Our family (2 adults 2 teens) and another family (2 adults 2 teens) recently went on the August 16th Western Caribbean Glory sailing. There is a saying,"When Mama is happy everyone is happy." Well in my case when my teen-agers are happy I'm even happier. Our kids have been on many vacations and they said that one was the very best by far. There were more than enough teen agers on board who bonded very quickly. All the kids seemed very well behaved. Even the little kids were very good.

This was the first time we sailed on Carinival. The other two times were short cruises on RCCL. It is hard to put my finger on the difference but RCCL seems to be a notch above. The staff on the Glory is very efficient but needs some more customer relations training. Although I should say our kids,who each had their own cabin,wanted to take their cabin steward,Joanna,home. She is from Poland. According to our kids,"She was the best!" We also had a great time with Arif(sp)on the Lido deck as well as some of the other pool wait staff.

The entertainment was very good. I didn't get the hang of navigating the ship until the last few days. If you are reading this and you are a new to cruising, pay attention to the diagrams next to the elevators. They are a big help.

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I should say the embarkation and debarkation was very easy. We got to the terminal at 12:15 and were eating in the Red Sail restaurant by 1:15. Debarkation was easy also. They told us the night before our color tag would get be called at 9:45 am. It was actually called at 9:30am. The only night mare is if you are picking up a rental car I suggest you RUN to the nearest cab as opposed to getting on the car rental shuttle.

We had an inside cabin on the veranda deck. It was much more spacious that RCCL's. Our cabin steward was very good but oddly enough we don't even know his name. We usually get to know all kinds of staff but he just did his job without much interaction. We were very satisfied though.

The beginning of the week we were thinking, "Wow, this menu is great and the food is pretty tasty." by mid week we were getting fairly disappointed. It's similar to a Red Lobster. I'm usually not a buffet person but there was always plenty to eat. If you like lox and bagels you have to go to the open seating restaurant for breakfast. I love chinese food but never had a chance to eat any. I also never went to the grill for burgers. I had one slice of pizza. New York has nothing to worry about. The best thing was being able to eat plenty of ice cream all of the time.

The pools were small but nice and cool and there was always room for one more. We never had a problem finding lounge chairs on the 10th deck.

I've been to Key West at least 20 times but I still love the town. If you are going there for the first time skip the shopping and go on a snorkel boat like the fury or the stars and stripes. Belize is wonderful. We took a pre arranged snorkel tour with Coral Breezes. They were very professional. My husband and son flew to San Pedro for a two tank dive that was $60.00 cheaper than if they had booked it with Carnival.
We had all been to Cozumel so we rented jeeps from Alamo and toured the island. Great way to spend the short stay there. You have to laugh at Progresso or else you would be mad. The clarity of the water is similar to the Jersey shore. The beach was ok. We rented a golf cart and toured the very poor city. Perhaps the tours are better. Be prepared to be approached a million times by people selling items.

I'll close by saying we're hooked on 7 day cruises. The Glory was a certainly a fun ship.