I had heard so many good things about the Breeze and now she’s getting ready to leave Galveston. I decide to continue to put off cruising on the Dream so I can book the Breeze before she heads to Florida.
That means I have to go back to Galveston which I did not enjoy last time. I booked this cruise for early March. This way I won’t have to worry about fighting the crowds from their Mardi Gras parade and I can get in and out before Spring Break really kicks off.
Cruise Parking
I wasn’t thrilled with the EZ parking last time so I decide to try something different. I went with the covered parking option at another popular parking facility, Lighthouse Parking.
Lighthouse covered parking is under those metal parking covers. I pull in and park. The shuttle is right there to take me to the port. A porter met our group at the shuttle. No need to take my own suitcase to the luggage area this time.
Embarkation
This time embarkation was…a breeze. I had an 11:30-12 arrival appointment. I arrived right around 11:30. I breezed through security. They gave me a zone number. Upstairs they told me to sit in my zone and boarding would begin shortly. There were only three people in my zone. I sat my backpack down and went to the bathroom. By the time I came back they had started priority boarding. I boarded within 10 minutes of the priority boarding at 11:55.
On this cruise I started a new embarkation day tradition of eating lunch at the pasta bar on deck 11. This is a venue that didn’t exist on the other ships I had been on. It’s in the same location as the BBQ on Freedom. But I noticed the BBQ place usually wasn’t crowded. My thought was maybe the pasta place would be a nice quiet place to sit down and eat on embarkation day–I was right. The blue cards didn’t find this place until about day five of the cruise.
Stateroom
I stuck with my preferred room location on lido deck but my room was booked so I’m a few rooms further down the hallway. After being in the same room the past couple cruises I’m a little concerned about stumbling in from the bar one night and attempting to enter the wrong room with my slice of pepperoni in hand.
This was the best steward I’ve had since the first cruise with the guy who cleaned my room every 5 minutes. Nonthakan was her name–My first female steward. Does that make her a stewardess? I don’t know. I told her I only needed once per day service. She still cleaned my room twice per day. She also preserved all of my towel animals.
Dining
This is the first cruise where I ate in the dining room each night. I found a table I liked and requested it each night. Yolanda was my head waitress and she’s the best I’ve had to date.
This was also the first cruise I discovered Sea Day brunch. I’ve been staying in rooms on lido deck forward and had no idea that was going on back in the back of the ship on deck three. Ace was the waiter I had on Sea Day brunches and he’s the best Sea Day Brunch waiter I’ve had to date.
Bars
This ship has a great Red Frog Pub. It has a big bar with beers on tap and a lot of TVs. It has booth seating, live entertainment, and games. This is what sets the Breeze apart from the Dream for me which has an art gallery in that space. We’ll get to that on my Dream reviews.
I love the comedy club bar on this class. It has a real bar in the back of the club off to the side. On Breeze they have a big TV behind the bar with a camera on the stage which is great if you leave your glasses in the cabin. Ernie and Lin were the bartenders. They were great. Ernie quickly learned what I was drinking and if he saw me walk in, he’d have it for me by the time I go to the bar. Lin had a great personality and liked to dance. They made an entertaining pair.
The Alchemy bar on this ship is a double-edged sword. I love that it’s a bigger bar with more seats than on Triumph and Freedom. On the downside it’s in Ocean Plaza where they have live entertainment at night. That means it’s loud and you have people taking up seats that are there for the music, not the Alchemy bar. Svatava and Daniel were the Alchemists and they were outstanding.
Svatava does amazing things with chocolate sauce.
Comedy
I try to catch all of the comedy shows if I can. To date I’ve seen about 25 different comedians on Carnival. The one who stands out as my favorite was on this Breeze cruise, Rob Little.
Ports
This cruise had the same ports as my Freedom cruise. The cruise was more about getting on the Breeze before she left Galveston than it was about the ports.
Debarkation
We didn’t experience the delays that we did getting off of Freedom. But it was still a longer process than what I had experienced in New Orleans. After getting through customs I found the Lighthouse Parking shuttle. Lighthouse has two lots: covered and uncovered. I didn’t like that they took us to the uncovered lot first where we had to wait for the uncovered (parking) people to get off the bus and unload their luggage before continuing to our more expensive covered parking lot. My car was covered in pollen so the covered portion didn’t do much for me. At this point I still haven’t found a parking facility I really like in Galveston.
