Long Review of the Carnival Spirit RT to Hawaii 12/2/11

This is my review of our 15 day Round trip cruise from LA to Hawaii. There were 10 of us in our group. Myself & Hubby, Mom & Dad, two sisters and their spouses and two Aunts. We had rooms 6331, 6333, 6262, 6264 and 6311. The first four are the four balconies across the back and 6311 is an inside on the starboard side.

TRAVEL:

We flew out on two different flights. My sister, one aunt and I live farther north than the others and flew out on the first flight around noon. We booked one limo to pick us up.

We arrived at the airport with just enough time to check our bags and get through security. Everyone had to go through the xray machine. We didn’t have time to grab anything to eat. On the flight the attendants came around with the food cart but by the time they got to us there was only one sandwich left and we were only half-way back. There was also a mixup with the guy in front of us who ordered and paid for a sandwich but never got it. They offered him a snack box instead. He was a military guy who was going home for the first time in a year and had been traveling for two days. That was a bummer. Arrived on time at LAX. I had prebooked PrimeTimeShuttle. We had about a 15 minute wait for the van to come and take us to the Crowne Plaza in SanPedro.

HOTEL:

We had three rooms booked through Priceline for $65 each. Quite a good deal compared to their list price. All three rooms faced the port and were very nice. Never had any issues with noise, hot water or elevators as other reviews have mentioned. The rooms had a nice little complimentary bag with ear plugs, eye mask, linen spray and some other stuff I can’t remember. I just liked the bag. It was perfect for my ipod, accessories and other electronic paraphernalia. The neighborhood was, well, it was very interesting. I guess you could call it eclectic. We did not feel threatened or unsafe walking the streets. It is a very artsy area. We walked quite a ways to a Walgreens and Starbucks. Around a mile I think. We called the hotel to ask if the shuttle could pick us up and they said they don’t offer that service anymore even though the information book in the room said that they do. We decided not to purchase our cruise sodas at that point and walked back. We were going to order a pizza but there were no recommendations in the info book. Called the front desk and got the number for a Pizza Hut. Called there and after waiting on hold for eight minutes we decided to eat at the hotel. That gets a big fat DO NOT RECOMMEND. The food was cold, tasteless and expensive. $3.95 for a cup of coffee and no refills. I don’t know if you could get refills because we never saw the server again.

We ate breakfast at a restaurant around the corner. It was called Grinders. Wish we had gone there for dinner. It was very good and average priced. There was a street fair/farmers market that day. Lots of food and arts & crafts.

We met up with a couple that was on our roll call, Allison & Curt, at the hotel and another couple of guys who were going on the cruise, Blake & Brian. We met up with them a lot in the Casino and around the ship. They were a lot of fun.

Around the corner is a liquor store where we purchased some 2liters of soda and some libations. We took the hotel shuttle to the pier around 11-11:30. That was smooth and painless. The ship was about an hour late getting into port so we were in no hurry.

continued....

CHECK IN:

Slow. That’s all I have to say about that. Long lines. We had a couple heart-stopping moments at the check-in counter. First, my credit card wouldn’t swipe. She tried it over and over. I had a small sticker on that card to identify it from another identical card I have. That’s what was causing the problem. Whew! Then my passport was getting some reject code. She’d swipe it – Reject, again – reject. She called a supervisor over and one click of a button and everything was ok. I still have no idea what that was all about. Once we were checked in we had to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

No one had been allowed to board yet. I think it was about 2:30 before we got on but once we did we were able to go right to our rooms.

ON BOARD:

When we booked this cruise back in March or April these four Aft rooms were the only 4 connecting balconies available. We paid a huge premium for these rooms. We booked direct with Carnival and we specifically asked if the balcony dividers could be opened because that was the most important thing for us because if they couldn’t it didn’t matter if our rooms were next to each other or not and we could have saved a bundle. The PVP said they could and all we had to do was go to guest services once onboard. We transferred our booking to our TA. Prior to the cruise someone on CC told me that those rooms could not be opened. I contacted my TA who contacted Carnival and they said it wouldn’t be a problem. She was told to have us ask our room steward to open the dividers. We went to guest services once onboard and they said our rooms could not be opened because there were no hooks to secure the dividers. There were hooks (at least for one door) and we told them that and then they said it was for safety reasons. To say the least I was very upset about this. After we had booked other blocks of rooms became available. We decided not to change our booking at that time because everything was already paid for. We would have changed if we had known this.

To me these balconies have their pros and cons. I don’t think the rooms are worth the premium price. You do get extra leg room but that’s it. The glass gets a lot more spray and get dirty very fast. You lose your privacy from the upper decks but you can easily talk to your upper and lower neighbors. If you want privacy from your next door neighbors you won’t have it unless your sitting. If you’re standing at the rail you will be in full view because the dividers are angled. We were protected more from the wind which was great since the weather was very cool but you are not protected from the rain because the upper balcony drips on you. We didn’t experience any soot until the very last morning. I went out barefoot. The bottom of my feet were black with soot and so were my hands from the chair and railing. Luckily I had black pants on because when I wiped down the chair it was covered in big blotches of soot. I hadn’t seen this when I first went out because it was still dark.

From our balcony we had a nice view of the SanPedro Port. That place is amazing!

I kept hearing them and finally, with the zoom on my camera I found them….

At 5pm they were still boarding a few stragglers. Some of us had some of our luggage. I didn’t have any yet. We went to our assigned dining time of 6o’clock. All ten of us were assigned to table 166. When we were led to our table there were four people already sitting there. (Luckily our whole group didn’t come to dinner that night.) Apparently they had two table numbers assigned to one table. The next night the other diners had been moved. While we were eating dinner the ship pulled out. Everybody from CC was going to meet on the Lido aft at sailway so I missed meeting most of our group.

After dinner all of our luggage had arrived. We got everything unpacked and put away. I was the go-to girl on the cruise. Whenever anyone needed anything they came to me and I had it, thanks to all the tips and tricks I’ve found on CC. The thing that amazed them the most was the fact that we had brought the least amount of luggage out of everyone. One checked bag and two carry-ons. I was planning on only one carry-on but my checked bag was overweight. So now I even had extra room for my snorkel gear. I was proud of myself. (Insert pat on the back here.)

We had to move our clocks back one hour when we went to bed. This put us four hours out of whack. It was a long busy day of hurry up and wait. Off to bed.

DAY 2-5

Woke up at 4am sliding around in my bed. My brain was telling me that it was 8am so I couldn’t go back to sleep. As I lay there I realized that not only was I slipping and sliding in my bed, my stomach was slipping and sliding around my gut! I had taken ginger pills faithfully since we arrived in California but I decided it was time to break out the bonine. I usually don’t get seasick but I had never done a Pacific cruise before so I came prepared. My nausea didn’t subside though, darn it. Nothing major, just queasy. Later in the morning my sister put her seasick wristbands on me and BAM! 5 minutes later I was tip-top. I was amazed. I really didn’t think something like that would work but it did. I was still a little lightheaded but I think that was from the bonine. There was a drawback to the wristbands though. I have very slim wrists and the button on the bands is supposed to go between the tendons. Well, whenever I’d twist my wrist that button would roll over the tendon. I had marks on my wrists for days after I took them off (2nd day). I still have one little mark on one wrist. They didn’t hurt at all though.

Great review so far! Looking forward to the rest.

Since there are 4 sea days they’re all kind of lumped together in my head. I’ll just make some general comments.

Day 3 we had to move our clocks back again. Now we are on Hawaii time.

Breakfast in the main dining room. Service was extremely slow and the food was very cold. Couldn’t even get coffee refills. We stuck to the Lido after that.

Shows. Some of the dancing shows were cancelled due to the rocking of the ship. The comedians were pretty good, my husband didn’t care for them.

Lounge singers. Just ok. Doug was in the casino bar most nights. He was probably the best but he needed to put it on shuffle. Seemed like the same old stuff every night. John was ok too but same as above. Hawaiian music with Guy was really good but he was never where we seemed to be. Missed him a lot. Now piano sing along with Keith was a joke. Keith didn’t want anyone to sing along with him. He made that obvious by constantly changing the tempo and lyrics of your usual sing along songs. Very frustating. He had some well deserved hecklers. Karaoke with Jay. What can I say? Jay was a very interesting act all by himself. Karaoke ended up being the same handful of guests practicing for the Legends show.

The weather. Too cold. Some times it was sunny, sometimes it rained. Occasionally you could take off your sweatshirt. It wasn’t ideal weather. I wished I had taken warmer clothes. The seas were quite rough all the way to Hawaii, in between islands and part of the way back. The winds were typically blowing about 20mph or knots, they never did specify which.

The crew. Wonderful as usual. Armando was our cabin steward and he was fantastic. Marlon was the steward for two of our rooms and they weren’t so happy with him. We had Sasmita and Donny in the dining room and couldn’t have asked for nicer guys. The captain, Adriano Binacchi, would come on the PA everyday at noon. He would give us a very nautical report that really didn’t mean much to anyone. Tell us our location in degrees, current speed, temp, overcast, etc. He didn’t tell us what to expect though. There was no where on the ship where you could get a weather forecast which would have been nice.

Food. This was not my favorite food cruise. It was all good, don’t get me wrong, there was just very little that had the wow factor. After the first week everything started to taste the same. The one thing that we all agreed upon is that we never had a hot meal in the dining room. Maybe because we were a party of 10? Even the chilled soups were lukewarm.

Room service is always a treat. Right on time every morning. Click,click, click on the door. So quiet they’d be. I was always afraid I wouldn’t hear them and miss my morning java on the balcony.

The room service crew is very funny though. Everyday I’d order coffee with extra cream. Some days I would get 2 creamers. Some days 4. Some days I’d get a whole cup of cream. I’d order cereal but not get milk so the next day I’d also order milk and then I’d get two. There was only 4 packets of sugar in the sugar tray so I asked for extra sugar and got 2 trays instead of just more sugar packets. It was always fun to see what we’d end up with.

Steakhouse. This was very nice. It was the first time we tried it. We had a table for six and the food was very good. We all had the filet. It was perfect and it was hot! The chocolate sampler is the dessert to get. Yum. My sister got the homemade ice cream and felt cheated compared to us who got the chocolate. If you are a cheesecake fan I recommend that. It was HUGE! It would have been enough for all of us at the table. The only downside to our evening in the steakhouse was the live music in the Atrium. Because of it they didn’t have the piano player in the steakhouse. And the music drifting up from the Atrium was just background noise.

On our second sea day a helicopter came from the east and circled the ship a few times and then left. It showed up again after dark. Someone asked the cruise director at the Q&A session one day but he didn't know anything about it.

A few sunrises & sunsets.

And the view from our balcony

HILO

After 4½ days at sea we arrived in Hilo. It was really nice when we first arrived but that quickly changed. Six of us did a ship excursion. We did the Volcano bike ride. It was fun but very cold and wet. Luckily the tour guide provided us with really nice Columia jackets. We met at the pier about a ½ hour after the ship docked and were taken right over to a van with the bikes.

They drove us up to the Crater and the museum and we got to get out and visit the museum.

We got back in the van and drove to another location where we met up with another guide and had a safety briefing. We proceeded to ride the bikes 8 miles downhill with frequent stops for sightseeing and photos. We stopped at a path that led to some lava tubes and walked through them.

Saw lots of rainbows that day. It was awesome.

The elders in our group did a tour with Roberts. They enjoyed it.

MAUI

Beautiful day! Finally! The shuttle to the mall was not running that day. We were told that we could walk to the mall so off we went.

We walked quite a ways through the port before we even got out to the street and that only took us to a strip mall, not the Queen ? mall. So we grabbed 2 cabs to Lahaina for $50 each ($10pp) and just walked around and shopped until around 2pm.

We then headed back to the ship for our Luau excursion. They took us right back to Lahaina.

Unfortunately at this point the battery in my camera died and I didn't get any more pics of the Luau but I got a pic of our souvenier after we got back onboard.

It was a fun day but we wished we had done things different. We wanted to do a Luau on our own but were worried about making it back to the ship on time. With a group of 10 it makes it a little more difficult logistically. We could have easily done it though. Hindsight and all that.

The port information that the ship gave us was not for Kahului, which is where we were docked. It was for Lahaina and it said it was a tender port. I’m sure that caused some confusion.

HONOLULU

Another beautiful day. Pearl Harbor with Roberts.

The Royal Palace was decorated for Christmas.

After Pearl Harbor we drove to Punchbowl Cemetary but we couldn’t get in because they were filming an episode of Hawaii 5-0. That was disappointing.

When we got back we felt adventurous and four of us walked 2+ miles to a Walgreens so my brother-in-law could get a refill of his seasickness patch and to make their Christmas cards with a Hawaii photo. We walked next door to the mall while we waited for the cards. It’s a really nice mall and crowd-wise did not seem like Christmas was only two weeks away. Had dinner at a burger place in the mall then back to Walgreens. Got a Starbucks (withdrawls) and then a cab back to the ship. Met up with some others and hung out at the Aloha Marketplace for awhile. Note: if you want to go up in the Aloha Tower, do it during the day. It’s closed at night.

Sorry about the sideways pictures. I rotated them in photobucket but they still show up here in their original format.

Nice review, love the photo of you guys leaving the snow.

KAUAI

My new favorite. This has to be the most beautiful island of them all. Four of us decided to rent a car for the day. We disembarked and there was a shuttle bus there to take you to the car rental place. No reservations needed. We rented a four-door, top down Jeep. About $100.

We drove up and past the North shore with frequent stops. We stopped at a few for sale signs to look at the flyers and fantasize. The convertible wasn’t the best choice as there were frequent cloudbursts. Short lived but strong willed, lol.

We stopped at a waterfall and also saw the river. There is a Hawaiian village here. Somehow we missed it but the other half of our party found it and really enjoyed it. They especially liked how all the peacocks ran inside one of the huts when it rained, lol.

KONA

We did the Kona Kayak Adventure through the ship. This was a snorkel/kayak adventure and I wouldn’t recommend it. 12 of us were crammed into a 12 person van and as everyone knows a 12 person van can only fit twelve 8 year olds comfortably. We drove about 15 minutes to the launch site and were given our kayaks.

Two guides went with us and off we went for a two mile ocean kayak. It was pretty rough going as the sea wasn’t smooth. They put my 68 year old aunt with a guy from India who couldn't swim and was petrified of the water. She's tough though and he was a pro at paddling by the time they were done. He was still petrified though. The guides offered her a job, lol!

They took us to an area to snorkel that was far from ideal. No beach area at all. All the kayaks were tied together, snorkels and masks were passed around. Jump in. Lava rocks all around, the waves wanted to push you into the rocks. When everyone had had enough you were to swim way over to where one of the guides would help you up onto the lava. Those with shoes on could walk around and explore a bit, those without were kinda stuck in one place.

When we were all ready to go we had to jump about 15 feet into the water. A mini cliff dive, lol. This is my aunt.

Then you had to swim over to where the kayaks were anchored. This would have been a piece of cake if we’d had fins but they weren’t provided and with the the size of the waves it was very difficult. Now for the really fun part. Trying to get all those people back up into their kayaks from the water. Can you say capsize? Over and over. Water bottles, sunglasses, and paddles floating all over the place. The guides didn’t take the snorkel gear back before everyone tried to get in their boats so when they tipped over it sunk. The guides had to dive down and retrieve them. It just seemed like there should be a better way. Off for another two mile paddle after being worn out just trying to get back into your kayak.

Stopped at the Farmers Market on the way back and bought some souveniers.

I have decided that I don’t want to do ship excursions anymore. Going off on our own or booking independently made us much happier. The cruiseline excursions were very impersonal and we felt like cattle being herded from one place to the next. I know that won’t be an option at every port though. Hawaii did have some logistical issues. The tour companies were used to NCL’s port times and a lot of them wouldn’t accommodate our later arrival. Enough people on our roll call contacted Body Glove in Kona and they changed their start time just for them.

Days 11-14

Rough seas again and strong winds. The seasick bags were out again but didn’t seem to be used like they were in the beginning. We went to afternoon tea a few times and it was very nice. That’s the place to get the best desserts. Yum.

I can’t say much about the shows. We did see one that was ok but we left early to see the comedian. Some were cancelled for the safety of the entertainers.

We spent a lot of the evenings in the casino where we did ok. For a $15 day cruise we only donated about $100. Craps was good. Roulette was good. Slots…not so good. The casino layout is very strange as far as the smoking areas. Coming into the casino from the fwd area are six non-smoking slots. Then the next group of machines are smoking and the back is non again. In the middle are the table games and the bar. The non-smoking section of the bar is between the bar smoking section and the slots smoking section. The table games are back to back with smoking on one side and non-smoking on the other. Then there are a few more slots. Pointless.

We had to move our clocks forward an hour on day 11 and 13.

What night were the formal night?

Ensenada

We arrived in Ensenada around 5pm. It was a beautiful, warm day until we arrived in port and the sun went down. Then it was downright cold! We could see our breath! Stayed onboard as it was our last night and there didn’t seem much to do in port. Lots of sirens going on out there. Beautiful town as seen from the ship though. Very pretty with all the mountains and lights. Got all our things packed and set outside our door for our early debarkation. So sad.

San Pedro

Very nice weather in the AM. We scheduled the Carnival transfer to the airport for $26 each. We were given #2 tags. Our flight was at 1:15. We should have had plenty of time but it was a major cluster. Stu, the cruise director kept announcing for people to please not go to deck 3 until it was announced for them to do so. We waited on Lido, and waited and waited some more. We watched people getting off the ship with and without luggage and they still hadn’t called for anyone. Around 9:30 groups one and two were invited down. We went down and got in line. Customs was a breeze. There was a customs check onboard and again after you collected your luggage. We then got in line for the transfer. Then we were shuffled off to the next bus. Then the next bus. Finally we got on a bus and waited. There were four empty seats on our bus. Another bus pulled up, loaded and left. And another bus. Still we waited. Finally the driver gets on and we leave. No explanation and still four empty seats. Of course our drop off was the last one at the airport. Half the bus was going to the same terminal and it was the last stop. The bus driver was ridiculosly slow. We got our luggage and raced over to the skycap. We told him that there were 10 of us on a flight in 45 minutes. He rushed us in to the priority desk and the wonderful clerk got all our bags checked and our boarding passes. I had checked us in online that morning when we got into port thank goodness or it wouldn’t have happened. Security was a breeze. There was absolutely no line. I’ve never seen anything like that except at our little muni airport. We went right up to the bins and started stripping off shoes, jackets, etc. Got 10 people through in about two minutes. It took us longer to get all put back together. Ran through the airport, boarded the plane and they shut the doors. Whew! Could you imagine having to rebook for 10 people? Who were sharing a ride home from the airport? What a nightmare that would have been. Our flight home was about 1/3 empty. I haven’t seen that in years. We suspect a lot of people from Carnival missed their flight.

SUMMARY

Had a great time. Some in our group thought it was too long. Not me. I loved it. I loved the sea days, I loved the ports, I loved the ship. My sister didn’t mind the length but didn’t like the amount of sea days in a row. She prefers the cruises with the sea days and port days intermingled. It didn’t bother me in the least. I only wish we could have stayed in the ports longer.

A few more of my favorite pics...

Well, that's it. Hope you liked it!

Wonderful post! Great pics. Thanks for sharing your cruise:)

Great pictures! Thanks for posting. My husband and I are going on the 15-day Hawaii cruise in April 2012. Can't wait!