We were on an internal exchange at our home resort in the Mayan Rivera at a 5 star resort. We had decided to extend our vacation aboard a cruise, which was offered though a Florida tour package, and Timeshare resort, as part of their gift for taking a timeshare presentation with them. We stopped in Fort Lauderdale, Florida when we arrived and were informed that our cruise to the Bahamas had been cancelled due to damage to the ship running ashore. As we were not informed of this before arriving in Florida, the operator arranged for us to take a 5 night cruise aboard a Carnival Cruise, back to Cozumel, close to where we had started our journey. I must say, I was not thrilled about cruising aboard Carnival, as I had heard negative comments about them, knowing that they catered to family style cruises with children.
We were also offered in addition, cruise back to the Bahamas at a later date, that would be available once the tour operator purchased initiated new service to the Bahamas. This would require an additional airfare for our return to Florida.
Having no other options, my wife and I accepted the offer.
Once onboard we found the service on Carnival to be acceptable, although not up to the quality and luxury of either Celebrity or Royal Caribbean Cruise line, which we have been using for many of our cruise journeys. The noise and family atmosphere, were not present, but the ship atmosphere was clearly, party style. We enjoyed our time aboard Carnival. The food quality, while not top notch, was quite acceptable and the ship crew was lively and entertaining.
Once we arrived in Cozumel, the only negative was that we were limited in our ability to journey afar from the port, without taking one of the optional tour packages offered by Carnival. We decided not to take the optional tour, as we had just come from that area during our Timeshare in the Mayan Riviera, and had been to Cozumel as well, previously. We walked around the port area, which was mostly set up for local shopping; jewelry, local wares, and a few bars and restaurants. This is the typical fare that I find that most cruises offer, which, if you are not interested in shopping, is a downside to cruising. If you are new to cruising, you may enjoy the shopping, but after taking many cruises, you may find it boring. I would prefer to experience something new and exciting, such as what we experienced on our cruises to Turkey, Greece and the Baltic Countries. We also completed cruises to Australia and most recently South America, including the Panama Canal. But even these more exotic cruises contained the usual local shopping fares, and required you to book local tours to see things of interest. I find most of the tours to be over hyped and may not meet your expectations.
The cruise back from South America bought us back to Miami aboard the Norwegian, Sun, which was in place of flying home to New Jersey, directly. We did have to take an additional three hour flight back to Santiago, Chile from Lima, Peru. and arrange a 1 1/2 hour transportation to the small out of the way cruise port. Our choice of Cruises and Cruise Line limited our choices, which coincided with the end of the land portion of our Tour Package, but that is another story.
To conclude, adding a cruise to your timeshare exchange is a good idea, but needs to be worked out in conjunction with the availability of the exchange, cruise ship departures and additional air flights at the conclusion of the cruise. So plan ahead early, for some of the best offers.