Carnival Splendor Review 9/18-9/23

Hello all, wanted to post our cruise review as we are just back from Splendor.

A little about us: I am 42, Registered Nurse, DH is 45 and works for a large electric company as a fiber optic installer/supervisor. We are not new to cruising but this is our first Carnival Cruise. We purchased the Faster To The Fun (FTTF) and the Endless Bubbles package, we prepaid gratuities and had Your Time Dining

We drove down from central Florida and spent the night before the cruise at the Hyatt Place 17th Street Convention Center in Ft. Lauderdale. We booked through a site that offered long term parking with the hotel stay. We arrived around 2pm, check in was flawless. Staff were exceptionally nice and polite. We received 2 bottles of water at check in. Our room was a king (although I think it was more of a queen) bed with small sitting area. The room was clean, bed was comfortable, towels plush. The TV was huge for a hotel room, 42 inch with HDTV service. There is a Publix close by and we bought 2 12 packs of soda to carry on. We also took the time to visit 15th Street Fisheries and fed the Tarpon (FUN!)

They offered a free breakfast which included hot and cold foods and was very nice. The juice seemed fresh and not canned. The hotel was quite. They do have construction next door but they didn't start operations until 8am. So it never bothered us. We took the hotel shuttle to the port. The driver was nice, carried on a pleasant conversation and gave us the contact information to call when we returned so they could send a shuttle to pick us up.

We arrived at the port at approximately 10:30am (Check in time was 11) we sent our luggage with the porter and followed the signs to the check in area. We had purchased FTTF and having done some research on these boards ahead of time, we knew that we needed to really LOOK what line we needed to be in. We waited outside for a few minutes in line until they started letting us in the actual terminal. Lots of confusion on the lines, FTTF vs Regular line as previously posted in other threads. Thankful we already knew what to expect.

We check in and cleared out documents by 10:50 and then came the wait. We were seated in the FTTF area and thank goodness we were early. There ened up not being enough room for everyone. We finally started boarding around 11:40am

We went straight to our room, and again, thankful we had these boards and had read up on what to expect. The bulkhead doors were closed in all the halls but we opened them and went right in and down the hall. Had I not read about someone else doing that, I don't know that we would have either. Our Sign and Sail cards were in the mailbox and we went in the room with no issues. We absolutley loved the layout of the room (L-shaped cabine 6483) and the larger balcony. We did notice the windows were really dirty inside and out and there were cigeratte butts on the balcony.:eek: We had yummy chocolate cake on the counter from our travel agent. We unpacked our carry on and headed to explore the ship. NO ROOM ATTENDANT IN SIGHT........hmmmmmm :confused:

We did some exploring of the ship, trying to learn the layout (getting to the Black Pearl dining room turned out to be our curse......I don't think we really figured it out until the last day!). I loved the open deck space, the 3 pools, multiple whirlpools, and the serenity area!! The Adult only AFT pool was closed as were the hot tubs, that was disappointing as that is where I like to be for sail away! They were painting and repairing and we were told it would be open the next day. One thing that we felt missing was open deck DINING area. There didn't seem to be anywhere to sit outside to eat and view the ocean.

We grabbed lunch at the BBQ place since it seemed most people didn't know it exsits on the first day. The meat choices were good, the mac and cheese was noodles with watered down cheese sauce. There is NO WHERE to get a a soda for the endless bubbles program anywhere near the BBQ place.:mad:

After lunch we continued to explore the ship and then made our way back to the room......still next to impossible to find a place to get a soda. We arrived back to the room and our luggage was there. It was about 2pm at this point. I unpacked all our luggage and put everything away. We hung out in the room for a bit and then made our way down for our muster drill at 3:30pm. STILL NO ROOM ATTENDANT :confused:

We waited in the Moroco Lounge for about 20 minutes and the announcment came on that muster would be delayed and to wait for the announcement before proceeding to our muster station. Back to the room we went.....also still no easy place to get a soda at this point. We went back to the room and grabbed a soda from our own 12 pack.......hmmmm.....no ice....and STILL NO ROOM ATTENDANT. Ok...so we loaded the sodas in the fridge and made our way up to Lido deck to find a bar to get a soda.....and then back to the room to enjoy the balcony and wait for muster.....we did finally find a way into the Black Pearl (deck 3 forward only.....not accessibe any other way) to look at where we would be having dining (Your Time Dining). We stayed in our room until they announced it was time to report to muster. The emergency door was literally right next to our cabin and we were down on deck 4 muster G in no time. We waited....and waited.....and waited for muster. It was over about 15 minutes after it started. We headed up the Lido deck to get a bucket of beer and head AFT for the sail away. This would be my first dissapointment of the cruise............

We get up to Lido deck to find that we have ALREADY SAILED AWAY. We are COMPLETLEY out of port and in the open water :mad:. It may not be a big deal to some but to us and those around us it was!!! No one could belive it.

Moving on....we ordered our bucket, and met up with some peeps we met on another thread. We had a great time dispite the hiccups starting off our day..........

( I would like to add pictures, but I don't know how to do it here)

So far. So Good. Keep it coming.

And welcome home

Nice start. Will be following along.

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After our "not so sail, sail away" party on the Lido deck, we headed back to the room to get ready for dinner. Forgot to add that earlier we had done some the the Carnival games in the casino area before muster. We purchased some bingo cards and won some chocolate covered strawberries to be delivered to the room "at some point during the cruise".

We got ready for dinner and started the frustrating trek of getting into the Black Pearl. We know that you can not walk all the way across on certain decks (3 and 4 I believe...lol) So our room is AFT on deck 6......we go to the middle elevator bank and go to deck 4 (top level of Black Pearl according to the deck plans)....NOPE, doors are closed must access from deck 3. Go down the elevator to deck 3.....NOPE doors closed!!!! You can ONLY get to the Black Pearl from the front doors. You have to go all the way to the front elevators. For us that meant we walked almost the entire length of the ship on deck 6 and then go down to deck 3 to then again walk a quarter of the way back, through guest services, the lobby and art area and then arrive at the front doors of the Black Pearl. Good Lord....someone feed me please!!!

Dinner wasn't any better and we probably should of just went to the buffet. Our wait staff was hurried and unorganized, so much so that they delivered our appetizers to the wrong table, we sat without drinks for a long time and despite the mix up sending our apps to the wrong table....they still sent our main entrees to the wrong table as well. :( I was so frustrated at this point I don't remember much about my actual meal. Also, what happened to table cloths? What happened to the elegant feel of having dinner in the main dining room. It was definitely lost tonight. After dinner we headed to the casino. Something had to give at this point. Got a little lucky on the roulette table and headed back to the room.

Our bucket of ice from our bucket of beer was gone and was replaced with a stainless steel ice bucket with ice in it. YAY!!!!! Ice for my soda since in next to impossible to fine an easy place to get a soda on this ship.

Still NO ROOM ATTENDANT in sight........Oh well. I hung the room service tag on the door and we called it night. I absolutely LOVE the bigger balcony. It was wonderful to relax on.

Enjoying your review so far!! Thanks for posting! I will be on her for 14 days next year. Glad for the warning about the black pearl so that I know now and not then!

Following... I will be on the Splendor in 12 days.... Thanks for the review.... Do not see much on the Splendor...

I was on this same cruise as you! The lack of sail away party really pissed off so many people. And my room steward was MIA for most of the first day too! We were down the hall from you, 6298, 6292, 6288, but I doubt we had the same staff.

It took forever to figure out how to get to the black Pearl.

Following also, we sail in 5 days on the Splendor and we are on Deck 6 as well. Thanks for all the info!!!

Thanks for the review.

Enjoying your review so far!! Thanks for posting! I will be on her for 14 days next year. Glad for the warning about the black pearl so that I know now and not then!

It drove me crazy.....and as I type this....I said the directions out loud several times on the ship and STILL got turned around and at the wrong entrance. Its just crazy to have to walk a maze like that to get dinner.

I was on this same cruise as you! The lack of sail away party really pissed off so many people. And my room steward was MIA for most of the first day too! We were down the hall from you, 6298, 6292, 6288, but I doubt we had the same staff.

It took forever to figure out how to get to the black Pearl.

Nurdai was our room attendant.

I was beyond disappointed in not being on Lido for sail away. Funny thing is during muster my DH looked at me and said.....the ship is moving. I told him he was crazy, no one would sail away DURING MUSTER when NO ONE is on the upper decks to see it. Guess I was the crazy one!

Ok moving right along,

Day 2 (Sea Day)

I had hung the room service tag outside the night before, nothing big, just a bagel, cream cheese, fruit plate and orange juice for 2. We requested delivery for 6:30-7am.

I woke up at 6:30, checked on the sunrise....yup its there. Took my traditional good morning picture and posted it to Facebook (we bought the social media wifi package and it worked out ok. some other peeps had stated it didn't work well for them and received a refund from Carnival) and then wondered where breakfast was. It came late....around 8:15am. Bagel was burnt and rock hard. Oh well....hubby is up.....we went up to Lido Deck for breakfast. I really wish they had some outdoor seating to view the ocean. There is some around the pool deck but not really the vibe I am looking for. Speaking of pool decks, the AFT adult only pool is full and open.....and ummmmm there is NO ONE there. I mean literally like no one. There were maybe 5 people in between the two whirlpools. No chair hoggers.......nothing. It was like this at 10am too!!!! I am literally in awe.

We decided to do some things on the ship, (bingo, raffles, trivia, casino etc) and try to learn our way around more LOL

We had lunch at the buffet, again nothing to write home about but it was decent. After lunch we decided to chill at the AFT pool.....WRONG....it was SLAMMED PACKED. Turns out a child vomited in the main pool and it was being drained and closed until later in the day. Great...........

We found a spot at the small pool located next to the water slide. Nice pool, had some drinks and had fun watching the people (adults) come down the slide. Some a little more graceful than others. LOL

After a bit we decided it was time to head to the room to get ready for formal night dinner. DH headed to the room to get ready and I went to Serenity to relax and dry off for a bit before making my way down. Serenity is a VERY nice place to just get away from the hussle and bussle of the Lido Deck. Comfortable chairs and the servers come up to get drink orders. Had fun listening in on a conversation with two women....one who overpaid for a massage (150.00) and one who REALLY over paid....for the same exact massage (199.00).

Anyhoo......back to the room....YAY we FINALLY get to met our room attendant. I had left a note stating that we wanted both morning and evening service. He apologized for not meeting us soon but stated that he had rooms on both sides of the hall and it just hadn't been good timing to catch us!?!?!? He agreed to the 2x daily service, he didn't ask about robes and we didn't know to ask so we never got those. Oh and I told him I wanted towel animals as we didn't have one the first night. :confused:

Ahhhhh....finding the Black Pearl. I honestly belive its a curse on this ship. We went to the right deck this time (Deck 3) we just didn't go far enough down and ended up on the back side (aka doors closed side) and had to go down to deck 2.....walk all the way up front.....up to deck 3.....and a quarter of the way back.......in a dress....in heels......and hungry. But none the less we finally made it YAY!!!! We were seated quickly....and towards the front, a small table for two. Service was nice, not overly friendly or over the top....just accetable. We both had the Prime Rib. It was cooked to order and tasted yummy. For those intersted, on Deck 5 there are at least a half dozen photographers with backdrops ready to take more pictures than any one person will need :eek:

After dinner we made our way to the Splendor Lobby for the 70's party and then to our nightly visit of the casino. Still ahead on the roulette table ;p

We went for late night snack to the Off The Grill....the burgers are still horrible and dry. The hot dogs are off the chain yummy though. I tried a pizza from the 24 hour pizza place. Lets just say that those cold pizza lunchables are better than this pizza.......

We headed back to the room......and have decided that the soda package was a waste of money........passed by the main pool (open again) and the AFT pool......empty!!!

Down to deck 6 and to our room. First towel animal....Crab...he was cute. Out to the balcony for a night cap while hubby checked the "where we are" channel on the TV. I think it was the only thing we ever had on the TV. Bed was turned down, fresh ice was in the bucket and the FunTimes on the desk. Ochos Rio tomorrow. Room service card hung (don't toast bagel please) and same items ordered and for the same time. Night Night

Day 3 Ochos Rio Jamacia

Woke up to room service on time this morning...yay......bagel still toasted....but not burnt, another score!

I took a walk up to the top decks for a better view. The island looked amazing from up there. Grabbed some breakfast from the Lido Buffet and went to wake hubby up. He was up and on the balcony. We pretty much parked it on the balcony until it was time to get off the ship.....8:30am if memory serves me correct. We walked to the front and took elevator down to 1 (supposed to get off on deck 0 but elevator would only go to 1) got off and there was a rather long line however it moved very quickly. Got off the ship and started the long walk up the pier. There were several opportunities to take pictures no one was overly pushy about it which was nice.

We booked our excursion through an independent tour operator. We followed the directions on our paperwork and after a brief wait, we were in a tour bus with one other couple and on our way. We booked river tubing and Dunn's River Falls.

After a very sketchy ride (narrow streets, people approaching the bus, poor neighborhoods) we arrived at the water. We had an AMAZING time on the tubing. Again, I wish I could post pictures but I don't know how to on here. After the tubing we loaded back up and went to the falls. We had a good time but its definitely one of those things "been there done that don't need to do it again". There was just to many people and when you leave they make you walk through this open market type area and the people selling stuff were REALLY aggressive. It was way out of my comfort zone and I have a pretty strong personality. LOL

We did take lots of pictures in the falls though....it really was fun and we had a great time.

After the falls we loaded back on the bus and back to port. We are really pleased with the independent company. We have used them several times and have never been disappointed. Once back at the port we were pretty worn out from the adventures so we boarded (easily with no line) and went to the room. Our balcony was on the side of the dock so we showered, changed and just hung out on the balcony people watching......and yes.....port runners. I'll never understand why people risk coming back so late. They were lucky though.....the electronic passenger manifest system crashed so we left port over an hour late cause they had to manually enter every passenger on board.

Enjoying your review!

Really enjoying your review! I'll be on the Oct 14th sailing - eager to find out where we're actually going... sadly, most of our itinerary was devastated by the two hurricanes.

I'm not sure it's the easiest way, but this is how I post pics...

Upload your pics in Photobucket. Click to open the pic. On the right you will see a bunch of links for your pic. Copy the one that says URL. Paste that URL in your post on Cruise Critic. You can preview it to make sure it looks right. :)

Hope that helps!

Oh hey there neighbor :D

Looking forward to seeing your thoughts on the cruise.

I'm still congested from getting off of the ship. I blame the promenade deck. The smoke in the casino was overflowing and out of control. The whole 5th floor stunk terribly.

We cruised on Splendor earlier this year and the casino smoke was about as well controlled as I've ever seen on a Carnival ship. There did seem to be less smokers at the table games than usual. I love the casino décor on Splendor - my favorite Carnival casino, and one of my favorite ships.

Thanks for writing!

We'll be on this ship in March and also have YTD.

Finding the dining room sounds ridiculously difficult!

We will have to really study the ship's map to find it.

We usually find one great team for the MDR and stick with them for the whole trip but it doesn't sound like you found one for your cruise.

I hope someone finds a great team and posts the name before our cruise.

Following also, we sail in 5 days on the Splendor and we are on Deck 6 as well. Thanks for all the info!!!

We will be on the same cruise and Deck 6 as well!

Following along

We will be on the same cruise and Deck 6 as well!

Wife and I found deck 6 to be super convenient. Not far from the aft pool. Not far from the Lido. Not far from the promenade. Nice central deck.