BirthdayGirl30 Posted October 23, 2006 #1 Share Posted October 23, 2006 Going to post my very lengthy review in blocks, one day at a time. I'm kinda verbose. Let me just say that even though I'll point out every nit-picky thing, we had a great time together, and I would definitely cruise again. I am not sure I'd go on another 3 day, or on another older ship. I'm also curious to try another line and see what the differences are. I didn't feel like being on a CARNIVAL ship made the vacation any better than just being on the ship itself. Maybe my review will make clearer what I'm trying to say: DAY ONE: OK, went to the dr friday for a prescription to help make me feel half human again. Finally can sit at the computer for more than one second. Apparently, cruising is not so good for the migraine prone and sent me into quite a headache cycle. Embarkation: A total breeze. We got to the pier around 12:30 and with dropping off luggage and everything were on board by 1:00 at the latest. We couldn't believe how little line there was. Every Carnival employee at the port was amazing, helpful, and efficient. Groups on Board: While we were checking in we noticed several really large groups. By far the largest was the "Ebony Pyramid" who seemed to be a part of the Human Rights Campaign, then the cruise was also the General Hospital Fan Cruise, there was also a large volunteer organization holding its yearly meeting on board, and a large group of african-american homosexuals. All groups were really fun to be around, very respectful of other passengers and very friendly. The homosexual group did have a private 70's party in one of the lounges on the last night and some of them had some wild costumes. They looked like they were having a ball. Cabin: We had cabin E128 - mid-ship, ocean view. Nice cabin. I can't say much about the refurbishment, as I didn't know what it looked like before. The bathroom was tiny, but clean. The bed linens had an icky yellow stain on them and we requested they be changed. Steward did it right away. My mom had the cabin decorated for us for my birthday and it was nice. The only issue was that the streamers were foil and kinda noisy, and blocked the view of the T.V. and also kept falling on me at night. :) But, it really was a nice touch and I enjoyed having them. Once we got on, we immediately went to the Maitre D and requested a change in our dining. It was no problem and he moved us to the late seating dinner. We also informed him that we had ordered drink coupons and we understood that they would be delivered the first night at dinner and to please inform that dept that we had moved. Then we headed up to the Lido deck to get a drink of the day and eat some lunch. Now is a good time to mention that when I heard we were sailing on one of the first cruises out of dry-dock, I honestly expected the ship to be like new. I think this expectation was probably unfair, but I really noticed the outdated things. Small things like the fact that the carpeting on all the floors had been replaced, but the "baseboards" still had old non-matching carpeting. The ships maps by the elevators were worn down from 11 years of people touching them and you couldn't read deck names and such. The walls in the cabin hallways were all scratched and dinged and marked up. Tables in the Palace Theatre were broken, missing tops, or cracked. Tables in the 88 Keys Piano bar - same thing. Public Restrooms had broken toilet paper dispensers and door locks -- etc., etc., etc. Now, this did not effect our enjoyment of the ship one bit, and I think she looks great. But, if you are expecting brand spanking new -- it ain't here :) Lunch on the Lido was enjoyable. We met some people from the groups and chatted. One really nice guy showed us all the landmarks in Miami (even the Opera house, which is "fabulous, honey"!). We mustered. We went back upstairs to find a good spot to watch sail away, which was delayed about an hour. We went to the shore excursion talk and shopper talk, which SUCKED. It was advertised that they'd be giving away free tour tickets (they didn't) and free one carat sapphires (nope). Basically a total waste of time. But we did get to meet Danny, our CD. He's OK. Not really funny, kinda overly cheesy, but nice enough. We went over to the sushi bar and to the casino. Both were decent. I won $10 on the $.02 slots. :) Dinner was good. Our waiter was clearly on his first cruise and was nervous, and not great. It seemed like he had a ton of tables. His assistant (he couldn't remember her name) was pretty good. Other people at the table were very nice and we had some great conversations. The drink tickets my mom had ordered for me came just fine, and we were off. Everyone seemed to be dressed really appropriately for the evening. The show that night was Fiesta Latina. The lead guy was supposed to be some sexy, cuban, lover-type named Cuban Pete. Instead, he was kinda a chubby-ish white guy. Hard to suspend disbelief, but the show was pretty good. Especially considering this was only the 2nd time they had performed it. We then went to see the piano bar. Small venue, but in a good location, I thought. The pianist was a great player, but his voice was more on the so-so side of things. We only stayed for a few songs because some very obnoxious guests came in and were heckling him. I forget his name, but I have it in the capers. Headed over to the late night comedian, who was just "meh" and then went to the cabin and ordered cookies and milk before bed. They came in like a half a second. We ate them and went to bed. END OF DAY 1! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest CRUZIN' SUZIN Posted October 23, 2006 #2 Share Posted October 23, 2006 Now is a good time to mention that when I heard we were sailing on one of the first cruises out of dry-dock, I honestly expected the ship to be like new. I think this expectation was probably unfair, but I really noticed the outdated things. Small things like the fact that the carpeting on all the floors had been replaced, but the "baseboards" still had old non-matching carpeting. The ships maps by the elevators were worn down from 11 years of people touching them and you couldn't read deck names and such. The walls in the cabin hallways were all scratched and dinged and marked up. Tables in the Palace Theatre were broken, missing tops, or cracked. Tables in the 88 Keys Piano bar - same thing. Public Restrooms had broken toilet paper dispensers and door locks -- etc., etc., etc. Now, this did not effect our enjoyment of the ship one bit, and I think she looks great. But, if you are expecting brand spanking new -- it ain't here :) We went to the shore excursion talk and shopper talk, which SUCKED. It was advertised that they'd be giving away free tour tickets (they didn't) and free one carat sapphires (nope). Basically a total waste of time. But we did get to meet Danny, our CD. He's OK. Not really funny, kinda overly cheesy, but nice enough. We went over to the sushi bar and to the casino. Both were decent. I won $10 on the $.02 slots. :) Dinner was good. Our waiter was clearly on his first cruise and was nervous, and not great. It seemed like he had a ton of tables. His assistant (he couldn't remember her name) was pretty good. Other people at the table were very nice and we had some great conversations. The drink tickets my mom had ordered for me came just fine, and we were off. Everyone seemed to be dressed really appropriately for the evening. The show that night was Fiesta Latina. The lead guy was supposed to be some sexy, cuban, lover-type named Cuban Pete. Instead, he was kinda a chubby-ish white guy. Hard to suspend disbelief, but the show was pretty good. Especially considering this was only the 2nd time they had performed it. We then went to see the piano bar. Small venue, but in a good location, I thought. The pianist was a great player, but his voice was more on the so-so side of things. We only stayed for a few songs because some very obnoxious guests came in and were heckling him. I forget his name, but I have it in the capers. Headed over to the late night comedian, who was just "meh" and then went to the cabin and ordered cookies and milk before bed. They came in like a half a second. We ate them and went to bed. END OF DAY 1! Is this your first cruise? If so, don't take it to heart. The older ships/newer employees are used for the shorter cruises for the most part. Those 3/4 day cruises are murder on the wear/tear of a ship. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ESMBDS Posted October 23, 2006 #3 Share Posted October 23, 2006 Thanks for the review so far. Looking forward to Day 2! :) Stacey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BirthdayGirl30 Posted October 23, 2006 Author #4 Share Posted October 23, 2006 It wasn't my first cruise - I went on another three day-er about 10 years ago. It certainly felt like my first cruise, as I was definitely interested in different things 10 years ago!! DAY TWO I woke up really, really, really early to watch the sunrise on the Lido deck. I headed down to the patisserie hoping to get a fancy coffee drink and sip it up on deck. The patisserie isn't open early. :( So, I settled for a hot chocolate from the Lido drink station and watched us come upon Nassau and saw the sun come up. Then I went back to the cabin and slept for a couple more hours. Got up at about 7:55am b/c we had ordered room service for between 8:00-8:30. It was late and we were a little annoyed. We basically gave the guy his tip, had a glass of OJ and headed to the dining room for breakfast. Breakfast in the dining room was just so-so. I think I'd rather eat from the breakfast buffet. It was basically the same exact stuff. Breakfast was also the same menu every morning in the dining room. We then got packed up for our shore excursion in Nassau. We picked Blackbeard's Treasure Hunt and Snorkeling because it offered the most time on the beach of any of the excursions and included lunch. There were some disappointing things about the excursion. We left late, by about a holf hour, we stopped the boat ride to pick up more passengers, and it was a 45 minute ride out to the beach. That wound up giving us about 2.5 hours on the beach, when we were thinking it would be more like 4.5 hours. Lunch was decent - hamburgers or hot dogs, chips, and an apple. The beach was so, so gorgeous. Oh my goodness, we would have love to stay for the whole day. Our only complaint was at the useless shore excursion talk they really played up the ammenities (massage on the beach, rafts, blah, blah, blah) and none were really there. There wasn't a massage table, more than half the rafts were popped, there were only three tubes. That said, I think it was the most enjoyable time on our trip. We parked our butts in lounge chairs and read on the beach and then we swam around for about a half hour. The water was warm and clear. The beach was so peaceful. It was a little slice of heaven. We went back to the boat and got a reuben (decent, but didn't have sauerkraut?!) and a calazone (YUCK!! Awful! Not real cheese or something!) and then went for a nap. We got up and headed back into Nassau to hit the straw market, get my hair braided, and go to Senor Frogs. All good. That night was formal night, so we headed back to the boat and got dressed. Dinner was so-so again. Most meals on the ship were pretty good. Nothing was fabulous, nothing was awful (except the calazone). Service was maybe a little iffy, but again, nothing that really affected us. We were supposed to have a cake delivered to our table that night for my birthday (we didn't know, my mom was trying to surprise us) but nothing came. Show that night was a juggler (funny guy, decent juggler) and a comedian named T.C. Tahoe - T.C. was HILARIOUS and had me cackling. We watched The Devil Wears Prada in the cabin, and then went to karaoke (host was so awful), and out to check out the whole ship. We saw the mini-golf course, caught two people smoking pot on the F-deck, and just generally checked out all the venues. The Diamonds Are Forever club was too packed to even walk into, and you could actually feel the heat radiating out of there. Yikes! Went to bed around 1:30am, looking forward to our day at sea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
racegrrl Posted October 23, 2006 #5 Share Posted October 23, 2006 Thanks so much for the review and welcome back! I have been eagerly awaiting your review! So far it sounds like you had a nice time, made the best out of everything. Going along with your comments, I understand your reactions to the service you received. We were on the very first cruise out of drydock on the Glory in January, and we experienced many of the same service issues. The crew needs time to gel, to get used to each other and the rhythms on board. Alex freaked out when I told him our ship was going into drydock - "How long before we are on board?!?" he asked nervously. We are hoping a month of cruises will give them enough time to work it all out. One question - did you feel any vibrations in your cabin? We are in E166, and have heard from someone there are some vibrations on board. Thanks again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TennisLover Posted October 24, 2006 #6 Share Posted October 24, 2006 Thanks for the information. Keep it coming. We are on the Fascination in 2 more months! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BirthdayGirl30 Posted October 24, 2006 Author #7 Share Posted October 24, 2006 No vibration at all in our cabin. Vibration is bad, but mostly far aft, and only at certain times. Have no idea what was going on during those times, but WOW, were we Bzzing. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deborah grimes Posted October 24, 2006 #8 Share Posted October 24, 2006 Hi Birthdaygirl, I'm the chick from Chas. that told you that the Fascination was here in drydock. This diappoints me alittle that some of the stuff was not updated for your BIRTHDAY! :( Keep the review comming. I love to here about the trip. Like you said It was the first cruise out and new servers was on it. I have been thinking about a 3 day cruise and just wounder after taking 7 and 8 days cruises will I be diappointed that it was not long enough?;) thanks DEB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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