Splendor Review: July 20 (Back to Back)

[Jeffbhhs]

Well I just got home today from a back to back cruise on the Splendor. I went into the cruise with an open mind; this was my 6th and 7th Carnival cruise. Overall I had a really good time, I was able to relax for the 16 days, and however there were some major problems for me. So here goes the lengthy review!!!

 

Main Dining Room: The main dining room was excellent, I had read many complaints about this and I found none of them to be true for me. The food was always hot and properly prepared. The MDR staff was also really good, our main waiter was phenomenal, he had no problems at all. We ate during the Your Time Dining, this started at 5:45 and we had no issues getting tables, but we were always there fairly early. One piece of advice, if you have your time dining get there early. Otherwise you will have to wait in a line if you hit a popular time, there is really no good answer to when this is though... On the first cruise it was during the first hour, during the second I only saw a line at the start...

 

Lido Buffet Breakfast: The breakfast buffet on the Lido deck was decent, however if you were not up there prior to 9:00am you would hit large lines. Like many others have said the eggs are TERRIBLE, really inedible. However there is a solution to this simply go to the Omelet station and have them fry you up eggs done any way you like. They will even make you fresh scrambled eggs. The rest of the breakfast items were the same generic stuff...

 

Lido Lunch Buffet: This is my biggest problem with the entire cruise to be honest. The food in the buffet during the lunch time was simply terrible. The quality and selection was awful! The only good part was the Mongolian Wok which always had a fairly long line (Get there 5 mins prior to opening to avoid this). There were always fairly long lines everywhere else on the Lido. I would try several different items from the buffet and they were all just awful, I ended up eating sandwiches from the deli daily because of this. Out of 9 cruises this buffet was by far the worst!

Deli: The deli was always really good, but if you hit this at the wrong time expect to wait. Also they need to put some sort of a limit on the number of items you can order. I was behind some lady who ordered 9 sandwiches… this is just ridiculous, they should try to limit this to prevent other guests from waiting…

Pizza: The pizza was really good on this cruise, but the waiting was terrible. The theme of the Lido food situation is waiting. Pizza waiting could sometimes be over an hour. I am guessing the reason for the long lines is that the rest of the buffet food is so bad…

 

Punchliner Comedy Brunch: This was another low point in the food options; I ate here a few times and honestly was not impressed. The comedy portion seriously lasted less than 5 minutes. The food was also not that great. I got steak and eggs one day and the steak was terrible it was all fat... I tried to use our drink coupons (the loyalty ones) and it took 20 minutes for them to get a bar waiter...

 

 

Pinnacle Steak House: We decided to give the steakhouse a try since we have done it on every cruise and always loved it. This was the first time that I did not really enjoy it, the food was just ok. I ordered Surf and Turk and felt that the lobster was actually much better in the MDR( even though it was smaller). The filet was also just ok. The appetizer selection was fairly seafood based, and when I got my Shrimp Cocktail they were not chilled, they were on the warm side… The other people I went with felt the same way and we decided only to do this one time during the 16 days (planned on 2 times). I would not recommend it; however other passengers I spoke with enjoyed it. Maybe we just got it on a bad nigh….

Showroom Entertainment: Well besides the issue that I had the same production shows 2 weeks in a row, entertainment was alright. I hated Fiesta Latina, but enjoyed The Beat and Vroom; Vroom was my favorite of the cruise. It had really good music and was a fun show to watch. There were two different jugglers over the 16 days, I do not recall their names, but they were both ok. They also had 2 different singers, the singer on the first cruise was way better than the second; I think this is mainly because of the style of music. The Newlywed game was funny on both cruises. There were also comedians several nights of each cruise, however after I attended a show and ended up walking out. I avoided them for the rest of the cruise. I felt that the comedian was simply not funny and spent too much time laughing at his own material… The activities are very limited on this ship in my opinion (maybe this is fleet wide anymore), I really expected more. The night time activities were the worst, after the show there was really nothing to do. I tried the club and found it to be boring. The Piano bar was good, but had a strong odor of cigars, but never saw anyone smoking in there so not really sure where this odor comes from…

 

Other Entertainment and Entertainment Staff: I was pretty disappointed with this part of the cruise with the exception of the Casino. The activities were really limited, one day they had Deck Olympics on the Fun times, so I decided to head to Lido and watch, their Olympics consisted of 1 bottle of champagne and 30 beads… The participants then proceeded to throw reads at the champagne and whoever was closest would win it… That was it… I seriously stuck around for 15 minutes waiting for the next event that never came… I felt that the overall activities were very limited, besides Trivia and ridiculous bingo… The bingo costs $20 for a card of 3 games and you can only win $500… I was really shocked to see how bad this got, a few cruises ago I saw way bigger jackpots… The casino staff was really fantastic; they spent the time to learn your name and also were interesting to speak with. This turned out to be one of my favorite activities of the cruise because of the great staff. I felt that the ac

Cabins and Cabin Steward: This started off a little rocky, but quickly was turned around. My room had a few problems, like someone else’s hair in the shower and a few long hairs on my bed…. I lysoled the shower myself (so this was not the end of the world) and called and they changed the bedding. Our room steward Joner was really good; he cleaned the rooms quick and did a great job after the initial incident. He was always friendly and went out of his way to say hello and make conversation even if he was busy doing something else. Like the rest of the staff on this ship he was great.

Cruise Ports: Well we booked this cruise to have 5 different ports, Grand Turk (x2), Nassau, St. Thomas, Half Moon, and San Juan. We ended up getting Grand Turk(x2), St. Thomas(x2), and San Juan(x2). This was a major disappointment; this was changed due to the course of the tropical storm. I do not like San Juan, and found that I was not really alone with this many people I spoke with on the second cruise felt the same way and were also disappointed to sail there. This is really not Carnival’s fault so I cannot blame them here. We had really good weather in the ports because of this change of itinerary.

In conclusion I was happy with the cruise since it was fairly relaxing; I was disappointed with the lido buffets. If you go to the buffet expect to wait, wait, and wait some more. Try to get there early to avoid the large wait times. I am in the process of “planning/thinking” about the next cruise and I have to say Carnival will probably be at the back of the list. I am going to try another line with the hopes that there will be more activities and better food options.

 

Questions???

[Catrin]

Hi Jeff,

 

Just returned too!

Many many valid points here.

 

I totally agree with you about the wait for the Lido Deck offerings.

It was crazy.

 

Glad you had a great time.

My review will come shortly!

Catrin

[Jeffbhhs]

Hi Jeff,

 

Just returned too!

Many many valid points here.

 

I totally agree with you about the wait for the Lido Deck offerings.

It was crazy.

 

Glad you had a great time.

My review will come shortly!

Catrin

 

Yeah it was really bad on Lido! They need to change this...

[Jeffbhhs]

Additional thoughts I wanted to add to my review.

 

The part that I forgot to add to my original review was Embarkation in NYC (Manhattan), this was really one of the worst I have experienced for a few reasons. On July 20th when we embarked it was in the 80s outside and the port had no air conditioning........ I was simply amazed by this, everyone was sweating and complaining. There were also rather long lines to get through security and get checked in.

 

The second time I embarked for the Back to Back part, was also a bit of a problem. They ship issued us new Sail and Sign cards prior to us exiting the ship. We also had to wait for the ship to reach a zero count(meaning all passengers were off) in order to get back on the ship, this happened around 10:45-11:00am. We then were escorted through customs by a port agent. So far smooth...Then the bad, when getting back on the ship they NEVER took our picture or swiped our sail and sign cards to get back on the ship. The security officer simply looked at our sail and sign cards and said go through...So right before sail away someone walks into our room saying that our room was showing empty... This person said no problem all is fixed. After a few hours our TV was still showing that our cabin had no guests. So I decided to walk down to guest services, who ensured me there was no issue and it would eventually update... Then I go to the casino and they tell me there is no picture linked to my account... I then proceeded to go back to guest services to discuss pictures, the person there told me not a problem that when we would get off of the ship at our first port they would take our pictures....

 

Ok so I am thinking there is now a solution to our problem... NOPE... I go to play bingo and I am told that there is a message for me at guest services... I go back to guest services and I am then told that I need to come back after bingo to get our pictures taken and also get our cards swiped... So at 10:00PM we go back to guest services and have to be escorted down to deck 0 to get checked onto the ship and also get our pictures taken...

 

I am really a bit disappointed with Carnival with this entire ordeal, I understand that Back to Back is not overly common, but they really should understand how to do this better. I sailed back to back in Fort Lauderdale and this entire process was MUCH better they had us off and on the ship escorted by a ships officer within 15 minutes with no problems...

 

So if you are doing back to back make sure they do not just make a mental note of your Sail and Sign number and that they actually take your picture coming back on...