Evolution of Carnival ships

[swalton85]

Since I've only been cruising for a few years and never was able to experience the older retired ships in Carnival's fleet I was wondering if everyone would share some old photos of some ships from the past that you sailed on. I think it would be neat to see how far they've come :p

[Tapi]

This was our first Carnival ship, the 32,000 ton Tropicale. Without a doubt one of the dumpiest cruise ships we've ever sailed on. People that complain about today's Carnival really have no clue how good they have it these days.

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

Edited March 10, 2014 by Tapi

[kybluecruiser]

This was our first Carnival ship, the 32,000 ton Tropicale. Without a doubt one of the dumpiest cruise ships we've ever sailed on. People that complain about today's Carnival really have no clue how good they have it these days.

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

 

How much different was the slightly larger Holiday class?

[Aplmac]

Don't think I'd want to cruise on that

-or any of the Fantasy Class- not with lifeboats on top deck.

 

Can you imagine clattering your way down the side of the hull in a lifeboat

to get to the water 60 ft. below? Poor design, sorry.

 

 

Thankfully the more modern ships have lifeboats positioned much better

on deck 3 or 4, at a much shorter distance from sea level.

 

 

The attached photo (see below) illustrates the difference.

[Aplmac]

.

 

.

[Tapi]

How much different was the slightly larger Holiday class?

 

 

It's been 20 years, but from what I remember, the ship followed a similar layout as the Holiday class ships, just in a smaller scale. Our cabin was in the Riviera deck and it was basically identical in size and layout as the cabins on the Holiday and Fantasy class ships.

 

The main theater was also forward, but it was a single story venue. There was a lido buffet towards the back and also a pool deck with a water slide in the middle. Just very small and compact.

 

One thing that was different than on the a Holiday class was that there was a spiral staircase in the middle of the single story Guest Services lobby connecting it with the casino above.

 

For 1980's standards, the Tropicale was "revolutionary" because of its "large" cookie cutter staterooms, but it lacked on everything else. The memories that I have from that cruise are of bad service (only time in all of my years of cruising when we didn't tip our cabin steward), terrible food, and absolute boredom.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

Edited March 10, 2014 by Tapi