My Mother and I are booked on the Carnival Destiny on June 1, 2008. Anyone out there going on this cruise. Got any tips? We will have a balcony cabin. We are going to St. Thomas, Barbados, Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Kitts, Antigua. How is the food?

hi there are a few:

1. Arrive early arround 11:30 am at that time you don't have long lines, only problem you will have to wait until around 1:30 to go to your cabin but you will board ship around 12:30 so after entering ship go directly to the buffet until then.

2. What cabin are you??
Balconies are great on the carnival destiny, but if you have an even number you will always be on the island side during port days.

3. Remember to order the melting chocolate cake, you will have it everyday of the week on the main restaurant.

4. bring a little fan to the boat drill since Puerto Rico is a tropical island an it is hot also bring a bottle of Panadol or excedrin for your trip.

what do you want to know??

please let me know I am from PR and I have travel 2 times already on the carnival Destiny

Hi Cruisin-Lady, welcome to Cruise-Chat. Congratulations on your upcoming cruise, great way to start out with a balcony room. You'll love being able to go out and have a cup of coffee on your balcony in the morning. Please make sure to catch at least one sunrise and a sunset on your balcony, it's absolutely magnificent. It's also nice to hang out your wet swim wear. If you'll visit our Caribbean Port Chat section, a little further down the main page, you'll find numerous posts on all of your ports which can give you ideas for excursions. Just use the find feature, in the upper left hand corner, and type in your ports. It will pull up all the posts on them. You have a fantastic itinerary! If you enjoy snorkeling at all, please don't miss the Champagne Reef Excursion, it is one of the best snorkels we've been on in the Caribbean. Best wishes for a fantastic cruise and once again, welcome aboard!

Hi Cruisin-Lady, and Welcome to Cruise-Chat from me as well.

Can't add much to the previous posts, other than the food is great! Order two entrees at dinner if you want to. I can vouch for the chocolate melting cake, and the champagne reef snorkel that was mentioned.

Welcome aboard,

Dwayne

quote:

Originally posted by Cruisin-Lady:
My Mother and I are booked on the Carnival Destiny on June 1, 2008. Anyone out there going on this cruise. Got any tips? We will have a balcony cabin. We are going to St. Thomas, Barbados, Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Kitts, Antigua. How is the food?

Welcome to cruise chat. I have a tip for the Destiny. Don't miss the big production stage shows with the Destiny Dancers and the live stage band. They are spectacular. Get there early to get a seat in the lower level.

If you are the energic type try the bike hike on Barbados. They bring you to the top and you ride down to the shore, so mostly downhill. They stop along the way to rest and talk about the island. I thought it was great.

We have sailed twice on the Destiny and will be cruising on her again on June 8th.....the ship is HUGE!!! It will take you a cpl of days to remember how to get around, especially with no days at sea. Only 2 decks go from aft to stern, so find out how to get around the day you get on the ship.
We've ALWAYS had a great time on the Destiny...hope you will too!

quote:

Originally posted by tomachop:
We have sailed twice on the Destiny and will be cruising on her again on June 8th.....the ship is HUGE!!! It will take you a cpl of days to remember how to get around, especially with no days at sea. Only 2 decks go from aft to stern, so find out how to get around the day you get on the ship.
We've ALWAYS had a great time on the Destiny...hope you will too!

Hi tomachop, and Welcome to Cruise-Chat!

The aft and stern both refer to the rear of the ship, just for clarification. The Destiny is a huge ship. Going by the deck plans it looks like the aft dining room would be a little tricky to get to if you were coming from forward on the same deck. The rest of the decks look easy enough to me. I haven't sailed on her since 1997 though.

Welcome aboard,

Dwayne

quote:
" The aft and stern both refer to the rear of the ship, just for clarification. The Destiny is a huge ship. Going by the deck plans it looks like the aft dining room would be a little tricky to get to if you were coming from forward on the same deck. The rest of the decks look easy enough to me. I haven't sailed on her since 1997 though.

Welcome aboard,

Dwayne[/QUOTE]

Having only two decks "aft to stern" shows just how big it really is However here is the trick for navigating around the Destiny. Go to deck 5 then travel forward or aft to get under/over what you want, then go back up or down. Note the diagram at every stair well.

Once you get a better feel for where you are there are shortcuts, and short short cuts if you are crew. My daughter would pop up out of a crew door in seconds when it would take several minutes for me to get there. But don't try the crew doors, if you get lost inside the belly of the beast you may never be heard from again.

I don't know where you live, but if you have never been to Old San Juan where you leave on the Destiny I would suggest to go a couple of days early and see this wonderful old town. I stayed at the Milano and walked to the ship on cruising day. Barbados is fun to pick up sea glass in the sand that washes ashore. Just a beautiful cruise

I have actually been in the belly of that beast.

There were 8 of us that were several hours past sailing time arriving. I can't believe they held the ship, but they did. What a day! Anyway the gangway had been pulled away and the terminal closed for a long time. They pulled us onboard from a loading platform type thing they were loading watermelons on. There was a CCL rep that escorted us in a shuttle van. She was in constant contact with the ship via walkie talkie. She kept telling them "Hold I have 8 more".

They escorted us from the loading area through a maze to a crew elevator to the crew deck then up to the passenger elevator. We later found out a flight with alot of guests had to make an emergency landing and was late. So they had guests that were late prior to our late arrival. In my case I missed my flight because of getting to the airport late because of fog.

I will commend Carnival on how they handled this. I had been in contact with the Travel Hotline all day at each airport. They had the rep waiting on us at the bottom of the escalator at MIA. She checked us in as we walked to the baggage claim using a handheld device to swipe the credit card. Asked if we were US citizens, and put a sticker on us.

We were very lucky to board that day. They couldn't do that now because of Homeland Security rules. I always leave a day early ever since that nightmare of a day. Sorry for the long story, but if it convinces anyone to fly in the day before it will be worth it.

Dwayne