Carnival Inspiration 02/26/11 Review: TONS of Pictures

[lonelydreamer]

Great shots and commentary-Sailing Sat Mar 12 and a great primer. Thanks for the details.

 

I'm on the Inspiration sailing March 12th too! My first cruise - and after reading this trip report, am getting very exciting! Thanks for sharing!

[navybaby1113]

Night all! I'll be back tomorrow starting with our first sea day.

 

Feel free to leave any questions and I'll answer them when I get back on tomorrow.

[tmt218]

Great review and pictures. I love the pictures of the Sunshine Bridge.

 

We sailed the Legend from Tampa and stayed at the same hotel. I'm sorry that you had a bad experence.

 

Love the food porn. Congrats on the ship on a stick. Lucky you on the Champagne and strawberries.

 

I can't wait to read more.

[nytraveller53]

NICE REVIEW SO FAR!! LOVING IT! KEEP the FOOD PICS COMING!!!:p

[navybaby1113]

Okay, I've got a kitty in my lap and I'm ready to do some more of the review.

 

The second day of our cruise was a sea day. We slept in until about 10am and then went up to the lido deck for breakfast. They didn't have that big of a selection. Standard breakfast fare. I'm a huge bacon fanatic and the two pieces they give are just not enough. The bacon police were more than willing to give you extras if you asked.

 

We went to the Fun Ashore, Fun Aboard presentation after breakfast. We got there about 15 minutes into it. Stephanie talked about different things that were happening on the ship for the week and also talked about different excursions in port. She went over how to tender in Grand Cayman. They introduced the senior officers on the ship as well.

 

 

We went to a couple trivia games throughout the morning. Didn't win any. :-(

 

Decided to do lunch at around 2:30pm. All the different stations (except for deli and grill) were set to close at 2:30pm, but were all still open to about 3pm. DH got mongolian again and I picked up a bunch of random things from different stations. They had the mac n' cheese at the rotisserie, but it didn't stand up to the heat lamps well.

 

 

 

 

Decided to go back to our room to take a nap before getting ready for formal night.

[navybaby1113]

My DH brought his Air Force dress blues to wear for formal night, so I needed to get them ironed. We were only a couple doors down from the laundrette. There was a long line to get to an iron. If you have something to iron, I would recommend doing it the first day you get on the ship instead of waiting until last minute.

 

They had the Captain's Celebration on the promenade. The senior officers were out by the coffee shop from 5-6pm and 7-8pm to meet guests. They stopped my DH to ask him about his service and we talked to them for a bit.

 

I'm not such a fan of the way the Captain's Celebration is now. It doesn't seem like as big of a deal as it used to when they had the celebration in the main lounge and actually introduced the officers.

 

After meeting the officers, we went up to the dining room for dinner. They gave us a buzzer and told us our table would be ready shortly. We stood on the balcony outside the dining room and listened to the guitarist down in the atrium.

 

The Rhapsody in Blue lounge is in a horrible place. It is a smoking lounge and you can smell the smoke all throughout the hallway near the dining room. It would really be better if they moved this to a different lounge.

 

We waited around for close to an hour before our buzzer went off. We were seated with a different wait staff than we had the night before. After we got a table the service also took forever. We went to the dining room 2 hours before the show that we wanted to see started. We ended up missing the show because we were in the dining room too long. This was the only night that I was disappointed in anytime dining.

 

For starters, I got the shrimp cocktail again and my DH got the greek farmer's salad.

 

 

For the entrees, we both got the prime rib and I also got a lobster tail. I was disappointed to see that pasta carbonara was not on the menu for tonight. It is normally one of my favorite additions to the formal night menu. I forgot to take a picture of the entrees.

 

For desserts, DH got the cherries jubilee and I got the bitter and blanc.

 

 

 

 

If you look to the left of this picture, you can see how close the tables are to each other.

 

[navybaby1113]

While we were eating dinner, one of our waiters asked my DH to come sit over next to me. The brought out a slice of the banana gateau cake with two candles in it and sang Happy Anniversary to You. It was a nice surprise.

 

 

We came back to our room and found our towel animal along with our past guest party invitations.

 

 

Since we missed the show for the night, we decided to go to the R rated comedy show. We saw Mark Hawkins and he was absolutely hilarious. Would highly recommend seeing him if he's on one of your cruises.

 

 

We went to bed after the show because we had to be up early the next day for Grand Cayman.

[gapearl]

Great review! I'm going through cruise withdrawals. Looking forward to the rest of your review. Eventually I'll get started on mine!

[navybaby1113]

The next day we were in Grand Cayman. This will probably be a huge section, so it might take me a little while. We booked the Stingray City and Rum Point excursion through Carnival.

 

We got up around 7am and went up to the lido deck for breakfast. Our tickets for our excursion were delivered to our room the first day. They said to meet in the Paris Lounge at 8:15am. Make sure you are there early because our tour and some others were called before the 8:15 meeting time. This caused a lot of confusion because people kept going up to the announcer to ask if their tour had been called yet. Carnival could definitely do better in this area.

 

When our tour was called, they walked us down to our tender. It was kind of windy out there, so the tender was rocking while we were trying to get on. The crew was great though and made sure that everyone was safe while trying to get onto the boat. The tender ride was only about 10 minutes.

 

They had the groups set up where the tenders drop you off. We stood around there for a while before our tour guide came and walked us over to the school bus that would transport us to our boat. The tour operator for this excursion was Kelly Watersports and we would highly recommend them. I would love to take another tour with this group.

 

We boarded the boat for our ride out to Stingray City. We met some fellow CC members on the excursion, which was really cool. The ride out to stingray city was about 25 minutes and it was really windy the entire way there.

 

 

 

There were plenty of other boats at Stingray City when we arrived.

 

 

They gave us a quick rundown on how to interact with the stingrays. They had snorkel gear for us to use in the water as well as food so that we could feed the stingrays.

[navybaby1113]

The staff got off the boat with us. They grabbed stingrays so that we could hold them and kiss them. If you kiss a stingray, you get 7 years good luck. They also gave us a stingray massage.

 

 

 

 

My DH was even brave enough to feed them.

 

Here are a few more pictures we took of the stingrays:

 

 

[navybaby1113]

We stayed at Stingray City for about 40 minutes. It was such a cool experience. It was windy while we were out there, so I got knocked over by a couple waves. It freaked me out because I was terrified I was going to step on a stingray. I completely understand why they close stingray city when it gets really windy.

 

After we were done there, we boarded the boat and headed over to Rum Point. It was about a 20 minute ride over there. We stayed at Rum Point about 2 hours. It was a gorgeous area. They have nice bathroom facilities as well as a restaurant and bar. The food is kind of expensive, so we decided not to get any food. It smelled delicious though!

 

I highly recommend bringing water shoes if you want to go snorkeling or spend a lot of time in the water. The beach and the water is quite rocky and I scraped my foot a couple times.

 

The next couple of posts are just going to be pictures from Rum Point:

 

 

You did not have to stay in the roped off area. You could swim out to wherever you want.

 

 

 

[Name Of The Game]

I love your review and photos. You're making me hungry!

 

You're right those don't really qualify as "tables for two".

[navybaby1113]

 

 

 

 

[navybaby1113]

I love your review and photos. You're making me hungry!

 

You're right those don't really qualify as "tables for two".

 

Thank you.

 

We did meet some really nice people while sitting at our "tables for two" though.

[Catrin]

Terrific Review so far!

 

The Inspiration was a terrific cruise for us.... almost three years ago!

 

I remember being lost on that ship the entire time!... the larger ships seem so much easier to get around!

 

Looking forward to the rest!

Catrin

[navybaby1113]

After we left Rum Point, it was a 45 minute ride back to the dock. The boat had fruit punch, lemonade, and water for us. The fruit punch was delicious!

 

We got back to the port area around 1:30pm. There was a long line to get a tender. Thankfully the line went pretty quickly. We were back on the ship a little after 2pm. I'm pretty sure we were on the second to last tender.

 

Here are a couple pictures I took from the tender:

 

 

 

 

While we were waiting to get back on the ship, the pirate ship excursion sailed past us and fired their cannon. Made everyone jump and then we were all laughing at ourselves.

[navybaby1113]

We hadn't eaten since 7:30am, so we were starving when we got back on the ship. The left the stations at the buffet open until 3:30pm today to accomodate the sailaway time.

 

The Taste of the Nations today was Caribbean. There wasn't anything on there that we were interested in. Both myself and DH got the monogolian today. I got the thai bbq and I was not a fan of it at all. I probably will not bother with the mongolian ever again. My DH loves it though.

 

 

Since I didn't eat my mongolian, I went to the rotisserie to get food. If you want white meat the rotisserie, make sure to ask for it. The automatically gave me a leg. The mashed potatoes at the rotisserie are absolutely delicious! I highly recommend that you try them.

 

 

They had tiramisu cheesecake for dessert which was really yummy!

 

 

The past guest party was at 5pm that afternoon. The Inspiration holds around 2600 passengers. They said that there were over 2000 past guests on the ship! They had a good selection of drinks at the party. The rum punch as absolutely delicious. One of the waiters kept trying to pass off screw drivers on everyone even if they didn't want one. He was quite obnoxious.

 

The appetizers they passed out were horrible. I have never seemed to like the appetizers are these parties. They should start serving buffalo wings and other tasty stuff.

 

[navybaby1113]

We were able to get a table immediately for dinner tonight. I had a horrible headache and of course that was the night we were seated next to a table that had 3 loud children.

 

My DH and I ordered the exact same thing for every course this evening.

 

For starters, we got the fried mozzarella. The marinara sauce tasted differently this time, but it was still tasty.

 

 

For the entree, we both got the jerked pork loin. My DH ordered this dish on our Dream cruise and I tasted it and loved it. I knew I wanted to order it on the Inspiration. Well, it looks and tasted completely different now. It's still good, but not something I would order again.

 

Here's the picture of the dish on the Inspiration:

 

And here's the picture of the dish on the Dream:

 

Oh and I forgot to mention that they provided baskets of bread this entire cruise. There was probably about 8 pieces of bread in each basket. It was a waste because my DH and I each ate 2 pieces each night. So there were about 4 pieces left every single night. The also have individual pats of butter instead of the ball of butter.

 

For dessert, we both ordered the tiramisu. I don't have pictures of this because we got it to go back to our rooms. I wasn't feeling up to eating in the dining room anymore.

[navybaby1113]

I went back to the room and laid down for a couple hours to try and get rid of my headache. My husband decided to go up to the lounge for trivia and the game show. He actually got on the game show again without even trying. This time they picked the people who looked most like they didn't want to be on stage. Haha! He didn't win this time around though.

 

DH came back to the room to see how I was feeling. I decided to get out of bed so that I could actually enjoy some of the night. We went up to the Showcase of Stars show. There was some very good talent, but the actual show was kind of boring. They had 5 guests up on stage and sing. It was kind of like a high school talent show.

 

Afterwards, we went to the Candlelight lounge for some adult fun. I do not have any pictures of this, but I'll just tell you about it.

 

They had Love, Sex, and Romance at 11pm. It didn't say in the Fun Times what this was, so we just went to check it out. It turned out to be a trivia type game. They had everyone come up to the dance floor and stand in the middle. Then, they asked a question and you had to go to the side of the floor with what answer you agreed with. I was down in the last 7 people, but ended up getting one wrong. Two guys were the last two up there.

 

After Love, Sex, and Romance was over, they then did the Carnival Quest. They said you had to have a group of at least 4 (two guys and two girls) and it was just the two of us, so we decided to sit back and watch. I am so glad we did! I didn't know how raunchy this show was going to be. It is great fun to watch though if you don't get offended easily. They asked the groups to find things like male contraception, thongs, etc. There was a couple girls who ended up stripping completely naked for some of the items! It was absolutely crazy, but I haven't laughed so hard in a long time.

[tspooh]

Thank you so much for posting such a great review with pictures! We sail on the Inspiration in a month and are doing the Stringray and Rum Point Beach excursion, too. Loved the pictures of Rum Point. Looks so relaxing especially the hammocks. Looking forward to the rest of the review and pictures.

 

Teresa:)

[navybaby1113]

Thank you so much for posting such a great review with pictures! We sail on the Inspiration in a month and are doing the Stringray and Rum Point Beach excursion, too. Loved the pictures of Rum Point. Looks so relaxing especially the hammocks. Looking forward to the rest of the review and pictures.

 

Teresa:)

 

Thank you. You'll absolutely love the excursion. Definitely one of my favorites.

[lonelydreamer]

Your trip report is awesome...and making me so excited! I leave in six days for the same cruise. Perfect timing!!

[navybaby1113]

Okay, on to Cozumel day.

 

Woke up at 9:45am to Stephanie making an annoucement in the cabins letting everyone know they could now see Cozumel and to tell them they could still book shore excursions. Was a little frustrated to wake up to this as I wanted to sleep and have seen us sail into Cozumel before.

 

We ate breakfast up on lido again today. This time we did it while playing trivia.

 

 

We docked in Cozumel around 11am with the Elation and two Royal Caribbean ships.

 

 

We have been to Cozumel once before, but we booked a shore excursion on the mainland. So, we have never actually seen the port of Cozumel before. We decided not to book anything this time and just walked around the port.

 

There wasn't much to do in port. There were a bunch of shops and a couple bars.

 

They are building some more shops along the dock, but they are not open yet. You can see them in the following picture.

 

[navybaby1113]

Here are some pictures from around the port area of Cozumel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[navybaby1113]

We spent about an hour in port before we got back on the ship. Lido was deserted, so we decided to take advantage and enjoy the pool area. There were only a couple people in the pool and no one in the hot tubs.

 

 

Lee, one of the entertainment staff, was supposed to do a bean bag toss at 1pm. We waited around for him to do an announcement, but he just started talking to an older couple and never did do the bean bag toss. That was frustrating that he didn't even bother. My husband overheard a conversation with Lee and some other people later in the cruise. Lee said that he used to be in the band, but he got laid off and entertainment staff was the only job available. He said he only does it because he needs the money. No wonder he didn't seem to care about his job too much.

 

We also decided to take advantage of mini golf while there was no one on the ship. We were up there for about an hour without anyone else playing.

 

 

 

My husband wanted to putt around for a little bit, so I found a nice comfy spot in the shade.