Nice ship. Good cabin. Great entertainment. Enjoyed the 8 day itinerary and the eastward travel which is unusual out of Galveston. We have fun on every cruise and tend to just go with the flow and not let little things bother us.
Embarkation
3 out of 5
I'll start this by saying the Texas highway department essentially closed the bridge leading to Galveston Island. Carnival, to their credit, sent us an email the night before warning of traffic delays. What they didn't anticipate was the severity of the delay. We left 2 hours early from the DFW area and still were late to the ship because we were stuck in a 3+ hour traffic jam. We actually called Carnival from the car to advise them of the delay. As it turned out, we later heard 200 people missed the sailing. Carnival delayed the sailing by over 3 hours and did their best to make check-in easy. All-in-all, they made a terrible, stressful experience tolerable. I tip my hat to them.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
4 out of 5
Once we found a table and wait staff we liked, we were treated like royalty in the Crimson Dining room. The food was good too, not spectacular, but not bad either. The buffet was OK; not the best we've experienced but OK. The ship lay-out tends to make longish lines at the various buffet stations. We didn't use the specialty restaurants, but did use the burger & BBQ spots and they were good. The bars were all good with friendly bar-staff and good drinks. We like the Alchemy Bars on Carnival but all the bars were good.
Onboard Activities
3 out of 5
Didn't really use much, but the Serenity adult-only area was nice. It certainly looked like people were having fun throughout the ship.
Entertainment
5 out of 5
The 4 (yes, 4 in an 8-day cruise) major stage shows exceeded my expectations! The musicians were excellent with a special recognition of the Dream Band. They rocked the house! There was something for everyone. The piano bar was good. My only issue was the because of overlapping schedules, we couldn't see as much of every group as we would have liked.
Children's Programs
No kids
Service and Staff
5 out of 5
Excellent food & bar wait-staff. Room steward was good; no issues. Carnival, at least on this ship, has cut room servicing to once per day in the late morning. We did get towel animals.
Ship Quality
3 out of 5
The ship's lay-out was a little confusing at first, but we figured it out and were OK. The ship was clean & maintained with no issues I saw.
Cabin / Stateroom
5 out of 5
We had never heard of the Cove Balcony and wanted to try it. We are glad we did. They are low on the ship (deck 2) just off the water. I saw dolphins swimming so close I thought I could touch them (not really that close). The balcony was comfortable and although had extra steel reinforcement, the view was pretty much the same as any other balcony. We talked to several passengers who had stayed in these cabins several times and loved them.
Carnival's private island. Nice beach, beautiful water. Had plenty of beach loungers. There are water sports which we did not use and they had a buffet lunch which we also did not use. Getting to the island used tenders/water taxis and these were easy to use.
Have been here many times. Other passengers told us there was a lot of hurricane damage and many stores were closed. We could see a lot of construction from the ship including the pier which which we heard is expanding.
Easy. One of the easiest & fastest of our many cruises. Used the carry-off ourselves option. Customs & passport control was easy as they were using facial recognition technology and had scanned us during embarkation.
Appreciate your thorough review. We sail this itinerary next year! As for the traffic in Galveston, it can be a nightmare with only one bridge access. On our last cruise, we arrived back in Galveston at 5am in an effort to help everyone avoid some of the traffic. It turned out the bridge construction was delayed.
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