My Favorite Cruise Ships |
|
About us:
We are the Zimmerlins... Jim and Kellyn. (Pronunciation tip: it
rhymes with Helen.) She and I are in our early 50s and we live on the
central coast of California. We have been on a total of thirteen cruises since 1996, and
twelve of those
have been with Carnival cruise lines.
Jim & Kellyn Zimmerlin
at the Paradise Point overlook in St. Thomas,
in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
My Best Cruise Photos
I'm a photography nut, and usually bring
my Canon DSLR and a tripod with me when we cruise.
Here are some of the best photos I've taken on our cruises...
The Carnival Glory docked at the island of Grand
Turk
Please note: The photos and
videos on
this page are my original creations, and none are stock photos supplied by Carnival.
For information about the camera used to shoot both the still photos and the
videos, click here.
Night shot of one of three swimming pools on the Carnival Spirit.
You can see the lights of Acapulco in the background.
A look at the Carnival Elation as she leaves San Diego bay.
Larger versions of this photo (suitable for use as your computer
desktop background) are available here
I'm an early riser, so I've seen quite a few spectacular sunrises
from the deck of a cruise ship!
This one was taken off the west coast of Mexico, during a cruise on the Carnival
Spirit.
A lineup of cruise ships in St. Thomas, in the U.S. Virgin
Islands
Besides the three in the foreground, can you spot the two other cruise ships in this photo?
The Disney Dream and Holland America's Eurodam are barely visible in the upper left.
They are docked facing away from the camera, so all you can see is their aft ends.
The Carnival Spirit makes a quick stop for a
medical evacuation off the coast of Cabo San Lucas.
I took this shot from the balcony of our cabin on the Carnival Splendor.
I snapped this photo of the Carnival Elation docked in San Diego
while I was on the deck of the Carnival Spirit.
We were returning to San Diego after an
8-day cruise on the Spirit.
It was a beautiful scene, just before sunrise.
The Carnival Glory docked at Grand Turk, in the
Turks & Caicos islands.
Carnival corporation spent a lot of money building their own pier and developing
a shopping/restaurant complex here.
It's really great! The best part is the largest "Margaritaville" in Jimmy
Buffet's chain of restaurants.
The "FlowRider" surfing simulator at the
Margaritaville next to Carnival's dock in Grand Turk.
I shot some great video of people wiping out on the FlowRider.
Click here to see the
video.
The Carnival Splendor... docked in Mazatlan, Mexico.
You may have heard about the incident in November of 2010 where fire struck the
Splendor's engine room.
We cruised on the Splendor about nine months prior to that incident.
Ironically, we were cruising the week of the incident...
but on the Carnival Spirit, not on the Carnival Splendor.
The Carnival Glory docked in St. Thomas.
This photo was taken from Paradise Point.
You can see the "skyride" cable car over on the right.
Looks like a post card, doesn't it?
I took this photo of the Carnival Valor during our September 2011 cruise.
Besides all the fun to be had on the cruise ship
itself, a great thing about cruising is all the fun you can have on shore.
Here's my wife, Kellyn, enjoying one of her favorite shore
excursions, ever!
This is the zip line at Wild Canyon outside of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
We always book a balcony cabin, because we like to sit on the balcony and watch
for marine life.
Here are some dolphins swimming near
the Carnival Spirit in Manzanillo Bay.
I managed to get this picture of two of them, but there were a lot of others...
as you can see from the rings in the water where other dolphins had splashed on
the way in.
During a previous cruise, we had an even more amazing dolphin
sighting!
A pod of dolphins swam over to the ship to frolic in the
wake.
As luck would have it, I did have my
Olympus Stylus 1050SW digital camera with me at the time
and it can record video... so I managed to record a short video of the dolphins as
they approached the ship.
Click here to see the dolphin video
This is an interesting shot I took of the Carnival
Spirit with my Digital
Rebel,
using a long exposure to give the water an unusual look.
This is an interesting shot I took of the Carnival
Spirit in the morning light.
We were staying across the street from the pier in San Diego, at the Holiday Inn,
and I got this shot from the balcony of our hotel room as the Carnival
Spirit docked just before sunrise.
Our very first cruise was in 1996 on Carnival's "MS Holiday".
I think we left the kids home for almost every other one of our cruises after
this!
The Cruise Ships We've Been On
If you've enjoyed this page, you would probably also enjoy reading my web pages about:
Our Caribbean cruise on the Carnival Glory
Our many cruises on the Carnival Spirit
Our February 2010 cruise on the Carnival
Splendor
Our January 2008 cruise on the Carnival Elation
Our April 2008 cruise on the Norwegian Star
Our 1996 cruise on Carnival Cruise Line's MS Holiday
What We Love About Cruising
If you've never been on a cruise ship, you might be wondering
what all the fuss is about.
What's so great about cruising? Let me tell you!
Great food, and plenty of it! If you like to eat, this is the vacation for you. There's food available at all times. Besides the main dining room and the casual buffet, there is also free 24/7 room service on Carnival. And free 24/7 soft-serve ice cream and frozen yogurt, too!
Plenty of entertainment! At home, we just never go out to a comedy show, and rarely go out to listen to a singer or a band. On a 7-day Carnival cruise there will be shows by FOUR different comedians, plus a variety of musical acts, and several Broadway-style shows. There's also a variety of little things like trivia games, scavenger hunts, ice-carving demonstrations, and a hairy chest competition!
Sunshine! During your normal life at home, how often do you take the time to go sit outside in a lounge chair and read a book? How often do you make it to the beach, or to a swimming pool?
Warm weather, and warm water! The climate is very mild where I live. Daytime temperatures here are mostly in the 60's and 70's. While we live only a short distance from the beach, swimming in the ocean is out of the question... the water temperature is in the 50's. I wouldn't want to live somewhere where it was hot every day... but for a week or two, it's a welcome change! And being able to swim in 70-80 degree ocean water is my idea of paradise!
No chores! A cabin steward cleans my room, changes my sheets, and cleans my toilet. A kitchen staff cooks for me, and does the dishes. This really IS paradise!
No allergies! I'm super allergic to mold... and I think there must be some in my house somewhere. I'm always fighting allergies here at home. But not on a cruise ship! Wow, do my allergies clear up once a cruise begins. I guess it makes sense... out on the open ocean, where would mold and pollen come from? And you know what else you don't have when you're sitting in a chair on your balcony on a cruise? Flies, mosquitos, and gnats.
Spend some time with the one that you love! There's nothing like being together for a 7-day cruise to foster some good communication and some good times between two people that love each other. And in those rare cases where a certain someone gets on your nerves... it's a big ship... take a walk!
Cheap vacation, if you want it to be! More so than any other cruise line, cruising with Carnival is extremely affordable. If you compare a Disney cruise to a Carnival cruise, you'll find the comparable cabin on a comparable Carnival cruise is about half the price. Compare to Royal Caribbean Cruise Line and you'll find Carnival is usually at least several hundred dollars cheaper. And if you're on a super tight budget, there are ways to keep the price of a Carnival cruise incredibly low. My son and his girlfriend have booked a 7-day Carnival cruise for $700... and that's not $700 each, that's $700 for the two of them! They did this by booking the cruise well in advance... by cruising during a month where demand for cruises is low... and by booking an interior cabin (in other words, no windows) on the lowest deck of the ship. They like having no windows in their cabin, because they like to sleep late in the morning and with no windows you have no sun waking you up at the crack of dawn. And remember... on a cruise, all your meals are included... so you don't have to set aside any extra money in the vacation budget for that.
A great way to vacation with family and friends! It's fun to go cruising with people you know... even if some of them are people you only want to spend a little bit of time with, not a lot. You all have so many options on a cruise vacation that you can choose to spend as much or as little time together as you want. Do your own thing and meet up for a meal or two... or spend every minute of the day together, if you want to. There's so much flexibility on a cruise!
See the world! In fact, see multiple parts of the world all in one week. I had no idea Acapulco Bay was so beautiful until I cruised in to it. I had never been to the Caribbean until a cruise ship took me there. Before cruising, all I had ever seen of Mexico was Tijuana and Ensenada... and they aren't very impressive! But once I cruised to Cozumel, Ixtapa, Puerto Vallarta... I suddenly got a look at the best of Mexico. I had no idea that one of the greatest barrier reefs for snorkeling is off the coast of Honduras, until I cruised there. And who would have thought that I would have so much fun in the Cayman Islands, or on the island of Roatan? I had no idea what those places were about until a cruise ship took me there. Now I admit, cruise ships typically only spend 8 or maybe 12 hours in any particular port... so you only get a small taste of life in each of these places. But if you want to spend more time there, you can either cruise back there again sometime... or if you totally fall in love with a place, you can fly there some other time for a traditional vacation.
Seeing dolphins, whales, turtles, sting rays, seals, and colorful fish! I guess this is the perfect opportunity for me to share some photos of marine life that I've seen while cruising...
About a mile off shore of Cabo San Lucas, during a cruise on the
Carnival Splendor.
We had a couple of great cruises to Acapulco, and always saw
turtles in the water once we got within about a day of reaching Acapulco.
We were just sitting out on our balcony, anchored off Manzanillo, when this sting ray
started flying out of the water over and over again.
We were surprised that we didn't see many dolphins on our Caribbean cruise
considering how many we had seen in our multiple cruises to the west coast of
Mexico.
If you really like dolphins a lot, there are quite a few places you can go to
spend some time up close with them.
A colony of seals near Lovers Beach in Cabo San Lucas.
In several ports of call, we have seen photo opportunities with iguanas.
Speaking of wild life, don't forget the towel animals that your cabin steward
makes for you each evening.
We save them, so that by the end of the cruise we have a whole menagerie.
If you've enjoyed this page, please take a moment to write and let me know!
My email address is:
jimzim@charter.net
While I've got you here, may I show you our Cocker Spaniels?
We own several parti colored Cockers and breed them as a hobby. In fact, I've owned Cockers on and off for over 40
years! If you would like to see more pictures of my Cockers, including cute puppies from some of our previous
litters, please visit our main page
If you find this web site useful, and appreciate the effort it took to create it... please consider helping us cover some of the costs of keeping it running. Due to the extremely high amount of traffic and bandwidth on our Cocker forum, our web server costs now exceed $600 per year. There are two easy ways you can help us cover these costs:
If you click on one of the ads from our affiliated merchants, and then make any purchase from them, they will send a commission our way. The more you spend with our affiliated merchants, the more they send our way. We pay our web server costs from these commissions.
Our affiliated merchants:
Another way you can help us cover our server costs is to make a direct donation by clicking on this link:
There is a LOT more to this web site than just this page!
Please explore the rest of the site by viewing our table of contents,
or by clicking on one of the quick links below.