LandIgal Posted May 13, 2005 #1 Share Posted May 13, 2005 It has been said in past reviews “the ship caters to the masses of unseasoned travelers”; I am 26 and have been to 7 foreign countries. I would consider myself a season traveler, even at a young age. My grandmother worked for the Foreign Service and I have had the luxury of taking my best friend and spending summers overseas. My group consisted of 13 people: me, my husband, my mom, two of my co-workers and their families. Our ages range from 60’s to preteen. I want to say I had a great vacation. Yes there were positives and negatives, but I would recommend this cruise to anyone! We arranged for a charter bus, which departed from Hamburg, PA around 10:45 A.M. We arrived in NYC around 1 P.M. So I have no information about the traffic, parking, or cost. The porter’s cost was $2/per person, not bag. What a deal! Embarkation: I have heard horror storied about embarking in NY. It is an annoying process but not unbearable. First, there is NO place to sit; I don’t think I even saw a chair. The embarkation staff kept handing us paperwork that needed to be filled out before we registered. Make sure you have a pen and a friend or family member’s back to write on! Total process was approximately 45 minuets. Ship and Stateroom: The ship just came off of dry dock and was in wonderful condition. Very clean and fresh! The décor is a bit over the top but who wants something bland? I stare at blah walls everyday at work; it was refreshing to have something to look at. We had an 8A balcony stateroom (4224). What a wonderful room. I read lots of complaints about the orange colored staterooms. Every hotel I have been in was burgundy, brown, pink, or blue. I thought the orange was wonderful, I never felt like I was in a stuffy hotel room. The room fit me, my husband, my mom, all our clothes, luggage and we still had storage room. Kudos to carnival!! The cabin steward (I am so disappointed that I forgot his name) cleared out our refrigerator and we filled it up with our own soda and water. He also brought us a third chair for the balcony. The regular sized balcony was big enough for the small square table and the three chairs. I was in the extended balcony stateroom and a few suites. I do not think the extended balcony would have been worth the extra money. The suites were hit or miss. One suite had a chopped up stateroom but an enormous balcony, the other, had a wonderful stateroom but the same size balcony as an 8A. I would spend the extra money for a triple or quad suite because there seems to be more privacy; however, I would not spend that kind of money for just my husband and me. Dining Options: There are 3: Unicorn café, Truffles, and Golden Fleece. Unicorn café is a buffet. You should expect the same food you are served at any other buffet. The food was always hot for hot and cold for cold. I think they had some of the best pastrami and assorted lunchmeats. I usually ate there for breakfast or lunch. Truffles: We never ate there for breakfast or lunch but never missed a dinner. The food was fantastic but do not get on this ship and expect 5 star cuisines. It just is not going to happen. Desserts were fantastic. I do not understand what all the fuss is over the flourless chocolate cake. Least favorite dessert by far. Very friendly wait staff. I adored our server and assistant. The maitre D needs to do something about the dancing and singing the staff has to do. PLEASE stop making the staff run around. They look foolish. You could see in the embarrassment on the staff’s faces. Though the final song was quite cute. Here is my one and only comparison: I think RCCL used less staff in the dinning room and was more efficient! I barely ever got a refill on my water or iced tea. After being in the sun and saltwater, I need some fresh water! Golden Fleece: Why? The dinning room was fantastic! I wasn’t going to pay $25 for refills on water! I have heard it is worth the $$ but just not for me! Sea Days: I don’t mind kids but they were everywhere. They filled the hot tubs and pools everyday! No biggie! Carnival offers an adult only area with a hot tub and pool. We stayed there most of the time. Swam, ate, and played domino’s. I donated a few bucks to the casino. Slots were fun, no money but lots of play. This was the first cruise the casino had a poker room. I played in the poker room for about 3 hours total and the staff made so many errors; I would have to use my toes to count them all. The staff is clueless about poker room rules and so were the people playing. Very unprofessional! Oh well, nothings perfect! San Juan: Boring Boring Boring! We got off the ship to walk around, got bored, hired a tour guide, drove around new and old San Juan, got bored. I think you get the point! Please remember, this is just my perspective, some people loved it! St. Thomas: Booked privately with Sunny Liston. He was a good tour guide. Went shopping for 3 hours. What a waste. I could have handled an hour and a half. The entire shopping area was jewelry, liquor and cigarettes. I did buy a pretty sapphire and diamond ring. After shopping we toured the island. Went to the mountaintop and had a famous banana daiquiri. The banana daiquiri was pretty good but not worth $8. Finally we spent 2 hours swimming at Sapphire beach. Fantastic! Tortola: I can’t say too much about the island because all we had time for was the dolphin swim. I do not recommend this tour. The staff and dolphins do not perform half the stuff they advertise and the staff is beyond rude. So bad, that Carnival refunded for half the cost. I would elaborate more but I do not want get upset, mad, and ruin this review for the people reading it! Other staff and customer service: I have already told you that my cabin steward and dining room staff was great. So this section is for the rest. The casino staff was adequate. The casino could have gotten a few more bucks out of me is the staff was more informative and friendly. The only major problem I had was when a mistake was made in the poker room and the staff and managers made a poor decision. I play quite a bit of Poker in Atlantic City and what happened on the ship would have never happened in a casino. The photo staff was RUDE, RUDE, RUDE! Room service wasn’t rude but not overly nice. We were hung up on about 7 times and our order was never correct. Purser’s staff was very good! I applaud them. They always had a smile on their face and never once showed their annoyance. There were times I was getting annoyed at people for treating them so harshly but the kept their composure. Overall: If I had to rate this cruise on a scale from 1 to 10. I would rate it an 8. Yes, we had some problems but doesn’t everything? Carnival tried their hardest to correct the negative situations and I hope they work on the photo, room service, and casino staff. I would recommend this ship to anyone! Hope you enjoy my review! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrPete Posted May 13, 2005 #2 Share Posted May 13, 2005 Just in time. I'm leaving in 20 minutes for the pier! :eek: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2boyzmom Posted May 13, 2005 #3 Share Posted May 13, 2005 Thanks for the review. I depart in a week and found your review helpful! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
afcgirl Posted May 13, 2005 #4 Share Posted May 13, 2005 Thanks for the review! Very informative. Hope we get some reviews from this last week's sailing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandIgal Posted May 13, 2005 Author #5 Share Posted May 13, 2005 You are welcome. I am happy you found it informative. If anyone has any questions to post, don't hesitate to ask. I will try to keep up with this post for the next few days! BTW, the water slide was closed and will be for a while. I don't think the staff even knows the truth behind the slides being closed!:( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2boyzmom Posted May 14, 2005 #6 Share Posted May 14, 2005 How warm is Tortola and st.thomas this time of year? Humid? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruisingator2 Posted May 14, 2005 #7 Share Posted May 14, 2005 Thanks for the review. I was on the Legend back in 2002 for her first sailing out of Ft. Lauderdale to the southern Caribbean. Nice ship. Glad that you enjoyed yourself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joanportia Posted May 14, 2005 #8 Share Posted May 14, 2005 Thanks for your refreshing review. Nice approach about the appeal of orange rooms!!!! Could you say why you liked Sapphire Beach so much??? And was Tortola your scheduled stop rather than St Martin? I'll be doing the Eastern Carib in Oct on the Victory. So your insight is helpful! Thanks Joan Sail on............. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jean0151 Posted May 15, 2005 #9 Share Posted May 15, 2005 Hi I also noticted you are from fort salonga. I grew up in kings park and now live in riverhead. Maybe we'll bump into each other. Just once again, disappointed about the water slide and just hoping for some kids to be on board. Jean Thanks for the review. I depart in a week and found your review helpful! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2boyzmom Posted May 15, 2005 #10 Share Posted May 15, 2005 Jean0151- will you be cruising 5/21? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandIgal Posted May 16, 2005 Author #11 Share Posted May 16, 2005 How warm is Tortola and st.thomas this time of year? Humid? It ranged from 85-92 degree's and was not humid at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandIgal Posted May 16, 2005 Author #12 Share Posted May 16, 2005 Thanks for your refreshing review. Nice approach about the appeal of orange rooms!!!! Could you say why you liked Sapphire Beach so much??? And was Tortola your scheduled stop rather than St Martin? I'll be doing the Eastern Carib in Oct on the Victory. So your insight is helpful! Thanks Joan Sail on............. Tortola was our scheuled stop and Sapphire beach was beautiful. Crystal clear water, clean beach. There was a band playing on the beach and everyone was very nice. It was a free beach too. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lrizit Posted May 17, 2005 #13 Share Posted May 17, 2005 LandIGal... Quick question for you if you have time. I know you don't want to post on the board concerning your swim with the dolphins, however; if you don't mind emailing me at some point, and sharing your opinion I'd really appreciate it. We are already booked for this trip in June, and if it's awful, $320 is a lot of money we could spend on something else. Thank you so much! Lrizit@yahoo.com :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tamhugh Posted May 17, 2005 #14 Share Posted May 17, 2005 Thanks for the review. We are on the Legend on 6/30 with my parents and two sons. We are looking forward to trying Carnival for the first time. We were torn between Sapphire Beach and Coki, but after reading your review, I think we will pick Sapphire. One question though, were you able to just walk into the water to snorkel? Tammy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandIgal Posted May 19, 2005 Author #15 Share Posted May 19, 2005 LandIGal... Quick question for you if you have time. I know you don't want to post on the board concerning your swim with the dolphins, however; if you don't mind emailing me at some point, and sharing your opinion I'd really appreciate it. We are already booked for this trip in June, and if it's awful, $320 is a lot of money we could spend on something else. Thank you so much! Lrizit@yahoo.com :) I don't mind posting about the dolphin swim, I just did not want to include too much about it in my review. We arrived and the place was a dump! Trash everywhere. Went into the orientation room and the place had no electricity. I still wonder if it was because they did not pay their bills? The orientation (which was suppose to be on video and w/o electricity....no TV) was nothing. We paid for the most expensive swim and said that they/we were only going to do the medium swim. What? I paid $159 for something I could have paid only $99 for. People became irate. I was not one of the people that became irate. I figured why fight? I will dispute it with my credit card when I get home. There response was to everyone, even the people not yelling at them was "We have your $ and we can find you transportation back to the ship". After everyone calmed down, we did the more abbreviated swim than the medium swim. Now, we lost most of our time due to people yelling. So what should have been 30-40 min was now 20 min. All we did was kiss and hold the dolphin. I did that at Sea World for the price of admission. Because they over booked, my group "D" was stuck in a rocky pond, no platform for us. They did not have enough water shoes and we were not allowed in the water w/o them. (Even with them I ended up with 2 cuts on my feet from the sharp rocks). They started the swim with 3 people still waiting for shoes. Needless to say, they missed out on the first 10 min and still did not have shoes when they finally got in the water. So they paid $159 for about 10-15 min. When it was my turn to kiss the dolphin, I did not have my balance b/c there was a huge rock behind me. I guess I was taking too long and the trainer got annoyed and literally pushed me backwards into the rock. I fell over the rock and hit my elbow. I know when you read this you are going to be shocked, TRUST me I am not over dramatizing the situation. I did talk to a couple who did the 12 PM swim and they said the liked it so who knows but everyone from the 10 AM swim received half their $ back from Carnival. Kudos to Carnival! Maybe they were having a bad morning but I will never go back there again! PS: The staff was making fun of everyone and blatantly talking about all of us. Maybe some people deserved it but still No class!:( I STILL HAD AN AWESOME VACATION AND WOULD TRAVEL WITH CARNIVAL ANYTIME!!!!!!:p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Host Kewlguy Posted May 19, 2005 #16 Share Posted May 19, 2005 Carnival Legend was by far the worst ship we have ever been on. Tacky decor. Lousy service. And I hate orange. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandIgal Posted May 19, 2005 Author #17 Share Posted May 19, 2005 Thanks for the review. We are on the Legend on 6/30 with my parents and two sons. We are looking forward to trying Carnival for the first time. We were torn between Sapphire Beach and Coki, but after reading your review, I think we will pick Sapphire. One question though, were you able to just walk into the water to snorkel? Tammy Yes you can walk right in the water and snorkle. There were little fish everywhere and a couple that was snorkling about 7 yrds further out than us saw a turtle. They were so excited!! You could rent beach chairs for $5 very comfortable or just lay on your towel.:D FYI I would not go to this beach hungry. Hot dogs (small oscar meyer size) were $6 and a hamburger was $8. You may not think that is expensive but my wallet took off running!:eek: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lrizit Posted May 19, 2005 #18 Share Posted May 19, 2005 Oh my gosh! You're right, I am shocked. I think I might reconsider that excursion.....that's horrible! Thank you so much for sharing with me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wack001 Posted May 19, 2005 #19 Share Posted May 19, 2005 Thanks good info. What about the night life, was there Karokee everynight, how about the activities on board? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandIgal Posted May 19, 2005 Author #20 Share Posted May 19, 2005 Thanks good info.What about the night life, was there Karokee everynight, how about the activities on board? I don't know too much about the night life. I love to party but this trip was for family time. My mom wakes up at 5AM so my husband and I were usually up and moving by 6AM. We were so active all day long, we never had the chance to nap. By the time the evening show was over I was crawling in bed. Sorry! I do know that they had karokee everynight in the Firebird lounge. Activities on board were OK, Fear Factor with no Fear in it. I do understand why it not like TV but then don't call it Fear Factor. Things like hairiest chest contest was more like who can make the biggest fool of themselves. We did all this stuff on my first cruise, so it seemed kind of boring the second time around. The morning Trivia/Gameshow stuff was good and the shows were good. Do not miss the Magic show with Brett Alans-the cruise director. I was good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cora Baxter Posted June 2, 2005 #21 Share Posted June 2, 2005 Thanks for being fair and not as harsh as some others. I am leaving July 8th with 3 others. I sort of calmed down thanks to your review lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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