Carnival Not so Glorious Glory

This was my first ever Cruise, 7 days Eastern Caribbean on the Carnival Glory "Fun Ship" out of Port Canaveral stopping at Nassau, St Thomas, and St Marteen. Boarding the ship was easy as we had VIP status so we were able to walk past the hundreds queing in the hot sun and get personal service to board the ship before most of the others. We had a "level 11" Suite with big balcony which was nice. Ship is big, looks wise needs a refit/repaint. We were still finding places we had'nt been on the last day. Food was average and dinner portions small (apart from the last day), buffet style foods were also average but that was eat all you can. Entertainment on the most part I found childish but thats probably the 40 yr old Englishman in me, I preferred sitting on the balcony drink in hand looking at the stars and lightning from thunderstorms.

Didnt win at the casino on board but somebody did win a jackpot of a BMW or $25,000..they chose the $25,000 ???

Got to Nassau on Sunday..which is a bit stupid because everything is closed on a sunday..so we eventually found the public beach to the right of the Atlantis..nice beach but people were getting stung by Jellyfish.

Hit What was left of Tropical storm Anna going out to St Thomas, had to have door fixed because of whistling because of the winds (had to ask twice for it to be fixed). Wall and ceiling grinding in the swells kept us awake. Mother in law got sea sick for the first time after many cruises..had read that the Glory rocks more than any other carnival ship and it didnt let us down. (still rocking now after 2 days of being back!)

St Thomas - Booked a 4hr Excursion to Megans Bay - got off the ship and entered the dis-organized chaos of trying to find the tour guide/driver..it was an absolute mess..how canival wins (so they say) the best excursions prize 4 years in a row I dont know..we finally got on the open mini bus and took a 45 minute trip or so to Megans bay. Chickens roaming the streets, went through some rough run down areas - was told we had 2 hrs on the beach only which we thought was a bit of a con..anyway great beach, wonderful views, excellent snorkelling. they class this beach in 1 of the top 10 in the world..was nice but nothing to special in my eyes. For what this excursion entailed we thought it was overpriced and the chaos beforehand put a damper on things.

St Marteen - The place all the family wanted to go and the main reason we booked this cruise. Woke early and sat on the balcony around 7.30am..within a few minutes of being outside I was roasting like a pig on a stick..it was HOT! But something was up, we had'nt docked we were just sat in port - then came the announcement that the port authority wouldnt allow us to dock due to the swells from Hurricane Bill being to strong making it dangerous and they were closing the port for 3 days, so we had to leave. I was pretty pissed to say the least..we lost all that time going from st thomas to st marteen basically due to bad communication between the ship and the port. Was pretty obvious even to me that Hurricane Bill would cause bigger swells the further east we went and the further west that Bill traveled..Bill at that time was a Cat 4 storm 400 NM miles east of us. We left St Marteen heading NW waiting for the captain to announce which port we would be heading to..about an hour after leaving St marteen he made an annoncement that we were heading to Grand Turk.

Grand turk - Amazing looking water, shops and beaches right where you dock. To the left of the dock is a cordened off swimming area, to the right of the dock is an open beach. the left side was crowded so we went to the right side..30 ft beach width to the water, a few feet of sand in the water..then rocks..with a strong swell it was dangerous, people were getting knocked over and dragged over the sharp rocks that covered the whole beach area. A few people got spiked by Black Sea urchins spines around 8" in length - wasn't a good place for swimming really, snorkelling there was ok if you were brave enough to get out in deep enough water, and brave enough to get back in with the possibilty of getting dragged over the rocks (which all 4 of us did).

All the way back from Grand Turk to Port Canaveral we had 7ft swells from Bill..nothing really for a ship that size. Some rough weather a few hours before docking back in port Canaveral..room service waiters were dropping things, lots of stuff banging about which made it difficult to sleep.

All in alll it was an experience and the break we needed..If given the choice though I wouldnt go on a cruise again, felt to regimented to me..I would fly to a resort and do what I want when I wanted.