Review: Legend 3/3/05 sailing (excruciatingly long)

General Comments

We had a great time on the Legend, which was our first cruise on Carnival. The cruise was not perfect, but the nice thing about a cruise is that it does not have to be perfect to be really, really good.

My points of comparison in this review will be the three most recent cruises my wife and I have taken:

02/03: Star Princess (Mexican Riviera)

02/02: NCL Sun (Roatan, Belize, Cozumel)

03/01: HAL Amsterdam (10-day Canal transit, from Costa Rica to Ft Lauderdale)

Each of these ships was relatively new (less than two years in service) when we sailed, similar to the Legend (2.5 years old).

People enjoy different aspects of cruising. We enjoy good food, but we don’t expect gourmet quality on a cruise. Evening entertainment (shows, music, dancing) is very important to us. We always get off the ship in ports and we enjoy active port activities; we never go to a beach when in port. We are not big drinkers, so I have no comments to offer about bar service (yeah, we’re pretty dull folks). To the extent that your cruise priorities are different from ours, some (or all) of my comments may not be relevant for you. And of course you might not agree with my opinions anyway.

Another note: as you read on, you will see many references to small items, some or all of which may strike you as not significant to you, and that’s fine. Having been trained as a scientist, I do tend to be quite detail-oriented (at least that’s my term for it; others have used words like obsessive :))

I selected this cruise because it was 8 days (better than 7 days!) and the itinerary, even though we had been in some of the ports before. I looked forward to the four sea days but my wife was not too thrilled about them in advance. However, by the end of the cruise she had become a real fan of the sea days.

In considering this cruise I was a bit apprehensive about what I had heard about Carnival’s reputation (somewhat low-end; lots of drunken partying). The Cruisecritic reviews and boards provided reassurance that this was not the case so I went ahead and booked the cruise. My writeup is an attempt to pay back something to the group, in the hope that others may find these comments useful; I do not know if I would have booked this cruise if I did not have all of your comments to rely upon back in December when I researched this cruise.

I’ll separate my comments in various sections and post each section as a reply to this message, so that you can skip to whatever areas may be of interest to you. To facilitate this and keep the material contiguous, I’d appreciate it if you could refrain from posting any comments or questions until I have posted the final section of this review. Thanks.

We flew in to FLL the night before our cruise. I booked a room at the Comfort Inn on Stirling Road, which offered free shuttles from the airport and to the cruiseport, and included breakfast.

Our flight on AA arrived a few minutes early, a bit after 8pm. Pick-up at the airport was prompt.

We brought our bags to the room and quickly left to go to the adjacent shopping area to buy some soda to take on the ship and to get some dinner. We had a bit of difficulty getting our door to lock as we left but we eventually did get it locked.

When we returned, we stopped at the desk to pick up some more towels because when we left we noticed that our room was not properly stocked.

We got to our room and found it impossible to lock the door. I called the desk and they said they’d send a maintenance person. After 10 minutes I went to the desk and asked them to just move us to another room. They said they were full and we’d have to wait for the maintenance guy to fix the lock. By the time I got back to the room the maintenance guy had come and gone, and told my wife that he would not be able to fix the lock that night. So I called the desk and after putting me on hold for a few minutes—surprise!—they somehow were able to find another room for us. A desk clerk met us at the new room with keys for that room. It turns out that room also had a less than full supply of towels but we decided we’d just make do with what we had. The room was clean.

The breakfast was fine and the free shuttle to the port worked out well. We’ve stayed in many Comfort Inns and this was the most problem-plagued stay we’ve ever had at one. Next time we’ll probably try the Hampton Inn next door, which offers similar services.

We signed up for the first shuttle from the hotel, which left at 10:45am and we were at the pier at 11:00. A line had already formed— I’d estimate that perhaps 100 people were there.

The initial check-in was a bit confusing: we presumed we just needed to get in line but then we saw that Carnival had a table set up outside near the end of the line, staffed with about four people. It became clear that we needed to start the process at this table but there were no signs, no real organization to the line for this table, and it was almost impossible to hear anything due to the large metal luggage containers that were being driven past us on fork lifts and clanging to the ground. Somehow we got checked in, but I don’t think I heard a word that the Carnival rep said. This step was quite disorganized, but things got better after that.

The doors opened at 11:40 and the line moved quickly—we were inside the building in just a few minutes. We passed through the security screening and went upstairs to a very short line and were given a card which assigned us to boarding group #1, which was called after only a few minutes. There was one more stop to pick up our Sign & Sail card, then the embarkation photo, and we were on the ship at 12:15.

The Legend is in terrific condition. The only sign of wear we found was in the Follies Lounge (the large show room), where some of the seating material on the first level has been rubbed in noticeable ways. As others have commented, the ship’s décor is perhaps a bit over-the-top (no one would describe it as dignified, which is the way I would describe the Amsterdam), but the overall décor did not bother us at all.

This is the only ship we’ve been on which did not provide carpet-based clues as to port/starboard and fore/aft. To our surprise, we did not miss these at all—the ship layout is very easy to learn and during our entire cruise I think we turned in the wrong direction only twice.

There are many nice architectural elements to the ship. The atrium goes all the way up to the 10th level, and is open to the Lido restaurant. When you go to the Lido deck at night for a beverage (the hot chocolate is outstanding!), it’s nice to hear some of the music and activity from the lobby filter up to that level. The glass-enclosed atrium elevators are the nicest we’ve seen. There are more than enough elevators and they are fast; wait time was never an issue.

We never had trouble finding lounge chairs on sea days. Sometimes we had to walk a bit (even to one of the other pools), but we always were able to find chairs. We enjoyed the hot tubs and I also enjoyed the slide. We thought the pool layout was great.

We booked a specific cabin (#7203), an 8G extended balcony just forward of mid-ship on the starboard side on the Verandah deck. I do not buy into the cruise line mentality that higher decks are better. Although this cabin turned out to be on a relatively high deck, it was chosen because it met my criteria as to fore/aft location (see next paragraph) and it was between decks of cabins. I did not want a cabin on deck 8, which was under the Lido deck.

If you look at the ship’s profile, the extended balcony cabins are in indented sections. I chose a cabin that was as close to the middle as possible of one of the indented sections, because I was concerned about our view being impeded by the edge of a non-indented section. I’m glad I did this, because the indented sections are set back a pretty significant amount—cabins which are on the corner or only 2 or 3 cabins away from a corner will have an impeded view in one direction (and less privacy on the balcony).

I’ve read that Carnival’s cabins are larger than similar cabins on other cruise lines. It did not feel to us that the cabin was larger than others we’ve had, but it was completely satisfactory—we found it very comfortable. The bathroom did have more shelf space than I can recall having on other ships.

Our cabin steward was Tennyson, from India. He was very personable and helpful and he did a great job. We had no towel animals the first night, but we had terrific towel animals every night after the first (yes, we took pictures, and yes, we did buy the towel animal book). We were happy to give Tennyson a significant cash tip on top of the standard tips charged to our account.

Hint: Watch your Capers late in the cruise for a demo on how they make the towel animals.

As others have noted, the shower is terrific: great water pressure, wonderful controls, and plenty of hot water. The bath towels were very nice— large and fluffy.

Hint: Don’t overlook the small lever on the shower head, which can alter the spray to a finer, more intense spray (great for waking up).

Hint: Some people have complained about getting lots of water on the bathroom floor after showering. We had that problem too, on our first day. Then we adopted the following procedure: after turning off the water, do not open the shower curtain fully—open it just enough to reach for a towel, and towel yourself down in the shower, while the water drips down on the inside of the shower curtain. Then open the curtain very slowly. Using this procedure, we did not have a drop of water on the floor for the rest of our cruise.

Our balcony had one straight back chair, two chairs with arms, and a small table. These were all brown plastic, made to look something like wood.

Hint: the chairs with arms recline—just raise the arms. Great for naps on the balcony! :D

Hint: the table is about thigh-high, a good height for holding a tray. It took me a few days to discover that the height is adjustable—you need to turn the table over to see that this is possible. When adjusted to its lowest position, this becomes a great foot-rest and makes those balcony naps even more comfortable. :D:D

We ate all of our breakfasts and lunches on Lido deck and we ate all of our dinners in the regular dining room. We did not use room service and we did not go to the Supper Club.

We very much wanted a table for two. Shortly after we boarded we went to the dining room to see the Maitre d’ about this, but he was not there. But the room was open and I found a seating chart at the Maitre d’s station; as best I could understand the chart, it looked as though we had been assigned to a table for 4. Surprisingly, the first-day Capers did not indicate a time during the first afternoon when the Maitre d’ would be available, so we checked back several times but we never did see him there. We went to dinner at our assigned time (we had requested Early and that’s what we were given) and at that time we asked the Maitre d’ (Paul, from England—a very cordial guy) about getting a table for two. He readily complied and assigned us to a table for 2 on the second level of the dining room, right at the railing. We thought it was a terrific location.

Our dining room staff was Irawan (“Ira”) and Eko, both from Indonesia. They were great: very efficient (but they never rushed us), friendly, and personable. Unlike some wait staff on other cruises, they did not try to push food on us— they sometimes offered recommendations but they happily brought us whatever we ordered. As with our cabin steward, we were happy to give Ira and Eko additional tips at the end of the cruise.

We thought the dining room food was very good overall—not outstanding, but certainly among the best dining room food we’ve had on any cruise.

We don’t generally eat desserts (not because we don’t want to, we just can’t afford the calories), but heck, this is a cruise so we did try a few.

Hint: Unless you are allergic to chocolate, you must try the flourless chocolate cake (this comes up early in the cruise—I think on night #2). It is indescribably good. :D

Hint: Also for chocoholics, the chocolate thing (I can’t recall the name) on the last night was outstanding. :D

The Lido restaurant may have been the food highlight of this cruise. As others have noted, the physical arrangement of serving stations is extremely well done. Breakfast offerings are pretty much what you’d expect but the variety and quality of food for lunch was outstanding. In addition, the pizza was great, as were the hamburgers (which had a great fixings bar—I love those fried onions). Ice cream and frozen yogurt are always available, from self-serve machines. Overall, the Legend has by far the best Lido restaurant of any ship we’ve been on. Nothing else is even close.

Our only gripe about the Lido restaurant is the décor: despite the usual floor to ceiling windows, the restaurant area is quite dark, due to a low and dark ceiling. From a décor standpoint, we much preferred the open and bright Lido restaurants we’ve experienced on other ships. But the décor issue is quite separate from the food.

This is the one aspect of this cruise that disappointed us, at least a bit. We found the entertainment to be quite uneven, with a couple of very strong high points mixed with poorer offerings. I’ll describe the shows as best I can (not in chronological order, since I did not save all of the Capers) and then talk about the music.

The Cruise Director was Brent Mitchell, from Canada. We thought he was very good: energetic and personable but not at all pushy or obnoxious. He appears to be quite young—we jokingly said to each other that he looks “about 14.” A few days into the cruise, during his morning show he referred to “last night’s pub crawl.” He said that he went along to supervise but did not participate… so maybe we were right about his age :)

The opening night show is never a good one, but this one was even less than that. The Cruise Director introduced himself and then some audience selectees participated in the pass-the-spoon game. Then a comedian (Jeff Laub) did about 15 minutes of comedy, which was OK, but not great. That was it. (On other cruises, I also recall seeing at least one production number from the dancers/singers.) I’d give this show a grade of C-

Jazz Hot was the first of the two production shows, with the dancers and singers. Although I can’t recall anything specific about the show, at the time we thought it was pretty good but not great. At midnight, Jeff Laub did a 50-minute R-rated comedy show, which was also pretty good. Grades-- Jazz Hot: B- , Jeff Laub: B

Roger Homefield was billed as a “multi-instrumentalist.” He plays quite a few instruments (pretty well) and he sings (not very well). He is someone with talent who is looking for an act. The weakest part of his performance is his singing, and he does too much of it. Grade: B-

Christopher Alan Graves was the entertainment highlight of this cruise, by far. His show is a tribute to Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr and it is outstanding. This guy has terrific talent, great stage presence, and he is a magnificent performer. Grade: A+ :)

Hint: Even if you do not typically go to any shows, if Christopher Alan Graves is performing on your cruise, do not miss his show.

Another comedian (Marvin Todd) did a midnight R-rated comedy show, which was good (somewhat better than Jeff Laub). Grade: B+

The Village Idiots consists of two young guys doing a variety of novelty acts: juggling balls and knives; cutting paper with bull whips; eating fire; and other similar things. They clearly are good at what they do (or else they’d be dead by now) and their repartee was amusing at times. Grade: B+

The entertainment low point of the cruise was the Guest Talent Show. This was the only show that night, and I consider this to be the ultimate cop-out—a non-show. Grade: F :mad:

Take II is the second (and “the biggest and the greatest”) production show of the cruise, with the on-board crew of singers and dancers. This show had a lot of sizzle in the form of fancy lighting effects and costumes, but I’m sorry to say that the Emperor Has No Clothes and that this was a very bad show. The singers in this troupe are just not good enough to handle the music in this show, and the singing was painfully bad. Of all the production shows we’ve seen on all of our cruises, this one was easily the worst. Grade: D :(

Mike Panzeca (the third comedian to appear on this cruise) did one of those midnight R-rated shows, and he was hilarious. Interestingly, almost none of his humor was inherently R-rated—he just used a lot of four-letter words to punctuate his delivery, and the material would have been just as funny without the four-letter words (see below). Grade: A

The last show of the cruise consisted of two acts: a singer, Christina Machado, and Mike Panzeca the comedian. Christina Machado was fairly good overall— Grade: B.

Mike Panzeca did only 15 minutes, this time G-rated, but again he was hilarious. None of the material was duplicated from the night before. This guy is really funny (I wish he did more than 15 minutes in the last show). Grade: A

So, the entertainment was certainly not bad overall. We immensely enjoyed Christopher Alan Graves and Mike Panzeca; the other shows were uneven—some pretty good and others not so good. But the production shows (especially the second one) were below par, in comparison to what we have seen on other cruises. And the complete non-show (“The Guest Talent Show”) really grates at me— I construe this as Carnival not wanting to pay for a show that night. :mad:

Some notes about the Follies Lounge (the main showroom): this room is very nice in appearance but it is surprisingly dysfunctional. There are several large posts which cut off the view from many seats. This three-level showroom has an interesting design in the two-level balcony, with staircases going off in several different directions. Unfortunately, this means that there are railings and balcony barriers at odd angles, and these things are perfectly positioned to cut off the view of average size people sitting in the first two (sometimes three) rows behind them. And if you sit only a few rows further back, the top of your field of view is filled by a portion of the 1st-floor ceiling. The upshot of this is that a surprisingly large number of seats in this room are bad seats. Also, if you sit in the balcony there is a terrible booming bass that really degrades the sound quality. The best seats in this room are on the first level, despite the fact that this seating is not raked very much so you may have difficulty seeing over the people in front of you.

At a time when these issues can be modeled and designed around by use of computers, it’s surprising to me that Carnival designed this showroom with so many defects. Obviously there isn’t anything Carnival can do about this to fix it for subsequent cruises on the Legend. But my wife wrote about this extensively in her comment card, in the hope that Carnival can take these issues into account in the design of future ships.

We enjoy quite a variety of music, including oldies (60’s & 70’s), country/western, and classical. We were especially looking forward to doing some ballroom dancing on this cruise. I don’t know how quickly the musical performers change from cruise to cruise, so the groups I name here may no longer be there when you cruise the Legend.

We spent much of our evening time in Satchmo’s where Blue Martini played. We thought they were very good. They played oldies and some C&W. Apparently many other people had tastes similar to ours because Satchmo’s was pretty crowded much of the time. Unfortunately, this is one of the areas where smoking is permitted, and some nights this made it pretty uncomfortable.

In the lobby area, “John” played guitar most evenings (with an electronic backup), playing a lot of Jimmy Buffet songs and similar material. He was pretty enjoyable most of the time but he occasionally tried a song he just wasn’t cut out to do.

We tried Billie’s piano bar a couple of time but one time it was brutally smoky (and untenable) and the second time the room was pretty dead.

Our biggest disappointment was that there was no venue for ballroom dancing. Such a venue existed on our other cruises and we fully expected the same on the Legend.

We did not spend much time in the casino (at my wife’s request), but I can offer a few comments. This was— by far— the largest and best ventilated ship casino I have seen. It is really quite nice. Nevertheless, despite the excellent ventilation, it did get smoky at times.

The blackjack rules are very good. This relates to standard blackjack— stay away from the gimmick games, such as Fun 21 and Double Exposure blackjack, which are sucker games (despite the seemingly favorable rules for Fun 21—those favorable rules are swamped by the removal of 10’s from the deck, turning this into a bad game).

The video poker games are terrible.

We do not play slots, but it’s a safe bet :) that the slot machines are not very loose.

In Belize we took the Carnival River Wallace and Altun Ha excursion. We had a very good guide (Caroline) and we enjoyed this quite a bit.

In Costa Rica, we arranged a tour with Oscar Brown, along with several other Cruiscritic members. We did Oscar’s Tortoguera Canals tour (with lots of other stuff thrown in) and I think all of us had a great time. Oscar does a really nice job. (Carnival’s tour of the canals has much less content than Oscar’s and it costs almost twice as much.)

Hint: Oscar does not have a web site, but he responds to email at: cbrown@costarricense.cr

In Panama, we took the Carnival “Kayaking in the Panama Canal” excursion. (The kayaking is in Lake Gatun which is between sets of locks.) After a bit more than an hour of kayaking (with an excellent nature guide), this trip went by bus to the Gatun Locks. We enjoyed this excursion very much: the kayaking was great exercise, the nature watching was excellent, and it was nice to visit the locks again. (On a previous cruise we did a full transit of the Canal so we did not feel a need to do the Ocean to Ocean trip or a full trip to the Canal this time.)

After breakfast we went to the debarkation waiting area for our deck, which was the Follies lounge. Debarkation started around 8:40am. Brent (the CD) had explained that decks would be called for debarkation in the order that luggage had been cleared, and that he never knew in advance who would be called when (except for those with a need for early departure due to early flights).

The process went smoothly. We were one of the last decks called and we were off the ship around 9:40.

I had forgotten how chaotic the Fort Lauderdale cruise port is— it’s mass confusion when you get off the ship and get outside with your luggage. It seems as though they ought to be able to do a better job of organizing pick-up areas for different sorts of vehicles. My memory is that the Miami cruise port is much less chaotic.

This was our first cruise on Carnival and we enjoyed it greatly. We also enjoyed our previous cruises on NCL, Princess, and HAL and I could see us cruising again on any of these lines, with the probable exception of HAL due to demographics (it was a bit spooky to be out and about on the Amsterdam after 11pm and see only a handful of other people).

We enjoyed the more flexible dining times on NCL and on Princess (the traditional fixed seating times of 5:45 and 8:15 are really too early or too late for our taste and we’d prefer more flexibility, but I realize that the Spirit class ships were not designed with that in mind). And I would say that the entertainment was better overall on the Star Princess and the NCL Sun than it was on the Legend. (Not that the Legend entertainment was bad, it just was more uneven and not as good overall.)

Nevertheless, a cruise is a blend of many different elements and Carnival did a nice job overall. And we thought the Legend was a terrific ship overall, in spite of its poor showroom design.

This is the last section of my review, so feel free to post any comments or questions. I’ll try to hang around on this board for a week or two to respond to questions, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to stay here indefinitely, due to PCD :(

Steve,

Thanks for the very informative review. We board the Legend later this week for the same itinerary. We've cruised on Carnival several times in the past...But this will be our 1st cruise on a Spirit Class ship and we are looking forward to the Legend.

One question... Is late seating 8:15pm?

Thanks

Thanks Steve, I've been wondering where all the Legend reviwes were!!

I printed it out to read later at break. Got to go to work now.

Thanks for taking the time to post!

Steve,

 

Thanks for the very informative review. We board the Legend later this week for the same itinerary. We've cruised on Carnival several times in the past...But this will be our 1st cruise on a Spirit Class ship and we are looking forward to the Legend.

 

One question... Is late seating 8:15pm?

 

Thanks

Yes, late seating is at 8:15pm on the Legend. Early seating (which we had) is at 5:45pm; we were finished with dinner around 7:15 or so each night.

--Steve

Steve,

Loved your review. Thanks for taking the time to do it. I too thought the singers didn't do justice to the shows. We did the backstage tour and learned that the cast was only on their 3rd or 4th week of the show. That may explain a little, but there was no comparison in others shows I've seen.

Thanks again.

Steve, Great review. We are going on the Miracle in July (but love reading reviews on other ships for our next cruise).

Can you give me your impressions/views on the Altun Ha/River Wallace tour. We are thinking of doing this for our Belize stop. We are bringing 3 kids (12,9,9) with us.

Thanks!

Great review Steve, thanks for all the details.

Glad to hear about the lounge chairs, on other cruises I always had a problem finding chairs. I was hoping this cruise and with the itinerary might be different, we will see.

Sorry to hear about the entertainment, I also look forward to the shows, I hope we get good comedians. Don't know if they will be the same next week.

I guess we should look for the CCL table in Port Everglades, thanks for the tip.

We are booked with Oscar also, can you tell me more about his tour?

Thanks

Steve, Great review. We are going on the Miracle in July (but love reading reviews on other ships for our next cruise).

 

Can you give me your impressions/views on the Altun Ha/River Wallace tour. We are thinking of doing this for our Belize stop. We are bringing 3 kids (12,9,9) with us.

 

Thanks!

Thanks for your comments about the review. We enjoyed the Altun Ha/River Wallace tour, and I think you and your kids will too, as long as everyone is reasonably comfortable being on the water.

You spend about 45 minutes at Altun Ha, which is all you need: this is a pretty small Mayan site. The guides describe it as a relatively minor site, but it still is interesting and you can climb to the top of one of the structures (your kids will probably enjoy that).

On a previous trip to Belize we took a trip to Lamanai, which is a more extensive site but it is a much longer trip-- that trip includes a boat ride to get to the site. The River Wallace boat ride is completely separate from the trip to Altun Ha, which is reached by bus.

The River Wallace boat trip is in an open boat with a couple of hefty motors. Some of the trip is quite slow, to look at wildlife. But on other sections of the river they pick up the pace quite a bit and it's a very refreshing ride (hold on to your hat). At the end of the boat ride the river empties into the open sea and you travel a couple of miles at a pretty good speed to get to the dock (they have everyone put on life jackets)-- we thought this was a real blast and we never felt any sense of danger or concern, but two people on our boat complained about this part of the trip; they did not feel comfortable. (Sometimes they run this trip in the opposite direction and the open seas part of the ride may be at the start of your boat ride.)

--Steve

Great review Steve, thanks for all the details.

<<snip>>

We are booked with Oscar also, can you tell me more about his tour?

 

Thanks

Thanks, Judy. Oscar offers several tours; here is his own email description of the one we took, for which he charges $45 per person:

Tour #1.

The Tortuguero Canal tour is a tour through the rain forest, where you can

see all wild life: alligator, monkeys, slots, different type of birds, Then

I will take you to the Bamboo trade school, banana plantation, coco beans

farm, City tour, the two biggest hotels around the coast, one is a botanical

garden, and the other one has a nice vie and a tall hill, a white sand

beach, the rich area, and a surprise stop; witch will take you to the

highest part of the city .

I don't think we went to the Bamboo trade school, but we did do all the other things listed, and more. The Canals tour was very enjoyable by itself. But in addition to the listed destinations, Oscar makes several stops while driving you in his van to show wildlife, grab various native fruits and vegetables from trees and explain them, buy local coffee (if you wish), etc. Oscar is a very friendly and knowledgeable guy and he works hard to provide an informative tour. As you may have read, he's very popular with Cruiscritic readers. I would certainly recommend him based on our experience with him.

--Steve

Thanks Steve, I plan to do the ziplining with him while my mother goes on a tour. Thanks for the details.

Thanks for the information Steve! Greatly appreciate it!

Steve, thanks for the great review.;)

What a well written and informative review. We're hoping that our experiences when we sail will also be as favorable as yours were :D

Hi Steve,

WOW! Thanks so much for that great review on the Legend. I am going on this cruise in a few weeks and I am booked in the same cabin you were in! I have been searching for pictures and/or answers to my balcony questions and who better to ask but you!

Thing is we have a 17 month old (very active) son. We have never had a balcony cabin on a cruise before and I am a little worried about my son and the balcony. Can you answer a few questions?

1.Does the balcony have the plastic over the rails?

2.How does the door to the balcony lock? Do you think a toddler can open it by himself?

3.I have seen pictures of there being another deck below the balcony. When you look directly down from the balcony is there another deck or is there water?

4.Do you have any pictures you can email me?

I appreciate any info you can give me.

Cynthia

(A paranoid mom):eek: