{"id":16310,"date":"2026-09-05T15:51:37","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T19:51:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/?p=16310"},"modified":"2026-09-05T15:51:38","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T19:51:38","slug":"carnival-conquest-2-wrapup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/05\/carnival-conquest-2-wrapup\/","title":{"rendered":"Carnival Conquest 2 wrapup"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This was the cruise that I wasn&#8217;t supposed to take. Marlene had booked it with a friend who backed out. I was able to fill in only because the timing was perfect &#8211; the cruise began 3 days after the primary election. I was exhausted from all of my election activities, so it worked well as a break from the intensity of the previous month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the cruise seemed long. I don&#8217;t think I have ever before thought that a cruise was too long &#8211; even the 30-day <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/20\/tp1-wrapup\/\">TP1 <\/a>cruise to Australia. Maybe it had to do with the itinerary &#8211; there were no new ports &#8211; or maybe it was the ship (our second cruise on the <em>Carnival Conquest<\/em>). There just wasn&#8217;t anything new in this trip. I like new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Highlights<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Getting the $970 &#8220;Mega&#8221; bonus in the casino. Totally unexpected and the second largest prize I have ever received in a casino. It made the losses on all the other days tolerable.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The SEA experience. This was our first Sailings Exclusively for Adults Carnival cruise. No kids on board. Very nice. And we got some useful bling: a reusable straw, a wrist cabin card holder and Gatsby Party hats and headbands.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The cruise director. Filipe was a lot of fun.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Some of the meals. The prime rib was very good and there were some very good desserts.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Our cabin. It was large with a nice ocean view. And being on Deck 1 we experienced almost no motion at all. If you suffer from seasickness, book a cabin on Deck 1.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Our fellow passengers. Overall it was a congenial group and we ran into four couples that we have cruised with before.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Lowlights<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The casino overall. Lots of people losing lots of money. I had several days where I lost over $100 with no bonuses. I expect bonuses to be hard to hit but they shouldn&#8217;t be impossible.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Some of the meals. The kung pao chicken was terrible, two of my filets were tough (that should never happen) and Marlene complained about her cod (&#8220;mushy).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The late night buffet. This isn&#8217;t intended as a meal, but the fare borders on disgusting.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Our cabin attendant. He was clearly annoyed by our almost constant use of the &#8220;Do Not Disturb&#8221; sign. He seemed to take offense on us preventing him from doing his job. Attitude.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The shows were too good to be included as a lowlight, but not good enough to be included as a highlight. Ditto with the itinerary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This was the cruise that I wasn&#8217;t supposed to take. Marlene had booked it with a friend who backed out. I was able to fill in only because the timing was perfect &#8211; the cruise began 3 days after the primary election. I was exhausted from all of my election activities, so it worked well &hellip; <a class=\"read-excerpt\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/05\/carnival-conquest-2-wrapup\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&raquo;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[114],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cruise"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1VniU-4f4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16310"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16312,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16310\/revisions\/16312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}