Cruises – Page 13 – Wanderlist Vacations

Travel Photography – What’s In My Bag?

With travel season approaching, I’ve been working on changes to the photo and video gear I carry with me. There was a time when I would carry my Nikon DSLR and all of my lenses with me on vacation, but over the past few years I’ve gotten to the point where I wanted to go as light as possible and not have to carry a full camera bag around with me. It started with our Thanksgiving cruise in 2012, where I found myself shooting around 60% of our pictures with my Nokia Lumia 920 vs 40% with my Nikon, slowly edging up to the point where I was shooting 90% of our vacation shots with my Lumia 1020.

There are exceptions, as I enjoy shooting auto racing when I get the chance, and I have yet to see anything below a DSLR and a set of good lenses that can handle the speed and low-light requirements, but for everything else, the lighter I can go, the happier I am. So with a cruise on tap in a week aboard the Norwegian Escape, followed by Thanksgiving at Disney World, I figured I’d post a quick walk-through of the gear I’ve settled on.

Photo Gear

For the first time in a long time, I’m not taking a DSLR with me, even as a backup. I will have two alternate devices with me, however:

My Lumia 1020 with camera grip: This may be a bit long in the tooth, and might be a little slow on a per-shot basis, but nothing in the phone space beats the PureView imaging system. This thing has been a favorite of mine for shooting since the day I bought it, and that’s why this is going to be my main back-up camera.
Sony DSC-WX350: I picked this up on the cheap as an open box item at Best Buy a few months ago to use as a business camera for things like ship/resort tours, so we’d have something either of us could just pick up and shoot with at the drop of a hat. The results are pretty good for a P&S, in my opinion.

I really don’t expect to have to use either unless something happens to my primary. So what is my primary? Well, it’s my iPhone 6s Plus, equipped with a few extras. A quick shot of my gear (including the backups and tripod):

Primary gear Backup gear

Of the main gear in the left hand shot, the case is a CamKix medium GoPro case with the CamKix customizable magic foam. What am I carrying inside the case? Well, a few things:

Shoulderpod S1 Professional Smartphone Grip: I needed a way to mount the iPhone to my Gorillapod if the situation arose. After a little searching, I knew I had to have this. The reviews aren’t wrong, the handle’s solid and really helps stabilize both still and video scenarios.
Moment wide angle and telephoto lenses: I spent a lot of time comparing specs, reviews and sample shots of the various iPhone lenses. I’ve used cheap lenses from other companies before, and this is definitely a category where you get what you pay for. I wanted high quality glass, and I definitely feel I got it with the Moment lenses!
Spigen Neo Hybrid Carbon case: Normally I keep the Spigen Slim Armor Volt on my phone (wireless charging FTW!), but it’s too thick to allow mounting of my lenses, so for the duration of the trip I’ll be using this case.

I’m looking forward to putting this gear through its paces over the next 2-3 weeks. Feel free to follow us on Facebook and/or Instagram to see how the lenses perform on our trips!

Video Gear

For land trips, I generally just use my phone for any video I take, but when we go on cruises I also bring along a GoPro to handle any situations where the camera may get dirty, wet, or may need to be mounted to me in some way. This trip will be no exception, as I want to be sure I get plenty of video from the excursion we’re doing on my birthday in St Thomas, the BOSS Underwater Adventure. I’ll likely end up doing some snorkeling at the other two ports, Tortola and Nassau, so it’ll get plenty of use this trip. Here’s my video setup:

Video gear

The case is a Shineda Water Resistant Large GoPro Case, which fits just about all of my GoPro gear. The main items in the case that I plan to use this trip:

GoPro Hero4 Silver plus extra battery: I bought this a while back as a replacement for my Hero2, which I gave to my daughter to use while at college. I’m looking forward to having the LCD to frame my shots vs hoping I’m getting what I think I’m aiming at :).
GoPole Bobber Floating Handgrip: This is my first trip with it, so I’ll be interested to see how I like it versus the regular wrist strap I’ve used for snorkeling in the past.
Head strap: This isn’t the official GoPro one, my daughter took that one with her when I gave her my Hero2. This is a knockoff my wife ran across at Five Below for $5, and frankly I can’t tell the difference.
Random mounts: Not sure I’ll use any of them, but since the case can hold them all, I figured I’d throw them in.

Okay, so maybe I’ve failed the whole “carry less gear” goal, but at least it’ll be lighter. Regardless, I’m very much looking forward to putting the new stuff to work! After we get back, I’ll post my impressions of how the Moment lenses performed in real-world use.

Carnival Conversations – Tampa

After a quick two days at home following our time in Ohio and DC, we drove down to Florida yesterday to bring our daughter back for her second year of college at Eckerd. While move-in day isn’t until tomorrow, my wife noticed a few weeks ago that Carnival was doing one of their Carnival Conversations events on board the Paradise today, and really wanted to attend it. While these events are held on board a ship that’s getting ready to depart, just like the ship inspections we’ve done, this is nothing like the tours.

So what is it? Well, simply put, it’s a chance to hear from and ask questions of Carnival’s senior management. For today’s event, the main speaker was Christine Duffy, President of Carnival Cruise Lines. We’d never been to one of these events before, and since we were going to be in the area anyway, it seemed like a good opportunity to see what they were about, and to hear from the line’s leadership.

The itinerary for the event was pretty simple, but didn’t allow for any time to tour the ship, so there will be far fewer pictures in this post than the last :).

When we got to the Queen Mary Lounge, we grabbed a seat next to a couple other agents and chatted with them for a bit before Mike Julius, Managing Director of US Sales got up to kick things off. He started off by introducing us to Seth Grunes, the Tampa area Business Development Manager, who gave us a quick update on Carnival, including a brief overview of their newest ship, The Vista. Jen’s been paying attention to all of Carnival’s announcements about the ship, she she was already up to speed on it, but having a full time job to focus on, I didn’t know a heck of a lot about it. I enjoyed getting to see what’s coming, and I have to say that I completely understand her excitement about the ship and desire to sail it. Those Havana suites sound amazing!

Next up was Christine, who spent a few minutes giving us an update on the line, and other business info specific to their travel partners (us). Having come up through the agency ranks, she’s in a unique position to make positive changes to the way Carnival works with their partners. Here’s hoping it happens!

After that, a panel of Carnival execs, including Christine, gathered on stage listening to agent feedback and answering our questions. There’s not really much to say from this, as the discussion all centered around way Carnival can change to better allow agents to serve our customers when it comes to Carnival cruises. We’re both fans of the Carnival brand, having thoroughly enjoyed three straight Thanksgiving cruises on their ships, and the discussion today was validation of our trust in their product.

Following the panel discussion was lunch, so we all headed to the Destiny dining room. The menu was identical to what we had on our tour of the Fantasy back in May, so I won’t waste space repeating the same food pictures in that post. While I would have liked another Guy’s burger, the food was excellent, and we did get to enjoy one of my favorite things, the warm chocolate melting cake, which is a must-have if you’re on any Carnival ship.

Near the end of lunch they did a few giveaways, including a couple of free cruises, but we unfortunately didn’t win. Oh well, but congratulations to those who did win, we’re totally jealous!

Lunch ended right about the time we had to get off (the boat was getting ready to head out for an actual cruise, after all :)), so we headed back down the gangway, out the terminal, and back to our temporary home for the weekend.

Once again, I’d like to thank Carnival for their hospitality, including all the executives for making themselves available to us for a couple of hours, and to our dining room staff, who I’m sure could have used the break between sailings to rest a bit. One of the best crews at sea, for sure!

Ship Inspection Sunday – Carnival Pride

After spending a few days in DC for some CruiseOne regional training, we headed up to the port of Baltimore yesterday morning for another ship inspection before heading home. This time, we got to check out the Carnival Pride, one of their Spirit class ships. We’ve sailed on a ship in this class before, having taken the Carnival Legend out of Tampa in 2012. Even though the Pride is the same class as the Legend, it felt like a different ship thanks in part to the Fun Ship 2.0 upgrades it underwent during dry dock late last year. I don’t know that it got all of the upgrades, but it got the big ones, like the additional food choices.

The port isn’t much to look at, but it seems like it’s set up pretty well. When we arrived, we were directed over to a parking area off to the side for those not staying on the ship, but looking over the main parking, it looks like it’s all right there next to the terminal, making it one of the most convenient we’ve been to. After parking, we headed in the terminal to check in, and after a bit of a wait were led on to the ship by our tour guide, Kathy.

The ship underwent a dry dock late last year to add some of the Fun Ship 2.0 goodness, and while the upgraded areas were nice, there are plenty of areas still sporting the Renaissance theme the ship is known for. Much like the Legend’s urn-ish theme, I just wasn’t a fan. I get wanting to stray from the normal “cruise ship chic” theme so many of the older ships have, but there were areas where the theme just doesn’t work. None of the rooms underwent any sort of renovation during dry dock either, but the ones we saw were fine. We got to see the following room types while on-board:

Deck 1: Interior (Cat 4A) and Ocean View (Cat 6A)

Deck 4: Ocean view Obstructed with French doors (Cat 4K – Accessible), Interior (Cat 4K) and Vista Suite (Cat VS)

Deck 6: Extended Balcony (Cat 8J), Premium Balcony (Cat 9B), Grand Suite (Cat GS)

For the most part, pretty standard rooms, but that Vista Suite was pretty nice, especially with the extended aft-wrap balcony and walk in closet.

After touring rooms, we headed upstairs and got a tour of David’s Steak House (one of two specialty restaurants on board), the spa, the main Lido food areas, Serenity (adults only area), and the waterpark. All pretty standard, although the waterpark was a new addition in last years’ dry dock. You can see some shots of these areas in the random ship pictures at the end of this post.

After that part of the tour, we were free to eat anywhere on Lido that we wanted, which was a nice change of pace from our tour on the Fantasy where we were served in the dining room. The main reason I was happy about this is that it gave me a chance to indulge in my favorite burger at sea, the Pig Patty at Guy’s Burger Joint:

The downside to this is that we didn’t get warm chocolate melting cake for dessert, but hey, the selection on the Sweet Spot dessert bar wasn’t bad:

The cake pop was pretty good, the lemon meringue pie was okay, but the rest was just average, to be honest.

After eating, we decided to see the rest ourselves to speed up our departure since we had a long drive back to Charlotte, which pretty much meant walking decks 2 and 3 in order to see the theater, shops, and casino. All were pretty much what you expect on a Carnival ship, meaning if you’ve seen them on other ships in this class, you’ve seen these. Well, except maybe the Taj Mahal theater. Not sure if they were trying to continue the Renaissance theme in there (really didn’t look like it), but we just weren’t fans of the décor in there:

The other thing to mention were the passageways on each side of the ship on deck 3 that lead back to the game room. Legend had one too, known as the enchanted forest, but this was a little brighter than that is. Honestly, not really sure what to make of these spaces. They come off as something Carnival just didn’t know what to do with, almost wasted space in our opinion:

Overall, the ship was clean, nice (especially with the new food additions), and certainly better than the Legend in my opinion. I’d sail it in a heartbeat if I lived closer!

One last thing, a big thank you to Kathy and everyone on the Pride for an outstanding time. The Carnival hospitality always shines through on these tours!

Enjoy a some more random pics from around the ship!

Ship Inspection Saturday – Carnival Fantasy

One of the things that we do as travel agents is the occasional cruise ship inspection. As mentioned in my post back in October after we toured the NCL Getaway, this is generally a 3 hour tour of the ship, hosted by a rep or two from the cruise line, and it’s intended to give us an idea of what our clients can expect should we book them on the ship. This is my second ship tour, and my wife’s fourth, as she did two more while down in Ft Lauderdale for Cruise3sixty a couple of weeks ago. For this one, we were getting a look at the Carnival Fantasy, the only ship from any line currently based out of Charleston, SC. She’s an older ship, having launched in early 1990, but the last refurbishment has her in pretty good shape. The decor is pretty standard for other older ships we’ve been on, too. Overall, we were pleasantly surprised at how well the Fantasy has been kept up. Let’s take a closer look…

We drove down from Charlotte early this morning, getting to the port around 10am. Check in for the tour wasn’t scheduled to begin until 11am after all the guests from the previous sailing debarked, so we walked around trying to figure out where to meet. Fortunately, the port area isn’t all that big and we found the spot pretty quickly, and hung out until the Carnival reps arrived. Things didn’t exactly kick off on time, as there was a lot going on. They ended up with surprise Coast Guard and USDA inspections happening after the ship got back in to port this morning. No biggie, things happen, and we were just a small blip on the list of things the crew had to deal with before they left port this evening. I think we may have been delayed 30-45 minutes boarding as a result. Here’s a couple quick shots of the port, including the front of the terminal. When you arrive and park, a shuttle brings you to this entrance and drops you off here, at which point you’ll go through security and check in for your cruise!

Another tip: As you board the ship, you’ll notice a bunch of crew wearing red sweatshirts that say “Just Ask”. If you need to know anything, like where you can grab some food or where you’re room is, they are there to answer those questions. No need to get in line for guest services!

Once we were on, we hustled to check out a couple of rooms. Since we were late, we really were moving fast, and my pictures show it. With more than two dozen people in the group and a schedule to keep, there really wasn’t time to stop and ensure the pictures were clear. The first set here is from a standard oceanview room:

Not bad, a little small compared to more current ships, but I’d be more than happy to sail in it. Next up is the only shot I got of an interior down the hall:

And finally, we have a Grand Suite, the largest room category on board. Note that being an older ship, the only categories that actually have balconies are the Junior and Grand Suites

Due to our time constraints, those were all the rooms we got to see. After finishing there, we were guided around a few other areas as we headed in the direction of the dining room for our lunch. Here are some shots of different areas we saw along the way, including: the show lounge, casino, a couple of bars, the kid’s club, and the Forum Aft Lounge, where they were setting up to host a wedding reception:

There were a couple of weddings going on today before sailing, from what we saw. We entered the port at the same place they did, and the wedding parties were shuttled in to security the same way we were. While I’m familiar with how on-board weddings at sea (or in a foreign port) work, this was my first exposure to weddings that take place in port prior to the ship’s departure. Not everyone in the wedding party was going on the cruise, so after getting everyone on the ship, they hold the wedding, followed by the reception, and then those who are not sailing are escorted off. Pretty good way to get a shipboard wedding on a budget.

Let’s get back to the tour. After a quick visit to the kid’s club, it was time to eat. They took us to the Jubilee dining room at the aft of the Atlantic deck (8), one of the two main dining rooms on board. We all sat at one of the five tables set up for us, and were served by the staff as if we were cruisers, eating some of the same things served at sea. The menu was pretty well set too, with the only choice we got to make being fish or beef for the main course:

and here are the courses, in order (I had the beef):

The spaghetti carbonara was spectacular, as was the warm chocolate melting cake, which is one of our all-time favorite desserts (we usually eat it more than once when we’re on Carnival :)). The braised short ribs were good quality meat, and perfectly cooked, but I’m just not a fan of what ends up being stringy meat (like pot roast type meat). Jen had the beef too, and enjoyed it, but said both the spaghetti and short ribs were better on her tour of the Splendor a couple of weeks ago (they serve the same food on all ship tours).

I’m going to take a second to give a huge shoutout to the wait staff today too, they did a great job, and were even sure to learn our names. After we ate, they even busted out some music and got some of us to get up and dance, just like a regular MDR experience.

After lunch was over, we headed up to check out the buffets and outside areas on the Lido deck. The buffet stations on the Fantasy are all pretty standard for Carnival, but note that this ship has not undergone any of the Fun Ship 2.0 upgrades, so no Guy’s Burger Joint or BlueIguana Cantina. It does have a Mongolian Wok though, which we always enjoy.

No, we didn’t sample any of the buffet food, pretty sure that would have been frowned upon, plus we were full from lunch.

On to the outside areas. Here’s the main area on the Lido deck:

At the back of the ship, they have Waterworks 2.0, added during its last refurbishment a few years ago

They’re definitely some nice slides for a ship this old, but the one downside here is location. Being right behind the stack, it was a bit noisier, especially as you walked out to this area (walkway shown in the first shot above). It is what is is, though. The other odd thing about the aft design is that one deck down is the Serenity adults-only area. I shot this looking down on it from the back of the ship where the waterslides are:

Between the noise from the stack and the kids on the waterslide one deck above, I can’t imagine this is very serene, but having never sailed the Fantasy, that’s pure speculation. If you’ve sailed this ship in her current configuration and can speak to the noise level in Serenity, feel free to comment, we’d love to hear how it really is!

Update: Based on a comment on our Facebook page, it sounds like the location of Serenity is a non-issue!

After we finished on Lido, we did a very quick walk through of the spa, which was a pretty standard setup for Carnival. There seemed to be plenty of gym space for those wanting to work out, too.

Once we finished our walk-through of the spa we were out of time, so we headed down to deck 3, gave our passes back, and sadly left the ship. All in all it was a good tour, and left us with a pretty solid impression of the Fantasy. As mentioned, Carnival has done a really good job with upkeep. Is it small? Yes. Are you limited in room types? Yes. It’s not the Dream or the Breeze, but it’s still a worthy option, especially if you’re looking to cruise out of an east coast port outside of Florida. It’s only three hours from us, so I personally would like to give the ship a shot in the near future if we can carve out some time.

One last thing before I leave you with more pictures of the tour: A big thank you to Joanie and Kirsten, our tour guides from Carnival. They took really good care of us today!

Dealing in Absolutes

It’s been a while since my last post, mostly due to workload and lack of recent trips. We’re rectifying that over the next month and a half, as I’m headed to NYC for work this week (staying at the Doubletree in Lower Manhattan), and we’re going to Disney World in mid-May on vacation. While both should provide me with plenty of blog fodder, I did want to rant about an article I ran across a couple of months ago that really irritated me:

11 Reasons you should never ever take a cruise

It’s an older article that seems to reappear every year during peak cruise season. Headlines like that are obvious click-bait, and I hesitated to click on it for that very reason, but in the end gave in to my curiosities and contributed to the problem. It doesn’t bother me that the author and the referenced sources don’t like cruising, as everyone has different tastes. I just find articles that deal in absolutes annoying, regardless of the topic, especially when posted on a “trusted” site. As expected, it was an aggravating article filled with only one side of the story. Shocker.

Before we get in to the points presented, I want to start out by saying that I’m not sitting here trying to say that everyone should cruise and love it. Everyone’s different, and people have different travel tastes. People are capable of making up their own minds, but anyone on the fence about trying cruising that runs across biased drivel like that could end up swayed by someone else’s failure to present a fair argument. Let’s look at the reasons presented:

Dangerous fellow passengers: I’ve heard the arguments presented in here before, including from the sources quoted and other prominent maritime lawyers. I don’t doubt that the threat is real, but it’s also one that exists just about anywhere you go on vacation, whether it’s a cruise, all-inclusive resort, vacation house in some exotic country, etc. I do agree with the insinuation that it’s a bad idea to let your kids roam freely on a ship, and it does surprise me every cruise to see how many young kids are allowed to do so. A little common sense goes a long way, especially when it comes to being aware of your surroundings, keeping an eye on your kids, and watching how much you drink. That applies to any vacation.

Unhealthy eating and drinking: I’ve fallen in to this trap on cruises before, as our Thanksgiving cruise in 2011 quickly ended my 2500cal (max) per day diet that helped me drop just over 60lbs, and it was a real struggle to get back on track, but that was solely on me for caving at the first sight of Carnival’s warm chocolate melting cake. The cruise lines have added a number of healthy options over the years, but when you’re surrounded by a lot of delicious (and unhealthy) food, your willpower is tested. We’ve done all-inclusive resorts with the same issues, but on a cruise, it can be argued that it’s harder to avoid the temptation since you can’t just leave to find healthier options elsewhere. Is this a reason to “never ever take a cruise”? No more so than any all-inclusive vacation, just be smart about what and how much you eat. USA Today has some solid tips on how to eat healthy on a cruise.

Food poisoning and norovirus: Yup, it happens, although we’ve been fortunate to never encounter either on a cruise. Norovirus exposures are something the media loves to call out, but only when it happens on a ship, since there’s nothing sexy about reporting outbreaks at more common locations like hospitals and nursing homes. According to CDC stats, there are between 19-21 million reported cases annually in the U.S.. If you count the number of passengers on all U.S.-based sailings who contracted noro last year, again based on CDC stats, you get 1,766 passengers and crew reported to have contracted noro. Comparing against the lower end of 19m cases per year, U.S.-based cruises accounted for less than 1% of reported noro outbreaks in this country. Being smart while on a cruise (or anywhere with food, frankly) can go a long way to staving it off, too. The CDC has tips for that: http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/vsp/pub/cruisingtips/healthycruising.htm

Mechanical difficulties and their consequences: We’ve all seen the news reports of the various breakdowns ships have had in the past few years, with the most famous probably being the Carnival Triumph. That was easily the worst I’ve heard of in modern cruising, and it’s something Carnival learned from as well, upgrading the backup power on all ships as well as implementing other safety measures to try and avoid that kind of damage again. Cruise lines still encounter issues that cause them to cut trips short which isn’t surprising given the number of moving parts on a ship, but for the most part they seem to handle those situations appropriately and provide some level of compensation to passengers in the event a cruise is cut short or a port has to be skipped. Yes, it’s disappointing to miss ports, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Yet another issue that seems to impact a very small number of cruisers every year.

Unqualified doctors: I can’t really speak to this one, as we’ve only had to deal with medical on one cruise after my daughter was hurt during a cruise-sponsored shore excursion in Jamaica during our trip on the Norwegian Jewel several years ago. The doc took good care of her (which is more than I can say for the rest of the staff we dealt with about it), and I don’t recall having any complaints in that regard. The author was sure to select a scary looking picture to try and play on people’s fears of non-American doctors, so be afraid!

Too much fun in the sun: This is one of the most ridiculous arguments in the list. No one every has too much fun in the sun on a non-cruise vacation, right? That really bad sunburn I got skiing in college or the one I got at the resort in Mexico when I fell asleep in a lounge chair must have been all in my head. The author’s grasping for straws here.

Cruises rock – and roll: Another one that’s got some truth to it, as storms do happen at sea. If you cruise during hurricane season to an area they tend to hit, the risk is increased as well. Ship propulsion systems have gotten pretty good over the past few years, with stabilizing systems that can dampen the effect of smaller storms, and we’ve seen course changes made to avoid larger ones. My wife gets motion sick very easily, but in all the cruises we’ve done she has only had an issue once, when we were buried on a low deck with a porthole in a storm, and only when she was looking out the window. She wears motion sickness patches that she gets a prescription for prior to departure, and outside of that one incident has been fine. One of these days I need to get her to do a guest post with tips on how to avoid motion sickness on a cruise.

Your bed might bug you: I honestly have no idea what the stats are here, but in 9 cruises spanning 4 lines, we’ve never had this issue or known of anyone that has. Hotels seemed to get more press on this a few years ago when there were larger outbreaks, which just goes to show that it can happen anywhere.

Nothing to sneeze at: I’m not really sure what they’re getting at here, as the author gives nothing in the way of cruise-centric statistics showing that you’re more likely to suffer from allergies on a ship other than to say some allergens prefer moist environments (duh). I have significant allergy issues. I was tested a few years ago, you know the one where they put a tray of needles on your back and stab you with 50 different allergens? Yea, I had very noticeable allergic reactions to 48 of them, yet I’ve never had allergy issues on a ship. I have issues in hotels with 100% down pillows, when we’re out on excursions in the jungle, and even when I mow, but that’s why I carry stuff like Claratin D.

Mental health challenges: This was the final argument against it, one that I feel was a reach yet again. I completely understand that the environment might not suit someone who’s on the edge, but quoting statistics that include what one of the quoted sources calls “alleged” suicides is reckless in my opinion. Unless you’ve got the evidence to back it up, you leave that alone. The most that I’ll say to this one is that anyone feeling depressed should consult a doctor prior to *any* vacation, regardless of where it is.

The last slide is the only part of this that’s actually somewhat objective in my opinion, with even the sources stating that the majority of people who cruise have a good time, just like any other type of vacation. Shame it was buried at the end of a bunch of obviously biased arguments.

As I said before, cruising isn’t for everyone, but a headline that deals in scary absolutes is nothing more than a cheap attempt at click-baiting. If you never cruised before and are interested, research it. Read reviews, talk to friends who have, look at actual statistics for things you’re concerned about. Use all that info to make up your own mind. If it doesn’t seem like something you’d want to do, spend your hard-earned money on a vacation you will enjoy! Just don’t base your opinion of anything you haven’t tried on such an obviously biased article.

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