REVIEW - Inspiration 8/29/04 The Never Ending Cruise

[Dannzzigg]

I've finally finished my review. It was too long to post here, so I posted it to it's own page. I think I covered just about everything, but if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them!

 

http://www.geocities.com/dannzzigg/cruisereview.html

 

Enjoy!!

[Loves_Dogs]

Enjoyed your review. I sailed Inspiration in August (my first cruise also). Like you, I already want to go on another one.

[Dannzzigg]

Were you on the same cruise or did you go earlier?

[Loves_Dogs]

I was on the 8/15 Inspiration cruise.

[CruiseFever]

Awesome, detailed review, thanks!

[Salty Dawg]

Thanks for taking the time to submit your review... I thoroughly enjoyed reading it!

[cantwait2cruise]

Enjoyed the review. I was on Sensation at the same time you were on Inspiration. You all were lucky to have been able to stay in Cozumel longer. We left Cozumel at almost midnight Thurs. night/Fri. morning and then sailed in circles for four whole days until we ported back to Tampa on Tues. morning at 11:00 am. Sounds like the passengers on your ship were more testy than those on ours, which is sort of surprising b/c we were supposed to port back Sat. morning and were delayed three extra days. I think the general concensus was that it was out of everyone's control so need to get upset. My only complaint was how much I had to spend on Internet and phone in order to rearrange flights. I heard from a Carribean Princess passenger that all phone and internet was complimentary from Sat. on. Anyway, the important thing was we survived the Hurricane Frances cruise and all had a good time. Love the Inspiration...my HM ship!!! ;)

[momofmeg]

We did the Inspiration back in Dec. and we have also been on Fascination. The 2 ships- both fanasty class- are very similiar so if you ever take another fanasty class ship you will have no problem finding your way around.

 

I too thought that Lido restaurant was wierd. I called it the "bat cave" (batman ) my daughter said it looked like brains to her.

 

We were on Miracle back in April. Miracle is just a little bigger then Inspiration-what was nicer about Miracle was the balcony cabins and these cabins were actually a little bigger too. On Fascination we had an inside cabin on upper deck, on Inspiration a outside cabin on empress deck, but except for the window the cabins were pretty much the same. Miracle had better food , shows and entertainment lounges too in comparison to my other Carnival cruises but there was one thing Inspiration had better. The bathrooms on fanasty class ships are nicer then on Miracle. Miracles's bathroom in a balcony cabin was small-pretty much like the one we had on RCCL Sovereign.

 

Which is another thing-if you think it is hard climbing out of bed when you are the person by the wall- you would hate Sovereign. Our daughter's berth was above us and she had to climb on our bed to go to the bathroom. We were smarter on our second Sovereign cruise. We booked 2 cabins.

 

Anyway many happy future cruises to you. My friends were on Explorer the same time as you and same ittenary except they went out of Miami. They got one extra day.

 

We leave Sun. on Disney Wonder-with Jeanne in our path who knows what our cruise will be-but oh well even if it is 4 days at sea I will love it. I realize it is a risk in hurricane season but when I can get a veranda cabin for what normally you pay for an oceanview I figure it is worth it.

[tjohn159d]

Great review Dan.

[halos]

BRAVO! BRAVO!

Excellent review. It was a pleasure to read!!

Thanks for taking the time!!!

[SevenVII]

Great, long review. I cant imagine what your total bill was with all those excursions and shopping :D

[iluvdoxies]

Dan, great review. We were also on the Ispiration earlier this year and hd a great time.

I agree with the decor of the buffet rest.==awful! But the pizza and deli were very good.

We also had a great wait staff team in the dining room, and all the crew were very nice and pleasant.

We also did the Coral Breeze trip- it is one of the best excursion we've ever taken- we had Eric and Monica on our boat- also about 20 people. We had the club sandwich for lucnh and it was huge and delicious.

Now, if we could have had 2 or 3 extra days, i would have been so excited! Glad you all had great time.

[judyf]

great review loved reading it! I was on the Inspiration Easter week and we had a blast. If I had to be on a ship during a hurricane your cruise sounds like the best extra days and in Cozumel wow!

[Dannzzigg]

Enjoyed the review. I was on Sensation at the same time you were on Inspiration. You all were lucky to have been able to stay in Cozumel longer. We left Cozumel at almost midnight Thurs. night/Fri. morning and then sailed in circles for four whole days until we ported back to Tampa on Tues. morning at 11:00 am. Sounds like the passengers on your ship were more testy than those on ours, which is sort of surprising b/c we were supposed to port back Sat. morning and were delayed three extra days. I think the general concensus was that it was out of everyone's control so need to get upset. My only complaint was how much I had to spend on Internet and phone in order to rearrange flights. I heard from a Carribean Princess passenger that all phone and internet was complimentary from Sat. on. Anyway, the important thing was we survived the Hurricane Frances cruise and all had a good time. Love the Inspiration...my HM ship!!! ;)

I think I may have given a somewhat inaccurate sense of the mood on board. It wasn't a general feeling of testiness, just something you would come across when in the elevator or when speaking to the wrong people. Overall, I think everyone handled things with aplomb.

There was a noticeable lack of energy among the passengers later into the cruise. I know I was worn out myself, and DW was about ready to collapse. On our last sea day, we were in our cabin as much as we were out of it, an oddity when compared to the rest of our cruise.

I think for the most part, people were handling things well. It's just the few that didn't were much more noticable than those that did.

[Dannzzigg]

Great, long review. I cant imagine what your total bill was with all those excursions and shopping :D

 

It was obscene. Worth it, even in hindsight, but I cannot remember ever in my life spending so much money in such a short period of time.

 

We did set some guidelines on spending. We tried to make sure that outside of the excursions, anything we spent a large amount of money on, outside of the massages, we were able to take with us.

 

Our total expenditures probably ran somewhere along the lines of 5 times the actual cost of the tickets. Would we have spent as much if we thought we would be cruising again sometime soon? Probably not. We viewed this as a once in a long while opportunity, so we went hog wild for the duration. Now that it's over, I plan on finding a way to cruise again ASAP, so I don't think it will be such a shopping spree as this one.

 

Either way, she loves everything I bought for her, and we both enjoyed it so much, it was definately worth every penny.

 

Plus, we'll get to relive the entire cruise once we get started putting all of the oictures that we bought into albums. That alone could help bide the time until our next one.