Splendor review Ocho Rios, Grand Cayman, Cozumel May 15, 2016

[valentinebaby1]

I know I'm super late with this review. I was talking to a cc friend who we got to meet in person on cruise #2 and have remained friends with ever since and I mentioned the other day that I kind of regretted not doing a review of our Splendor trip. She said she didn't think it was too late, so I've thought quite a bit about doing it the last few days and finally decided I would. It might help to pass the time for us until cruise #4 comes around in September.

 

So cruise number 3 for us was kind of a spur of the moment decision, at least in comparison to the previous cruises. Number 1 and 2 were both booked about a year in advance, but number 3 was booked only around 3 months in advance, and only a few months after we returned from cruise number 2. And keep in mind it was 2 years between cruise 1 and 2!

 

The itch to cruise again started and couldn't be stopped. We were initially thinking about cruising in the fall of 2016, but the more we talked about it, the more our daughter wanted to go. Oldest daughter had no desire to cruise with us. She even laughed at the idea of it. She and the ocean do not get along well. Youngest child, our son, also had no desire to go. He has autism, and really doesn't like to travel. But middle daughter, you know, the neglected middle child, she really wanted to! Like really REALLY wanted to!

 

As we began discussing the idea of taking her with us and trying to figure out when we could match up our schedules, the time frame came down to a very short window in May. She was in her junior year of college at the time and couldn't miss school. We realized there was a short window in May after she finished the semester before Memorial Day that might work. She was already signed up for summer school classes, and we had no desire to cruise in summer, so May it was!

 

So for the first time we were booking based on a specific set of dates rather than booking the cruise based on the itinerary we wanted. Because we were also booking much earlier than we had planned, we had a smaller budget to work with. We had some air miles to work with as well, so we made our decision based on where we could utilize the fewest miles.

 

So the decision was made. Carnival Splendor out of Miami, leaving May 15 for 6 nights!

 

With the tighter budget and the fact that we were adding a 3rd person to our trip, we decided to book an interior room. There weren't a lot of room options with the late booking and finding a room that allowed 3 people. So we booked an interior room on deck 7 almost all the way forward.

 

Now the waiting begins...We followed the progress of Splendor's dry dock, which started about 2 months before our cruise, and the day before our final payment was due, I was checking for price drops and as I had always done I compared other room options just to see if there was anything better that opened up. Well, low and behold, the newly built Grand Scenic Ocean View and Scenic Ocean View rooms were in the system ready to be booked!! I just happened to stumble on it and saw that room 9200, one of the GSOV rooms was available. I checked the pricing and it was $240 more to change to that room. I debated it for about 5 seconds. YUP. TOTALLY WORTH IT. So we went from an interior room with a bunk for the 3 of us to almost double the square footage and windows...not just windows, but WINDOWS! So worth it! We decided not to tell DD and surprise her!

 

 

Finally May 14 arrived and it was time to fly! We booked flights into FLL because we were on Southwest and they don't fly to MIA. Our flight was really early out of Omaha, with a transfer in Chicago and a layover in Washington DC. We were kind of excited about the layover in DC, since we had never flown in or through DC before and it was pretty neat to see the Washington Monument and the Pentagon even if it was just for a quick second. We weren't fast enough to get a photo of the Washington Monument though. I think we briefly saw the Capital building too, which had a bunch of scaffolding around it.

 

Is this the National Cemetery?

 

 

Not the greatest picture, but I think this is the Capital building?

 

We arrived in FLL around 1:30pm. We navigated through the airport, got our luggage and called for an Uber to take us to Miami. We could easily see the ships in port in Ft Lauderdale from the airport.

 

The Uber driver arrived very quickly, we had no issues finding each other. It was our first time using Uber and it was so easy! We had luggage for 3, and with 4 people in a standard car, it was a little tight but we made it work. Our driver was so nice, and the ride was actually pretty quick. I had heard stories about traffic in Miami but it really wasn't bad. Maybe we picked the right time to make the drive. It was a Saturday afternoon. We had some coupon codes for Uber and the 3 of us each set up an Uber account so we could each use the first timers coupon. After discount the cost for the 3 of us from FLL to the Holiday Inn Port of Miami? A whopping $6, plus tip. They say tip is figured into the price of the Uber, but we figured since we had luggage to contend with it, it was only fair to tip him a little extra.

 

We were dropped off at the Holiday Inn, where we had booked a bay view room specifically so we could watch the ships and see the Splendor arrive in the morning. I don't recall what floor we were on, maybe the 6th or 7th floor, but it was just high enough to see over the Bayside Mall and see the ships in port. It was probably around 2:30 or 3pm when we got to our room. Since we knew the ships would start leaving around 4pm we decided to wait a little bit before heading out to eat.

 

This was the view greeting us at our arrival at the Holiday Inn:

 

[valentinebaby1]

And we waited. and waited. Not sure what the delay was, but I don't think any of the ships started moving until 5pm. We watched the ships leave and then headed out to Bayside Mall for dinner.

 

Here are some of the photos we took upon our arrival in Miami:

 

 

 

 

We had a webpage meet and greet planned at Bubba Gumps at 7:30. We were starving by this point though and did not want to wait until 7:30 to eat! We wandered around the mall for just a little bit and couldn't wait any longer. DD and I went into Bubba Gump's and ordered an appetizer and drink at the bar while hubby wandered around some more and took photos.

 

This was where we walked into the Bayside Mall area:

 

 

[valentinebaby1]

These are photos hubby took while we were eating delicious shrimp without him:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[riclop]

Really enjoying your review and photos.

[valentinebaby1]

Finally at 7:30 the others from our meet and greet arrived and we set up a large table outside. It was a very nice evening and the meal was good. The people we met with were very nice, but we didn't really seem to click with anyone, not like we had on previous meet & greets on our first 2 cruises anyway. No complaints, I guess we just didn't have a love connection...lol.

 

After dinner we wandered around the mall a little more, picked up a couple things and then headed back to the hotel.

 

 

 

 

DD went back to the room to get ready for bed while hubby and I walked down to CVS, which was just about 2 blocks away. We picked up 2-12 packs of soda and 3 bottles of Moscato to take with us. They gave us a cloth tote for the wine that had separate pockets so they didn't clank together, which really came in handy carrying them on board.

 

We headed back to the hotel to call it a night since we knew we'd be up super early to watch the ships arrive in port.

 

I'm not sure hubby slept at all. I didn't sleep much because I was too excited, and I didn't want to miss Splendor's arrival. I did sleep for a couple hours though. It was probably around 5:30am before she made her appearance, and she came all the way in the basin and made the turn before docking. I wish the windows in the hotel were cleaner for better photos because it was so beautiful watching the sun rise up over the Splendor after her turn in the basin. Everything was so pink and orange...kind of a great preparation for us when we boarded Splendor a couple of hours later!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[valentinebaby1]

Really enjoying your review and photos.

 

Thank you! So glad to have my first reader tag along!

[easyboy]

Great start and nice photos. Will be following along.

[valentinebaby1]

We had FTTF and wanted to get on the ship as early as possible, so we checked out of the hotel around 10am and decided to just grab a taxi since they were already out there and waiting. We paid more for the taxi just to take us over the bridge to the port than we paid for the Uber from Ft Lauderdale to Miami!

 

 

We arrived at the port around 10:30 and headed straight to check in. We got our documents ready and the lady that started our check in process looked everything over and said to proceed to the captain's lounge.

 

We never had FTTF before, and we knew 9200 is a wonderful room, but still not considered a suite. We were a little confused as to why they sent us to the captain's lounge, but we weren't going to turn it down! We got to the check in desk there with no waiting, and they checked our paperwork, went to the back room, checked some stuff again, and seemed as confused as we were but said we were on the priority list. Um ok...weird...but cool!

 

While we sat in the cool a/c filled lounge this was happening outside our windows:

 

 

We settled in for what was a much longer wait than we had expected. But at least we had seats and cookies for breakfast. And a nearby restroom. It seemed there was some delay getting everyone off the ship, and actual boarding didn't begin until close to 1. They gave us occasional updates, and it seemed everyone was mostly patient. Finally they entered the captain's lounge to allow us to start boarding. That was kind of a mad scramble because regardless of where everyone was seated in the lounge, everyone wanted to be the first one out of the door.

 

Here we go!!

 

We went to the escalator to go up and once we got upstairs traffic had just stopped moving. A whole group ahead of us decided that it would be a great idea to stop walking right after getting off the escalator and we kind of had to jog around them to avoid tripping. Unfortunately the people behind us weren't so lucky and we heard that someone had fallen. They had to emergency stop the escalator and get people to start moving again. We made our way through the building and everyone was rushing past the photo op and I wanted to be sure we got a boarding photo since it was DD's first cruise. We stopped quickly and got our photo in, and then headed down the tunnel onto the ship.

 

 

One word to describe what happened next. Pink. SO much pink! And we loved every bit of it! We asked DD what she thought and she loved it too. She said it was exactly what she expected, that a cruise ship should be over the top and not boring like a hotel, and it was exactly that!

 

 

 

 

[valentinebaby1]

Great start and nice photos. Will be following along.

 

Thank you! Glad to have you along for the ride!

 

I've got a good start here, but gonna stop for the night. I'll pick up soon starting with pics of our wonderful room! Good night for now!

Edited January 22, 2017 by valentinebaby1

[valentinebaby1]

Since we had FTTF we headed straight to our room. DD didn't really know where we were going, but we did from having studied deck plans and Splendor is practically a Conquest class ship, so it wasn't much different than Valor or Glory. Since she hadn't really paid much attention to our room number, and didn't know what deck we were on, she didn't question going to deck 9 instead of 7.

We walked down the hall all the way forward and opened the door to our paradise for the next 6 days. The room took our breath away! We had expected a much more excited reaction from our DD than we received, but she explained she was busy looking for her pullman and didn't realize it was a completely different room. The blinds in the windows were down too, so until we opened them she didn't really realize where we were, and of course not having cruised before she had no idea how small our room would have been in comparison.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This room was A-MAZE-ING. We had SO much space, and extra closet space. We could have held parties in this room for all the extra open space it had. Couch, 2 chairs, end tables...might as well be considered a suite!

Edited January 22, 2017 by valentinebaby1

[valentinebaby1]

We dropped off our carry-ons and heard a bunch of people in the hall so we went out to see what was going on. There was a group from the corporate office touring the new suites, one of which was right next to our room, and touring the GSOV and SOV rooms, since these were so new. They offered to let us come see the suite also, so we did. The suite was so nice...would be nice to cruise in one of those someday! While we were out in the hallway, we also peeked into a standard interior room to show our daughter what she was missing. She finally understood what we were so excited about with our room decision agreed that we made the right choice to switch!

 

Here are some photos of the suite that is next door:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[CARNIVALCRUISE3]

Great review and pictures! I can't wait to read the rest.

[Rock_ON!!]

Nice to see you doing another review. I have enjoyed your previous ones and look forward to this one.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[KPfromCT]

This is a great review!!!!:D:D:D

Better late than never. Keep up the great work.

Patiently waiting for more.:D

[teknoge3k]

I'm loving the review/pics so far, keep 'em coming!

 

BTW in your first post, yes that is the Arlington National Cemetery you took a picture of and questioned what it was. :)

[Jamericannn]

Great review so far. I want to try one of those rooms but too many of my traveling companions suffer from motion sickness so being high and forward may affect them.

[pghsteelerfan]

Yeah!!! I am so happy you're doing a review of your Splendor cruise!!! I just now found it and you know I'll be following along!!! Thank you for doing another one - I just LOVE your reviews and pictures. :)

[pghsteelerfan]

 

Is this the National Cemetery?

 

 

Not the greatest picture, but I think this is the Capital building?

 

 

 

 

Yes, the first picture IS Arlington National Cemetery and the second picture is the Capital Building. They were doing some kind of work on the dome, so that's the reason for the scaffolding around it.

[valentinebaby1]

Great review and pictures! I can't wait to read the rest.

 

Thank you!

[valentinebaby1]

Nice to see you doing another review. I have enjoyed your previous ones and look forward to this one.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

 

Thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed my previous reviews too :)

[valentinebaby1]

This is a great review!!!!:D:D:D

Better late than never. Keep up the great work.

Patiently waiting for more.:D

 

Thank you! I debated writing it at all, since it is sooo overdue. I figured I'd better get it done before poor Splendor leaves the Carnival fleet for good!

[valentinebaby1]

I'm loving the review/pics so far, keep 'em coming!

 

BTW in your first post, yes that is the Arlington National Cemetery you took a picture of and questioned what it was. :)

 

Thank you! and thanks for letting me know about the Cemetery too. I thought maybe that's what it is, glad to know I was right!

[valentinebaby1]

Great review so far. I want to try one of those rooms but too many of my traveling companions suffer from motion sickness so being high and forward may affect them.

 

We've been high and forward on all 3 of our cruises so far, so I don't know anything different! But yes, you do feel the rocking, but luckily I love it!

[valentinebaby1]

Yeah!!! I am so happy you're doing a review of your Splendor cruise!!! I just now found it and you know I'll be following along!!! Thank you for doing another one - I just LOVE your reviews and pictures. :)

 

lol...did you see I was talking about you earlier? I was going to message you today and let you know I started it, since you said it wasn't too late. I haven't even told Jim yet that I started it. I'm waiting to see how long it takes him to stumble on it...lol

[pghsteelerfan]

lol...did you see I was talking about you earlier? I was going to message you today and let you know I started it, since you said it wasn't too late. I haven't even told Jim yet that I started it. I'm waiting to see how long it takes him to stumble on it...lol

 

LOL!!! Yes. :D But never too late! My Valor one was pretty late. The two Liberty ones were also kind of late. I don't know how some people can get them started, and with beautiful pictures, right after they get back. I need to get myself organized first AND get the pictures uploaded to the computer then to the host site. I just messaged you guys...looks like the cat is out of the bag for Jim...he'll know now. :eek: But so glad you're doing it!!!