Conquest Jan 20th-24th

This was my boyfriend and I’s first cruise! We honestly came out with 0 expectations. We read a lot of poor reviews online and we only paid $850 for a balcony room so if it was great we paid $850 and if it was bad, well we only paid $850 and we were still on a boat in the ocean. We did pay $200 for wifi and we bought the bubbles package but not the cheers.

We had the best time! I’m a planner and I decided to just go with the flow this vacation. I did minimal research, like mostly what to bring, what to do on land and how to get on/off the boat. We did a lot of trivia, we won $605 at bingo, we won $30 at deal or no deal for free play at the casino, we went to all the talks from the cruise director who was Savannah, and she was amazing and fun! We went to all the shows, the comedy shows, the live shows, the dining room shows, every thing we could watch in the theatre we went to, even like the disembarkation talk.

The good • the food - the only food we had that wasn’t great was the buffet. We ate at all the free restaurants. We ate at the dining room every night. We had breakfast and sea day brunch. We had guy’s burgers, bar b Que, and the blue iguana taco place. We had pizza pirate. We didn’t have Sushi, the deli, the seafood shack, or the steak place. Basically we only ate free food. Since we won bingo and we had free $600 to spend we drank more than we probably would have.

•the entertainment - the 80s show is kind of cheesy but the performers are really good. Love and Marriage was so funny. We played a lot of trivia and I tied with someone on Harry Potter trivia and I’m still mad I didn’t get the plastic ship. We love bingo and it’s expensive. We probably wouldn’t have paid $350 for it like we did if we hadn’t of won money at the $5000 bingo but it was fun. Our comedians were also actually funny. They didn’t repeat shows either. We went 3 times and we laughed at all shows. Even the lame 80s party was fun on the deck and we danced and acted silly because why not?

•Ports - half moon cay was amazing. If it was 10 degrees warmer it would’ve been better but we laid out for about 4 hours in the beach and then got back on the boat. At Nassau we had a swim with the turtle excursion planned but because it was cold we cancelled it and walked around to the Queen’s staircase, Señor Frogs, and the Pirate Museum. Yeah there was a lot of people selling stuff at us but we just said no thank you and they left us alone.

•The people - everyone on the boat was so nice. Ricardo was our room steward and he was the sweetest. The fun squad people were also so fun. Our waiters in the dining room were amazing. We ate in both because of having our time dining and going to breakfast and everyone was so nice. We had a weird charge come up on our account and guest services just removed it in 12 hours.

The bad

• our room - we had a balcony in the middle of the ship on the 6th floor. It was 6279. I picked it because I get really car sick and I was so scared of being sea sick. It was clean and Ricardo took great care of the rooms and hallway but it was small and the bed was so hard. The towels are also small and not as soft. We fully expected this and understand we’re on a smaller and older of the cruise ships but the first thing we both did when we got home was take a shower in our shower. Also, everyone says it but the A/C. The balcony was also not very large which again is to be expected. It’s also kind of scary when you’re out at sea and you look down.

•the midnight buffet - we were really excited for 24 hour pizza and instead we had buffet until 2 and pizza till midnight. The midnight buffet was very lacking. It was buffet food.

Overall - I’m worried we’ve become cruisers. We had a 5 day vacation that was minimal planning. We got good entertainment and we feel like we got a lot of value for our money. We read online about how trashy carnival was and we didn’t experience this at all. There was no fighting, no drugs, and everyone just genuinely having a good time. Every time we went to something, even if we just went to people watch, we had fun. I also didn’t expect the food to be so good and it was very good. We’re trying to plan another one for next year and go on a longer cruise on one of the newer boats. We definitely didn’t expect this to be as good of a vacation as it was.