upper level of a two floor restaurant, our boarding passes were scanned and the whole safety process took less that ten minutes.

It’s now near 11:30 and we were told our room would not be ready till 1:30 so the staff at the muster station suggested getting some lunch at the Pig & Anchor which was the Bar-B-Que shack on the 5th deck it was one of Guy Fieri’s spots and the smoked beef and sausage that I had was excellent, with a good smoke ring and it just fell apart with my fork, it was well seasoned and there were a number of sauces to try as well, I also had the baked beans and the mac & cheese and those sides were excellent as well. After lunch we explored the ship a bit taking in the Lido deck which was where the pools and the buffet were located, we even snuck in for a little buffet desert after our BBQ lunch, we explored the levels with the entertainment such as water slides, mini golf, and a water park with all sorts of water splashing every where.

A couple of minutes before the actual announcement we headed down to our room and found it was ready for us along with our luggage sitting by our door. An envelope containing our “sign & sail” cards were there as well, and we took a little time to unpack our luggage as the ship does not set sail till 4:30. We discovered that the “sign & sail” card has a lot of information on it, stuff like your dining time as well as your table number in the dining room, it also had our name with a barcode that was attached to our credit card and of course our muster station number. Our dining time was 6:00, because early dinning had been suggested by the agent to allow us to get to the shows earlier, in hind sight maybe the later dinning time would have been better for us, but it was also interesting how they pair you up with people at the dinning room table we were table 758 in the upper level of the Blush dining room and we shared a table with Dale & Susan and were beside a table with two, Ben & Lucy. Ben & Lucy were from Texas, Dale was from Nevada and Susan was from Arizona. Apparently the real qualifying test is to see how many dinners that everyone actually shows up for, if your considered good company they will return to eat with you, and if they don’t return for meals it most likely means that you were not their cup of tea.

So to be honest we were pretty much beat after dinner on our first day and we headed back to our cabin for the evening, I know it’s not really an exciting evening, but it was still chilly as we left the Galveston area and the seas seemed to be rough, so it was looking like an early night for the first timers.

It would be nice if I could tell you the first night at sea was a comfortable one but it wasn’t, with the ship pitching and rolling, enough that Miss Laurie decided to take her motion medication and while I opened a bottle of wine to help relax as I sat and read the wine constantly swirled in the glass. When we turned in for the night it was a little unnerving to feel yourself almost lifting off of the bed just to be driven back down into the mattress a few seconds later, we turned in shortly after nine and literally tossed and turned all night long.

Our second day is a travel day, we will spend the day sailing through the Gulf of Mexico heading south toward Cozumel, this day is referred to by the cruise line as a “fun day at sea“. We started with breakfast at the buffet on the Lido deck and while somewhat an overcast day we decided to try to find a spot to enjoy the day on the Serenity deck which is the 21+ area on 15th deck, of course many of the prime areas were saved by people that never showed up to use them while we were there. I do not understand why people have do that, but we found one of the less desirable areas (more in a heavier traffic area) and settled in for a nice day with a little intermittent sunshine. I was reading and Miss Laurie was catching up on her sleep from the night before, I think we are becoming more at one with the constant banging action of the ship, as the seas just keep getting rougher. Of course once on the ship you loose contact with the majority of the world so we had no weather forecasts but according to the ships information we were traveling at just under 40 kmph and were being buffeted by cross winds of over 80 kmph.

For lunch today we had burgers from Guy’s burger shack, so I went down the five decks to wait in line for the burgers, then tried to keep them from literally blowing off of the plates as I climbed the stairs back to the 15th deck. The burgers were good but looked nothing like the ones that they had created for their promotional materials, we stayed on the Serenity deck till mid afternoon when we headed back to our stateroom as it started to rain again. Our stateroom was suppose to have a king size bed, and I guess shoving two twin beds together is considered to be a king size bed. The mattresses’ were ok, defiantly a coil spring construction, and after the foam mattress in our coach, it was ok but not up to the standards that some one would expect t0day, in fact the ship itself is showing its age, our room was comfortable enough for the time we spent there, but it did not have any furniture that was hard to pull yourself away from. It was more on the waiting room style and while durable had little or no comfort. We decided to take in a comedian show in this afternoon before heading back to our cabin to prepare for dinner, the show was a “G” rated show and the theater was packed with people to standing room only.

So everyone showed up for dinner again tonight, and I took that is a good sign, although we did discuss what process the cruise line must have in place to decide who to pair with who for dinner, I expect that age is a factor, and Susan commented that she had experienced some really bad groupings. Dinner was again very nice with another good variety and we are starting to get to know our dinner companions and feel comfortable. I think my only comment so far on the evening dining is that we are all feeling a bit rushed as they have to clear all the tables and prepare for the later sitting, again I think the later dinning might have been a better choice for us, ah living and learning. After dinner we took in a show at the Ovation theater, which is the largest theater on the ship, and which is located just one deck below our cabin deck and close to our cabin. Again the show was ok but nothing like the promotion material, instead of singing and dancing it was eight performers sitting on stools with most just acting as back up singers, and the dancing was limited to a couple of strolls across the stage.

Saturday morning and this is the port day at Cozumel Mexico, we have not booked any excursions in Cozumel for a couple of reasons, the first being the weather it was a very dreary, overcast day with lots of wind and many scattered rain showers, the other reason we had simply been very spoiled after last fall’s trip through the Mexican Baja, so this touristy area with their inflated American tourist prices were not very intriguing. We started this morning with breakfast in the dining room, so much nicer than standing in buffet line, we decided later that we would walk into town just to look around, maybe pick up a new rash guard shirt and Miss Laurie was looking for some amoxicillin, we usually carry a bottle of pills with us and picked up some a year ago in the Baja for under six dollars American for 100 (500mg) tablets but the pharmacy here in Cozumel wanted $51 for the same 100 tablets, needless to say they still have them. The choices of shirts was very limited and all seemed overpriced so it ended up just being a walk in the rain, and we were back on the ship by noon and decided to try the Mongolian grill area of the buffet for lunch.

The Mongolian grill is located in the buffet area on Lido deck and was quite honestly on of the best lunches we have had on the cruise so far, and with so many people being at shore today the lineups were much more bearable, so a leisurely lunch followed by some sweets before we made our way back to our stateroom, where Miss Laurie had taking a nap in mind and as the sun was trying to shine through I was thinking of sitting on the balcony overlooking Cozumel and reading a book on my iPad.

Lets take a moment to talk about our balcony, first of all it is small which I expected but there are two chairs and a small steel table, I have used the deck to snap a couple of photos, but it has been a disaster area covered in sticky sea salt because of the rough seas on its last voyage, Tri who is our cabin attendant has cleaned it some what but it is still not great, but I took a beach towel and a glass of wine along with my iPad and after covering the chair with the towel, I set down the wine on the table, and parked my butt in the chair and started to read but it was short lived as it started to rain again! While we were in port and had cell service I took the opportunity to down load another book, we did not purchase the on board internet package, partially because of the price and also we thought it would be nice to be off line for a while. We did head up to the 12th deck later to get our butts handed to us playing cornhole (bean bag toss) in a small tournament with eight couples, outside in the rain.

After moving back inside to read we spent the rest of the afternoon reading and resting, at dinner this evening it was interesting hearing about everyone’s adventures in Cozumel. Again we were able to find items on tonight’s menu to meet everyone’s tastes. Tonight I had the salmon and again I was happy with my choice for dinner and tonight the party animals that we are, we are going to tear it up by taking in a Mo-town show in the Atrium and then we are going to the Love & Marriage show at the Ovation theater. We took our wine to the theater and we laughed through the whole show. We have left the port of Cozumel we are heading back north toward Galveston but we are being buffeted by a 90 kmph headwind as we make our way along the Yucatan peninsula. There will be more medication for Miss Laurie tonight as this is the worst night yet for rough seas, as we sat watching the show the stage light mountings are moving a lot and the ship is pounding as we head to bed.

Sunday and another “fun day at sea” my morning started off with breakfast at the buffet, and the meal this morning was most likely the worst meal so far, I asked for bacon and was served a pile of bacon bits, that would have been better served on a Cesar salad but was just too terrible to have been served for breakfast, and with the lines as long as they were, it just not worth a second trip. Today we headed back to the Serenity deck enjoying a little sun shine as the winds are starting to lay down, the gulf is also starting to calm. Miss Laurie being up for some more abuse signed us up for another cornhole tournament. We at least made it past the first round this time, before being served a whooping on the second round. We decided to have a redo with lunch at the Pig & Anchor, this BBQ spot is only open for two and a half hours today and while the line ups were long, we knew it was worth it. Today I had the beef and the pulled pork and the same sides as last time mac & cheese and the baked beans and again was well worth the wait. I was impressed by the consistency and the quality of the smoked meats that they were serving. After lunch we took in the comedian show as it was suppose to be a different comic today, but ended up being the same comedian as we had seen already, this was again an all ages show and was similar to the last one but different enough to at least keep it interesting.

Back to the cabin to prepare for the last dinner on board, and today they crew has finally cleaned the balconies on our deck, wonderful but just a little too late for any real enjoyment. Dinner tonight will likely be the last time we see our dinner companions, and as we order and enjoy our meals we realize that everyone has made it to every dinner sitting, which is an indication that the cruise line did a great job of putting together our dinner pairings. Again my meal was well prepared and very tasty, tonight one of the deserts was baked Alaska which apparently is a staple for the last dinner on most cruises. It was a little bitter after dinner as we all headed off in different directions. Although we were feeling a little tired we decided to have a bit of a rest before taking in the “R” rated comedy show in the Ovation theater, so with the last of our wine in hand we headed to the theater to watch the comedian, as he picked on some of the people in the crowd, it was entertaining but maybe a little harsh on some of the audience members, after the show we headed up one deck to our cabin and weren’t long out of bed. The gulf has calmed down and Miss Laurie didn’t need any motion medication for a change.

Debarkation day and the buffet is open at six o’clock this morning, because we need to be out of our cabin by 8:30, the process of getting off the ship is a wee bit complicated, with first having a choice of carrying our luggage off the ship ourselves or having it taken off the ship and picking them up in the terminal. We chose to carry our own luggage, as we only had two bags and it seemed like the best option for us, but the debarkation process was done by calling out muster stations as a way to control the crowd volume. So we were at the buffet by 6:15 picked up some breakfast then headed back to the cabin to pack our bags and then play a game of hurry up and wait.

The debarkation started by 8:00 and we were off the ship by 8:30 because we did not know when we would be off the ship I did not pre book an Uber and Miss Laurie wanted to just grab a cab back to the campground so we did. We were back to the coach by a few minuets after nine. but the cost of the cab was more than twice what the Uber, but sometimes you just go with the flow. So we are back at our coach and have finally stopped rocking as we walk, it feels great to be back in the coach.

So lets talk about cruising, there will be some of you that will say that a four day cruise is not enough time to form a really opinion. And you could be correct, but with Miss Laurie suffering from motion sickness it seemed like enough for a test, and people we talked to on the cruise said this cruise was rougher than most cruises and other people also said that a weekend cruise was not a good example of a typical cruise but there again we had to start somewhere and a whole week of trying something new to us just seemed too long. So my first question is why all the different terms on a ship? Like port and starboard instead of left and right, Knots instead on mph, I guess I understand the fore and aft, but why decks instead of floors, why a promenade and lido deck? All this ship and cruise lingo that seems to just add to the complexity of the adventure

Now lets talk about the way the cruise lines hold you hostage, no water no beer, no liquor and limited soft drinks. We are used to going to all inclusive resorts where most of the food and most of the drinks are included so the craziness of all the extra charges just seemed wrong, after seeing the overpriced drinks and the terrible service I can understand the drink package being so expensive. But why are the drinks so expensive in the first place?

My next why is why are none of these cruise lines are based in the States, this ship we were on is registered in Panama, so I have to assume it is all about avoiding paying American taxes and possibly to avoid stricter regulations. And I love the way they control every little thing like only allowing cash or credit cards to be accept to pre-pay or pay for their “sign & sail” card. I was also surprised by the pricing of the specialty restaurants, and how the simplest things are charged for like soda, coffee, bottled water, and what’s with the automatic gratuity of 18%? Nothing like taking away any incentive for staff to work a little harder to please a patron, or is the reason because with the off shore registration the cruise line can underpay their people? And is the mandatory gratuity is just another way to avoid staff benefits based on paid wages? So many questions, that I will likely never have answers to.

But as we look back, I don’t think we have any regrets about taking a cruise, as now we can rule it out from any adventures in the future, as not being an option. All the cruise ads talk about the value of cruising, and we quite frankly never experienced that value, it just seemed over crowded, too noise, too expensive, and while the meals were ok, they were certainly not at the quality that we were expecting, or maybe we have been ruined by Las Vegas buffets and entertainment. Either way I think it is safe to say that this was our first & last cruise! Although Miss Laurie did enjoy a few days of no cooking and clean up, but next time it will be an all inclusive vacation with a beach!

Ahoy there!

Blog 492

Day 2225

With regard to the gross tonnage actually has nothing to do with weight, it is a term that refers to the volume of the boat when all dimensions are taken into account, it is a term that effects some costs such as docking fees and is measured from keel to funnel.