Splendor - Just off the ship today - Jan 28, 2014 - Review

So I will be posting the review here over the next few days or so.

I hope that you will all enjoy and know that I plan on being completely fair and objective.

Paul

here is a preview pic of the ship in dock at pier 90.

here is a preview pic of the ship in dock at pier 90.

ok so that didnt work...stay tuned. I am working on this!

:D My family is going on the Splendor on 3/1. I look forward to your review!

Looking foward to it.

Monday January 20, 2014 - Embarkation Day - NYC, Pier 90

Woke up at 715am to make sure that we got our dog, Daisy to my husbands parents. We made it no problem and Daisy loves the trip in the car!

We needed some gas in the car, had to run back home since my hubby forgot $200.00 that he got as a Christmas gift and stopped at my favorite deli to get a light breakfast; no need to fill up knowing we were going to be on the Lido in a few short hours.

Lucky for us when we booked this we didn't even realize that it was a federal holiday - MLK day, so traffic was exceptionally light NYC. The trip from home to my husbands parking garage in Manhattan was only 20 minutes. Normally that trip would be 40-45 minutes in moderate traffic. Woo Hoo!! Hopped in a cab, one of the newer modern little truck types and met a really engaging female cabbie.....very few NYC cabbies are female, so I took this as a great sign.

We purchased the Faster to the Fun program when it became available and it was fantastic. We got to the pier at 1020am and we gave our bags, went through priority check in and we sat for no more then 15 minutes or so for the platinum, diamond and suite guests to get on board. David from Manhattan Cruise Terminal checked us in and boy he was great.....friendly, fast, knowledgeable.....he spoke to me about wanting to become a travel agent (he saw that I was booked under a TA rate code). Wished him best of luck and then we went right to our room at 11am now or so - another perk of FTTF....room was ready for us! Our Bon Voyage liquor purchases were already there as well. We unpacked our carry on, set up our in room bar and as we were about to head to the Lido for our first on board meal, a knock on the door and our checked luggage arrived! I was now in love with FTTF.

We decided to unpack later, went to the Golden Pearl Restaurant to check out to see if the request I put in through John Heald's Facebook page was granted....sure enough it was, upper level, two top....close to the door, overlooking the whole dining room....great location if you ask me!

We were about to head for lunch when we realized that we skipped the Shore Excursion desk! I was worried that the only thing I wanted to book would be sold out....the Behind the Fun Ultimate Tour. I have been told and have read that it sells out fast.....but I was happy, still room as we were on the ship still much earlier then anyone else.....FTTF wins me over again! I will review the tour later on, as I am writing this it hasn't happened yet as I am trying to write each day on the ship itself to assure I don't forget things.

FINALLY WE MADE IT TO LIDO!! My husband loves burritos....he would live at Chipotle if he could, so he went to the Burrito Bar, had a nice sized chicken and yellow rice burrito with tortilla chips. He said it was good, but I could tell it wasn't to his standard of Chipotle.

Over he enjoyed though. I on the other hand wanted to try something a bit more out of the norm for me....Tandoor! Tandoor is the Indian food location on board and I tried a few things...potatoes and peas, chicken shish kabobs and butter chicken. OMG....the butter chicken was so delish! Kind of spicy in a buttery based red sauce, smokey at the same time....it will be had again!

We then stopped at the lido bar and had our first frozen drinks - a mudslide for me and a mango something for my husband.

We took a quick tour of the ship and then went back to our room to unpack and really get ready for the voyage and even managed a half hour nap before the muster drill. Called guest services to get a bottle of distilled water sent to the cabin for my CPAP machine. I was then told it would cost $3.72 cents, random number and not a lot of money, but I never paid for this on any other ship before so I didn't understand why now. The guest services crew member told me that they have been charging for five years now. I said "impossible since I have only been cruising Carnival since 2012." I asked for the hotel manager and long story short, one gallon of distilled water was delivered to my room 15 minutes later. Oh, and without charge :)

Muster drill was like any other - it was almost 48 degrees F so it wasn't terrible to stand outside on deck 4 and wait for the instructions. What really galls me though is that all of the announcements state to be silent and listen to the crews instruction, so many people ignore it.....continue to talk and carry on and take no real note of the seriousness of what's being told. These people I would have no issue leaving behind if an actual emergency was called.

The ship was scheduled to set sail from the pier at 415pm, it was closer to 430pm when we did. I suppose the Norwegian Gem which set sail at 4pm needed some time as well to get ahead of us.

So next we went to the El Mojito bar where they hold the martini tasting. This has become a new cruise tradition for us. While there we met the first of many great staff, Suthasini! She was great.

We also chatted it up with a gentleman, named Drew from CT. Very nice guy and he gave us his bottle charm that you get when you do the martini tasting.

Soon it was time for dinner and we decided to do something different this cruise and we went to the Pinnacle Steakhouse the first night, mainly due to the free bottle of wine with dinner. It was a perfect way to begin our formal sit down meals. I had jumbo shrimp cocktail, beefsteak tomatoes with gorgonzola cheese crumbles, the 18oz 5 spice rubbed ribeye. Shawn had the French onion soup, Classic Caesar salad and the NY strip. We both had hot tea and a duo of strawberry cheesecake and maple walnut ice creams for dessert. Our servers Julia and Vanessa were outstanding and kudos to the Steakhouse Manager, Marajana for seamlessly training her team.

We skipped the Welcome Aboard show....unfortunately it's the same pretty much on every Carnival cruise so no need to see it a 4th time. What we did decide was to go to El Morocco for Karaoke. My husband loves karaoke and last year almost made it into the legends show. Last year while cruising on the Carnival Miracle he was the runner up for Ricky Martin in the Legends show and he loved the karaoke host, Antoinette. Imagine our surprise when she was in the lounge running karaoke on the Splendor!! She said she had just gotten on board that afternoon after a vacation back at home in Jamaica. She was on the Miracle all of 2013 and was excited to be on the Splendor now. It was quite special that she remembered us as well. This was a really nice touch and showed that the staff care beyond their jobs. Shawn did his usual singing and the crowd and Antoinette loved him and she said that he needs to audition for Legends again. Alas there is no Ricky Martin on this Legends show.

After karaoke, we swung by El Mojito again for the LGBT gathering. Quite a few guys were there, including some of the crew. Drew from our earlier conversation was there as were a few others, mostly older then us but all very nice and charming. The bar was packed otherwise and the line for the Punchliner Comedy Club was right there as well so we decided to call it a night, we said good night to our new aquantances and headed to bed.

Great review so far! Subscribing!

We will ne boarding Splendor for the first time in March so we look forward to your review.

Will be on the repositioning cruise of this ship in November. SJ-Miami. Looking forward to pics of the ship and your review.

Great start to your review. I'm looking forward to the rest of it.

Nice start! Looking forward to reading the rest of the review!

Looking forward to your review. I sailed her in August and had an amazing time.

Will be on the repositioning cruise of this ship in November. SJ-Miami. Looking forward to pics of the ship and your review.

Oh, yes, we certainly will. Love reading reviews of ships I haven't yet sailed.

pauly - please tell me you didn't get the free bottle of Chardonnay at the steak house? I took myself to dinner on Conquest in November (solo cruise, birthday the next night) and had a wonderful meal, but the service was surprisingly slack. And the Chardonnay? I ended up pouring more than 1/2 bottle down the sink a couple of nights later. I absolutely couldn't drink it, and I am certainly no wine snob! It was awful. I've read that the red is marginally better.

Looking forward to the rest of your review and pics! :D

We'll be on the Splendor in April, I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the review and seeing more pics. The dinner looked great!

:eek: I did NOT know they had frozen mudslides! That will be my first drink on the Dream in March!!! It looks so good.

Great start to your review! Thanks for posting...can't wait to read more! :)

Subscribing! I will be sailing the Splendor in May. Great start to your review!

Love your review. We will be cruising on Splendor in March. Our first time on this ship, So excited.

Oh, yes, we certainly will. Love reading reviews of ships I haven't yet sailed.

 

pauly - please tell me you didn't get the free bottle of Chardonnay at the steak house? I took myself to dinner on Conquest in November (solo cruise, birthday the next night) and had a wonderful meal, but the service was surprisingly slack. And the Chardonnay? I ended up pouring more than 1/2 bottle down the sink a couple of nights later. I absolutely couldn't drink it, and I am certainly no wine snob! It was awful. I've read that the red is marginally better.

 

Looking forward to the rest of your review and pics! :D

we read on here that the chardonnay was terrible, so we went with the red (i normally dont like red) it was passable, but will never be considered a fine wine. The service was great on the Splendor.

159 days for me. Loving your review. Can't wait to read more.

Thanks everyone for the kind words of support of the review! Here is the next day!

Tuesday January 21, 2014 - At Sea

So after the long day yesterday we decided to sleep a little later then we normally do and got up at 9am and had breakfast delivered via room service. Nothing special but it did the trick to keep us from being hungry until lunch time. The request was delivered on time and despite getting grape jelly instead of strawberry (how did I survive! lol) it was good.

Now if my husband's go to activity is karaoke, mine is trivia! We went to quite a few trivia matches, starting at the Coffee Shop at 10am, then Movie Quotes Classics at 1130am, TV trivia at Noon, Space Trivia at 1230pm, 1980's trivia at 130pm and Baseball Trivia at 4pm. I was very pleased to win both 1980's and Baseball Trivia giving me two needed wins. Needed? Yes! I have never experienced it before but on the Splendor you need to win three medals before you can get the coveted "solid gold plastic" stick on a ship. Not sure why here....wasn't that way on the Fascination, Glory or Miracle. Oh well.....time to crack open the many useless facts being stored in my brain. The two hosts of trivia were "Fluffy" from Canada and Mitch from New York. Both did a good job, both fun and lively.

I had to go to Guest Services about my sign and sail onboard account, I had the pleasure of jumping right on the FTTF line.....almost no wait and thank goodness because there was easily 8-10 folks on the regular line. Eugene from the Ukraine helped me with my question and we chit chatted while he did so, finding out he lives about 25 kilometers from my paternal ancestral home in the Carpathian Mountains. He said he can see them from his house. How cool!

The only negative so far for the entire cruise was that the casino is not ventilated well for the cigarette smoke. We are not the type to think smokers should be left out but not at the expense of non smokers health and comfort, but this is NOT about smokers. If Carnival is going to have smoking in any venue they need to make sure there is proper and adequate ventilation/filters. Karaoke at 2pm became so unbearable to the point our eyes were burning that we left before Shawn sang even one song. Disappointing for sure, but even worse was we had to go change since the smoke heavily permeated our clothes in the 10 minutes we were in the Royal Flush.

So we decided that we were gonna try something else we never tried before in all our cruises, we went to afternoon tea. We were sat at a table for 12 and we were easily the youngest people at the table by 30 years. This not an issue for me, but I knew my husband wouldn't say two words and I was right, but he did enjoy his "British Blend" and cucumber sandwich and chocolate cake. I struck up a delightful conversation with Fred & Carolee from New Jersey. We spoke about how this was their first Carnival trip and that all their friends warned them but were finding it to be a wonderful experience. We hit it off and they even asked for my business card. Would be great if this trip and chance encounter translates to business.

Finally we got dressed up for "cruise elegant" night and went out and took pictures. It feels good that in the past few years less and less people look at two men taking photos together as something wrong....we had in the past got looks, stares and muffled chatter when they would see us. It shows how as a society we are advancing and that's a great thing.

We got to our seats and met our dining team. Iwayan, Dusko and Anggara did a fantastic job and I definitely look forward to their service more this week. The Matre D' Vivek came around and introduced himself and made sure all was ok. He later joked that each team was made of three people because one could read, one could write and the other spoke English.

Being that it was elegant night the finest menu appears. We both had the spinach stuffed mushrooms with cheese. Shawn liked them, I gave him three of my mushrooms. I also had the strawberry bisque soup, which I have loved in the past, something changed and I still liked it but wasn't crazy about it this time. I ordered the lobster tail and shrimp for dinner, Shawn got the prime rib, I tried a bite of his prime rib and decided to order a piece of well done for myself. I love dining on the ships....eat what you want!

Today was our 2nd wedding anniversary (been together 13 plus years now) so we splurged a bit and purchased a bottle of wine. An Oyster Bay Marlborough Savougion Blanc from New Zealand. Our friend Alan turned me into this wine and we were pleased to see it on the menu. We didn't finish it so we will get to finish it another night!

The dining room team on carnival is know for singing and dancing and they started the week off with "that's amore" - fun and quirky, but an all time favorite. Mr. V, the Maitre D was funny and always around. Love this tradition!