Spirit 15 Days~Hawaii: A Review

Spirit 15 Days~Hawaii: A Review

Ok, so I sat down to put this together with some trepidation of the backlash. Before you all get your pom- poms in a ruffle, this is in NO way a bash against the cruise I just took, but it isn’t 100% praise either. If (as Jack Nicholson once said), “You can’t handle the truth.” Then please read no further.

To set your mind at ease, the cruise was fabulous and we had a great time. This was our 11th Carnival Cruise, our second sailing as Platinum Members. For those of you that aren’t already aware, I am dangerously close to 50 and my DH will be 51 this year. This was our 18th cruise. Mostly everything here is just my opinion, most of which happens to be identically shared with my DH…which is convenient for sure. When I write facts, I will state them as such.

Unless anyone is interested or has questions about any precruise air travel/hotel. I will skip all that babble and go straight to embarkation J

We left the hotel at 10:45. We stayed at the Holiday Inn By the Bay which is very close to the port…as a matter of fact we walked over. Because of the priority embarkation, we were literally on board with drinks in hand by 11:15.

I must say that although this was the absolute fastest I have ever gotten on a ship, embarkation in San Diego was not my favorite….not for myself but for many of the older passengers that were embarking that day. Unlike other ports where there are porters waiting to meet you to take your bags, in San Diego you had to walk your bags to a hold area. This was a challenge for us with 15 days worth of ‘crap’ packed, so you can imagine how some seniors with lots of baggage would have an issue. On top of this, the sky opened up at one point, so all that luggage sitting in this hold area became drenched.

Carnival stepped up immediately and offered to wash and or dry any clothing for passengers whose clothes were pretty much soaked through. J Kudos to them for that!! Fortunately for us, our stuff was only minimally wet, so it dried all by itself, although we had a few things hung all over the cabin for the first two days until they dried out.

By the time we started to sail away the weather got a little better but the send off was very anticlimactic…I know it sounds small and petty but the ships horn never blew…not for sail away or at any other time during our cruise. Now certainly this doesn’t ruin ones cruise but it was something that many people noticed and as silly as it sounds, it was missed….I mean, you know that CCL commercial where you hear the horn blow? How does just that sound coming from your TV make you feel??? Kinda like you can just smile ‘til your face cracks, right???? Well I look forward to that but it seems Captain Vopli is not one to toot his horn.

Everyone cruises for different reasons. For me personally, I cruise because I love the ocean, warm salty air and because for the time I am on a ship someone else is doing all the stuff I have to do at home…cooking, cleaning etc. These are the reasons I cruise. Because I cruise for the sea, the ship and the service the ports are not important to me. Because of this, the itinerary of this sailing was absolute bliss for me. 5 sea days followed by 5 port days and ending with 5 sea days (Actually there was supposed to be a stop in between Hawaii and San Diego on the way ‘home’, but Ensenada became Ense-NOT-a….more on that later.)

Besides no horn blast to signal our cruise had begun, there was also little to no deck music. I attributed this to the poor weather…but I was giving benefit of the doubt that wasn’t quite deserved.

We enjoyed our first hours on the ship catching up with family, exploring and of course unpacking. Before you know it it’s time to get changed for dinner.

Now, I don’t know if it was because it was a long sailing. I can only assume it was, but this was the most unusual CCL cruise I have ever taken in terms of passenger demographic. Because the sailing was a longer one, the passenger demographic was indeed a bit older, but it also was quite a bit different than usual. It was really awesome. Unlike the usual cruises with lines at the CS desk of people complaining, everyone on this ship was cool, calm, collected, happy and pleasant. There was absolutely no one that wasn’t dressed perfectly in the dining room…not one sign of slop to be found. So, for people that like to claim that CCL is the Wal-Mart of the seas, I must say this is the most un-Wal-Mart CCL cruise I have ever been on in my life. There was not a chair hog to be found.. Chairs were packed, but they actually contained people.

Details:

MDR:

Ok, so for those of you booked on future, long itineraries with Carnival, have no fear. The menus on this 15 day voyage were anything but boring. The food presentation was it’s usual perfection and for the most part…with only a few exceptions, the food was very good to excellent. My only issue was that the first week of the cruise, the food just wasn’t hot enough…as time went on, that seemed to improve. The beef was almost always cooked as ordered (an exception to that only one time) and I truly fear to face the bathroom scale but will bite the bullet tomorrow morning….This was sincerely the best CCL food I have had since 2004. My last 4 CCL cruises weren’t even remotely near this good as far as food goes. To be honest, I actually wish it wasn’t as good as it was. Eating like this for 15 days was NOT a good thing. ;)

Buffet:

Here, I really have nothing great to say…..However, the deli was awesome. Produce in the salad bar was always insanely fresh (the salad bar portion of the buffet was very good) and my DH did enjoy the burgers/dogs…pink slime or no pink slime :D The hot buffet foods were just not all that great….again, this is just an opinion.

OH and although I think the pizza is gross despite the raves it gets here, my DH loved the calzones and ate quite a few of those during the weeks on board.

The Crew:

HOLY FREAKING CRAP! I am going to write CCL this week with names….this was the best CCL crew I have ever had, ever. My cabin steward was like stewards of old…the kind that seemed to have esp and know when you were out of your cabin….He literally had the cabin cleaned up almost immediately after we’d leave in the morning, no matter what time we woke up and vacated it. His name is Tri and one morning I was walking to my cabin, juggling two cups of coffee and he spotted me, ran ahead of me and used his key to open my door so I wouldn’t have to. I haven’t had service like that in a long time and it was awesome. Any request I made (ice/laundry bag etc) was met immediately and he was sweet and friendly and just awesome. How perfect to have Tri on a 15 day cruise!!!

Our servers in the MDR was amazing as well…we were a table of 14 so they literally had their hands full and they were so magnificent that I can’t say it enough. They were Arnel and Paramitsi (Mitsi)

Bartenders...I had bartenders that I swore had never even served me come up and say, “Hi Miss Angel!” It was kinda freaking me out….I looked at my husband and said…’Umm, how many bartenders are you ‘working’ with this cruise?? LOL!!!! Every one of them was pleasant as could possibly be.

If it were just service and food that would sway me to be a Pom-Pom waver, this cruise would have done it. However, there was some stuff that is important to us when we cruise that just was very much missing and that is in music and entertainment.

I originally blamed lack of music on deck to the weather but the reality is that a cruise line should always have a Plan B in place for bad weather and Carnival didn’t for this cruise. When rough seas caused the cancellation of production shows, there really was nothing else offered. There actually was lido music on a few occasions and here is what I don’t get…it happened during port time. How do you plan a sail-away-from-port lido music thing at 3:00 in the afternoon when ‘All Aboard’ time isn’t until 5:30?? It’s as ridiculous as serving ribs on formal night…which I don’t think anyone ate because they offered them again on the last night of the cruise, much to everyone at my table’s glee. Ironically, no one dripped anything on them anyway ;)

Again I will state loud and clear that I enjoyed this cruise. I wasn’t ‘bored’ but I have felt better about entertainment and activities on other lines. If you have a sailing with this many sea days it would be nice to provide a little more of something. During the day, beside the typical hairy chest, mixologist contest (which they had two of…my sister won the first one. I entered the second and lost…my sister will likely remind me of this til I die), they had bean bag toss or corn hole or whatever you want to call it, the ship building contest, two golf putt things and a Hula-Hoop contest for the kiddies. That is literally it. Music was hard to come by as were other activities and people were starving for them. On the rare occasion something WAS going on, people would swarm to it. For instance one night, the CD (Stu) did some dance class thing ‘for people who really can’t dance’. We walked in on it and it was MOBBED and people were having a blast. It was great...totally awesome and Stu was FABULOUS. If you have passengers that want to be engaged like that, then fit more into the schedule!! Stu was fabulous when he did things…but he didn’t seem to do all that much (comparatively speaking).

The Piano Bar was never hopin and I am sure someone will back me up on this one…it was NOT because the piano bar is now non-smoking, it was because the piano guy was just not good. As far as smokers go, there were very few (also comparatively speaking) on this cruise as was obvious by the absolute empty smoking side of the lido deck (chairs could be had any time of day on the smoking side) and you didn’t require a gas mask when you walked through the casino (You may have needed a coat however…it was freezing in there!!!)

Anyway, one night Stu lead a sing along in the piano bar. It became totally mobbed, filled to maximum capacity plus some and we were all having a blast…but when his 30 minutes were up, he left.

???????????????????????????????

I don’t know where he went or what he had to do but after he left and the piano guy was alone doing his thing, the place emptied like the ship was sinking.

I don’t understand how the CD can just walk out when people are having a good time and this is what happened often on this cruise.

One night there was music in Serenity…the guy wasn’t great but he was certainly live music so we were happy go out there. There were only a few people at 10:00...slowly people started coming out, by 11:00 it was getting crowded. But at 11, the guys time was up, he packed up his stuff and left us there with a bartender and no music.

Now before people blast me about schedules and all that crap, I will tell you that I have experienced on other lines, CD’s and Crew, officers/hotel directors and entertainment staff bending rules, going longer than they were supposed to AND adding impromptu stuff into the schedule when the passengers are having fun. It can be done and it DOES happen. Because I have experienced that, what I experienced on this CCL sailing left me disappointed…and because everything else was pretty much awesome, that made this harder yet to understand.

A cruise IS what you make of it. We enjoyed this cruise a lot, so no one needs to tell me this, thankyouverymuch.

Back to good stuff:

Ya’ll know that CCL cut back on some of the free booze parties…well, Captain Volpi would have none of this cutting back on this sailing. Besides the past Guest party, he offered us the old fashioned formal night Captain’s Cocktail Party and said that HE wanted to do this and he ‘was retiring in Sept, so let them fire him‘….He also gave us a third (and spectacular) party…a Luau Cocktail party that was in the Grand Atrium and there were no premade-yukko- drinks. It was literally an open bar for an hour, anything you wanted (well, not top shelf, but anything else). I would like to think that this was this dear, Italian Captain’s way of giving the finger to the new management….well, maybe not the finger, maybe the Italian way of saying the same thing which is fisted hand then bending elbow and slapping that bent upper arm with the opposite hand…I am sure Italians from the mid Atlantic know what I mean here….

That will be all for tonight. I will be back tomorrow with port reviews and other observations and thoughts.

Been looking forward to this one! I begin.....

Thanks for the review Halos. DW and I were looking at this cruise for next year. Like you, DW likes the sea days. I'm just worried I'll get a little bored.

Did you do your own laundry on the cruise? Thats one of the things we're also worried about.

Looking forward to more.

Thanks for the review Halos. DW and I were looking at this cruise for next year. Like you, DW likes the sea days. I'm just worried I'll get a little bored.

Did you do your own laundry on the cruise? Thats one of the things we're also worried about.

 

Looking forward to more.

Laundry:

This is something I wanted to include so I am gald you brought it up :)

The last time I had wash and fold, my stuff came back looking like it had come from the toddler section of...well, of WalMart. :eek: It was horribly shrunk.

This time, my DH wanted stuff washed and I filled a bag with his underwear and tee shirts and threw in one of my tees as well (one that wasn't a favorite....) everything came back great. I was so pleased that I sent out a second bag. Nothing shrunk!!

Those two bags happened to be free because we are platinum but we'd have sent them out anyway even if we'd have had to pay for them. I think the 'bag special' was $15. Many of our family members did their own in the laundry room. There sometimes were waits for the washers, so doing laundry at an off time is beneficial.

As far as being bored, I can't tell you if you will be or not because I don't know you. I imagine it could be a struggle for some people....that's a LOT of sea days.

I do suggest bringing some warm clothing with you. We were a bit surprised at how cold this cruise was.

Excellent review so far! We were on the Hawaii cruise prior to yours, the one immediately following dry dock. We had a great cruise despite the hiccups (horrible embarkation and dining room fiascos come to mind). Anyway... can't read to read the rest of your review :)

~Denise

Can't wait to read more! Thanks for taking the time to write. You are pretty much summing up my exact thoughts here recently. Service has actually improved, food isn't bad, but the entertainment has become sad.

Must add this funny story.

I was walking in the hallway after coming out of my cabin late one morning, close to noon-ish. The hall was empty except for this one, older woman. I quickly caught up to her in the hall as she was walking very slowly, using both hands to hold herself up on the rail along the wall. I approached her and asked if she was OK, did she need me to help her get somewhere?????

She looked up at me, focused as best as she could and said,

"I shoulda NEVER had that double!"

This is why one should never 'assume'. I just assumed she was 'old' I never would have guessed she was just poop-faced :D

Can't wait to hear more. A 15 day Hawaii Cruise is one we are very interested in taking. Thanks for sharing!

Great review so far. Can't wait to read more. Loved your funny story. Kudos to you for asking if she needed help.

We will be on the Miracle to Hawaii in Oct '13 so your review helps me to know better what to expect.

Great review! Looking forward to reading more:).

Who are you and what have you done with Halos?

Very well written review. Very honest and helpful to others considering this cruise. Most do not realize those sea days are chilly.

I am a big CCL fan, have 36 completed with them, however, they do not specialize in long cruises. I did a Panama Canal on Princess and a TA on RCCL which offered all kinds of day time activities such as lectures, language lessons, cooking demos, etc. Your observations on the lack of activities is right on and is something people should consider when booking on a cruise line that does not specialize in longer cruises.

Who are you and what have you done with Halos?

Same Halos here Zydo. I never lie. I tell it like I see it.

You are the one that insists I am some evil basher and that has NEVER been the case.

My last cruises on CCL were not that great. This one was far better than the ones that did not meet my expectations. I know you refuse to believe that any CCL cruise can have any faults, but they can and do.

I'm not a 'hater'. If the cruise is great, I will say so. If it's not, I will say so.

This one was pretty damned good (with the excpetions I mentioned). I loved most everything about it, incluing the passengers. I met some great people and had a great time. The crew was top notch....best of any CCL ship I have sailed thus far.

:)

Very well written review. Very honest and helpful to others considering this cruise. Most do not realize those sea days are chilly.

 

 

 

I am a big CCL fan, have 36 completed with them, however, they do not specialize in long cruises. I did a Panama Canal on Princess and a TA on RCCL which offered all kinds of day time activities such as lectures, language lessons, cooking demos, etc. Your observations on the lack of activities is right on and is something people should consider when booking on a cruise line that does not specialize in longer cruises.

The issue isn't the length of the cruise...it's the cuts. I have found the short cruises to be lacking in this area as well. It's a shame. Most of CCl's entertainment is now the passengers...Legends, Talent Contest, karaoke (sp??)....the passengers provide the entertainment.

This is fine for some people....for me, not so much....although I do want to say that LHP has a really nice voice :)

I did expect the sea days to be cool, I didn't expect Hawaii to be as cool as it was however :eek:

Same Halos here Zydo. I never lie. I tell it like I see it.

You are the one that insists I am some evil basher and that has NEVER been the case.

My last cruises on CCL were not that great. This one was far better than the ones that did not meet my expectations. I know you refuse to believe that any CCL cruise can have any faults, but they can and do.

I'm not a 'hater'. If the cruise is great, I will say so. If it's not, I will say so.

This one was pretty damned good (with the excpetions I mentioned). I loved most everything about it, incluing the passengers. I met some great people and had a great time.

:)

 

 

In general, I think your more recent Carnival experiences are not what I experience, but this time perhaps you rediscovered my Carnival. There is still hope for you. :)

I have no problems with your review. No cruise is perfect. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

I do disagree with a few who associate any change with a cutback. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. In any event, change happens whether we like it or not.

We cruised to HI on Carnival Spirit, but the 12 day 1 way variety. I loved the sea days going, the 7 day HI cruise and then done. I would have loved having sea days back to recover.

Sorry - I didn't mean to hijack your thread and truly do look forward to more. I even took you off of ignore - I really did.

Peace!

I'm a slow reader, but I take it this is still a cruise frought with octenogarians and ninetenogarians? And what a disappointment about the horn. Our sail away not only has a horn blowing, but a horn blowing contest, with the Holiday, which was also in port with us, and sailed away first, with us following it out.

And no ukelaili (sp) band on the lido? That's the part that made the beginning of the cruise so special

I envy you guys though, that you got to sail back. We would have loved that down sea day relaxing time after that extensive 7 days of touring, but not at those prices!

Reading on...... (and can't wait to see the pix!)

Very fair review - cant wait to read more,

When oh when is Carnival going to get good piano players ? I miss the days of old.

Enjoying your review --we are sailing on Miracle in April 2013 and I am glad to see Hawaii review.

Is the casino open when the ship is sailing in Hawaii???

OK. Up to date and ready for more!

Good thing your Italian captain was no where near Giglio with his salutes. I think I had him on my first Legend cruise. Have to look. If yes, I've heard some, er, interesting stories about him.

Halos - so glad to hear your trip was good. We did the December Hawaii cruise and I felt the same you did about some things. I thought the food was very good and the crew on that sailing was the best we had ever had (except for the casino staff). Very friendly and outgoing. I don't remember his name, but the guy who played guitar and sang hawaiian songs in the atrium lounge was also very good. We had the same "free drink parties" that you guys had which was a nice surprise. Weather was also very rough going over to Hawaii and on the way back. I was hoping that was just a fluke on our sailing but it sounds like that is the norm. We enjoyed our sea days talking with friends we had made on board, reading, and spending way too much time in the casino. I did notice alot of people sitting in the common areas and in Lido buffet area playing cards to while away the hours on those sea days, but everyone enjoys different things on sea days. Since a large group of us "met" on our roll call thread, we had planned some events on the ship on sea days. That may be why I didn't notice a lack of "events" on sea days. We are already scheduled for the January 18, 2014 Hawaii cruise (repeat) and I only hope that we enjoy it as much as our last one. Looking forward to the rest of your review.

Great review and so very anxious to hear more..:o

Loving your review. We were on the next table to you at dinner and had the same waiters but Robin was our main server. He was awesome. We were in the corner at 107 with Cheryl and Don. The staff were great all over the ship. Our cabin stewards super. Food was the best. Like you the entertainment we found lacking. Pity that Captain Volpi is retiring. He has a lot to do with the Ships crew attidudes. My sister from England was with me and listened to the captains noon day reports daily.

Great cruise.

Val.

Looking forward to reading more about your trip!

Loving your review. We were on the next table to you at dinner and had the same waiters but Robin was our main server. He was awesome. We were in the corner at 107 with Cheryl and Don. The staff were great all over the ship. Our cabin stewards super. Food was the best. Like you the entertainment we found lacking. Pity that Captain Volpi is retiring. He has a lot to do with the Ships crew attidudes. My sister from England was with me and listened to the captains noon day reports daily.

 

Great cruise.

Val.

HI!!

The wait staff at our tables and also the table on the other side of me was fabulous as well. Did you happen to see how well that waiter treated the kids at that table?? He was so awesome. The kids came in the dining room and hugged him every night. :)

Also, there weren't too many kids on this ship but man were these kids FABULOUS...such great kids....all of them. If any of you out there reading had kids on this ship I applaud you.

I never saw anything like it...this ship was definitely full of a great bunch of people. It was very noticeable, the difference between this and the typical short cruise.

I'm a slow reader, but I take it this is still a cruise frought with octenogarians and ninetenogarians?

Yes Pete many of the cruisers were older than your typical 7 day Caribbean cruise but this is typical of all long voyages. Funny the older I get, the younger these people seem LOL!! :p

I will say it still had more 30's to 60's on it than my 14 day Celebrity sailing which was nearly all over 70.

Continued…..

Ok, so since we are talking about the captain, I did want to mention that Captain Volpi is simply adorable. He’s just this amazing man who doesn’t seem to take the world very seriously and seems to just be full of life and humor. I literally looked forward to his noon announcement every day and listened with rapt attention as I was trying to make out what he was saying in his broken English. I imagine that a LOT of people looked forward to his announcements because every day when I was at the pool, while he was speaking, if he cracked a joke or said something cute (which was often), everyone would crack up…so I know he had the attention of most everyone seated around me. The Captain did mention that he was retiring in Sept and it’s a loss to Carnival for sure.

Being Platinum:

Achieving a certain status on any cruise line has never been a priority of mine as you can tell by my history. I will say that the CCL Platinum perks that are quite nice in my eyes are the priority embark, debark and tendering. If they gave me just those 3 things I would be more than content. I don’t need the chocolate covered strawberries *have a comment about those that I will mention later* or the gift (this time it was the backpack. My DH and I both received one each and I gave them to my SIL for her grandchildren). There is also supposed to be priority restaurant seating but that is hit and miss. All these are nice tokens of appreciation however and you shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth…

We embarked on this ship in record time so I was loving my ‘status’ when we boarded. I had taken my platinum perk into consideration when I was investigating/booking my excursions for this cruise. Knowing you have priority tendering gives you major flexibility when booking things at ports where you must tender.

We were very fortunate in that we only needed to tender in one port and that was in Kona.

We were supposed to dock in Kona at 8 am. When I found the excursion that we wanted to do, the tour started at 8 am. This was a wild dolphin snorkel tour and we were very excited about it. I had emailed and called the operator of this tour (Captain Ron) several times explaining that we were not docking until 8. He assured me it was a short tender (and it was...maybe 10 minutes??) and he would hold off the excursion until 8:30. I figured this would be pretty much OK as we had priority tendering. He understood that if the ship got in late, then I would also get there late.

We docked pretty much on schedule but it seems that for whatever reason we were not cleared right away. I had asked how the priority tendering worked and was told by the CS rep to just come down to the area in front of the CS desk and sit with the other platinum guests and we’d be taken right off the ship, so that is what we did. I didn’t count the number of ‘platinum’ people down there but there weren’t too many of us…maybe 50 or 60 of us???…We waited and waited. Finally at about 8:15, I called Captain Ron from my cell phone to tell him we hadn’t been cleared. He told me not to worry, he’d wait. That made me feel good, but the other issue is that on Kona (at least where we were to snorkel) the weather is sunny every morning, but then as noon approaches…EVERY DAY, the clouds start to roll over, like clockwork. Anyone who snorkels will tell you that clouds make for lousy visibility so I was anxious to get ON my little boat and get into the water. I did feel relieved that Ron was going to wait and that is because we were fortunate enough to be the only 3 people on his boat that day…so thank goodness for that.

Anyway a CCL crew member finally came over and told us that she ship still was not cleared and that she would allow us to use the phone to call our tour operators. It seems that everyone had already done that with the exception of one family and the CCL crew member seemed to take these people under her wing so to speak and make the call for them….I am assuming this is what she did as she had them gathered around her and was using her phone.

When she was done with that call is when things got a little ugly. She basically told us that she was going to take 10 of us at a time, down to a tender and that she was going to leave for a minute and she wanted us to figure out which 10 were going first.

You GOTTA be kidding me. :eek:

Right away you could see people stiffen. You have maybe 50-60 people….not even 1/2 the capacity of a single tender boat, waiting to just get on that first tender and now you’re not only telling us that you are only going to stick 10 on that tender, but you want us to gather around and figure out who gets to go??

We all just looked at her like she had 3 heads.

Never mind, now she chose the group she had made the call for to go first…

Never checking with anyone to see what time their excursions were…never attempting to figure out if there were some people that needed to get off earlier than others and never mind that there weren’t THAT many of us and there was no reason not to get us all off the ship at once.

The natives started to get restless and my DH was one of these restless natives. He said to the woman, “Does this card mean nothing??” (he shows her his room key…I start to cringe because I dislike tossing the platinum thing, but hey, we were ALL platinum)

She tells him that yes it does mean something….he told her, well obviously it doesn’t. She said, “I am not making a choice.”

He said, “I think you just did.”

Then things got a little more restless and suddenly within a few minutes we were all being lead off because she wanted to take only 10, but everyone just went. So now, the CCL woman as upset…I was not happy with my DH (even though he was right) and it all was for nothing because we all got on that boat along with a bunch of other people with no problem. I do not know what the hang-up was.

Considering that there may likely be more platinum guests on each cruise as years go by and they know when you board how many platinum guests are aboard so they should know what to expect, I think it would be beneficial to CCL to come up with some sort of ‘plan’ for priority tendering…what we experienced was in no way shape or form a bonus. If you are going to tell me that taking 10 CCL cruises will yield me a certain perk, then you should stick to that and not try to take people in shifts of 10 on to 6 different tender boats. Not acceptable. If you don’t want to offer this perk fine, but if you do offer it then give it to me because I planned according to this.

That ends all negatives and complaints. The rest is all good stuff. I have to download some photos and have a ton of stuff to do today so I will get to ports and excursions as soon as I can.

Great review;can't wait for the photos!!