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

[valentinebaby1]

Thank you for the review of the Splendor. We are booked in cabin 9198 in two weeks and I loved seeing your photos of the rooms. We are excited to have such a spectacular view.

 

I'm sure it will be lovely! Wishing you a wonderful cruise!

[valentinebaby1]

Enjoying your review, we did the Bar Hop several years ago and it was so much fun. We also had Colleen as our guide, she is fantastic. Looking forward to more of your review.

 

 

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She's is wonderful, so sweet! And thank you!

[valentinebaby1]

Thanks so much for your review and beautiful pictures! So glad that all of you had a great time. I sailed aboard the Splendor in July. I also loved Chloe! She's so nice and super funny What a personality!

 

She is a great CD! She is so much fun! And thank you!

[valentinebaby1]

I was just about to ask you what cabin you were in, but then i re-read and realized. This might be kind of a stretch, but do you know anything about the Extended Aft balcony rooms? Thank you for a very thorough review!

 

lol...sorry but no, don't know anything about them. Always been forward. I'd love to try one of them someday though! Maybe someday our obsession with the Grand Scenic rooms will subside. Although I'm sure if hubby chimed in he would say that could never happen!

[valentinebaby1]

Wish we can do the Bar Hop in March! Thanks for that tip!

 

There are so many fun things to do in Cozumel! When we stayed there for a week on a land vacation back in 2014, we did a tour almost every day. We started with the Bar Hop, did a pirate boat sunset cruise which was a lot of fun, did a snorkel excursion to El Cielo, took the ferry to Playa Del Carmen and then a taxi to Akumal to swim with turtles, did a jeep tour all over Cozumel including Punta Sur, and then finally went to Chankanaab for a day. I'd go back and spend another week there in a heartbeat...if I had the money and vacation time to do it! lol

[valentinebaby1]

Well, that explains why I didn't see the hot tub near the bbq! I must not have walked forward on that deck at all. Oh well...next time!

 

Yup, and maybe next time I'll make it to the BBQ! lol

[valentinebaby1]

Ok, so moving on...

 

May 20, 2016 SEA DAY!

 

I tell you what, after the first two cruises we took doing the Southern Caribbean (on Valor and Liberty), with 5 ports and only 1 sea day (on day 2), having another sea day at the end was SO nice! On the previous cruises, coming back from St Maarten and then having to pack that night and get suitcases out the door sure made it hard to relax. I'd do the Southern route again in a heartbeat, but it would be so much better if they turned it into an 8 day and added another sea day!

 

Because I waited so long to do this review, I've had to use the time stamps on photos taken to piece together what we did and when we did it. It's not fresh in my mind anymore. Hubby is never without a camera, usually has a couple of them at all times. So looking back to this last day of the cruise and the first photo was taken in our room at nearly 9 am. That's very unusual for him, he's usually up very early and wandering the ship right away. 9 am for DD and I is not so unusual though. It was 11am before he took a photo on the lido deck. So my best guess as to what happened that morning is that he got up while we were lazy in bed, he probably went and got us breakfast and then we meandered out to the lido deck late morning.

 

Truthfully he didn't take that many photos on the last day, most of which that he did take look like the photos from the first sea day. So going through them there really isn't anything different to post.

 

There was a 2nd Tea Time of the cruise at 3pm, which we went to since hubby missed out on most of the first one. Hubby and DD used the water slide too in the afternoon. We just spent the day doing nothing in particular and relaxing. There were plenty of loungers available, maybe not in the prime spots, but you could find empty loungers on deck 10. We never did venture into the Serenity deck area; actually have never done that on any of the cruises so far. I think even though we're old, we enjoy the music and action and noise.

 

We spent some time in the casino in the afternoon. This is something that we normally do not do, hubby and I do not really gamble, but DD had never been to a casino before and she wanted to try slots so we went to check it out. After 5 minutes on the slot machine we decided we didn't really care for it but then got a spot on the coin pusher game. I have no idea what it's actually called, but the one where you put in a coin and the little shovel pushes the coins and you hope to have more drop than you put in. Most ridiculous game ever...but we loved it and spent about an hour playing. In the end we spent about $45 total, we did win a free drink token, twice won a half roll of quarters, which we put one of them back into the machine and saved the other for laundry that we did at our hotel after the cruise. But it was a fun $45 spent (well, a net $30 really, after deducting the value of the drink and the half roll of quarters we didn't spend) and it entertained us for an hour. So where's my free cruise casino offer Carnival?? Huh? I'm still waiting...

 

We had our towel "animal" heart waiting for us in the early afternoon. This one always makes me sad because I know it's the last day...

 

 

We met up with the honeymooners and since we were all signed up for your time dining we agreed to have dinner together. They came down to our room at dinner time, and we made a point of going early so that we could try to fit in both the stage show (Epic Rock) and a comedy show. We had an unopened bottle of wine still so we opened it and took the filled glasses down to dinner with us (rather than paying the corkage fee, because we're cheap like that!).

 

We had to wait for just a few minutes to be seated, but not very long and the 5 of us sat down for dinner. I wish I knew the name of the waiter that night, he was the best one we've ever had and he was so funny! We had a wonderful dinner, although Mrs. Honeymooner developed a sudden migraine and excused herself, but Mr. Honeymooner stayed for the rest of dinner. My oldest daughter suffers from migraines also, and I know how suddenly they can come on and how miserable they make her so we understood. But we made the best of it and still enjoyed the rest of dinner.

 

We did kind of rush through dinner because we wanted to see Epic Rock at 8:15, and we made it, even with enough time to get great seats in the 2nd row.

 

We had seen a little bit of one of the shows early in the week and really enjoyed it. I have to admit that hubby developed a little bit of a "celebrity crush" on one of the performers who happened to show him a little bit of attention earlier in the week when they were doing a little performance in the atrium lobby area. Right after their performance, hubby was headed up the stairs and stumbled (no, he was not tipsy this time, just caught his sandal on the stairs as he was going up). This performer happened to be behind him when it happened and she reached for him and made sure he was ok. Yes, he was fine...but now starstruck...lol

 

So during the show, which was really awesome by the way, as we were sitting there in the 2nd row, this same performer saw him sitting there and she made a point of blowing him a kiss and then pointing right at him, so it was obviously directed at him. That made his day! Actually it probably made his entire week. Scratch that...it made his year. That old rooster was strutting around after that like he owned the place!

 

He did videotape some of the performance, which surprised us that no one said he couldn't and we didn't see it posted that he couldn't and they didn't announce that he couldn't. So he was videotaping when she sent him the kiss. Here's a screen shot of it from the video:

 

 

About halfway through the show, Chloe the CD came in and sat across the aisle from us. We could see her as she was watching the show, and she was singing along and even kind of doing some of the steps and motions with her hands. We got such a kick out of that because she's probably seen the show a hundred times and yet she was so obviously having a blast watching it again. I mean, here she had a few minutes just to relax and wait for the show to end so she could speak to the audience after the show, and she was still sitting there just full of energy and excitement! It was so cute to watch her watch the show.

 

Once the show ended, the performers went out to the lobby area and were available for photos, so OF COURSE hubby HAD to have photos taken with his new crush, Chantelle!

 

 

And the rest of the cast too:

 

 

 

Man it's gonna be hard to get hubby to stop talking about Chantelle. It's been 8 months now...maybe someday...lol

[valentinebaby1]

After all that excitement we decided to sneak in one final show for the cruise, which was seeing Lester Bibbs again, the comedian. DD opted to skip this one too, so it was just hubby and I. We did mange to find seats (barely) but back in the corner this time, a little hard to see. It was another hilarious and raunchy show. It was nearly 1 am before we found our way back to our room.

 

We weren't expecting another towel animal, since we had our traditional last-day-of-the-cruise-heart towel, but we had this one waiting for us:

 

 

It was a wonderful, fun, relaxing day. We enjoyed every minute of this day and this cruise!

 

 

 

MAY 21, 2016 BACK IN MIAMI

 

It was about 6:15 am and we woke up as we were pulling in to dock.

 

 

And phooey..we did not turn in the basin :( pulled straight in this time but it did give us a view of Miami while we got ready and gathered our belongings:

 

 

If you're wondering what is in the window, hubby had stacked the 2 tables to make a tripod, since he didn't bring one, to videotape our arrival back in port.

 

 

 

 

 

[valentinebaby1]

Oh I forgot to mention, on our last night we had ANOTHER gift sent to us from the Hotel Manager! This time it was a dessert plate!

 

 

The sun was starting to show and it looked like it was going to be a lovely day.

 

 

At some point during our sea day we packed, so we had very little to do this final morning. We had everything out of our cabin on time. We ate in the dining room this time, and it was the only time all week that we had breakfast there. Most mornings we had breakfast just on the lido deck. Hubby wanted to be sure to have Eggs Benedict before we left.

 

We found a spot on the promenade to sit, after we had breakfast, with all of our belongings. Hubby wandered to take more photos before disembarking.

 

He saw Glory's butt:

 

 

He found Splendor's coin:

 

 

 

[valentinebaby1]

 

Sadly it was our time to leave the ship. We were in no rush, since we had a couple days planned in Ft Lauderdale before flying home, so we were in the last group to leave the ship.

 

Chantelle came to say goodbye. Ok, not really, she just happened to be in the area as we were leaving:

 

 

It was over and we were now off the Splendor, and back on land for another long wait between cruises. It only took about 2 months back at home before we booked the Glory for Oct 2017, and about a month after booking Glory we decided to make that trip a sort of back to back with the Sensation (and a 2 day gap between cruises to spend in Miami). So from cruise to cruise it will be a mere 497 days. UGH. At least now we're about halfway through that wait, with 243 days left to wait.

 

So once off the ship, we ordered an Uber, and decided to go with the XL option this time, since we had packed an extra suitcase within a suitcase on the way there, which was now filled, plus the box of glassware, and a large duffle bag too. How is it we always acquire so much stuff? Oh ya, it's the alcohol...lol

 

The XL Uber cost a bit more than the standard Uber, plus we had traffic to contend with and all the congestion of the port, so getting to Ft Lauderdale cost a lot more than our ride to Miami. I think the XL ride was $55 or $60 bucks. We were headed to the Marriott Ft Lauderdale Harbor Beach Resort and Spa, for 3 nights before going home.

 

We rode in the tunnel out of the port, which is apparently pretty new:

 

 

It was 11:20 when he took the first photo during the ride, and it was 12:20 when he took the first photo from our balcony in the hotel, so that hour covered the transit time from Miami, through traffic to Ft Lauderdale, and the time it took to get checked in and to our room. Not too bad.

 

When we got to the hotel, the driver dropped us off at the wrong door, but we didn't realize that until we had unloaded everything from the car. Once we realized we were not at the check in door, he offered to take us over there, but that would have meant loading everything back into his car. He had mentioned he had to pick up a relative at the Miami airport, and we didn't want to keep him so we said we'd be fine.

 

It did end up being a bit of a struggle to get everything carted over to the right area. Once we did, we got checked in, and they got us into our room a couple hours early, which was really nice.

 

This was the view from our balcony, which was a regular room, not an ocean view or anything:

 

 

We may have napped for a short time, but hubby wanted to walk down the beach to see the ships sail away from Ft Lauderdale's port. We weren't up to walking that far so we met up later in the afternoon at the pool.

 

The hotel is amazing. The grounds were immaculate, the lobby was impressive, there were several restaurants, spa, a couple shops, a Starbucks in the lobby, HUGE pool, and right on the beach with loungers and umbrellas provided as part of the resort fee. This was in basement of the hotel near the exit towards the pool:

 

 

This is the hotel as seen from the beach:

 

 

Edited January 30, 2017 by valentinebaby1

[pghsteelerfan]

So during the show, which was really awesome by the way, as we were sitting there in the 2nd row, this same performer saw him sitting there and she made a point of blowing him a kiss and then pointing right at him, so it was obviously directed at him. That made his day! Actually it probably made his entire week. Scratch that...it made his year. That old rooster was strutting around after that like he owned the place!

 

 

 

I am seriously cracking up at this...just too funny! And some of the rest (I'm up to your arrival in Miami and pictures of "Glory" and the Splendor ship coin) is just as funny. I love the humor and wish I had it. If I ever do another one of these, I'm going to have to have hubby help me cause I stink at humor. I try but it just doesn't work and is so lame! LOL!!! I love the pictures you got of Miami...just so pretty sailing back in when it's still dark and all the buildings are lit up with so many colors. Are you going to included your post cruise stay? :)

[valentinebaby1]

I am seriously cracking up at this...just too funny! And some of the rest (I'm up to your arrival in Miami and pictures of "Glory" and the Splendor ship coin) is just as funny. I love the humor and wish I had it. If I ever do another one of these, I'm going to have to have hubby help me cause I stink at humor. I try but it just doesn't work and is so lame! LOL!!! I love the pictures you got of Miami...just so pretty sailing back in when it's still dark and all the buildings are lit up with so many colors. Are you going to included your post cruise stay? :)

 

lol glad you're enjoying it. And I'm glad you convinced me to finally write this review!

 

I will cover the 3 days we spent in Ft Lauderdale too. I should be able to wrap this up between tonight and tomorrow. Gah, then what will I do for the next 243 days until our next cruise?

[JC5240]

Thank you so much for writing this review (better late than never!). I'm surprising my SO for their 30th birthday on the Splendor going to Grand Cayman and Jamaica out of Miami in September (five day cruise), so I love reading fresh reviews. Especially since this is my first Carnival cruise!

 

It looks like you guys had an amazing time! Thanks again for such a great review.

Edited January 30, 2017 by JC5240

[bluejay555]

I have enjoyed your review so much! I love all your pictures! Thanks so much for taking the time to post. I really want to go on the bar hop in Cozumel now!!

[DebbieMo]

Thank you for sharing! Can't wait to be on Splendor in June. If you're not able to share the fun times could you please tell me or take a pic of the dining options & times on embarkation day?

 

 

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[easyboy]

Enjoy your extended vacation (at the hotel)!

[SoloSailorII]

We are sailing Sensation in September, so take good care of her for us! I'm so excited that she's getting a Guys Burgers! Don't wait too long for Splendor, as she's moving to Long Beach and then leaving the fleet in 2019 :( I'm so sad about that and we're already booked up to April 2019 so we can't squeeze another Splendor trip in before she goes to the P & O line.

 

Did we meet on the Liberty cruise? I know someone recognized us from CC as we were getting back on the ship one day...was that you?

 

We will take care of her and i may get into this review thing and send you a mini version of Sensation. We did not get a chance to meet on miss Liberty as the during the Sail away time but we did meet your husband once in the aft pool. Glad to see that you have a full cruising schedule coming up. we may cross paths again soon. I am looking at doing Splendor next June 2018 I know it will be in the west coast but that will be a good excuse to do that Itinerary and see splendor before she leaves the fleet. Again thanks for the excellent review as always.

 

All the best

 

Tony

[SoloSailorII]

Well, hello there to you!!! :) Nice seeing you again too and I hope you have a great time on Sensation and also the Dream. We don't have any cruises booked...yet. We tend to book about three months in advance, sometimes sooner. :)

 

Valentinebaby1...I'm laughing at the KFC picture and the little chicken. Your comment "Run little chicken, run for your life!" :D Really enjoying your review and getting ready to catch up on your latest updates.

 

Good to see you too. Hope you get to book a few in the upcoming months and our paths cross again in the high seas ;)

I was laughing at the KFC pic - I imagine, little chicken saying through I walk thru the valley of shadows of death LOL

 

All the best

Tony

[qzyksw]

Thanks again for the review. It was awesome.

 

The old rooster part was very funny. I can not blame him. That would make my cruise too. :)

 

Take care

[valentinebaby1]

Thank you so much for writing this review (better late than never!). I'm surprising my SO for their 30th birthday on the Splendor going to Grand Cayman and Jamaica out of Miami in September (five day cruise), so I love reading fresh reviews. Especially since this is my first Carnival cruise!

 

It looks like you guys had an amazing time! Thanks again for such a great review.

 

What a lovely surprise! I'm sure you'll have a wonderful cruise! And thank you for reading!

[valentinebaby1]

I have enjoyed your review so much! I love all your pictures! Thanks so much for taking the time to post. I really want to go on the bar hop in Cozumel now!!

 

Thanks for reading! I'm hoping to get this finished today. If you ever get to Cozumel, definitely consider the Bar Hop. It's $57 per person and includes a shot at each stop and a tee shirt too.

[valentinebaby1]

Thank you for sharing! Can't wait to be on Splendor in June. If you're not able to share the fun times could you please tell me or take a pic of the dining options & times on embarkation day?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

 

Thanks for sticking around, sorry we haven't got the scans done. The old scanner/printer we have is really slow, but I'll see what I can do with the dining info soon!

[valentinebaby1]

Enjoy your extended vacation (at the hotel)!

 

We sure did! I'm hoping to get the final couple days of the trip finished up tonight!

[valentinebaby1]

We will take care of her and i may get into this review thing and send you a mini version of Sensation. We did not get a chance to meet on miss Liberty as the during the Sail away time but we did meet your husband once in the aft pool. Glad to see that you have a full cruising schedule coming up. we may cross paths again soon. I am looking at doing Splendor next June 2018 I know it will be in the west coast but that will be a good excuse to do that Itinerary and see splendor before she leaves the fleet. Again thanks for the excellent review as always.

 

All the best

 

Tony

 

I'd love to read your review of Sensation! It will be different to be on a smaller ship, but I'm really looking forward to it! I hope you get a chance to cruise Splendor before she leaves the fleet. Maybe we'll get to meet someday!

[valentinebaby1]

Thanks again for the review. It was awesome.

 

The old rooster part was very funny. I can not blame him. That would make my cruise too. :)

 

Take care

 

Now that I'm doing this review, he's got Chantelle on the brain again...lol I've re-created a monster!

 

Thanks for reading!