Carnival Cruise advice - southern Caribbean

DH & I are thinking of going on a vacation in March, taking a Carnival Cruise to the southern Caribbean, leaving out of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Has anyone gone on this cruise? Or if you have any advice on Carnival cruises in general, or any of the islands they go to, it'd be appreciated. This cruise goes to St. Thomas, Domenica, Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua, St. Kitts, and Puerto Rico. Thanks!

Re: Carnival Cruise advice - southern Caribbean

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Posted by songwriterchic

DH & I are thinking of going on a vacation in March, taking a Carnival Cruise to the southern Caribbean, leaving out of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Has anyone gone on this cruise? Or if you have any advice on Carnival cruises in general, or any of the islands they go to, it'd be appreciated. This cruise goes to St. Thomas, Domenica, Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua, St. Kitts, and Puerto Rico. Thanks!

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We are doing the Royal Caribbean Southern Caribbean cruise out of PR in March for our honeymoon...maybe we should have booked Carnival??

Re: Carnival Cruise advice - southern Caribbean

my FH and i did that cruise in 07...we loved it. we did river tubing in domenica..>AWESOME!! so much fun. domenica rains alot..the island is like a big ole rain forest.

st. lucia is HOT...we took a cab ride to a beach to jet ski and told the cab guy to come back in 3 hours and it was way too long..i thought i was gonna burst into flames.

hmm what else did we do..st. thomas we took a boat to st. johnwhich was supposed to have a gorgeous beach..the beach was ok..i suggest trying meaghans bay or theres an excursion where you go on a tour and you steer your own 2 person boat..that was fun.
barbados we snorkled on a sunken ship tour..it was ok...snorkeling gets boring to me.

have you been on a cruise before? carnival has free ice cream and frozen yogurt machines...we musta ate like 50 cones lol

Re: Carnival Cruise advice - southern Caribbean

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Posted by sharivera

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Posted by songwriterchic

DH & I are thinking of going on a vacation in March, taking a Carnival Cruise to the southern Caribbean, leaving out of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Has anyone gone on this cruise? Or if you have any advice on Carnival cruises in general, or any of the islands they go to, it'd be appreciated. This cruise goes to St. Thomas, Domenica, Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua, St. Kitts, and Puerto Rico. Thanks!

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We are doing the Royal Caribbean Southern Caribbean cruise out of PR in March for our honeymoon...maybe we should have booked Carnival??

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i just did a royal cruise last may....san juan, aruba, curacao, st. maarten and st. thomas...is that the one you are doing?

Re: Carnival Cruise advice - southern Caribbean

No, ours is the 7 day cruise, St. Thomas, St. Maarten, Antigua, Barbados, St. Lucia

Re: Carnival Cruise advice - southern Caribbean

thanks for the feedback girls! I know of the similar cruise from Royal Caribbean, I just prefer the Carnival one as there isn't a day at sea, it's just a diff. island each day. I'm afraid I'll get claustrophobic on a day at sea since this is my first cruise.

Re: Carnival Cruise advice - southern Caribbean

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Posted by songwriterchic

thanks for the feedback girls! I know of the similar cruise from Royal Caribbean, I just prefer the Carnival one as there isn't a day at sea, it's just a diff. island each day. I'm afraid I'll get claustrophobic on a day at sea since this is my first cruise.

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hmmm well you picked a very busy itinerary for a first cruise. FH and i have been on a few cruises before and we didnt even make it to the last island because we were so tired and sunburn. if you guys dont mind the constant up and off the ship routine though you should be fine.

p.s. you wouldnt feel claustrophobic...the ships are enormous and there is so much to do on them. sometimes you feel like there is 100 people on the ship instead of the 2000 that are really on there

Re: Carnival Cruise advice - southern Caribbean

I have been on this cruise! We went in 2005.
Well actually after reading the places you are going.. it's some variation of it.
We stayed in Puerto Rico for like 3 days then left on the cruise to St. Thomas (Loved it there - the beach we went to had a funny name... and it was sooo beautiful. the people were sooo nice), Dominica (it was ok there... not as good as St. Thomas - we went on an excursion to Emerald Rainforest or something like that.. the beginning was eh.. but then when we got to the part where we went swimming in the freezing cold water in the rainforest... it was amazing! Loved that part... and that's about all I loved there), Barbados (it was very nice there but rained most of the time), and Aruba (we were here the longest amount of time - I hated the beach we went to... there was something wrong.. and a major stench in the water... i can't remmeber the name of the beach... but then we went to Carlos and Charlies at night and had a BLAST!!!). As far as the cruise itself.. we got bumped up to a suite.. we originally booked a private balcony. It was nice.. the boat was a little bit empty.. we went in November. The food was not so great. I always hear people talk about the food on cruise ships... and I didn't have the same experience.. I don't like buffet style so much and that was the majority of the food there.... IMO most buffet food seems overcooked and I'm not keen on the food sitting out like that. They had the captains night where everyone got all dresses up. Also, we went with one other couple... and they were not so... ugh... fun and into it... so that was a little bit of a drag. We did an excursion on every island we stopped at. By far the st thomas excursion was the best! the water was so beautiful and clear... i fell in love with St. Thomas. I got really drunk in Aruba,... and almost couldn't get back on the boat bc I couldn't find my sail and sign card... and being as drunk as I was.. I couldn't think straight and started panicking and just dumped my whole bag out on the floor infrom of the guard guys.. i think they saw I was a lil drunk and felt bad for me...and they let me on - I ended up finging the card the second I woke up from my alcohol induced coma, I just remembered where I put it in some hidden zipper part of my bag). I see instead of going to Aruba your ship is going to St Lucia, Antigua and Kitts... I've never been to those places but i hear nice things about it. My favorite part of PR was the lil coqui froggies! I loved them! I loved hearing them at night. Those frogs are my friends!

Re: Carnival Cruise advice - southern Caribbean

BTW.. the 'fun' days at sea are kinda nice. It's a nice break from the constant getting on and off the boat. It can get tireing. We had a fun day at sea on our way to Aruba and I ended up getting sun poisoning on my nose and chest that day.. not so fun! So be careful.
The other thing I didn't like so much.. was the pools are salt water.

Re: Carnival Cruise advice - southern Caribbean

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Posted by sharivera

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Posted by songwriterchic

DH & I are thinking of going on a vacation in March, taking a Carnival Cruise to the southern Caribbean, leaving out of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Has anyone gone on this cruise? Or if you have any advice on Carnival cruises in general, or any of the islands they go to, it'd be appreciated. This cruise goes to St. Thomas, Domenica, Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua, St. Kitts, and Puerto Rico. Thanks!

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We are doing the Royal Caribbean Southern Caribbean cruise out of PR in March for our honeymoon...maybe we should have booked Carnival??

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I hear very good things about Royal Caribbean.. and if I ever go on a cruise again.. that's the line we want. We tried Carnival... not that it was bad.. but I wold want to try somehting else... and RC would be it... so don't rethink it or feel like you made a bad decision! You will have a great time regardless of where you are or what ship you are on.

Re: Carnival Cruise advice - southern Caribbean

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Posted by CloudNine

my FH and i did that cruise in 07...we loved it. we did river tubing in domenica..>AWESOME!! so much fun. domenica rains alot..the island is like a big ole rain forest.

st. lucia is HOT...we took a cab ride to a beach to jet ski and told the cab guy to come back in 3 hours and it was way too long..i thought i was gonna burst into flames.

hmm what else did we do..st. thomas we took a boat to st. johnwhich was supposed to have a gorgeous beach..the beach was ok..i suggest trying meaghans bay or theres an excursion where you go on a tour and you steer your own 2 person boat..that was fun.
barbados we snorkled on a sunken ship tour..it was ok...snorkeling gets boring to me.

have you been on a cruise before? carnival has free ice cream and frozen yogurt machines...we musta ate like 50 cones lol

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I didn't know Dominica had river tubing! that sounds like fun! We did some hike thing... then the swimming in the rainforest...the swimming in the rainforest was quite an experience....and it's freezing cold... but it reminds you that your alive.. if that makes sense. It felt sooo exhilirating and you felt sooo refreshed when you got out.
I went to a differnt beach in St Thomas... but I heard that he meaghans one was good too... we went to some... strange named beach.. i think it started with a c and was only like 4 or 5 letters and there may have been a z in the name too.

Re: Carnival Cruise advice - southern Caribbean

i have been on carnival and royal and i prefer the food on royal over carnival. however price wise, carnival is better, more affordable. royal i like that ships have things built into the ship such as ice skating rinks, rock climbing walls, mini golf, the surfing pool etc.
hard to decide between the 2 cruise lines...we ended up bookin royal for the 2nd part of our HM