Carnival’s newest and largest, the Conquest, on a 7-day carribean cruise.  Originally supposed to sail from New Orleans, the location was changed to Biloxi (something about being too big to fit under powerlines).

The ship sailed to Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel.  Jamaica was a wild-ride..the bus driver drove way too fast to get us to our tour destination, Ocho Rios, and being forced to exit through the market area after the water falls was irritating.  The marketeers pushed their wares agressively, and when you didn’t want to look or buy, became nasty.

Grand Cayman on the other hand, was the extreme opposite.  High profile stores with high prices, along with snobby salespeople…yeah, so I don’t want to buy the $500 leather bag, but you could acknowledge me in your store… :-p Of course, the smaller local stores were much more reasonable, and friendlier.  Here, the Atlantis submarine tour was the highlight of our visit.

Cozumel…we’d already been there a few years ago.  So, the only thing we did there, was pick up another shotglass (the previous one we had purchased got dropped a while back), and take the people-ferry to Playa-del-Carmen.  There we got on the jeep tour, where we did some light off-roading, and visited a cave and swam in the cave lake, where the water was quite chilly, and the bats were hanging above.  Very cool!

The Carnival Conquest was huge, and a very nice ship.  This was our second cruise, and the only thing missing is a 24-hour soda fountain machine.  Carnival makes you buy soda fountain cards…all that means, is you show your card to a bartender, and they pour you a glass of coke (from a can).  You don’t get cans, or the plastic bottles (unless you buy them), and the cards are $25-$35 (me no remember).  Honestly, fountain drinks are cheap enough, charge more money for the cruise, and set up a 24-hour fountain dispenser…or at least provide 24 hour access – when the last bar closes (1am-ish), you don’t get anything to drink until they re-open (9/10 am-ish).

These pictures were taken with the Sony Mavica CD-1000.

Cruise