Carnival Fantasy 10/23/13 Review with Pictures

This is my first review on cruise critic! A little about me, I’m 28 years old, I’m currently in the Army and I have had about 15 cruises under my belt. I’ve cruised the most often on Royal Caribbean, then NCL, and Carnival the fewest. The last Carnival cruise I was on was the Destiny when it was still the Destiny, I wasn’t that impressed back it but it was much better, worlds better than this trip. I love cruising plain and simple there usually is a little something for everyone and that makes it the perfect vacation in my opinion. I booked this cruise because of the price and the convenience of leaving from Charleston. I booked this trip last minute…about a month out with my gf as a quick getaway before I leave for 5 months with the Army.

A few points I’ll cover really quickly. Also, I didn’t save any of the Fun Times.

FTTF

I did end up purchasing FTTF. Hard to say if it was worth it for this particular trip, I do like the overall concept and think it’s a great program. I probably will never sail on Carnival again but if I ever do I’d definitely buy FTTF again. Skipping the line to pay my tab on the last night was nice! I also really liked the fact that my room was ready when I boarded, it’s a great feature for sure.

Cheers

We bought the Cheers program on the second day. For the two of us it came out to be $459 for the 4 days including the automatic 15% gratuity. I did the math and figured we’d have to drink about six $8.75 or higher drinks per day to break even…. No problem. The program includes unlimited soda as well and discounts on various other drinks like bottled water as well. You can consume unlimited “Zero Proof” Drinks and 15 alcoholic drinks per day under $10. You can get one alcoholic beverage every 5 minutes so no buying a bucket of beer. You can essentially only order a one drink at a time. No big deal there. A few drinks of the day by the pool, a few beers, maybe a glass of wine or champagne at dinner and another couple of drinks at night easily paid for the Cheers program. I only got to the 15 drink limit on the 1st day I bought it (1st sea day.) It was way too much and I should never have drank so much….I just took it as a challenge…needless to say my gf was not pleased. … (gf side note: duh.)

Serenity

I was really looking forward to the serenity area onboard Carnival, the reality was the deck was anything but serene. People on CC like to talk trash about the young adults who like to party and have a good time but the middle aged “adults” put all the 20 something’s to shame and basically ruined the serenity area. It was honestly embarrassing. I did however have the chance to use the serenity hot tubs in the evenings and met a few really nice couples down there. During the day time it was crazy though…

Food

One word: appalling. People on CC seem to agree that Carnivals food is pretty good, in my opinion from what I’ve read the general consensus is that Carnivals food is better than say RCCL or NCL. So I was shocked to find the food so disgusting…borderline inedible. I’ve had MRE’s that were better than Carnival food. DFAC food (Army Chow Hall) has better food. That being said the salad bar and deli in the Seaview café had decent food. I subsisted off of turkey sandwiches and salad. MDR food was abysmal; it was just not good and poor quality. Notable exceptions were the soups, they were generally pretty good. The Lido buffet was horrid as well. Very, very limited variety and everything seemed to be fried…it was just gross. We were very disappointed with the variety and quality of food. I will say the Indian vegetarian dish was excellent, best thing I had all week!! After much hype the warm chocolate melting cake was good but I didn’t have it every night. My gf did though, she loves it. The food service was generally poor as well. We elected to do my time dining with the other couple we were traveling with. I did miss being with the same wait team that you get with traditional dining. However my time dining really worked for our schedule.

Crew

The crew, I found for the most part were pretty indifferent towards their jobs…they just seemed to be going through the motions. That being said we met some outstanding carnival employees and I really enjoyed meeting and tipped accordingly. One thing that shocked me was the common theme of hating working for Carnival. We had a number of crew tell us they couldn’t wait for their contracts to end so they could go to another company. Our cabin steward was nice but didn’t really run into him that often. He did his job, room was always made up. Mateusz a bar server on the lido deck was exceptional, really made the extra effort. Everywhere we went it seemed like the crew was being really pushy for us to buy things or services…yes I know that every cruise line’s employees are supposed to sell, I’ve experienced it on just about every cruise I’ve been on, but Carnival seems to be on another level…everything was an aggressive sales pitch. That was something I really didn’t care for at all.

Cabin

We were in U157, upper deck oceanview category 6D I believe. I’m usually a balcony or nothing kind of guy but this was what was available for us at the time. I have hear many people say that Carnival’s rooms are superior because of the size 185sq ft. to say the RCCL’s Majesty’s 155sq ft. for a comparable room. It certainly didn’t feel any larger…. And it certainly wasn’t any better. I hated the way you controlled the cabin air conditioning, on or off basically no temperature control. The mattress wasn’t very comfortable at all, which contradicts what is said here on the boards about Carnival having the best mattresses. The bathroom was a nice size and I was pleasantly surprised at that. The room had been cleaned and made up but wasn’t clean. The bathroom had mold in the shower and the room was just grimy. We found stains on the sheets on multiple occasions and had to ask the sheets to be changed which they were quickly. I get the ship is old, but that’s no excuse.

Ship

It is common knowledge the ship is the smallest and oldest in the fleet and well, frankly it shows. There was constant painting on the lido deck near the buffet and the fumes nearly made my gf sick during lunch despite the fact we were outside. They were replacing large amounts of carpeting in the public areas and on the stairs. The whole ship smelled of glue and paint. I liked the Roman theme but the décor needs some serious updating. Some people love the Carnival décor, I’ve always found it to be a bit gaudy and over the top for my liking. I felt like I was in a cheap 1990s Las Vegas casino. The ship layout is old and typical of older ships. The entertainment venues and public spaces were limited. Cleopatra’s was a favorite along with the Forum bar; the Atrium bar was ok too. I’ve been spoiled by RCCL’s Royal Promenade I guess.

Embarkation: Port of Charleston Day 1

I’ve never sailed out of Charleston before, but I have dropped friends off for the Carnival Fantasy cruise before, so I was somewhat familiar with the process. I arrived at the port about 10:45 in the morning. There was no line and we breezed through, dropped our bags off and waited for the bus to the terminal. Why they don’t let people just walk to the terminal I’ll never know. Waiting for the bus was the longest wait we had that morning. Inside the terminal there were a few people but the line wasn’t long at all. We took advantage of the FTTF line and had our keys almost instantly. If we had to wait in the regular line I can’t imagine we’d have waited longer than 15-20 minutes. We walked up and got our sign and sail cards my gf and I went by the room and dropped our bags off and was eating lunch on the lido deck with a drink of the day by 11:30. Another couple we were traveling with, did not have FTTF arrived about 11:30 and were also onboard by 12:00-12:30. The weather was partly sunny and the wind was chilly, we spent the afternoon exploring the extremely small ship (didn’t take long) and watched the sail away from the aft lido deck near the water works. We spent the majority of the trip back there. After we got out of the harbor and for the rest of the night the ship was rocking and rolling pretty bad. Lots of people were sea sick from what we heard.

First sight of our home for the next 5 days

Waiting for the bus to the terminal

First thing we saw as we stepped aboard.... sort of impressive

Our view of Charleston from the stateroom

Charleston

Ravanel Bridge over the Cooper River

Waterfront Park in Charleston

See ya later Chucktown

Sullivan's Island Lighthouse

Bye

Pilot boat alongside

I'm not sure what this is supposed to be

Wow. You must've gotten a bad 5-nights. I've found the food on Fantasy to be some of the best I've had on Carnival (#18 coming up; the past 17 nights have all been on Fantasy).

I actually think the little valve thing to control the a/c works great! The change is almost instantaneous rather than waiting for a thermostat to do it's thing.

No, the Serenity Deck isn't very serene. I've put that in every review since I first sailed on a ship with the Serenity Deck. The one on Glory was the worst I've encountered so far.

This past year, the crew and have seemed to be the happiest I've seen and genuinely want to be helpful.

Sorry you didn't enjoy the ship, crew or food. I love them. I think she's extremely well taken care of (that's why all the painting and cleaning - they're actually doing the maintenance that is needed on any and all ships).

With all the nights I've spent on the ship in the past year, and all the conversations I've had with crew and staff, I've never had one person tell me they wanted to change ships, let alone leave Carnival. Many of the people I've talked to have been on the ship for a long time and love it.

Just goes to show that we all have different experiences and interpret those experiences in different ways.

I don't know why the pictures were not loading. I used imgur... I guess CC doesn't like that image host?

First sight of our home for the next 5 days

Waiting for the bus to the terminal.

First thing we saw as we stepped aboard.... sort of impressive

Our view of Charleston from the stateroom

Charleston

Ravenel Bridge over the Cooper River

Waterfront Park in Charleston

See ya later Chucktown

Sullivan's Island Lighthouse

Bye

Pilot boat alongside

I'm not sure what this is supposed to be

“Fun” Day at Sea Day 2

Generally I enjoy sea days, I like being aboard a ship, it’s my favorite part of cruising. Unfortunately the Fantasy has limited venues and entertainment for sea days. The weather was pretty crummy too... cloudy and windy but we hung out on the aft part of the lido deck regardless. This was also elegant night… but was far from elegant. My buddy and I wore nice suits and the girls wore some dressy dresses but we saw everything from shorts and T Shirts to sports jerseys to dress military uniforms…nothing was enforced at all. No biggie, I don’t care either way. This was also lobster night. Frozen, imported rock lobster tails…nothing special. Went to The Brits show and won a Carnival medal…the show was ok…again nothing to write home about. We also went to the late night comedy show and saw CJ…he was hilarious, definitely a highlight of the cruise. Cleopatra’s piano bar sing along was also a favorite spot. I liked the casino bar and the disco but it allowed smoking so we mostly hung out at the Forum Bar aft on the promenade deck. This was also the only day I got to 15 drinks with the Cheers program.

Carnival Water Works

Our view from the Water Works

Main Pool Area, the pool was really nice and water was warm considering. Only thing it was kind of small for the amount of people.

FANTASY

That's all for tonight I'll try to finish tomorrow.

loving the pictures, We will be on Fantasy in 2 weeks for our first cruise.

Good, down-to-earth review. Looking forward to more!

Sent from my LG-L38C using Forums mobile app

Nassau, Bahamas Day 3

Nassau is a really nice port; it’s the original and sort of quintessential cruise ship port. Most ships stop there on eastern itineraries, so I’ve been there many times. I won’t go into much detail but the shopping is pretty good, I like walking around and checking in the shops. The rum distillery tour is good too. The day we were there it was cloudy, windy and rainy. I didn’t get too far into the port before I decided I had enough. One thing I dislike about Nassau is how you absolutely have to walk through the straw market before you can get into Nassau. Drives me nuts. We went back to the ship and lounged around on an almost empty Fantasy, it was nice. There were 5 ships in port with us that day including the Carnival Breeze, the Breeze looked really nice. I definitely had cruise ship envy.

The Carnival Sensation was really late pulling into Nassau that morning but it was really neat to watch her back into the dock.

The Fantasy looked sort of large from this angle.

Until we saw the Carnival Breeze.....

That last vestige of colonial charm

The Disney Dream looked really cool. I've never taken a Disney cruise but my gf has and she enjoyed it.

The Norwegian Pearl, looked like a typical NCL ship. I've never been on the Pearl but I've always found NCL to be ok.

Leaving cruise ship row!

Hanging out at our usual spot

The Carnival Breeze passing us out of our window.

Freeport, Bahamas Day 4

This was actually my first time at Freeport so I was kind of excited to see a new port! I was sort of intrigued that we docked at a commercial port. It was cool to see the dry docks in the distance and the container ships loading and unloading. We had been given some advice from another couple we met to check out the Grand Lucayan resort and get a day pass. So that’s exactly what we did. It was about a 30 min cab ride into the Lucaya area it was $5 per person each way so for the two of us it cost $20. The Grand Lucayan day pass was $15 per person with complete access to the resort including the pools and beach oh and free Wi-Fi, which was nice. The sun was actually out that day and we had a great time at the beach.

The Grand Lucyan Resort

Beach Day!! The Beach at the resort was really nice, and the sun was out!

All that vitamin D!!

A flower that my gf took a picture of. It's kinda cool.

The Conch Fritter stand, we sampled some fritters and local ginger root drink it was really tasty.

The Fantasy at the small little market at the dock area in Freeport.

“Fun” Day at Sea Day 5

This was by far the best day of the cruise, slept in then headed down to the Sea Day Brunch. Food was horrible as always but the spicy bloody Mary was excellent. We then headed up to the Water Works area with the other couple we were traveling with and basically spent the day back there. It was awesome, the sun was out, it was warm, and the sea was like glass. I took advantage of the Cheers program that day and enjoyed the slides. Dinner that night was good; I had the Indian vegetarian dish and the cheese plate for dessert. I like the cheese and fruit plates. I was disappointed in the lack on organized entertainment that night we just sat at our normal bar and met new people and enjoyed each other’s company.

I didn't take many photos on the last sea day since I was taking advantage of the Cheers program.

Here is my better half at the top of the slide.

My buddy also enjoyed the slide that day too since the sun was actually out.

The Lido deck at night

Debarkation

This was where the terminal at Charleston shows it’s not really set up for cruising. We were in zone 2 but got off the boat with our friends in zone 14. It took over an hour to get off, get our bags and get through customs. It was not a bad experience just tedious and with larger ships at other ports the whole process is a lot faster. As we were getting off we saw new passengers start to arrive already!

The nicest harbor we pulled into all week!

Beautiful Charleston!!

Overall

I was really disappointed in the cruise and with Carnival in general, I think after this experience I’m done giving Carnival a chance. People love Carnival; they wouldn’t be one of the largest cruise lines in the world if people didn’t. I don’t and I wouldn’t recommend the line to anyone. I did have a good time because I got to spend the quality time with my gf, our friends and got to meet new people.

So sorry you had such a bad cruise.

I sailed on the Fantasy in 2010 and am booked to sail on her again in 2014.

It was our first carnival cruise after sailing numerous times on NCL, and also RC and Celebrity.

We have sailed on one other Carnival ship since 2010 (in 2012)

We have sailed on small ships like the Fantasy, as well as the biggest in the cruising industry.

I honestly can't say I have any complaints about our Fantasy experience.

I thought the food was really good.

Of course I thought some things were better than others, but nothing was bad.

Anyway, hope your next cruise is better- and I'm still looking forward to mine on the Fantasy next year :)

I appreciate the forthright review; I'm sorry you didn't have a better time. I board Fantasy two weeks from today (same itinerary), and this will be my first Carnival cruise. Hoping our sailing is a better experience! :eek:

Caro

wow! sorry you had a bad cruise! going on the Fantasy in December for my 11th Carnival cruise and haven't had a bad one yet! I think I just like being on a ship :D

hope you enjoy your next one better

also, you said the piano bar was good? who was the piano player? was it a good crowd in there?

thanks

My husband and I was sailing on the Carnival Breeze the day you where at Bahama. The weather was not great at all that day. We still were able to do some shopping. My husband noticed your ship at port. That ship was his first cruise with his family. He has now 9 cruises. Would like to try to get his 10th cruise in before the end of year. Enjoyed seeing your pictures of the ships at port.

Sorry you did not enjoy your cruise - we actually love the Fantasy and have never experienced any of the negative things you did. Except maybe the people on the Serenity Deck but I just tune them out.

Thanks for posting the pictures, they made me homesick to cruise the Fantasy again!

Kim

Sorry you had such a crappy cruise, and Carnival left a bad taste in your mouth, but you DID cruise on their oldest ship, and apparently had crappy weather. You really should try cruising on one of their newer ships, and THEN give your opinion. If you had been on the Oasis or the Allure and then the Fantasy, well yeah, it's gonna SUCK!!!! I don't think it was a fair comparison. Happy sailing!!!!:D:D:D

Wow, sail the Fantasy twice, once out of New Orleans and exactly last year out of Charleston. The first cruise, ship ,crew, food the overall experience was great. Out of Charleston I put it as a learning experience. Ship, crew, food same as always. Weather well hurricane Sandy had something to do with that. Miss a port, back early had to stay overnight on the ship before we could get off ship. People complaining. Lesson learned , don’t sail during hurricane season. NCT I remember you, we sail together on that trip. Sorry you had such a bad time at least no hurricane. :D

also, you said the piano bar was good? who was the piano player? was it a good crowd in there?

thanks

I don't remember the piano players name. It was a good crowd a really nice mix. We had a blast singing along every night.

Sorry you had such a crappy cruise, and Carnival left a bad taste in your mouth, but you DID cruise on their oldest ship, and apparently had crappy weather. You really should try cruising on one of their newer ships, and THEN give your opinion. If you had been on the Oasis or the Allure and then the Fantasy, well yeah, it's gonna SUCK!!!! I don't think it was a fair comparison. Happy sailing!!!!:D:D:D

I didn't compare this trip to the Allure or any ship in general. It was just my overall impressions of my trip. I've sailed on Majesty with RCCL and and now retired Norwegian Sea.. I've been on a wide variety of ships from the SS Norway to the Allure. I've been on larger Carnival ships as well. My previous cruise on Carnival was on the Destiny.... and it wasn't great either which is why I chose not to sail Carnival for a few years. I gave them a shot again and was disappointed again...maybe in another few years.

Also, wow. We sailed Fantasy Oct 18-23, disembarking the day OP embarked, and had a fantastic time. We were in cabin U159, right next door to OP's cabin, and our steward Imade (undoubtedly OP's steward) was there every time we opened the door, knew us all by name (even those in our party who weren't in his cabins), was always so helpful and nice, telling me when I had just missed someone ("oh, Mr. Steve just left for Lido to eat lunch.") The entire crew went out of their way to make sure they took care of everyone. The food was delicious, the most tender prime rib and sweetest lobster I have ever had, not to mention the shrimp, fruit, desserts, omelette station (yum), pancakes, steak (filet mignon) and eggs, hot dogs, rotisserie, and the sandwiches...oh, the sandwiches. I just can't think of anything bad I had to eat. All the shows were great. In fact, I can't think of anything to complain about regarding the ship, food or service. There was no painting or carpeting or smells from either. When we were choosing a sail date, we were between 10/18 and 10/23. Sure am glad we chose 10/18 because things must have really gone downhill quickly the day we left her.

great review and pictures, thanks for for taking the time to share. We will be on the Fantasy next week, and I expect to have a great experience.:rolleyes:

Also, wow. We sailed Fantasy Oct 18-23, disembarking the day OP embarked, and had a fantastic time. We were in cabin U159, right next door to OP's cabin, and our steward Imade (undoubtedly OP's steward) was there every time we opened the door, knew us all by name (even those in our party who weren't in his cabins), was always so helpful and nice, telling me when I had just missed someone ("oh, Mr. Steve just left for Lido to eat lunch.") The entire crew went out of their way to make sure they took care of everyone. The food was delicious, the most tender prime rib and sweetest lobster I have ever had, not to mention the shrimp, fruit, desserts, omelette station (yum), pancakes, steak (filet mignon) and eggs, hot dogs, rotisserie, and the sandwiches...oh, the sandwiches. I just can't think of anything bad I had to eat. All the shows were great. In fact, I can't think of anything to complain about regarding the ship, food or service. There was no painting or carpeting or smells from either. When we were choosing a sail date, we were between 10/18 and 10/23. Sure am glad we chose 10/18 because things must have really gone downhill quickly the day we left her.

I don't remember the piano players name. It was a good crowd a really nice mix. We had a blast singing along every night.

thanks! we usually hang out there on the cruise

great review and pictures, thanks for for taking the time to share. We will be on the Fantasy next week, and I expect to have a great experience.:rolleyes:

and I expect a review with pictures!!! :D (please:o)

I expect a review with pictures!!! :D (please:o)

What? ;)