BNB 2018 Summary

Carnival Victory 2-12 Feb 2018
Miami, Half Moon Cay, Amber Cove, Curaçao,Bonaire, Aruba, Miami

Flew frontier cheap to Miami. Under $200 for two round trip with 2 checked bags each way.

Stayed at Staybridge Suites Doral. Clean safe area near Carnival HQ. Millers Ale House in parking lot. Ate there night before and night after cruise. Excellent and convenient.

Walmart/Sams club about a mile down the street for sunscreen, wine,etc.Staybridge shuttle to/from airport and to Walmart on request. Didn’t use as we rented.

We rented car on both ends of cruise picking up at MIA and dropping off downtown with Avis. Prompt pickup and drop off at port.

Visited haulover to get sun on both ends. Probably won’t ever go back. Major creep factor after 4pm both times and in restrooms. Too bad. Must be all the wallys getting off work. No police patrol evident and should have been especially in the restrooms. Unreal.Oh and repeated drone flybys on haulover.

The ship. Ship clean and crew great. No hint of illness to us onboard despite the nation having the flu. Weve since learned on the BN board many people caught a cold/flu near the end or after and have had it at home for a few weeks.

Buffet: buffer was clean and basic. 3 lines and an express bar with a exact same food. Well organized layout. But, Food was extremely basic and repetitive. All safe and edible but can’t remember one great dish at any time of day for 10 days.

Free Snack stops. Pizza Pirate very good each time. Guys burgers very tasty. Sandwich stop had large variety of sandwiches also very tasty. Blue iquana burrito bar excellent and actually had 3 breakfast burritos there near the end.Didn’t eat at chopsticks as was on other side of ship and always passed when closed.

Extra cost seafood shack was good had clam chowder and lobster BLT.

Bar service was good bought the soda package and comes come from can each time. 4 16 oz beers was like 24 plus tip.

No drink packages on last 2 BN charters.

Main dining room was generally good food and good service the whole cruise except 2nd to last night where both sucked to an extreme. Every course bad and served slow. weird. I said good food. The final night was great food and great service. Waiters put on a great show.

Ship layout. On the good side has two good pool areas front and aft. A great but not scary slide. Lots of hot tubs to distribute load. More than we had ever seen on any ship.

Lobby/shops underwhelming. Boring.

Entertainment shows were ok to good. bN entertainment way down from last year. BN DJs were good.

Bars/lounges all welcoming layouts. However, the fun action seemed to be a band playing nightly in a hallway near the casino and bar. Seemed to all start here and sometimes make it into the disco.

Worst part of the ship of any ship we’ve sailed is lots of dead ends that you get lost. Hard to find dining rooms night after night. Plus, strict early and late seating was annoying. Got caught between seatings a couple times. Prefer Princess anytime dining.

Pictures are now all digital. They enter your room number when taking and they all show up on your phone ap or iPads at the photos center. You can delete them from anywhere on ship via WiFi. Downside, sometimes you get other peoples photos which is interesting on a nude cruise. Yes, the Carnival photographers will take all your pictures in the buff in front of all their backdrops or on deck.

WiFi was great for the very first time ever on a ship. Fast and reliable. $175 for 10 days. Many people complaining but it was lightning, lightning fast for us in room, on deck, in dining room.

The majority nudist crowd was well behaved and no real negative incidents noted by us around ship or on pool decks.

As mentioned last year, this is not exactly an AANR event. More lifestylers made themselves very aware to us this year in the dining room at shared tables multiple nights ( tables for 4 and 8), in hot tubs and in lounges. Dramatically more evident to us than last year. The same couple sat at our diner table twice. Conversation quickly goes from the days excursions and where they’re from to they’re in the lifestyle and would like to party in their room. We chuckle and laugh and had to give them the slip both times after desert and then they find you again. Same in the hot tub where you go from a good long soak to invites and the hands start wandering under water.

The ports

Half moon cay is great once you get off the boat. The tenders are large from the island and it takes a long time to get 100s of people on. We like when Princess uses the smaller, more frequent lifeboats. Frequent and quick. Skipped their lunch for an all day bud light liquid lunch.

Amber Cove. Elected to get a good chair by the pool all day. Did not go ashore. Basically a fake cruise line port with a pool where you have to take cash/credit cards there so stayed onboard great day. You can Go to Puerta Plata. We did that years ago and saw Brugal Rum Factory. These days I dont here much to go see.

The ABC’s

Curacao. Rented a car weeks ahead with Avis at the port. Goal was to see the island and recon for a land visit in the future. Quick and easy rental after short walk from pier. Id say you have to have a reservation. All the walkins were turned away. Curacao appears much better off than st maarten due to having oil/industry. The drive is safer than SXM even in the city and over the big skyway bridge. Crime looks non evident where we went.

Went to Grote Knip beach, little knip, Cas Abao (all 3 a good 30+ minute drive west from the port. Worth it and will return if we can.
We saw the KLM 747 fly over on approach at Cas Abao beach. Finally, went back thru Willemsted to mambo beach at night. Different vibe. Picture modern mall, boardwalk, deluxe restaurants pool and bars. Could be fun. Checked car back in, took stuff to ship cabin and went back out to the town by the port. Beautiful waterfront area. Had some din, din and back to the boat by 11pm.

Bonaire was great for diving especially Kleine Bonaire which is a $20water shuttle from Ketals restaurant in the port to the uninhabited island. The reef is phenomenal. We also did an intro dive with Buddy Dive shop. Good for the boss to get all the hard part of open water cert done. We will return to spend a few days diving on Bonaire.

Aruba.
Reminded us of Bahamas and a tad expensive. 6 caribs each. ouch.

Bn Cruise. BN seems to think their job ends after booking the boat and turning over names/cabin numbers

Carnival does the job well. Friendly staff seemed to have no issues.

The BN staff seemed aloof as always. A few exceptions (Harry and Theresa and Hermann.). The rest all seem to be customers. A few BNers handed out stockers to cover phone cameras while 99% are cared about some pics.

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Biggest Complaint. Deck chairs availability.....you’d think this would be simple simon for a nude cruise by now.

This is bad on any cruise, it seemed worse this year. bN needs to do something to police unoccupied chairs with no personal valuable left behins. The cruise could of been titled “deck chair hoarders”. Some up before 6and you never saw em in the chair but a few minutes. BN made no effort we saw to remedy chair shortages. I think that should be a BN job to police that.

Photos. Also saw too many people taking photos and BN doing nothing.

Dont think well go next year. Its been fun but our nude cruise meter is pegged at the moment. I suspect we’d go again if the route and ship and price were right.

Thanks for the excellent detailed report. We were on the boat too, didn't see any lifestylers although knew they were around. We didn't hang around the "Adult Only" deck, which am sure is a nice feature especially when kids are aboard. There was a cool beer vending machine in the aft pool area, got a nice big glassful of good beer for around $4 that was automatically charged to our account. I kept the machine busy.

Thanks for an excellent, detailed report! We took a couple of their cruises years ago and just decided that it wasn't worth the premium.

Noticed this part was incoherent

Take 1
The BN staff seemed aloof as always. A few exceptions (Harry and Theresa and Hermann.). The rest all seem to be customers. A few BNers handed out stockers to cover phone cameras while 99% are cared about some pics.

Take 2
The BN staff seemed aloof as always. Hard to find and not interested in engaging in either conversation or rectifying an issue. A few exceptions (Harry and Theresa and Hermann.). The rest all seem to be “free” cruise mooches. I dont know if they get a free cabin or discounted but they dont earn their yellow staffer hat. Its hard ti describe them except that somehow they warranted their coveted hat and dont think they have to do anything. Maybe they dont.


A few (a couple) handed out stickers to cover phone cameras while 99% cared less about some pics being taken.
Its no big deal really unless the pic turns out to be a big deal for someone and they lose a job or a grandchild for some who dont understand.

Im done.

We only bumped into a few lifestylers, but they barely mentioned it and were as respectful as anyone. We certainly didn’t notice much. I assume they were there, but discreet and invisible to us. We weren’t too thrilled with the Carnival ship, but have to say the crew was always amazing. The food was meh, but we really went so we could hang out naked in warm weather with our friends and have fun. And that we did. We met so many amazing fun friendly people it was a hit.