Cruise Advice & Lessons Learned From A Newbie Aboard The Carnival Cruise (Part 3)

This article is a continuation from Part 1 and Part 2 of Cruise Advice & Lessons Learned From A Newbie Aboard The Carnival Dream.

Ports & Excursions

The 7-day Western Caribbean Cruise consisted of stops at Cozumel, Belize, Isla Roatan and Costa Maya. Excursions were available to order through your room or the Excursion Desk, but were quite pricy. An additional option was to research and arrange for your own excursions through the companies directly or find excursions on your own upon exiting the port. The times at ports varied from 8am to 10am at each of the stops, with the majority giving you until 6pm. You were required to return an half hour prior to the sail time.

Shopping at the stops is different than in the states. We learned to negotiate deals with each of our purchases. One tip we read was to start at 30% below what we are willing to pay. Most were very willing to bargain and we shaved as much as $15 off $60 pieces.

For Cozumel, we elected to find an excursion on our own at the port, but struck out. For safety reasons, it was recommended that we choose an excursion with other cruise guests, rather than going alone. The benefit of purchasing an excursion through Carnival was that everything was orderly, telling you where to meet with the tour guide holding a sign showing you where to go. Being unfamiliar with the location makes finding an excursion on your own more challenging an a little intimidating. We chose to walk downtime in Cozumel (three and a half miles) and make it a shopping stop. In Cozumel, you can find t-shirts for 4 for $20 and other great deals.

For the Belize stop, we waited until the night before to pick an excursion and paid for our lack of planning. Our Mayan Ruins excursion was sold out. We instead chose to make it a beach day, but found no beach in site without jumping in a cab. Upon leaving the Port terminal, there were countless foreigners aggressively selling their items or service and it was very overwhelming. We shopped in the Belize Port, but found the prices to be higher than Cozumel.

After striking out at Belize, we decided to purchase a beach and snorkel excursion for Isla Roatan. However, there was an announcement that due to high winds, the captain deemed the port stop to be unsafe and the port stop was cancelled. Excursions purchased were automatically refunded and we were given a $10 refund for the port taxes per person. Not much of a refund for missing out on one of the stops, but Carnival did open up the casino early and offer a few extra shows that weren’t scheduled.

We purchased an excursion for the Mayan Ruins at Costa Maya and it turned out to be our favorite of all the stops. The four hour excursion began in a tour bus, with the tour guide offering some interesting facts and tidbits about the city of 400 Mayans. Upon arriving at our tour stop, the guide explained the history of Ruins. Following plenty of exploring and picture taking, we had a short amount of time to take advantage of the shops. This was our favorite place to shop since the locals were selling hand-made items that they or their family made. They were receiving no commission on their items, were very willing to negotiate and you had a sense that you purchasing their items were really helping the locals. The pieces were each quite unique. We purchased a few hand carved Mayan Calendars and dishes. As we learned from our tour guide, tourism is 50% of the locals income.

The beach was also right off the Port, so made for a great destination to have a beach day. They also provided quite a bit of entertainment with a spring break feel poolside.

Lessons Learned: If you aren’t familiar with a stop, either research and set up your excursion or hook up with a group going on their own excursion prior to going to Port. 

Debarking

This was the most frustrating part of the trip. The night before debarking, you have the option to either self transport your own luggage or if you have multiple pieces of luggage you’ll get numbered luggage tags. If you’re in the twenties or thirties like we were, I highly recommend self transporting your luggage. You also have to fill out a customs form, which is presented upon debarking. Luggage that you tag and set outside the door will be collected the night prior to you debarking. You can hang onto your carry on bag though.

On the morning you debark, they begin with all the self bag folks. For our cruise, it began at 7:30 am. Then, they begin calling each number, beginning with 1. This is a long process and if you have a high number, plan on waiting a few hours before getting off the ship. We did realize that we can leave the ship before our number is called, but the baggage may not be ready to pickup. They called 20 when we left the ship, but we were number 26. Our bags were already in the carousel ready, so no further waiting was necessary in our case.

Lessons Learned: If you get a high number, choose to take your own bags. 

Overall

The ship was impressive as was the crew working aboard the ship. They didn’t just clean your room once a day, but made multiple stops. In addition, they did the little things that count. The entertainment while dining, coupled with little things like our towels being shaped as animals waiting for us upon arriving back to the room helped make the cruise a little more special. Most of the other guests on the cruise were very willing to share tips and seemed quite friendly. Even though they forgot to acknowledge our anniversary, the steakhouse was some of the best food I’ve had. The spa, despite the staff pushing their products was one of the highlights. We had a great time and learned so many things along the way.  Once we can save some more money up, we’ll look forward to our second cruise. Hopefully this post will help some other newbies planning to go on a cruise.