Rundown Of The Margaritaville Cruise

I got a lot of questons about our trip on the Margaritaville at Sea cruise... Here is a quick rundown of how the trip went and the good ands bads.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
We went on the Margaritaville at Seacruise this past week, and I've got
so many questions from people about thecruise, how it was, if we
liked it. So I figured wewould do a quick rundown of Margarita Ville
at Sea. This is the podcast, just a bit of the contrast from
what I'm used to. I usuallyhave to talk fast because there's people sharing

(00:22):
the mic, but this is justme, so I say whatever i'd like.
It might be serious, sometimes itmight be funny. Sometimes describe your
head and say, Brian, it'ssuch a dummy. But it's just me.
I ain't got no help. Thisis Brian Rins, and I'm talking
to myself. Es Brian Grimes.It is my podcast, and I am
talking to myself. You might heara little bit of a rasp in the

(00:46):
voice, so that's because we lefta little bit of my voice at Senior
Frogs down in the Bahamas this pastweekend. I'm trying to get it back.
It's coming back slowly, but wehad a good time. Every time
I have too much fun, Ilose a little bit of bad thing because
I do radio shows a day,so then getting it back is hard because
I'm just trying to not talk thatmuch outside of work to my boy Tate,

(01:10):
but you know, I like totalk a lot, so it's kind
of tough. Anyway. We wenton the Margaritaville at Sea cruise this past
weekend celebrating my son Jayden's graduation.We booked this back in December while we
were out drinking with some friends.We thought it would be cool. I
saw a banner AD four pop up. I'm like, let's check it out.

(01:32):
We had already seen a bunch ofstuff about it, but they had
a good special going on. Sowe booked it, and we figured,
yeah, what the heck, seewhat it's all about. Now we are
cruisers. My wife and I goon cruises all the time. It started
with the Radio Station Cruise coming upin September. It started with the Radio
Station Cruise, my first ever cruisewith the Doc and Johnny cruise way way

(01:53):
back. I would say probably twentytwenty, No, not twenty twenty,
two thousand and two, all runstogether. Two thousand and two. That
was my first ever cruise, andwe've become cruisers, my wife and I.
At first, she hated it becauseshe gets deathly csick. On cruise
boats. But then she found thelittle patch. She discovered the little patch

(02:15):
that you were behind your ear andit makes you like cotton mouth thirsty,
but it keeps you from getting csick, which is cool. The first time
that she went on the Radio Stationcruise with us, I had to take
her down to the infirmary, likeliterally carry her down to the infirmary so
they could stick a giant needle inthe side of her ass to give her

(02:37):
some medicine to get her right.And she slept for like twenty four straight
hours, and it was it wasa terrible experience. But since the patch,
she loves it. And we loveCarnival Cruise Line. I know a
lot of people dis on Carnival,but we love it. We've done Carnival,
Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, and nowMargueritaville, and we we have the
most fun on Carnival. Now,we've had good times on Norwegian, We've

(03:00):
had some good times on Royal Caribbean. But I think every time we go
on Carnival, we know, allright, this is gonna be fun.
And our our most fun on acruise was on a Carnival cruise. So
anyway, we are Avid Cruisers.So we got this deal for Margaritaville,
and their prices vary and they havespecials running all the time, but we

(03:23):
got was I think it was eightynine dollars per person. But if you
buy like one person, you getlike if you buy one cabin, you
get like essentially another cabin free.So we all four of us scott to
go for one sixty nine a cabinand we had two cabins, so it
was really good deal. And yougot to pay taxes in port fees and

(03:45):
everything, so I mean, theprice wise is really good. But they've
got different specials that run all thetime, and in fact, they have
a Hero's program that I learned abouton the boat, and I don't know
all the details, but I knowteachers, first responders like police, fire
h e mts and military all getto the cruise for free. On Margharitaville.

(04:06):
You gotta buy, I think yougotta pay for the taxes and the
port charges, but as far aslike your your lump sum like fee to
get on the boat is free.So definitely check out their Heroes program if
that is something that you think youfit into, because it is a great
deal. Now, a couple ofthings about the cruise to keep in mind,

(04:27):
it's super short. So the whenthe one we went on, we
drove down to West Palm on Thursdaymorning, and we got on the boat
at probably around one thirty, andit sails out at like they say five
is when it's gonna leave. Ourfive thirty because they cut off the board
was four o'clock, but it didn'tactually leave until like almost six. I

(04:51):
don't know what the hold up was, but anyway, so you get on
the boat and then you basically areon a rent from there, because the
cruise itself is Thursday night, you'resailing down to Freeport. When you wake
up Friday morning, you're in Freeportand the ship clear is pretty pretty fast

(05:13):
through customs, so you can getoff pretty quick, like eight thirty.
So you spend your day in Freeport, and then you get back on the
boat by four thirty and you sailaway. The sail away was pretty quick,
and then you're back in West PalmBeach Friday or Saturday morning, ready
to get off the boat and wrapup your cruise. So it really is

(05:34):
a blur, but I will saysomehow it felt like a longer time than
it was, don't. I don'tknow how, so it's short. Keep
that in mind. Good thing andbad thing. I mean bad thing is
because I like the extra day.I like I kind of like a seedy
a little bit to hang out onthe boat and chill. I just like
the extra time. Good thing becauseyou could fit it into your schedule way

(05:56):
easier, Like if you got atight schedule, you could, you know,
do Thursday, be back on Saturday, and really only if if you
can do your work from home ordo a half day on Thursday, you
really could only miss one day ofwork being Friday. So that's that's pretty
solid. They don't have an allinclusive, like all you could drink package.

(06:19):
They do what they what they dosell you is kind of like prepaid
drinks that they give you a riskband, and each risk band is good
for ten drinks. So if youdo it when your book, it's eighty
nine dollars per package, so tendrinks eighty nine bucks breaks out to about
almost nine dollars a drink. Ifyou do it on the boat, it's

(06:42):
ninety nine dollars for ten drinks,so that breaks out to about ten dollars
a drink. And the drinks aregenerally that you get with that thirteen dollars,
so like you're saving what three orfour dollars a drink essentially, so
over ten drinks, you're saving fortybucks every time you buy ten drinks.
So it's pretty smart to do that. But they go very fast, like
next thing you know, you're outof them and you gotta get another wristband

(07:04):
or you gotta start paying full foryour drinks. They just a premium risk
band if you're one that likes thelike the drink of the day type drink,
and that one's gonna cost you alittle bit more, but it gets
you drinks that are priced in thelittle higher price point, like the sixteen
dollars a day drinks or per drinkdrinks, so that's not so bad.
They do have a soda package that'stwenty nine bucks for the whole cruise,

(07:26):
and that's unlimited soda with a reallycool shark cup because that doesn't count on
your wristband what it does, butit's gonna count it as one of your
drinks, so you're better off tobuy that, and then they have various
other upgrades. They do have restaurantsthat you could pay to eat in,
but the free is the cheeseburger inParadise bar the buffet and they sit the

(07:46):
seated like regular like cruise dining typething. But they do have some some
up charge restaurants. We did pizzafrom the pizza spot and we bought that
and took it back to the likedueling pianos section, and the pizza was
in sane good so and it's notoutrageous. It's not like they're gonna kill
you like nicol and dim to death, so it's not so bad. There's

(08:09):
also other upgrades you could get.You could get an upgrade where you your
board faster. You can get anupgrade where you get off faster, like
like the VIP type thing. Idon't know. The getting off process.
The getting on process wasn't bad forus, because the trick for us is
we don't get there like when everybodyelse is trying to get on the boat.
So we drove down to West Palm. We found a little bar slash

(08:31):
restaurant at the port and we metsome friends there that were going on the
cruise with us, and we hada few drinks there and some food there,
and then we went and got onthe boat because it's in the same
parking lot, so we didn't geton the boat early. So the getting
on the boat part actually pretty painless. The getting off the boat part is

(08:54):
a little bit different. So youdon't park in a garage at the West
Palm Port. You have the valet, which scared the heck out of me
because I thought all these people onthis boat are going to get off the
boat hand the valet ticket, We'regonna be standing here forever. But that
wasn't the case, shockingly, Andparking wasn't that bad. Twenty two dollars
a day, but it's only twodays, so forty four dollars for parking,

(09:15):
which is on par with what you'regonna pay anytime you park at a
port, So that part wasn't sobad. So you valet, and if
you don't do what we did,like the early check in, you just
take your bag on the boat withyou because your room is ready the second
you get on the boat. It'snot like a situation on a lot of
cruises. We got to chill inthe common area while they get the rooms

(09:35):
ready to go. Rooms are ready, So we got on the boat,
carried our own stuff on and wentstraight to our rooms, dropped our bags
and we're all good, ready tohave some fun. The only thing that's
kind of I guess it's outdated becauseother cruise ships don't do this anymore.
You gotta do the muster drill onMargaritaville, so it's not as bad as

(09:58):
it used to be on the otherboats. Where you get your life vest,
you put it on, you gostand out in a sweltering heat on
your decade. Not like that.You go to your muster area and it's
on your little keycard. All ofit is inside and you just kind of
sit for about twenty minutes while theygo over the safety stuff and then you're
free to go. So it's notthe worst in the world. But most

(10:20):
cruise ships at this point have gottento where it's on the app and it's
a video and you kind of doyour thing. So once you do that,
like it's pretty cool. It's like, you know, time has some
fun, which we did. Thecruise has live music all the time.
We didn't find any problem finding livemusic. The dueling pianos was great,
the karaoke was fun. All thebartenders the staff super great. We had

(10:45):
a bartender up top at the twelvevault bar named Bagoos, who was really
really cool. It is eighteen andup to drink on the boat once you
hit international waters, so if yougot an eighteen year old and they want
to go, that's the main reasonmy son was very out of for this
to be as graduation present because forhis first drink we did that. I
didn't see anybody overly hammered. Well, we had one little run in with

(11:09):
one girl who was overly hammered,but that's a different story for a different
time. But for the most part, I didn't see anyone that was overly
hammered or anything like that. Nobodyon the boat, like passenger wise,
was rude or so. I mean, it was a good vibe really overall.
Now here's the thing about the destinationFreeport. Freeport is not a Nassau

(11:33):
and I have not been to Freeportand probably fifteen years, and it's it's
not even as nice as it wasfifteen years ago. So you pull up
to basically an industrial spot. Nowthey do have like this little tiny straw
market that they've built up around theport that you walk through, but there's
no beach access or any of thatstuff. Near the port, you're gonna
have to decide where you want togo, and you're gonna have to take

(11:56):
a cab there or range transportation,and there's a few spots that you have
to choose from. They do havesome excursions from the boat, but I
would be careful to pay for someof those, because at least the ones
that are hang out for the dayare overpriced. I contacted the Tiano Beach
Resort myself, and what they werecharging sixty five dollars four on the boat
per person. I got for twentydollars per person by contacting them directly,

(12:20):
and then another twenty bucks per personfor transportations. So still forty dollars versus
sixty five dollars plus tax through thecruise ship. So there's that to think
about. But we went to TianoBeach Club. It was a little bit
of an older like timeshare resort,but you know, swim up bar,

(12:41):
lazy river, nice pool, beachaccess. You had to pay for your
food and drinks, but again youonly pay twenty bucks to get in,
and I mean drinks were cheap,like the highest end drink they have was
like ten dollars. And the pooris very heavy, so we did that.
We went and checked out the beach, We hung at the pool,
We ate food, They had aDJ, so we had live music all

(13:03):
day. And we went back tothe port. Your your driver will arrange
a time with you, so youhave that all set up round trip style
and we got back on the boat. But first we stopped at the Senior
Frogs at the port. Again,not the Senior Frogs you're used to,
not a crazy stage set up,no water front. It's the port itself,
very industrial. So just keep thatin mind when you go. You're
gonna want to kind of come upwith a plan of what you want to

(13:26):
do while you're in port. Butyou're only in port from like eight in
the morning till four in the afternoon, som So get back on the boat.
That was painless, showered, hungout the rest of the night,
and that was cool. Getting offthe boat at the at the end of
the cruise a little disorganized, butnot super painful. If you have your

(13:48):
passport, I recommend the passport becausethe way it works is they start calling,
you know, people and they wantpassport people off first. But if
you have anyone in your party withthe birth certificate, you can go now,
we carry our own bags off.We don't don't leave our bags overnight
because we just want to go straightto the car. So you got to
listen to the announcements, and theannouncements aren't necessarily one hundred percent accurate.
We could have left off the boatthirty forty minutes earlier than we did,

(14:11):
but we didn't know that. Wehad to ask somebody. But they don't
rush you off the boat either,which is kind of nice, right,
like you know, because usually nowadayson Carnival, they're like kicking on the
door like it's seven am because theywant you off. But if you have
a birth certificate, the processing atthe port, and this isn't even on
Margaritaville, this is on Customs isso long. They've got one agent processing

(14:33):
birth certificates and then five or sixprocessing passports. So the passport line moves
really fast, like you're you know, out in ten minutes. The birth
certificate line takes about forty five minutes. Well, my son didn't get his
passport in time and his friend didn'thave one, so they had to wait
in the birth certificate line. Butwe waited in the passport line went and

(14:56):
waited in the valet line, whichagain only took about ten minutes, got
the car over to the side andwaited on them, so it wasn't super
painful. But I recommend you getthe passport if you can, before you
go on the market ridvill cruise becauseit'll make getting off much easier. But
overall, I mean super solid.I would do it. And now they
have a cruise pass that you canpay nine hundred bucks and you could cruise

(15:18):
for the rest of the year unlimited. All you need is twenty four to
seventy two hour you know, windowto book before the cruise and it's you
and a guess. So I mean, if you go three times, basically
you've paid for the past. Soanything over three times. And if you're
just board on the weekend and youknow you're gonna be off, jump online,

(15:39):
book the cruise and go have agood time. So we're considering that
honestly. But overall was good.The price point was good, the food
good enough, the drinks solid,entertainment was solid, the people were solid.
The boat itself, even though it'sold, don't let that scare you.
They have rehabbed it. They freshenedit up, so guys at market

(16:00):
rita ville vibe. If you've beendown to Margaritaville a universal city walk,
it's got the same vibe as that. The room was actually pretty nice,
a bigger TV than I've had anycruise ship I've ever been on, even
when I stay in suites, Sothe TV was giant. Good cable options
actually, which is crazy. Theroom itself, the layout, less counterspace

(16:22):
in like a cabin in a carnivalcruise on a standard cruise, but space
better, like you had more spaceto move around, which is nice.
The bathroom layout was solid. Again, you could tell it's an older boat,
but it's definitely been updated to thepoint where you're not staying like an
old rundown boat. So I mean, overall, I liked it. I

(16:42):
saw some reviews that were a littlebit scary. People told me that they
were kind of scared away by someof the reviews, But overall, I
would definitely go again. And ifI were rating it one to ten,
I'd have no problem honestly giving itlike a nine. And you know the
ten is just those little things likeyou know, the waiting to get off

(17:06):
the boat and stuff like that,Like nothing major and the port which they
really can't control very much, sonothing major. I would totally go again.
So if you hit me up andyou asked me, was it worth
it? Great value, a greattime, a little fast. But you
can actually, and here's real quickbefore I finish, something you could do.
You can cruise to Freeport on theMargaritaville Cruise, stay in Freeport for

(17:33):
five days at a resort. There'sa Wyndham there, there's a couple of
places there, and then cruise backon a different cruise when it comes back.
And it's cheaper than flying to theBahamas when you think about it.
I mean, we paid one sixtynine for two of us to go on
this cruise. It's cheaper than flyingto the Bahamas. And you're having fun
on the way and on the wayback. So something to consider. You

(17:55):
don't have to it's it's not necessarilya closed it tinerary. If you want
to stay for a couple of days, you can book it to where you
cruise down, stay and then cruiseback. So something to think about.
Pretty pretty solid idea. So yeah, check it out Margarita villets. Go
ahead and book it, and Ithink you'll have a good time. I
really do. Make sure you're followingme at the Brian Grimes. You can
check out some videos and photos ofthe boat there actually on Instagram, Yoho

(18:21):
Rum still kicking at Yoho Spice Rumon Instagram and Facebook, Yoho Rum dot
com. We are now the officialrum of the pub on I Drives Sunday
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all your favorite Yoho drinks for youto check out as well. Make sure

(18:41):
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