The good the bad and the ugly from my adventures on the Carnival Splendor

[lovelearnteach]

Hello friends, this is my 1st Carnival review and most likely my last. For those that don't like long drawn out reviews talking about a detailed day to day experience with pix that can take days and days to write, then you are going to hate my review. For a quick sum up for those that want to move on and a teaser to those that want to stick with me, here is a basic summery. My name is Ken and I travel with my uncle Terry. For the past 4 years we have sailed Princess, and are very happy with them. We, as of yet, have had a "bad" cruise. As long as the food is good we're good, we can always make our own entertainment. We enjoyed our vacation, but have decided Carnival is not the cruise line for us. Over all I really like some of the element designs in the decor, but without a doubt the pink circles and pink "donuts" with some mystery animal stripe print on them are hideous, but for instance I loved the copper trim in many of the public areas, so pretty and timeless. I thought the ship was in really good shape no complaints really there. The food was good and at times really good, so we can't say it was a "bad" cruise. There were just a lot of little things, more with the personnel, that added up to make me feel I will never sail Carnival again. Let me just say for now that I believe the top exec's for this company are way out of touch with what it is they are supposed to be doing, and that I blame them for the staffing issues we encountered. So while I will not say we had a "bad" cruise I will not only not sail on the Splendor again, I will not be sailing Carnival again, and of course this is just my opinion, and pretty much I speak for my uncle to. I'm not slamming the Splendor, Carnival or those that love sailing with them, we enjoyed our vacation and would not change our decision if we could. So really I would say if you enjoy sailing with Carnival then your going to enjoy sailing on the Splendor, most likely. That's it in a nutshell, if you don't care to hear another word I say then please continue on your quest for cruise knowledge, and many blessings to you :). For those that want all the juicy details with food porn and all :eek::p:rolleyes::D, stay tuned!

Edited December 30, 2013 by lovelearnteach

[Vitamin_Sea]

Were going to be sailing the pink elephant next month!

 

So, The food was good but the staff was not up to your standards so far...:eek:

[vols_159]

anybody else not understand this review.. They loved the food but the decor had a effect? Huh...I could care less about the decor

[Vitamin_Sea]

anybody else not understand this review.. They loved the food but the decor had a effect? Huh...I could care less about the decor

 

This is the OP's first/last CCL cruise. I guess he is not used to the wild colors CCL uses, thanks to Joe Farcus!

 

CCL still likes taking his money while sailing PCL!:p

 

The decor or colors never bother me thats for sure.

[paulypride]

or how they dont plan on sailing Carnival, but has been sailing in the Carnival Family for years and plan to go back to more of the Carnival Family. Those out of touch execs are all the same people!

 

That being said, I am curious as to what he has to say in the rest of his review. I am sailing on the ship in 21 days but I have been on it before with a TA ship inspection team. I have to say the pink was shocking at first but within 20 min, it was just all blending in.

 

Paul

[golfadj]

How do the colors and design of the ship make or break a cruise?

[pirate4me2]

OP, I look forward to hearing more about your cruise.

[shof515]

I have to say the pink was shocking at first but within 20 min, it was just all blending in.

 

Paul

 

When i first went on the Splendor the pink decor throw me for a loop but after a day i just got used to it and it never annoyed me

 

I am looking forward to sailing on the Splendor again in 2 weeks..woohoo!!

[cruizinisthebest]

Not understanding the point of the poll.

 

OP didn't say he didn't like all of the decor. Just some of it. He's not the first to comment on Splendor's decor. Oh well. Glad he enjoyed his trip...I think.

[lovelearnteach]

Let's get this story started, a long, long time ago in a land far far away lived a friend who had a dream to sail on a holiday cruise, and to sail from New York City. This friend found their dream on the Carnival Splendor, and knew both a holiday sailing and sailing from New York City was on my wish list also, and so a Christmas miracle happened, and that is how we came to cruise on the Carnival Splendor for the Dec. 19th, 2013 Christmas sailing :). I'm not going to lie we booked late because we hee-hawed around deciding if we should sail Carnival or not for a holiday, I was nervous to try them from the get go. When we did finally book, all the "Faster to the Fun" passes were sold out :(. Our friend advised to keep checking it daily as someone might, for several reasons, return theirs. Day after day, week, after week, sold out, sold out, sold out. I was giving up hope, as a matter of fact, I was going to stop looking 2 days before the cruise. Late that night I decided to check for the last time, and boom there were 2 available. I snatched one up for me and my uncle faster than you could spit, a gift from Baby Jesus, I think so :eek:;)! Really the only benefit I was most interested in was priority boarding, it would be my 1st time to be one of the 1st people on the ship. I was so excited and so thankful to my friend who told me to be persistent, and it paid off. We decided to fly into NYC the day before the cruise for not only cushion but it was both our 1st times to the Big Apple, and we decided we were going to stay 2 days after the cruise also. I was more excited for NYC than the itinerary on our cruise. There was only 1 new port, kinda, for me that was Port Canaveral, as I've been to Freeport, but not on a cruise and Nassau on my very 1st cruise over 20 years ago. These were all new ports for my uncle and he's not fussy about where the cruise goes, he just wants to enjoy his vacation. He's 63 and retired and his favorite activity on vacation is relaxing and people watching. I'm a 44 year old teacher who just loves to travel, and I love cruising for the variety of places you can see in one vacation. We are easy going, easy to please, nice guys. If you read my other reviews you will see we are not demanding, fussy divas who look around every corner to complain or criticize, but if it's right in our faces, then yes we are going to notice. There is going to be a lot of comparing with Princess in this review, as that's our only relevant comparison, but it's not going to be all "Princess does everything better", as there were serveral things we thought Carnival does better. Again this is not a bashing in any way, just a recount of our experiences, and if they can be helpful to anyone else then I'm so happy to pay it forward, as I love to read reviews like this.

 

So I guess that's the set-up, with one more little issue I would like to discuss. This is my review and I will respond to all posts both negative and positive, and I encourge all questions and comments. With that being said I want to keep this friendly, so I've given all who feel a need to be negative, an outlet in the survey. I don't pretend to know why some feel the need to express negativity, but I also don't judge any for it, which is why I've given you an outlet to express it through the survey. I would rather you not post on this thread, and instead use the survey as your outlet. Of course I realize I can't stop anyone from posting whatever they want, I'm just asking you all kindly not to, and you can respect it or not. It certainly says more about you should you chose not to, but again I'm not here to pass judgements on anyone.

[sanmarcosman]

anybody else not understand this review.. They loved the food but the decor had a effect? Huh...I could care less about the decor

 

That's you, he's him. This is what makes life interesting. :)

[lovelearnteach]

We totally scored on Southwest with direct flights to LGA for $99 each way, plus I went ahead and splurged on early bird check-in, that was the easy part. I drove myself nearly to insanity researching places to stay and planning our limited time in NYC. It, thank all that is good, paid off in the end as we were pleased with both hotels we stayed in before/after the cruise and I feel we made the most of the time we had in NYC. It left little time for planning the ports on the itinerary, but again plans fell into place and we did 2 ports on our own and I purchased one excursion for myself, as my uncle was not interested in it, through Carnival. Again they all ended up being great choices, and we were very pleased with all our activities in ports. I'm a planner, as all responsibility of the vacation falls on me because my uncle is not able to handle too much stress, not a fly by the seat of your pants kinda guy. It relieves some of the stress for me to have a mapped out plan, but I'm flexible enough to go with the flow when the best laid plans go awry ;). I've planned several Cruise Critic Meet & Mingles on Princess, but could not take on that extra stress for this sailing as NYC was a big deal for us. So nobody really wanted to take the responsibility on the roll call either, until maybe 2 weeks or less before the cruise. Someone stepped up and said they would contact Princess and be the one responsible for getting something set up with them. They said all their emails were never answered from Carnival, another poster on the rc suggested contacting some dude, I forget his name, on his blog, he always helps people and sometimes gives free stuff to give-away at the M&M. They said they wrote and wrote on his blog and he never responded. So here we were a few days before the cruise and no real plans set in place on when or where to meet :(. Well I had everything mapped out for our vacation and was feeling really stress free and said we could all meet at 3:00p.m. afternoon tea time in the Gold Pearl Restaurant on the 2nd sea day, we could wear bead necklaces to recoginze each other and it would be what it would be at this point. Then another poster said they wanted to meet embarkation day and so they said they would be in the Promenade Lounge with a sign at 5:00p.m. So odd Carnival never responded, now I never tried to contact them about any M&M, so who knows what happened there. Princess doesn't do much for us other than give us time and space. In my dealings with Princess they have always responded promptly to my emails. This was our 1st holiday of any kind sailing, so that may have been a factor. The original poster said they were going to talk to someone once on the ship to try to set up something more formal, and were supposedly told that they were too busy with the holiday sailing to give any help to our group. So not the tragedy of the century by any means, but odd as I was under the impression Carnival treats CC groups very well, or so I heard.

[yogimax]

Sorry, but paragraphs would be helpful/

[irishnyc]

Sorry, but paragraphs would be helpful/

 

 

Ditto. This is way too much to read without paragraphs.

[kona_wahine]

I totally agree. I'm going blind trying to read this!!

[Lerin]

Ditto. This is way too much to read without paragraphs.

 

The font and lack of spacing is throwing me off.

Also the poll doesn't make sense.

Sorry you had a crummy time op.

[lovelearnteach]

Were going to be sailing the pink elephant next month!

 

So, The food was good but the staff was not up to your standards so far...:eek:

I thought overall the decor was very nice, with many elements that are timeless, meaning it didn't look as dated as I thought it would seeing it in pix only. I liked the copper trim and the light sconces in the buffet area. The one elephant in the room was those pink circles, and what everyone kept referring to as pink "donuts" with the black animal stripes, they are ugly and out of place.

 

Yes it was, and no they weren't ;). Did it ruin our cruise, no, did it leave us feeling not interested in doing this again, yes.

[lovelearnteach]

anybody else not understand this review.. They loved the food but the decor had a effect? Huh...I could care less about the decor

Okay I don't mind criticism, but at least get it right. I only mentioned the decor, that I'm certainly not the only one to comment on. I didn't say anything about the decor having any kind of effect, so I'm not sure what your reading, but it can't be my review.

 

Decor is not a make or break point on a cruise for me either :).

[lovelearnteach]

This is the OP's first/last CCL cruise. I guess he is not used to the wild colors CCL uses, thanks to Joe Farcus!

 

CCL still likes taking his money while sailing PCL!:p

 

The decor or colors never bother me thats for sure.

Actually I love pink and I like good in it, I overall liked the decor of the ship.

 

Yes, your right ultimately it's all going to one, but they are run differently :).

 

I would never say I had a bad cruise or not sail that line over decor it's not that important, in my opinion.

[lovelearnteach]

or how they dont plan on sailing Carnival, but has been sailing in the Carnival Family for years and plan to go back to more of the Carnival Family. Those out of touch execs are all the same people!

 

That being said, I am curious as to what he has to say in the rest of his review. I am sailing on the ship in 21 days but I have been on it before with a TA ship inspection team. I have to say the pink was shocking at first but within 20 min, it was just all blending in.

 

Paul

No actually their not, they are run separately, but yes ultimately it filters into one corporation. If they were they same what would be the point in different line name?

 

I'm sure your going to enjoy the cruise, do you have the same itn.? How can being cooked for, cleaned up after, and entertained be wrong? We enjoyed our vacation and don't regret a minute of it :).

[lovelearnteach]

How do the colors and design of the ship make or break a cruise?

I don't think they do, but some might feel more strongly about it.

[lovelearnteach]

OP, I look forward to hearing more about your cruise.

Thank-you, I got my first memory cad downloaded, so I can add pix :).

[lovelearnteach]

When i first went on the Splendor the pink decor throw me for a loop but after a day i just got used to it and it never annoyed me

 

I am looking forward to sailing on the Splendor again in 2 weeks..woohoo!!

Happy cruising :).

[lovelearnteach]

Not understanding the point of the poll.

 

OP didn't say he didn't like all of the decor. Just some of it. He's not the first to comment on Splendor's decor. Oh well. Glad he enjoyed his trip...I think.

I explained my reasoning behind the poll in a later post, thanks for asking :).

 

For those that want to wait to vote in the poll until I'm completely done, that's cool. If you want to vote at the point to where you finished reading go ahead. I gave my short and sweet review in the 1st posting, so you can also vote on that alone, it's the beauty of free choice.

 

Yes really the only thing was those silly circles with animal print, they need to go but aren't a deal breaker for me. I actually liked the decor for the most part.

 

Yes we did enjoy our vacation very much, we got to do and see some pretty amazing things :)!

[lovelearnteach]

That's you, he's him. This is what makes life interesting. :)

 

That is so true, well said, the yin and yang of life :).

Edited December 30, 2013 by lovelearnteach