Now it is time for the good stuff. What do Patty and I recommend for your cruise? Do we have any tips to share? Did we think Carnival did a good job? Well, we will tell you!
This is standard advice for traveling through airports, but it is even more important for getting off of the ship. When you get off the ship you will be shown to a gigantic warehouse, where there will be thousands of identical bags. There will also be hundreds of other people attempting to find their generic black bag among the thousands in the warehouse. Make your bag unique and save yourself some stress while you are traveling.
Speaking of people, it may be a good idea to travel with another couple or group of people. It is a good thing to share you fun times with others that you know. Getting to know strangers is fine, but I am guessing most will prefer to share the fun with their friends or family.
You may be fretting about having to wear a swimsuit on the cruise. You may be saying "Oh - I could never wear a swimsuit. I'm so fat / old / big / small / hideously deformed." I can tell you this with confidence: don't worry about it. There will be many people on this cruise. Many of them will be fatter than you. Many of them will be uglier than you. Many of them will be older than you. Most of them will be in a bathing suit at one time or another. No one is going to care about little 'ol you. Besides, failing to bring along a bathing suit will severely limit the activities you can participate in. So bring your bathing suit and celebrate the wonder of the human body with a bunch of hairy guys from Wisconsin!
Tanning before the trip is a good idea. It will prepare you for the Caribbean sun. For sunscreen, you want SPF 45, waterproof, and oil-free. Some might miss the oil-free part, but you may be in a situation where the tours do not want you wearing oily sunscreen for fear of harming the aquatic animals.
Of course, with SPF 45, Patty and I did not tan much. That was fine by us. If you really want to tan, you can do it on the ship deck. We were not interested in risking the pain and suffering of a burn.
Bring lots of plastic water bottles. You can fill them up on the ship, and you will guzzle them on every shore excursion. Patty and I typically went through three or four bottles each day on shore. Most people did not seem to have any. Maybe they got along fine, but there is no reason to be dying of thirst on your vacation!
Patty and I both purchased new walking shoes before the trip. Our old ones were getting worn out, and this was a good excuse for new ones. This turned out to be a very good idea, since there was lots of walking - sometimes over rough terrain. Bring good walking shoes.
Give yourself plenty of time. Getting on and off the boat is an involved process. It often included getting on smaller boats to get to the pier. There will be lines, and it will take a while to get from point A to point B.
We did not use the bug spray we brought. We had previously read many recommendations to bring bug spray. Maybe bugs were out of season. You may as well bring it, just in case.
Bringing a power strip is (surprisingly) a good idea. We did not bring one for luggage space reasons. All you really get in your stateroom is one outlet. That is fine if all you need is a clock (which is also not included), but if you are a member of the womanly gender, you are probably going to need to use the hair dryer, at least.
Carnival will pass out maps of "recommended" shops at the ports you visit. These are nice, but keep in mind the "recommended" shops pay a fee to Carnival to be listed. To be fair, Carnival also guarantees these shops live up to certain standards and money-back guarantees.
Most of the official shops in port get boring after a while. It is an endless parade of "duty-free" shops that sell alcohol, jewelry, watches, and perfume. If you really want to buy liquor, cigarettes, perfumes, etc. you can do all of that "duty-free" shopping on the boat. The prices are all reasonable, and there is no sales tax.
Instead of looking at the same crap at every duty free shop in every port, try looking around for natives near the tourist areas. The best gifts are the ones you buy from the natives. They are handmade, unique, and cheap. No matter where you go, they will take U.S. dollars, and they will speak English (at least enough to tell you how much).
There are so many opportunities to buy great, low-cost gifts, you may want to bring extra luggage on your trip just to transport your stuff back home. Patty was very talented and was able to pack everything for our trip home, but I had my doubts at the time. Next time, we may bring a bag specifically for bringing home the goods.
One example that burned us was "There will be a big party on the Lido deck tonight!" Ok...but which part? The Lido deck runs the length of the ship! We went to one end, met some other partygoers, and waited for the party that did not come. It turns out the party was in the middle of the boat, not at the end. We could have used that information!
Another small criticism was that Patty and I would have liked to see more couples activities. One of them, dancing lessons, were only held twice (as far as we can tell) at a half hour each. We could only make one because of our shore excursions.
Speaking of America, as far as Patty and I could tell, only one American worked on the ship (he was one of the entertainment directors). Every other employee hailed from other countries. They could all speak good English, of course. Most of the "laborers" (waiters, laundry staff) seemed to come from Thailand, Africa, or one of the Russian satellite countries. The officers came from Britain, Australia, and other European countries (the captain was Italian).
Most of the passengers, however, were American. As a very rough estimate, I would say that about 40% of them were retirement age, 40% or so were middle aged, and the last 20% were the younger crowd.