Ecstasy Review! 11/2/15 – 11/6/15

I’ve noticed there aren’t a lot of reviews of the Ecstasy, so here is mine! A little background: My DH and I are in our early 50’s and have found cruising to be the most economical and easiest way to travel. We love getting on, unpacking and then letting the sea days and port days roll! This was my 21 Carnival cruise and my 32nd cruise overall. We are budget-cruisers, preferring to cruise multiple times per year, if possible, by booking the lowest fare. We always book insides, sometimes 1A’s, often we book guaranteed. No worries where we sleep; just get us on a ship!

I had just decided that we would only vacation once this year (silly new roof!), when Carnival sent me an email with a Too-Good-To-Pass-Up 36 hour sale. $149 per person inside guaranteed for 4 nights? Yes, please!

This was a Monday - Friday cruise and, after pricing out airfare on some “real” airlines, we decided to fly Allegiant on Saturday to FLL, as that airfare, plus 2 nights in a hotel, was still cheaper than anything Southwest, United, etc had to offer. Flying Allegiant, we knew we would be stuffed in the plane and that there would probably be delays, but we figured 2 days in advanced would be safe.

We also got extremely lucky on our pre-cruise hotel. Hotwire happened to be having a weekend sale when I was booking all of this and we got the Intercontinental for $80 per night! Woo Hoo! Of course, I didn’t know it would be the Intercontinental when I booked it, but I figured any 4.5 star hotel in downtown Miami would be fine. The fact we got the hotel I really wanted was wonderful!

Day 1—Travel to Miami. Halloween!

Check in at the airport was very fast (apparently no one flies out of IND on a Saturday evening), and our flight was listed as On Time. Then time kept passing, and we weren’t boarding. Finally, about 10 minutes before flight time, I went up to the gate agent and asked what was happening and she said she had no idea and that we couldn’t board until the pilot said we could. Meanwhile, the entire crew walked off the plane and into the airport. What??? Time continued to pass and after 45 minutes, they sauntered back carrying bags of Chick-Fil-A. Uh...OK.

We were finally given the OK to board and took off an hour late. Eventually, we were told there was a mechanical issue that had to be repaired and “signed off” on. Wonder why they didn’t tell any of the IND employees, change the signs, or update the app? I did finally get a text alert telling me the flight was delayed after we were already on the plane.

OK, you get what you pay for, I guess.

When we landed in FLL, it took about 40 minters to get our luggage. I’m not sure if that was an Allegiant thing or a FLL thing. The delay did give us a chance to check out this creepy art.

We had decided to try Uber for the first time to get from FLL to downtown Miami and it was the smoothest part of the trip! We got a text saying the driver would be there in 13 minutes, got a call from the driver immediately after with all his identifying information and he said he would be there in 6 minutes. He rolled up right on time and got us to the hotel in less than 40 minutes. He was polite and friendly and we enjoyed chatting with him on the ride.

We had a coupon for our first ride (Google them; they’re available all over. I have one I can give you!) which meant our ride cost $25! Much better than a $75 cab ride or a shared shuttle for $60. Just download the app and set up your account with your credit card. Easy as can be!

By the time we got to the Intercontinental it was midnight. It was also Halloween, so we saw some interesting things wandering around! The hotel had a great Halloween light show in place of their usual dancing girl.

Check in was fast and the agent friendly. I asked if we could have a King bed and a Port view and she was able to accommodate us! Hey, as she and I discussed, if you don’t ask, you won’t know!

Our room was beautiful and spotless. As we looked out the window, the giant yacht that’s moored outside the hotel pulled up at the end of their Halloween party. Yes, I’m in Miami! A yacht just pulled up in front of my hotel!

Day 2—the bus to South Beach

We decided to make it a beach day, as it was absolutely beautiful and there aren’t too many beach days in the Midwest, especially in November! We had heard it was an easy bus ride and we confirmed that with the hotel doorman. The bus stop is just in front of the hotel on the main street, as you are walking towards Bayside. Bus C takes you closer to the beach and Bus S takes you a bit inland. We didn’t even have to wait 5 minutes before a bus arrived. The fare is $2.25 and you must have exact change. The bus was a mix of tourist and locals, including a man we think was Half-Beard the Pirate. No, I don’t think it was a leftover costume.

The bus ride was about 10 minutes and we got off at 10th street and walked 2 blocks towards the beach. We were aiming for a meal at David’s on Collins, but were bummed to see that location was closed when we got there. So we hiked it the half mile away from the beach to the other location. It was worth every step! The best Cuban food! The restaurant was packed, but they were hustling and we got our food in good time. We each got something off the Daily Specials menu (Pork for me. Beef for DH) and it was melt in your mouth tender and so flavorful!

We then hiked it back to the beach where spent a relaxing day on the beautiful beach. Around 3:30, we walked down the beach towards the park where the ships would be passing on their way out to sea. We saw both the Breeze and the Splendor. It’s always so fun to see them so close as they sail by. They were both scheduled to sail at 4pm, but didn’t pass us until between 5 – 6pm.

We eventually made our way back to the bus stop and, while we were waiting, a Hop On Hop Off tour bus pulled up and said he would take us to Bayside for $2 each. His bus was empty and he was going that way anyway, so his Tip box got stuffed by all of us as we climbed on and up to the open deck. It was a beautiful ride back under the moon and stars and a nice way to end the day that we hadn’t been expecting.

I was exhausted by the time we got back, so we stopped for food at the Food Court at Bayside (very good fish dinner) and headed back to the hotel. Then it was Sunday Night Football and my boy Peyton and the Broncos for the win!

Day 3---Sail away on the Ecstasy!

We woke up and today we got to see our ship out our window!

We made a quick trip to CVS (about 2 blocks from the hotel) and headed to the ship at about 11:15am. Before we left, I wrote on John Heald’s wall, greeting him from the IntercontenentalMarriotHyatt and said we were excited to be sailing. He responded right away and wished us a good trip.

The cab to the Port was $13, which was actually a bit more than I expected since there was no traffic. When we got out of the cab, it was deserted outside and our bags were quickly taken by the porter. We showed our passports, went through security and headed to the VIFP lounge. When we arrived, they were announcing that we would be escorted on to the ship at noon (it was 11:40am). Soon after, we were called to check in and get our Sail and Sign cards. Sure enough, at 11:55am, he lined us up and we headed up. As we walked through the main check in area, we realized where all the people were! Hundreds waiting to board! We posed for our pics, dinged in with our cards and were on board!

We headed to our room (at check in we were told we could go at noon). The big hall doors were still closed, but the sign said if we were Platinum or Diamond, we could open the door and head to our room. First time we’ve seen that!

When I booked, I booked an inside guarantee and we were thrilled to get a room with 2 portholes! DH loves being in the front of the ship and it’s so nice to be able to see out. Plus the area in front of the porthole is a very deep shelf. You can climb up for a better look outside, or lay out damp swimsuits to dry. We were assigned R16.

We dropped our carry ons, changed into swimsuits and headed to Lido. The Mongolian Wok was open and there was no line, so we decided to eat there. We’ve only eaten there one time previously and hadn’t been very impressed, but this meal was very flavorful and we enjoyed it.

We then headed to the Serenity Deck, where we would spend most of the cruise. The ship never felt crowded and we were always able to get a chair on the Serenity Deck, which is really unusual! We love the location on this class of ship—looking out the back and watching the ship’s wake. Perfect place to spend the day!

After the Safety Briefing, we danced at the sail-away party on Lido Deck and then went out on deck for a beautiful sail away. The sun was starting to go down, the light was beautiful and then we had a gorgeous sunset.

We had Your Time Dining and we decided to eat early that evening. We were so impressed with the service at every meal! Our one previous experience with YTD had been less than stellar—never being called by name, waiting forever for our food, basically being ignored. This was not the case on the Ecstasy! We were called by name by every person who came to our table and we had fast service.

An aside about the food: it was good and what we expect from Carnival. There are always plenty of things that we enjoy. I ate my body weight in pizza and plenty of ice cream. On formal night, we had the new lobster-free menu. I loved the new scallop appetizer (like I would order 10 of them and call it dinner!), but the crab ravioli was very disappointing. The sauce was too overpowering for me and I couldn’t enjoy the ravioli even after I scrapped the sauce off. But, other than that, I enjoyed everything I ate, as did DH.

After dinner, we wandered around a bit and settled in the lounge outside the Starlight to watch some football. Truth be told, I could barely keep my eyes open, but I wanted to go to the Welcome Aboard show, so I hung in there.

The Welcome Aboard show was at 10:15pm and had been highly touted as “Brand New”, like 10 days old new, so we were excited to see it. Sad to say, we hated it. I have no problem with the Production Playlist shows; they are what they are and I appreciate talent, singing and dancing. The new show starts with video of 4 towel animals, which is cute for the first few minutes, but then it just went on and on and wasn’t funny. CD Adam came on and did his shtick and they brought some people up on stage. The “Sticky Balls” game can’t hold a candle to the old “spoon on a string through your pants” game!

After all of that, the show began. The set was industrial and dark, as were the costumes. The music didn’t say “Welcome to your cruise” to me in the least and 5 of the 8 performers didn’t have good singing voices. Call me old fashioned, but giving me an inflatable cruise ship and “Baby everything is all right” any day!

The one bright part of the show was they taught us a dance before it started and then we all danced at the end. Anytime I can get up and dance, it’s a good thing.

At the end of the show, Adam led us out to the atrium where we did the same dance we had just learned plus a few others. This was called “Rock the Promenade” and we loved it! After spending some time in the atrium with DJ Cruz, we headed to the Piano Bar and sang a few songs (when I say “we”, I mean about 100 people plus the performers).

We then went to the Casino bar where we all sang Journey at the top of our lungs, played air guitar and generally laughed like crazy. Then it was off to the Chinatown Lounge with the 7 piece Latin band and some dancing. Final stop was the Stripes disco where they passed out glow stick necklaces and we all danced some more. As we went from bar to bar, we all sang/chanted “Rock the Promenade! Rock the Promenade!” to the tune of Uptown Funk. Lots of fun!

Time for bed in our wonderful Carnival bed with the fabulous Carnival bedding! Next up---Key West!

Looking forward to the rest of your review since as you can see we are on this exact ship/itinerary soon!

Where in the mid-west are you from? Hubby and I (also in our 50's) were born and raised in MO but have called FL home for many many years now.

Looking forward to the rest of your review since as you can see we are on this exact ship/itinerary soon!

 

Where in the mid-west are you from? Hubby and I (also in our 50's) were born and raised in MO but have called FL home for many many years now.

Thanks for checking in! I just told a friend that I would see if anyone was reading before I wrote any more. ;-) You are what I needed to keep going! :D

We are in Indiana, in Purdue country. I actually grew up in IL, right across the river from St Louis. We have also lived in Orlando, and our dream is to become Floridians again!

Looking forward to the rest of your review since as you can see we are on this exact ship/itinerary soon!

 

Where in the mid-west are you from? Hubby and I (also in our 50's) were born and raised in MO but have called FL home for many many years now.

Hey, I just looked at your signature and realized we were both on the Sensation in Nov 2006! Wouldn't that be funny if we were on the same sailing? I think that was the one that we got off the ship on Thanksgiving day.

Looking forward to the rest of your review and the pictures. Thanks for taking the time to post.

Susan

Hey, I just looked at your signature and realized we were both on the Sensation in Nov 2006! Wouldn't that be funny if we were on the same sailing? I think that was the one that we got off the ship on Thanksgiving day.

LOL Yes it was! Wow what a small world. Missed you on this on by only a month.

We lived in IL for a short time as well. LOVE FL and do not miss the Midwest winters. Good luck to getting back to the south. We are just east of Orlando. Not many places in Orlando proper to keep a herd of horses.

Keep the pics coming.

Looking forward to the rest of your review and the pictures. Thanks for taking the time to post.

Susan

Thanks! More coming now! :)

We were on the same cruise with ya.... We had our first porthole room and just loved it....U18. Really enjoyed ourselves and the Ecstasy and we will do it again.

LOL Yes it was! Wow what a small world. Missed you on this on by only a month.

 

We lived in IL for a short time as well. LOVE FL and do not miss the Midwest winters. Good luck to getting back to the south. We are just east of Orlando. Not many places in Orlando proper to keep a herd of horses.

 

Keep the pics coming.

OMG, that's crazy! I'm trying to remember if we had anyone at our table from FL! I think we did; have you ever worked at WDW?

We were on the same cruise with ya.... We had our first porthole room and just loved it....U18. Really enjoyed ourselves and the Ecstasy and we will do it again.

Aren't the porthole cabins great? Glad you enjoyed the cruise! We sure did!

Day 4---Key West!

We had one of those arrive-early-leave-early Key West days. We got in at 7:30am and had to be back on board at 1pm. We did something we don’t normally do on a cruise; we booked a shore excursion through Carnival. We had heard good things about the Pub Crawl, and you can only book it through the ship, so we went ahead and signed up.

Our tour started at 10am, and since we wanted to walk around town a bit, we got off the ship at 9am. We stopped at a few stores, and saw a few things we might want to buy, but we didn’t want to drag bags around with us on the Pub Crawl. When we told the shopkeepers we would come back after the Pub Crawl, they all laughed. They were right! ;-)

We met right near the ship at 10am and were given our free t-shirt before we left. OK, I guess I could have purchased something, as we had to drag 2 shirts around with us all morning! There were about 25 people, so they divided us into 2 groups, one with Beau and one with Bob.

Now, I had read great things about Beau in various reviews, and we chatted with him a bit before the tour and really enjoyed him. However, we were assigned…Bob, God love him. Bob is 81 years old, brand new to the tour guide gig and couldn’t remember from A to B. He had a trainer with him, Darlene, but she just mostly hissed at him what he was supposed to say, Bob would say “Oh yeah!” Darlene would hiss “Tell THEM!” and Bob would haltingly repeat what Darlene had just said. You could tell she was extremely frustrated with him and that just gave off a bad vibe. I also wish they had had us all introduce ourselves and say where we were from. I was expecting a bit more camaraderie, but it really was just couples or groups walking from bar to bar and then drinking with whomever they had came with. By bar 4, we tried to remedy this and we did end up talking with another couple and that was fun.

We went to 5 different bars, The Tree Bar (Rum Punch), The Monkey Bar (any of the frozen drinks they had, including the one with 3 different grain alcohols), Hard Rock (Hurricane), The Schooner Wharf Bar (Rum Punch) and Rick’s (Rum Punch, 3 kinds of rum). We were given a coupon at each bar that could be used for the “house specialty”, a well drink with soda mixer or a draft beer. If you wanted fruit juice or bottled beer, there was an extra charge. We stuck with the house specialties, which I’ve noted above.

The tour is 2.5 hours, so the drinks come fast and furious; at least they do if you’re a lightweight like me. Darlene was telling everyone what to get to get as drunk as possible. I would have also liked a bit of info about where we were walking, the buildings, history and/or architecture, but we mostly just got “order the 3 grain alcohol drink to get the most drunk!” We had a 3 block walk between the Hard Rock and the Schooner Bar, which gave me a chance to finish my (very strong) hurricane and get my wits about me a bit!

After we left the Schooner Bar, there was a conch blowing contest and the winner got a special set of beads for being the Best Blower in Key West. Now, that’s saying something! ;-)

We finished up at Rick’s where DH purchased a Pickleback---a Jameson shot followed by a shot of pickle juice. Sounds crazy to me, but he said it was good!

By the time the Crawl was over, we just had enough time to get back to the pier area (yeah, no idea where those shops were we were going to go back to!), get a Key Lime pie on a stick and get on the ship. Surprisingly, there were no pier runners!

We sailed away at 1:30 and the Lido buffet was packed. I had more pizza and we went back to the Serenity Deck where we relaxed and snoozed for the rest of the day.

Tonight was formal night and the show was the Playlist Production Motor City Show. We decided to go to the 8:15pm show and have dinner after. Definitely go at 8:15, which is technically the pre-show, as the male dancers come out and interact with the audience, plus teach another dance. We enjoyed the show, but were surprised that only 3 of the 8 were strong singers.

After the show, we headed to dinner and had great service. We thought they might be annoyed with us coming in at 9:15, but no, everyone was great and we had the fastest formal night dinner ever! I’ve already commented on the food above.

We went to the piano bar after dinner (and a couple other times during the cruise). Kyng Bea was playing and I think he’s new to the piano bar, from what I saw on his FB page. He has a great voice and is excellent on the piano, but it wasn’t what I would call a Traditional Piano Bar experience. First off, no one was sitting around the piano except us! Everyone else was at tables. Also, these weren’t the usual sing-alongs that I have come to expect. He had a list of songs, many of them current pop hits. He was very willing to do request, tips or not, and if he didn’t know a song he said he would learn it and perform it later in the week. He was friendly, polite and funny. But, I really wanted to sing along to Piano Man or Sweet Caroline or Margaritaville! Of course, that’s not what people were requesting, so that’s not what he was playing. Lots of big ballads that people just sang along to like they were in their car with a radio.

OK, time for another great sleep in my Carnival bed! Tomorrow, Cozumel!

Aren't the porthole cabins great? Glad you enjoyed the cruise! We sure did!

It was wonderful. Actually, DH and I ranked this cruise as one of our top 5!!

It was wonderful. Actually, DH and I ranked this cruise as one of our top 5!!

That's awesome! It was right up there for us, as well!

Just looked at your signature. We were on the Glory in 2006, too. Wonder if we sailed with you, too! LOL!

OMG, that's crazy! I'm trying to remember if we had anyone at our table from FL! I think we did; have you ever worked at WDW?

Never worked at WDW. I was working at a veterinary clinic in 2006 and hubby was at University of Central FL back then. I am semi retired now and spend my days tending to all the animals and hubby changed Universities and is in admin now and teaches the occasional course still.

Never worked at WDW. I was working at a veterinary clinic in 2006 and hubby was at University of Central FL back then. I am semi retired now and spend my days tending to all the animals and hubby changed Universities and is in admin now and teaches the occasional course still.

Well, that would have been just too crazy if you had been the FL couple at our table! :)

hi! The ecstacy is probably my favourote ship and ot sure sounds like you had a wonderful trip!

Quick question fe: your Uner from FLL to miami. I had heard that Uber wasnt allowed to operate in Ft L? If you had no problems though, Ill add ot to my list of ways i can get to my hotel in January.

hi! The ecstacy is probably my favourote ship and ot sure sounds like you had a wonderful trip!

 

 

 

 

 

Quick question fe: your Uner from FLL to miami. I had heard that Uber wasnt allowed to operate in Ft L? If you had no problems though, Ill add ot to my list of ways i can get to my hotel in January.

From what I saw on the Florida Departures board, Uber has just recently been allowed to operated in FLL. No problems for us! Our driver did say there were issues going to the Port of Miami, but our hotel was so close, we just took a cab.

Looking forward to the rest of your review! We are sailing her on the 3 night itinerary in a few weeks.

Great review, Geri! I guess I was lucky to have Beau as my pub crawl guide on the Breeze :). I had to give away my last ticket - one more drink would have put me over the edge...lol!

Looking forward to more. The Ecstasy sounds like a great ship :)

From what I saw on the Florida Departures board, Uber has just recently been allowed to operated in FLL. No problems for us! Our driver did say there were issues going to the Port of Miami, but our hotel was so close, we just took a cab.

Thats wonderful news!! I was hoping to find a reasonable way from FLL to South Beach and it looks like I'm in luck!

Now please, back to the review so I can pretend I'm back in the sun!

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk

Awesome Review so far...I cant wait as I am also cruising on the Ecstasy Dec. 4th My second cruise.

Loving the review! Thanks for taking the time to write it! :D

 

Just looked at your signature. We were on the Glory in 2006, too. Wonder if we sailed with you, too! LOL!

We were on the Nov 2006 Glory