Legend mother/daughter cruise review - Feb 5-12 with photos

My 27 year old daughter and I cruised on the Carnival Legend to the western Caribbean the week of February 5-12, 2012. We had a very good week. This was my 10th Carnival cruise (the platinum benefits were nice) and my daughter's fourth cruise. Neither her husband nor mine were interested in going on this cruise with us.

My first cruise was in 1992 on board the then-brand new Carnival Ecstasy. Some things have changed; some remain the same. We paid about the same amount of money for an obstructed-view balcony cabin on this cruise that my husband and I paid for an inside cabin on the Ecstasy 20 years ago. To me that means there is simply no way the food can be as good now as it was then. Other than the food and more promotion/cost of extra-charge items, I can't see a huge difference in the product. That is just my opinion.

We flew to Tampa from Des Moines on Saturday Feb. 4 and stayed at the Holiday Inn Express Rocky Point. It's an older property but was fine for one night. We had an early dinner at the adjacent Bahama Breeze restaurant, which was good. It was extremely busy and there was a long wait for a table by the time we finished so go early if you can. We'd had a long day traveling and hit the sack early.

We were up early on Sunday. We soon found out we had made a mistake not going out to get our soda/wine/batteries/necessities on Saturday evening. According to the woman at the front desk of the Holiday Inn, the closest place to obtain these things was at Walgreens, 3 miles away. She offered to call us a taxi but neglected to tell me that you cannot buy wine in Florida on Sunday until after 11 a.m., so we spent $$ on a taxi to get 24 12-ounce bottles of soda, batteries, and tweezers. It wasn't a big deal (found out after we were already on board the ship I probably could have gotten wine at the shops across the street from where the Legend is docked - does anyone know)?

The shuttle was only a few minutes late picking us up. It was a beautiful day, sunny with temps in the 70s. We were at the port by 11:45 and on the ship (thanks to platinum embarkation benefit) by 12:10. The lido restaurant was already packed with people enjoying their embarkation lunch.

First photo onboard the Legend:

Many states in the south you can not buy beer or wine before 11 or even noon and hard liquor at all on Sundays.

Looking forward to this review as I am cruising with my mom in April. I booked us on the cruise as a Christmas present to her. My DH wants a break from cruising for a while...:confused:. We're cruising on the Pride (sister ship to the Legend). Can you mention which dining seating you had and how that went? Thanks!

I know there will be more, but please:oplease hurry!

Can't wait to read more---thanks in advance for a great review! The Legend is on my wish list for 2013.

At 1:30 we were able to go to our cabin and drop off our carry on luggage. We were in stateroom 5174, an obstructed-view balcony. Neither of us had ever had a balcony before and I'd wondered if the obstruction would be a big hindrance, but it wasn't at all.

view from balcony (not on embarkation day)

Laurie with bottle of expensive soda;)

After we checked out our room we went back up on deck and dangled our feet in the Serenity area pool. At 3:15 we heard the announcement for the safety drill so we found our muster station. We were not required to bring our life vests to the safety drill but we felt the Legend staff took this very seriously. We were released from the drill at 3:40 and went back to Serenity to watch sail away.

Looking forward to this review as I am cruising with my mom in April. I booked us on the cruise as a Christmas present to her. My DH wants a break from cruising for a while...:confused:. We're cruising on the Pride (sister ship to the Legend). Can you mention which dining seating you had and how that went? Thanks!

We had late seating in the dining room at 8:15. This worked out well for us although I might try anytime dining next cruise, whenever that may be. Your DH sounds just like mine - wants a break from cruising even though he's had quite a loooooooong break as our last cruise together was in 2005. I can't go that long:)

We were up early on Sunday. We soon found out we had made a mistake not going out to get our soda/wine/batteries/necessities on Saturday evening. According to the woman at the front desk of the Holiday Inn, the closest place to obtain these things was at Walgreens, 3 miles away. She offered to call us a taxi but neglected to tell me that you cannot buy wine in Florida on Sunday until after 11 a.m., so we spent $$ on a taxi to get 24 12-ounce bottles of soda, batteries, and tweezers. It wasn't a big deal (found out after we were already on board the ship I probably could have gotten wine at the shops across the street from where the Legend is docked - does anyone know)?

 

The shuttle was only a few minutes late picking us up. It was a beautiful day, sunny with temps in the 70s. We were at the port by 11:45 and on the ship (thanks to platinum embarkation benefit) by 12:10. The lido restaurant was already packed with people enjoying their embarkation lunch.

 

First photo onboard the Legend:

 

Yes, there is a wine shop directly across the street from the port in the Channelside shops. It is called Tampa Wine Design and opens at 11am 7 days a week. According to some others on these boards, the prices are pretty decent and they will wrap your wine for you. They do not however sell pop or bottled water. Too bad as I would imagine that they would make a small fortune form the cruise passengers needing a convenient place to buy it.

Enjoying your review so far.

:):)

The Legend sailed at 4:15. We knew that we wanted to be on deck to watch the Legend pass under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge and we had late sitting dinner, so we wandered around, had a DOD, and took photos.

Around 5:15 we could see the bridge in the distance and decided to run down to our room and see if our luggage had arrived. It had, so we carried it in and then went back up on deck to find a good spot. By 6:15 the bridge was very close and to make things perfect, there was a beautiful sunset.

The Legend sailed under the bridge at 6:25. It was incredible!

We sail her in Sept...just made our reservations for Nachi Cocum!:D:D

After we went under the bridge we went to our room and unpacked. We had prebooked tours in Grand Cayman, Cozumel, and Roatan but didn't have anything planned for Belize. We tried to order a tour using the cabin TV system but for some reason it wasn't working. We got ready for dinner and headed down to Truffles Restaurant for dinner. Sorry but I do not have any MDR food pictures. At 8:15 the dining room opened and we were shown to our table, #209, a table for two near the entrance to the dining room. We both had caesar salad (good) and I had the didja' ever cured salmon appetizer (okay). We both had the shrimps in batter for our main course (lots of batter, not much shrimp). Laurie had the creme brulee and I had black forest cake for dessert; both were good.

The Super Bowl party was going on in the main lounge. Neither Laurie or I are football fans but we wandered into the lounge and caught the last 10 minutes of the game, which of course was very exciting. At 10:30 we saw the Welcome Aboard show with CD Kirk Benning, which included a preview of comedian Doug Funk. He was good and even though we were really tired we attended Doug's adults only show in the Firebird Lounge at 11:30. Very glad we did cause he's a funny guy. After his show we headed for our room and went to bed.

We sail her in Sept...just made our reservations for Nachi Cocum!:D:D

We went to Nachi Cocum too and enjoyed it very much.

I just took my mom on a mother/daughter cruise on the Conquest in January and I had such a great time that i'm leaving my DH at home again in Jan. 2013 and taking her on the Legend...this time with 3 of her friends.

My DH doesn't actually like to cruise, so I can either go alone or drag my mom. She loves it.

Looking forward to reading more of your review.

We got up around 7:00 and sat on our balcony for awhile, then put on swimwear and got ready to go up on deck.

Around 8:00 we found loungers in the Serenity area by the pool. We had coffee/tea and some pastries from the Unicorn Cafe (Lido restaurant) and enjoyed the mild air and sunshine. I listened to an audiobook on my iPod and Laurie read using her Kindle.

Around 9:30 the sun disappeared and it started to sprinkle. The light rain continued off and on for the next hour and we kept gathering up our stuff and retreating to the covered Serenity area. After one very brief cloudburst around 10:30 the sun came out and the rain was over. I switched over to music on my iPod and ordered a DOD:)

This is a great review! Please keep it coming!

Around 1:00 we had lunch from the Lido restaurant. A couple from New Jersey sat with us and we visited with them. After lunch we went to Guest Services and reserved spots on the Bannister Island excursion in Belize, then went to our room and played gin rummy on the balcony while enjoying some of our expensive sodas (or pop to us midwesterners).

Around 4:30 we started getting ready for dinner. At 6:15 we left our room for what turned out to be a great evening. We people-watched awhile and decided that most people were at least somewhat dressed up for Elegant evening. The show for late-seating guests was pre-dinner at 7:00 so around 6:40 we found seats in the lounge. The show was Jazz Hot and while it wasn't the best show I've seen on CCL, it was entertaining. Midway through the show the dancers/singers just walked off the stage and an announcement was made that they were experiencing "technical difficulties." The show resumed 10 minutes later right where they left off with another announcement that one of the performers had a "medical problem" that needed attending to. In twelve cruises never had that happen before! After the show we went to dinner. I had the strawberry bisque, greek salad, and lobster tail/shrimp for dinner and it was good. We split an order of the didja' ever? alligator fritters and didn't care for them (seemed to be all fritter, no gator). Laurie had caesar salad, spaghetti carbonara as a starter, and the lobster/shrimp for an entree. I tasted the spaghetti and I really liked it. For dessert I had the WCMC (too runny for me but good around the edges) and Laurie had the caramelized apples on puff pastry, which she said was good. We both enjoyed the bread that was served at the beginning of the meal, especially the sourdough rolls. Our waiter and assistants were very nice and tried hard to please. They appeared very overworked and did not have time to visit with us the whole week (not a complaint). I don't know how many tables they were responsible for. Nice dinner!

After dinner we stopped off at our room and found a note from the Shore Excursion Team that our tour in Grand Cayman (the Luxury Yacht, Snorkel, & Beach Adventure) had been cancelled due to lack of the minimum number of participants. We were both really disappointed about this but thought that perhaps we could still book the tour on the pier independently (what we should have done in the first place), but we all know that hindsight is 20/20....

We headed back out again and went to the Punchliner Comedy Club for the adult-only comedy of Macio, which we enjoyed. Doug Funk was up again at 11:00. He pulled Laurie up on stage and a little to my surprise, my rather shy daughter was hilarious (not surprised that she was funny but that she even went up on stage)!

We decided not to wait up for the 12 a.m. comedy of Macio since we thought it might be a repeat of his earlier show. Instead, we turned in at midnight.

We were up around 6:30 and went up to the Unicorn Cafe for a quick breakfast. By 7:40 we were back in our room packing a beach bag and waiting for some clean beach towels from our steward, as he had not replaced the wet ones from the day before. By 8:00 we were off the ship and on the tender headed for the pier.

After we reached the pier we inquired as to possibly booking the yacht tour privately through the vendor, but were told that unless we had 8 people ready to go it would not be possible. Since we had both been to Stingray City before, we ultimately booked a barrier reef snorkel with Don Foster Dive. We were told to be back at the pier at 11:00 for the tour. Since we had a couple of hours to kill, we went shopping. Grand Cayman is a fun place to shop, but neither of us saw anything we couldn’t live without and after posing for a few photos, were back to the pier by 10:45.

The Don Foster rep arrived at 11:15 and led us to a bus for the ride to our dive boat. It was a beautiful day and we hoped the snorkeling would be good. By noon we were onboard our ride out to the reef, the Cayman Star, which took about 40 minutes. The 2-man crew (?Matt and Seth) were very professional and helpful. They noted that we were lucky as the conditions were very good for snorkeling - sunny and calm. We were soon outfitted with gear and in the water. Laurie had bought a DicaPac waterproof sleeve for her camera before the trip. It didn’t work with her camera, but it did with mine. I was a little leery of it but it worked perfectly and I got some fairly good shots, considering my camera is an old Canon PowerShot SD1000. I had snorkled at least ten times previously, but this was probably the best snorkel tour (maybe because of the excellent conditions) I’d ever been on....lots of fish and IMO, the reef looked healthy. My daughter saw a stingray while she was near our dive instructor. We had about an hour in the water.

Around 1:45 we headed back to the dock. It was raining over at Rum Point, but we had a beautiful ride back. By 2:30 we were back to the pier and back on the ship by 3:00. We were very happy with our choice of tour.

Loving your review so far! I'll be on the Legend in 18 days so I cannot wait! Looking forward to reading more. :)

more tomorrow...

Nice review, we are going in October and are already excited. Looking forward to more of your review. :)

Carol thank you for the review. Myself and my 18 yo daughter are leaving March 18th on the Legend for her SR year Spring Break.

We are from Iowa as well and it's good to hear another Iowans prospective of this cruise.

Andrew

Great so far!! And LOVE the sunset pics!!

I love that you and your daughter got to take this trip. My 2 sisters and I each have one daughter and it is our dream to take a mother/daughter cruise. The 3 sisters got to cruise a few years ago. The trip that got me hooked on cruising. Maybe one day we'll get our mother/daughter cruise.

Enjoy your cruise :cool: