2014 Carnival Breeze Southern Caribbean Cruise - Getting to Miami

Friday, March 14, 2014 - We're Coming, Miami!

I did contemplate flying to Miami, but decided on driving. I've done the drive a few times before, as has Max (he's gone to both Orange bowls that Clemson played in while in school). We decided to leave at 5 AM in hopes of getting to Miami in time to enjoy dinner and the hotel. The difference between leaving with Max and leaving with my family is that when I leave with Max, we actually leave on time...

5 AM wasn't a good departure time, though, because it was timed perfectly for us to hit both Atlanta and Miami rush hours.

As we drove through Atlanta, I began shouting at Max to take photos of the skyline.

2014 Carnival Breeze Southern Caribbean Cruise - Pre-Cruise

Welcome to my 2014 Spring Break Cruise trip report!

I feel the need to start every cruise review with a little ‘disclaimer.’ This review will be told in a journalistic style with lots of photos. With the exception of this first post, I don't expect there to be too many posts with only paragraphs and paragraphs of text – I rely greatly on photos to tell the story. I also don’t take myself too seriously, and you shouldn't either. There will be a lot of fun-poking and maybe a little sarcasm, and you’re all invited to join in on the fun! I encourage you to post comments to share your thoughts and experiences, or just tell me who you are!

My Traveling Party

Well, I guess this time it's just a travel companion...

My boyfriend, Max, is a civil engineering major at Clemson University, and you might recognize him from my Norwegian Epic Western Mediterranean review on Cruise Critic. This was his second cruise and his first Caribbean cruise. Max finds joy in the simplest things in life and is eager to share his enthusiasm with others. That being said, he's very fun to travel with because has an opinion about the smallest of details and is really good at pinpointing exactly what he likes and what he wishes was different. I think his observations will add a lot of value to this cruise review!

If you're wondering about my sister, Rachel, don't worry! She went on a cruise of her own with her friend and my mother on the Norwegian Dawn and had a fabulous time. You'll see more of her (and Max) on our Disney Fantasy cruise in May!

Choosing the Cruise

I had many different ideas of what I wanted to do for my final spring break. My first thought was Vegas because Max has really expressed an interest in going and accommodations are so affordable. However, after a bit of research and calculations (not to mention experience from previous trips), I realized that a week in Vegas was going to cost us much more in entertainment, and we weren't going to Vegas to sit by the pool all day. By the time I added in airfare and cabs, it was really starting to push our budget.

I started looking into cruises because it was freezing in South Carolina (We had two different weeks during which we had snow in Clemson!) and I wanted a tropical escape. Norwegian had great prices - the Epic was starting at just under $400pp for an inside stateroom, but I was a little in love with the Getaway which was around $600-700pp for an inside stateroom. Both had great onboard credit offers. Then I noticed an extremely good price on the Allure of the Seas (around $600pp inside), and Max fell in love with the ship. We were watching the price and preparing to book....

And then I went home one afternoon because I needed the box to return a camera lens I had rented. I was standing in the kitchen talking to my mother and mindlessly flipping through the mail when I noticed an envelope addressed to me from Carnival Cruise Line.

Royal Princess Aft Balcony Stateroom

For our 2013 Royal Princess Christmas Cruise, we were delighted to find a deal before booking on balcony staterooms.  Having enjoyed our aft balcony stateroom on the Norwegian Epic (the aft is the rear of the ship... these balconies face backwards), my dad scoured the deck plans to find the deck with the largest aft balconies.  That deck is the Dolphin deck, or deck 9.  My sister and I were in room D729 and our parents were in the adjacent room D731.  The actual name of this category of room is "Premium Deluxe Balcony Stateroom" ....but that was just too lengthy for the title of this post.



One of the benefits of sailing on the newest ship in the fleet is that the furnishings in the room are up-to-date and free of heavy wear and tear.

Island Princess Oceanview Stateroom - Booking a Guaranteed Stateroom

For Christmas 2012, we sailed the Panama Canal on the Island Princess.  When booking this cruise, we chose to chance our luck and booked guarantee (GTY) staterooms.  This means that we booked a GTY stateroom for the lowest category cabin we wanted sail in - in our case, this was an ocean view cabin.  Because we booked guarantee, we didn't get to choose the location of our stateroom, but allowed the cruise line to assign our cabin for us.  By doing this, we saved a little bit of money on our stateroom and were guaranteed to be in at least the category that we booked, and we'd be upgraded if there was availability in a higher level.

Norwegian Epic Studio Cabin + Studio Lounge

Studio cabins which first launched on the Norwegian Epic and are now also on the Breakaway and Getaway are NCL's innovative solution to single travelers. Because cruise fares are based on a two-person occupancy, solo travelers are required to pay a "single supplement fee" when sailing in a room which would normally be occupied by two or more people. So a solo traveler could potentially be paying up to double the per person price in single supplements. With the Epic's studio cabins, there is no single supplement fee. The price of the cabin is a *little* more than the per person fee for a regular inside stateroom.

The studio cabins on the Epic are located on decks 11 and 12.  The hallways to the studio cabins require key card entry.  However, I found that the doors don't fall shut behind you, so the doors were often left ajar.

Norwegian Epic Inside Staterooms

Inside staterooms are typically the smallest and least expensive staterooms available on a cruise ship.  They are located in the interior of the ship with no outside window, and are a great bargain if you don't mind not being able to see outside while in your room (and not knowing whether it's  morning or night without looking at a clock when you wake up).




The boys had an inside stateroom for our Mediterranean cruise on the Norwegian Epic, so I can’t review it on a completely first-hand basis on staying in it for a week, but I did spend some time there. The circulation is honestly much better in the inside cabin because the beds are against each wall, so there is much more usable floor space (it wouldn't have felt as large if they had the beds pushed together). Their split bathroom was the same as ours. As far as storage, they had much more closet space, and they each had nightstands with drawers. The downside to their room was that it was really dark – as soon as you entered the room, you had to put the key in the door or else you’d be stumbling around in the dark (whereas the balcony staterooms have light coming in from the outside, at least during the day). The television is smaller in the inside stateroom, but it wasn’t a huge difference.

Norwegian Epic "Wave" Balcony Staterooms

Cabin layouts in cruise ships don't vary much from ship to ship or cruise line to cruise line.  This is likely because every cruise line is trying to maximize the number of staterooms on the ship, therefore increasing the occupancy, and there are only so many ways to configure a stateroom.  However, the Norwegian Epic challenged the basic rectangular cabin with its "wave" layout.



I sailed in a wave balcony stateroom with my sister in May on our Mediterranean cruise.  I had read on Cruise Critic that the aft balconies had bad engine vibrations, and while I did notice it when we were entering and leaving port, it didn’t bother me at all. I loved the view from the aft – it was great to be able to look to either side of the ship. The only downside was that we did have some smokers neighboring us, so it was annoying to be on the balcony and smell smoke. I realize that there are very limited smoking areas on the ship and that smokers get the balcony stateroom for the luxury of being able to smoke on it. I just wish it didn’t smell so bad to non-smokers. I think this is a problem that is going to eliminate itself over the next few decades.

March Update: Blog Makeover and Upcoming Travel

Those of you who regularly subscribe to my blog might have been wondering exactly what has been going on the past few weeks....

I have been working long and hard on giving my blog a complete makeover!  You might notice that I have a new logo and have completely altered the color scheme of the site (goodbye, rose + gold.... HELLO, cyan + magenta!!!).  My goal is to make my blog more user-friendly and appealing, and I feel like I finally have created a logo which represents what my blog is truly about.



A bit of the blog is still under construction as I continue to improve its navigation, but there are a few things I'd like to highlight:

There is now a drop-down navigation bar at the top of the blog!  Not all of the links are currently functioning, and there are categories that have yet to be added (like Study Abroad and New York City), but I'm excited that it should be easier to locate posts by topic.

Trip Report: 2013/2014 New Year's Eve at Walt Disney World

Trip Report: New Year's at Walt Disney World [Day 5] Magic Kingdom + See Ya Real Soon

January 2, 2014 - Magic Kingdom + See You Real Soon

It was another rainy morning.

Trip Report: New Year's at Walt Disney World [Day 4] Animal Kingdom + Magic Kingdom

January 1, 2013 - Animal Kingdom + Magic Kingdom

I had planned for us to take our time getting to the parks today since we were going to be out late celebrating the New Year the night before. I didn't book any of our FP+ reservations until the afternoon. It's been a long time since we've done Animal Kingdom in the afternoon/evening. We'll usually arrive at Animal Kingdom first thing in the morning and leave in the early afternoon.

When we arrived at Animal Kingdom, crowds were low. I checked my My Disney Experience app, and it said that Kilimanjaro Safari had a 0 minute wait. Our first FP was for Kilimanjaro Safari in an hour! So I changed it to Dinosaur which had a 70 minute wait (probably because it had been raining and Dinosaur is indoors). This was the first time that I made a FP+ change while in the park using the app, and it was really easy.

The wait for Kilimanjaro Safaris turned out to be a little more than 0 minutes... it was around 10, but we weren't complaining. Right after the rain seems to be one of the best times to go on the safari because the animals that are usually sleeping or hiding come out to play. We've had the good fortune of doing the safari right after the rain maybe twice before.

Our guide was great - she was really knowledgeable about the animals. I've done the safari so many times that I always appreciate a guide who switches things up and can tell me things I haven't already heard. Unfortunately, the four rows behind us in the vehicle consisted of a large party of completely obnoxious Spanish-speaking people (I promise, guys, I don't get annoyed by all Spanish-speaking people! I actually almost minored in Spanish and took a language immersion program where I was only allowed to speak in Spanish for six weeks). They thought it was really funny to all say, "Ooooohhhhh," really loud at absolutely nothing, and they also kept trying to stand up. At first, the guide didn't seem to mind, but she quickly got annoyed by their frequent, "Ooooohhhhh," and said, "I'm not sure if they are actually fascinated by something, or if they just like making noise." And that of course made the teenagers who could speak English very happy, and they encouraged the rest of the group to be even louder. I was upset because our guide was really good, but they were being so rude that she stopped sharing so much information.