Splendor 4 Day Bahamas Review

I love reading other people's cruise reviews while waiting for my next cruise to begin. It makes the time between cruises go by a little quicker. I have written five cruise reviews prior to this but sadly I used Photobucket and most of the pictures are unavailable now. If you still want to read them you can do so by clicking the links below:

Sensation (photos still work, did not use PB)

Sunshine (no photos)

Sunshine Part II. (no photos)

Liberty (no photos) and Splendor (photos toward the end) Side to Side

Splendor II

A couple disclaimers, I LOVE cruising and always have a good time. But I like to be honest in my review. Everything is not perfect on a cruise and I do intend to include the bad with the good. Just because I complain, does not mean I did not have a great time.

Also, I may not hit on everything that interests you as a cruiser. I would say from reading many reviews that my cruise style is different from the norm, and that is okay. Please feel free to ask questions though about something I do not cover and I will do my best to answer anything that you would like to know about.

This is my third cruise in a row on the Splendor. As a result, I may not be as detailed as usual because I feel like I have said everything I can about the Splendor. I am so glad to hear Splendor will not be transferred out of the Carnival fleet now and I may have gone a little bit overboard booking her again and again thinking she was leaving. Obviously I love this ship ;p

About Me:

I am 29 years old and am lucky enough to live in Florida so taking cruises is more affordable and easier to do than for many people. This was my 13th cruise, my 11th with Carnival and my fourth time on the Splendor.

So before I jump in with the review, I am going to get up on my soapbox for a moment. If that sort of thing does not interest you, please feel free to skip to the second post where I have climbed off of my soap box :)

First of all, context is important in any conversation. If someone were on a forum hosted by The Weather Channel, or the Red Cross or something similar, it would be inappropriate to make comments about being concerned about your cruise vacation while so much devastation is happening in the islands and in Florida and Texas. These same comments on a forum whose main topic is cruising, or a Facebook page of a man who is the spokesman for a major cruise line are not out of place. Of course we are all concerned about the lives and livelihood of all the impacted by these storms.

I will make some comments as I go about how my cruise was impacted by the storm as my cruise experience is the main topic of this thread. I am not sure why that needs to be said, but since it does - there I said it lol.

The second thing I feel I need to say is that Carnival really dropped the ball on this one. Everyone is entitled to their opinion so I won't argue with anyone who disagrees with me, and I hope that the same courtesy will be given to me. I won't change your opinion no matter what I say, and you will not change mine.

I do understand that Carnival is in a tough position in situations like these. If they cancel or reroute too soon and things blow over, someone is going to be mad that their trip was modified for nothing.

I have lived in Florida my entire life and know all to well that hurricanes are unpredictable. Unpredictable in the sense that nobody really knows EXACTLY where a hurricane will hit until it actually hits. They are predictable enough, however, to know several days out, that it is going to come close enough to a city that it is going to be uninhabitable until the storm passes. Predictable enough to know that it will not blow through and then two days later a city is ready for cruise passengers.

Did Carnival say "well the storm could hit somewhere in the eastern Caribbean five days from now, let's wait and see what happens before we do the western Caribbean"? No, they understood the conditions would not be pleasant even if they avoided a direct hit and not to gamble with their property (their ships) and took no time at all to divert to the Western Caribbean. Your safety and property? They had no problem gambling with - come to Miami under a mandatory evacuation for your cruise or we will not give you a refund but rather a future cruise credit. Low.

On the plus side, I really had no doubt that as long as I made it safely through the storm and the port was open, my cruise would go on as planned - Carnival wanted my money.

Finally, one last thing to get off my chest before I begin what you all came here to read, insurance. Everyone understands that an insurance company is a business right? Insurance companies are very profitable. A company makes money by selling a good or providing a service at a price higher than it costed to produce their product or provide their service. Therefore, a customer of an insurance company is paying more to the insurance company than it costs an insurer to provide insurance.

Everyone's situation is unique and I would never attempt to dissuade anyone from purchasing insurance if they cannot afford to eat the loss of a missed trip - but do realize you are paying more over the long run for insurance just in smaller more manageable amounts. To try and shut down a conversation on what Carnival did by saying "you should have had insurance" is a pretty crappy mentality to have. I cannot wait for this all to pass, because frankly, the conversation on this board and other forums with similar themes, has been pretty disheartening lately.

I don't follow other cruise lines so I don't know how they handled things. Maybe this was standard, maybe it was only Carnival. Either way it does not really change my opinion of the cruise line because I understand full well that they are a business. I will go and have a good time, and will continue to book many more cruises with them. I am looking at other lines, but it has nothing to do with this so much as just wanting to try out what other products are out there.

End of rant - off my soapbox now. Let's get on with the review shall we!

I am cruising this time with my good friend and frequent cruise buddy, M. She is the one who got me into cruising and she used to cruise quite frequently. She was starting to get burnt out on cruising and this was her first cruise since our trip in February on the Sunshine.

This was a premier getaway cruise which is a special event they hold in the casino for invited guests who spend too much time and money in the casino. This was M's first time being invited (even though she spends more money than me, table player's don't get rated fairly) and the dates were near her birthday so we chose this cruise without much care about where it was going (the Bahamas) or that it was a ship we had both sailed on before. Later a cruise popped in that was on her birthday that we would have preferred but this one was already locked in. As it turned out, that other cruise ending up being the Victory cruise that got extended for an extra week. O how nice would that have been?

The days leading up to the cruise were not nearly as exciting as they should have been. This was due to the anxiety caused by just not knowing if we would be able to cruise. We both live in Florida and were not sure how bad the damage to our homes would be not to mention Port Everglades. At one point (one of the last projections) the eye of the storm was projected to go directly over my house. That is not a pleasant feeling, especially when you did not evacuate.

The worst of the storm passed through my area at night while I was asleep. In the morning there was limbs down everywhere and I had no power. This was Monday morning with a cruise scheduled Thursday to return on Monday. That following Monday I still had no power. That aside, I fared very very well. During last year's hurricane, a tree totaled my car.

M lives in South Florida which took a bigger hit than I did. Overall she also fared well with some minor damage to her home and tree limbs everywhere.

Now the question was how soon could the port reopen? We both were committed to going on this trip no matter what, within reason. Since we both made it through the storm the trip was a go as long as Port Everglades was open for business.

The port opened back on Tuesday and things were a go for our cruise! There was some question if we would still go to the Bahamas. I did not think Nassau was hit very hard and did not really hear much about Half Moon Cay but the ship's next registered destination was Grand Turk. This was before we knew how hard it was hit, and thought maybe we were going their instead to drop off relief supplies. In the end it was all speculation, and we sailed our original itinerary. I am good no matter where we go, just get me on the ship. And if you want to leave me "stranded" on board for an extra few days, well that is just fine too :))

The plan was to head down south to M's on Wednesday after work. With no power I had trouble sleeping Tuesday in the Florida heat so the idea of working and then driving for 3.5 hours was not appealing. Add to that I kept hearing horror stories about how bad traffic was with everyone returning to the state, and I decided to play hookie (why does spell check not know what hookie is, but knows nookie?) and drive out that morning instead. I called to have PTO time put in to cover the hours I would miss - somehow it got put in as Disaster Pay. I won't be correcting that mistake lol.

The drive down was pretty smooth. Their was a bit of a backlog to get onto I-95 but after that it was a normal drive all the way down to M's house. I think most of the traffic issues ended up being on I-75. Finished out the day enjoying M's nice air conditioned house and tomorrow was cruise day!

Day 1: Embarkation

M still had to work this morning (boo) but only a half day. Once she was done with that we made our way down to Ft.Lauderdale. M had booked parking with Hilton which left me a little nervous as I had heard many hotels were closed still. We arrived to this.

We never received any notification of this change. I will try to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one since there were some extenuating circumstances, but this was pretty annoying. We made our way to the other address and things were pretty smooth. Except that our parking did not include a shuttle to the port. That was an additional $10pp each way. I may have to take over parking duties from M in the future lol. We paid going, but used Uber to get back, it was much cheaper. The folks at the Hilton were super nice and helpful, but price wise there are better alternatives that I would use in the future.

Once we got everything situated we were on our way to Port Everglades for our cruise. Our premier invite got us priority boarding. The line was pretty long, nothing crazy but long enough that it was very nice to be able to bypass it. I could feel the stares as I walked past everyone. One lady flagged down an employee and asked why we were allowed to use that line "I thought it was only for disabled people" She told them we had priority boarding but that did not make her happy. Don't be a hater, I had to wait in the same line at guest services this was as far as my priority got me lol.

I heard later that the rooms were ready early, but it was 1:30 by the time we got on due to our parking situation so we headed down to our room on Riviera Deck.

We had stateroom 1276 located on the Riviera Deck. I loved being on Lido deck on the last cruise, but for the price being down at the bottom of the ship is fine by me.

We had some goodies waiting for us upon our arrival.

M preordered two cases of water and a bottle of Skyy for the room in the white bag.

Inside the black bag were some goodies sent from the casino.

It contained a mouse pad with the Players Club logo on it.

A charging station for Android devices.

Not pictured was a schedule of events for the week and the most important item, our drink cards for the casino.

We both carried on all our luggage so we got settled in and then it was up to lido for some lunch. We went to the BBQ place located right above the lido buffet.

My lunch.

For some reason I usually skip breakfast on embarkation day, one less thing to do so by the time I eat I am starving. This really hit the spot, M was less impressed. She also got a burrito from the burrito bar and said it was pretty bad. I think there were still some supply issues as she said everything tasted old like it was being reused. They did not have sour cream either, but they would for the rest of the trip. I was so hungry I did not notice it lol.

As I mentioned I have sailed this ship four times and in fact this is my third cruise in a row on the Splendor. The best thing about this is knowing so many of the crew and having them remember you. I am not sure how they do it. I saw Rica who was my waiter several nights on the last cruise and who I met in Lido two cruises ago. She is such a sweet person and I hope to see her again someday in the future.

She seemed a bit worried though. I asked her if she was still working YTD and she said she was in assigned dining now. But she was not sure she would be working because there were over 1000 people who cancelled. She seemed very nervous about the prospect of not working. I missed work and received disaster pay, if she misses work she cannot support her family back home. We all heard Carnival took care of the crew on the extended sailings, but what about the "ghost ships" where there was not a need for the full crew to work?

It worked itself out on this sailing, we still sailed full because locals were offered free cruises just pay the port fees. We did inquire about the possibility of upgrades and were met with the standard reply of "our ships sail full". Really?

With full bellies we took some time walking around the ship and eventually made it to the library to play some board games. Unfortunately other people did not respect the board games and there was literally only one board game that was still playable.

Board games were a bust, so we hung out in the room until muster. After muster it was almost time for the Premier cocktail party being held in the El Morocco lounge (the comedy club).

This is a fun little gathering. There is a guitar player playing some songs (including The Gambler by Kenny Rogers)and some small bites are served.

Also served is free drinks. I'm not a big drinker. In fact the only time I drink is on vacation. I tried to pace myself as much as possible, but they are only free for a short time. Okay, they are still free in the casino, but you never know how good the bar service is going to be (ended up being excellent). I also brought my Player's Club logo cup and filled it up (small mug - the size of one drink). Anyway, because I tried to pace myself, I was not stupid drunk, but I was still drunk enough that the rest of the night is a bit fuzzy....At 5PM...Don't judge me it's vacation.

I made a pit stop to the room for some reason or another, and that is when I met my room steward Jesus. I don't remember with great detail how the comfort matters card was presented to me, but I asked for both service and received it with no problem. I told him if the snoozing sign was out, just evening service would be fine. We did sleep in that late one day this week.

We also got a towel animal from him tonight, which has not happened on the first night the last couple cruises.

I'm not really sure why I took these next two photos, blame it on the Funship specials. M had a craving for red sour patch kids. She bought $1 worth and it lasted her the whole cruise.

And the next one is a random shot of random people enjoying the entertainment in the lobby. Hello random people.

I spent some time in the casino this evening, of course. I busted out pretty early on my last cruise so I was playing fairly conservatively to try and make my budget last. I came on with a fairly small budget as it was. There was a bar waiter who remembered me, sadly I don't remember him. I only bought one drink last cruise, and it wasn't from him so that is pretty cool he remembered seeing me even though he never waited on me. I also ran into Sue the slot attendant. She asked about my mom. Many people who remembered me asked where my mom was, she made quite the impression on them!

After some playing time, we headed off to dinner. I asked for Francisco, probably the only person to request a waiter on the first night.

Tonight's dinner menu.

Tonight's feast helped to sober me up a bit, but I was feeling pretty good still at this point, and honestly don't remember the finer details of tonight's dinner. I feel pretty confident that I enjoyed everything I ate because I have ordered them all before except one item.

For my starter I had the chilled Vietnamese roll.

For my entree I tried the honey glazed pork loin, M could not let me get the picture before her fork was photobombing!

I seem to recall really liking this but it could have been the drunk munchies talking, I will just have to try it again next time to confirm lol.

I also had the vegetable lasagna, always a favorite.

Enjoying your review and the nice photos. Following along.

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Dessert menu.

For dessert I had the chilled strawberry parfait and the nutella tiramisu.

The tiramisu is my favorite dessert of all! The parfait is sugar free, but still very very good.

Dinner was all good and we were in and out in just over one hour. We ate toward the end of dinner service and that always helps ensure quick service.

After dinner we returned to the casino. We played for a couple more hours but we were both having pretty rotten luck. I will say that for one us, our luck was about to change. The other, not so much.

Once we got tired of losing our money we went to the nightclub for a while. Strictly people watching and drinking, not enough booze on this ship to get me on the dance floor lol.

We wrapped up the night with a late night run for some pizza. The line is always long and slow moving, but there were two people working and I have certainly waited in much longer lines before for the pizza. I brought it back to the room and we devoured it while watching some random show on the TV. We turned in around 2 exhausted from our first fun filled day on the Splendor. Tomorrow would be a fun day at sea.

Enjoying your review and the nice photos. Following along.

 

 

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Thanks, glad your enjoying it!

We also love the Splendor and we are glad she will be coming back to Long Beach.

Thank you. Really enjoying this. Going on Splendor in January so following with great interest. Great to see the menus. Making my mouth water.:)

Great start of your review, thanks!

Great review and pictures so far, thank you!

Thanks for the review, will be going on her on October 22nd.

LOVE your reviews. . Thanks for sharing.

thank you for the review and photos. I liked Splendor a lot. It is a ship that I would be happy to sail on again and again. Glad she is staying with Carnival. :)

We also love the Splendor and we are glad she will be coming back to Long Beach.

Enjoy her, east coast will miss her!

Thank you. Really enjoying this. Going on Splendor in January so following with great interest. Great to see the menus. Making my mouth water.:)

You are very welcome, glad your enjoying. I love menu and food pics, and even they I have already seen them, they still make my mouth water too :D

Great start of your review, thanks!

Thank you for following along.

Great review and pictures so far, thank you!

Thanks, glad you are enjoying it.

Thanks for the review, will be going on her on October 22nd.

You're very welcome. Not too much longer now until it will be your turn :)

LOVE your reviews. . Thanks for sharing.

Glad to hear! So bummed my earlier reviews no longer have working pictures. Glad to see you again.

thank you for the review and photos. I liked Splendor a lot. It is a ship that I would be happy to sail on again and again. Glad she is staying with Carnival. :)

You and me both! She is such a unique ship in the Carnival fleet while still being similar enough to the Conquest class to feel like home. I probably won't get the chance to sail on her again for a while, but at least I know there is a chance again someday.

Ship Tour:

If you have read my last review, then you have already seen the ship tour. I am recycling the photos I used last time. If you haven't read it, well why not lol? Anyway here is a deck by deck tour of the Splendor.

We start out on Deck 1. It's all guest cabins on this deck.

Deck 2 is also guest cabins.

Deck 3 all the way forward is the first level of the Spectacular Spectacular Lounge. This is where the production shows and main evening entertainment events are held

Excursion Desk.

Lots of nice sitting areas throughout the atrium.

My favorite outside spot, a very quiet deck just outside the main atrium area. Best place to sit if you have to wait to be seated for YTD. Camera got a little foggy leaving the nice AC for the Caribbean sun.

Another outside area just outside the atrium on the other side, this side is for smoking.

Guest Services.

The Black Pearl Restaurant. Lower level is for YTD.

You cannot walk from one end of Deck 3 to the other, you must go up a flight of stairs and back down to do so. A typical stair/elevator lobby. Learn to love pink.

At the far end of Decks 3-4 is the White Pearl, the other MDR. This one is used for Breakfast, Brunch, and assigned dining. The fire doors were closed so I did not take a picture. Somehow I still forgot to come back and get a picture this cruise.

Up on deck 4, looking forward from the dining room, is the Robusto Bar. This is an out of the way quiet place to sit since not many people find it.

The Board Room. This is a conference room and was being used for crew training seminars while I was touring.

If you find yourself unsure how to get around, these are located at all the elevator banks.

Upper level of the Black Pearl MDR. Used for assigned dining.

Circle C, kids club for 12-14 year olds.

Photo gallery. These walls are filled with all the pictures the ships photographers take.

The Alexandria Library. It was full of people so couldn't get any inside shots. Needs new board games.

The next two are the two upper levels of the theater.

Leaving the theater on Deck 5 continuing aft we head towards the fun shops.