July 2012 Splendor Review w/Pics

[rotting_hell]

Excellent review!!!! Pics are GREAT!!!!!!! Thanks for sharing!!!!!!

[tee3240]

Thank you very much for sharing your vacation. We (me, Hubby, son11 & daughter8) will be doing our first ever Carnival cruise next July when the Splendor comes to NYC. Loved your pics!

[Joyce From Yardley]

Hi,

Enjoyed reading your review & seeing your Great photos. We are going on the Splendor in Feb. doing a B2B2B. We are leaving from Long Beach going to South America & around the horn. We will be bringing home the Splendor for its NY cruise season. We will be at away for 48 days, our longest cruise ever.

Thanks for the heads up about Cabo & Puerto Vallarta. In about a month we will be on be on Celebrity's Infinity. We are taking a 7nt Alaska cruise followed by a 17nt Panama Canal cruise & will hit those ports of call at that time.

Hope that you & your family are back on the high seas for another great vacation in no time at all.

Joyce & Of Course Harvey

[LizfromOz]

Thanks so much for this review. We are coming from Australia in September (next month!!!) and part of our month long holiday is a cruise on the Splendor (9/16). Our family of 4 are so excited and to see your lovely photos is just fantastic. I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed Las Caletas as we have booked that excursion as well.

Thanks again, Liz

[twindaddy]

Great review, thanks! My only qualm would be Las Caletas...we LOVEd it, and my girls had a blast doing the kids activites, a huge zip line, donkey ride, face painting, and animal petting. I would encourage your kids to give it a try next time! Sounds like the snorkling was great too!

We will be on the Splendor in December and we are trying rythym of the night, I hear good things!

[Rosefloater]

Originally Posted by hannahsmomtoo

Thank you for your review.
Two questions when you get a moment..

#1 Did you use American currency in Cabo / PV?

and

#2 Your portrayal of the vendors in Cabo has me a bit nervous. ( Although I appreciate the honesty.)
How would one pick a vendor.. from the crowd.. if one DID want to take a tour or parasail etc?

Thank you so much, again your pictures are incredible.

Yes you can use American money. The vendors use an exchange rate of 10 pesos/$1.

Pyroguy - Your pictures are great!!

[Mulege]

The current exchange rate is $1 equals 13 pesos. If they only give you 10 to 1 you are being cheated!

[treasure4two]

Originally Posted by pyroguy

2012 Carnival Splendor Review
Introduction


Also, My hobby is photography. I am not a professional, but I read and practice a lot. Hopefully you will enjoy the fruits of my labor. For this entire cruise, I took over 2,100 pictures and 200 videos.

This is the gear I used:
Nikon D7000 DSLR with a Nikon 50mm f/1.8, Tamron 18-270 f/3.5-6.3, Nikon 10.5mm f/1.4 fisheye* and a CarrySpeed CS-Pro.
Nikon SB-600 Flash
Olympus Stylus Tough TG810 and 1080SW waterproof cameras
New iPad (1080p video)
Dell mini-10 w/Seagate 1TB external drive (for backing up videos and pictures)
Memorex AirStash with 32Gb card (for transerring videos from iPad to SD card because I hate iTunes)
*I rented this lens from borrowlenses.com because it lists $700 and I wanted to test it a little first. Absolutely loved the lens (you will see pictures here) and the company was great to deal with. I spent about $100 for the 10-days I had it including shipping and insurance.

My husband and I have our own photography business(we use Canon) and in looking at your pictures, I think you have a great eye, great skill as a photographer, and potential-the food pictures are exceptional plus you have an adorable family, so always good pics there!). We did not start our business until he was injured on his job and could not go back, at age 49. We were actually blessed by the injury as he is now living his dream of being a professional photographer and owning our own business and he is well known and recognized in Charlotte for his work, so maybe, in your future, there could be a new profession. Good luck and good shooting!!

[susie8862]

One of the best reviews ever. Thank you for taking the time to write and show all of your pics. You have a beautiful family. Going to be on the Splendor for the first time in January. Stuff like this gets me more and more excited. THANK YOU.......

[pyroguy]

Originally Posted by hannahsmomtoo

Thank you for your review.
Two questions when you get a moment..

#1 Did you use American currency in Cabo / PV?

and

#2 Your portrayal of the vendors in Cabo has me a bit nervous. ( Although I appreciate the honesty.)
How would one pick a vendor.. from the crowd.. if one DID want to take a tour or parasail etc?

Thank you so much, again your pictures are incredible.

Thanks for the encouragement.

Yes, American currency worked fine. Most street vendors quote dollars in thier prices, establishments post in pesos but convert at ~10:1.

As for picking a vendor, we looked for establishments (buildings) rather than just people on the streets. I don't know if it matters, but it seemed better to us.

One caution...we tried to get a wave runner rental with our trip to Medano beach trip. The guy was telling us all the things he could get for us and wanted everything up front. Then we realized that he was just a middle man too and he would be paying a couple different people for our taxi and others for the wave runners. Then he started changing timeframes, etc and we got spooked and decided to leave.

Didn't feel comfortable giving one middle man all the money up front for something on the other side of the bay. Pay the person only, not the middle men.

[FiremanDan]

Love the Lido deck photo from under the movie screen. Appears to be nine of the front row seats have some sort of Chair Hog Spoor on them.

On the issue of using US money. The prices posted are retail. Make your lowest price deal in US dollars rounded to nearest dollar and tell them you want you change in US dollars only. I've never had a vendor refuse and I don't get a handful of foreign bills or change.

I watched a guy buy a hat for around 5 bucks and he gave them a 20. I saw them later and they were still trying to figure out how much change the got back...he admitted that he paid more for the hat than be relized.

And a great review.

[deborahjo]

Thank you for your review. We were on the Splendor in April in 2009. Swine Flu Cruise. So loved loved loved your picture. We are going to do Las Calentes also so was nice to hear about this excurision. We can hardly wait til December and your review sure helped with the wait. Again thanks.

[smileyone]

…from promenade looking down to the atrium area…


…atrium stairway…


…the atrium…
[/quote]

All of the pictures are great. My favorites were these two. Thanks for doing a picture review.

[judatt]

Thanks for a great review with some really outstanding pictures. I really enjoyed the way you weaved your family into everything - we are going on the Pride out of Baltimore with most of our family (kids and grandkids) in a couple of weeks and are really looking forward to cruising together.

Where are you from in Kansas? My wife was born in Hutchinson and went to school in Topeka (Highland Park HS) and nursing school in Wichita where we met and married. We still have family in KS.

By the way, baked beans are a standard dish in a British breakfast. I travel to London almost every year for my work and the guest house where we stay serves them every morning. Often see them on buffets when there is any chance of have someone from GB on board.

Thanks again for a great review.

[absolutely brilliant]

enjoying your review.

[ileys]

Great review! We will be on the Splendor 9/2 - what type of suite did you have? Do you think it was worth it?

Thanks!

[NYGirl1002]

Thank you for the excellent review! Your children are beautiful. I love that you surprised them.

I love the fact that yours was a west coast review. I don't get to see many of them and it was interesting to read about different ports.

[obnancy]

You have a great eye and warm spirit. I am sorry that Cabo's vendors made it difficult to view your children.

If you ever do go back, I would suggest going to one of the quieter, restaurant/bars towards the end of Medano Beach and sitting in the lounge chairs a row or two back from the sand entrance. Then you can have your waiter put a barrier low table to keep the vendors away. We always just tip the waiter and the vendors disappear and we have a clear view to the water. Also, they don't charge you for a lounge chair or umbrella. Yes, you buy food and drink but it is reasonably priced, ie. $2.00 for a beer.

You should let your kids read this thread so they can be proud of what a great and artistic guy Dad is.

[cruisinJenF]

Great review!!!!!

Question-do you recall what time Muster was? I have never paid attention to the time we mustered on Splendor and our group is trying to plan a meet and greet. I dont want to cut it too close to the Muster. Thanks so much for any info!!!

[Counsel]

Still doing the Dave Ramsey thing? Didn't see your wife wearing the shirt like on your review at HMC...

I am inspired by your photos and the landscape shots with the special effects. Maybe someday I'll spring for a DSLR. "It's not in the budget" right now.

Thanks again for sharing!

Bruce
aka Counsel