Overall, we had a great cruise. Carnival delivered superior service and lived up to everything we thought cruises would be. Would have liked to sailed on a new ship with more things to do though. If you're looking for a quick (5 day) getaway, we'd recommend this trip.
Embarkation
5 out of 5
We chose to board later and it was super simple. Arrived around 1130am and boarded at 12pm. No lines and walked right on. It was great!
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
4 out of 5
Only 1 restaurant on our ship and it was ok. Overall the food was decent but I wouldn't call it restaurant quality. Several items, especially desserts, tasted very powdery.
Onboard Activities
3 out of 5
This is where you definitely noticed it was an older ship. It only has 1 pool that was constantly filled with kids, putt-putt (only usable when the ship isn't moving as the wind blows the ball off), water slides (with no pool and again mainly for kids) and a couple of smaller sports stuff like shuffleboard, ping-pong and billiards.
Entertainment
4 out of 5
Many of the shows were cute and some just weren't for me. Everything is kept pretty quick and brief though with most shows only being 30 minutes in length. We really enjoyed the music trivia nights, comedy club and the "Love & Marriage" show.
Service and Staff
5 out of 5
Staff and service was amazing! If only other industries could figure out how to take care of guests like cruise ships do.
Ship Quality
5 out of 5
The ship was always kept incredibly clean. The only knock is that because it's an older ship many of the designs were dated.
Cabin / Stateroom
5 out of 5
We enjoyed our room very much and were happy that we decided to get a room with some sort of window. While we didn't get motion sick much (although slightly) I think the window helped with that. It also helps in the evening when things are completely dark.
Ship tip
This is an older, smaller ship which is great in terms of crowd size but bad in terms of things to do on the ship
Mobile is a pretty industrial city. They have a cute downtown area near the port that you can walk to, but not much else that we saw outside of that. Be careful with the parking garage directions, they will lead you to the wrong entrance. Fortunately there are tons of police everywhere and they were quite helpful.
This used to be a fishing village until they specifically built the port for cruise ships to the Mayan ruins. Outside of excursions, the only stores/places you can visit are directly at the port. All items are WAY over-priced so unless you find something you can't live without, look to buy souvenirs at a different port with better prices. We bought a small Mayan temple that I haggled from $18 to $10 and found it on Cozumel for $3 :(
Overall it was a decent port. We took a taxi to the downtown but arrived too early for anything to really be open. Tons of shops with much better prices than ports if you want to do some shopping here.
We had an amazing experience during our disembarkation, but I think we just got lucky and it probably wasn't supposed to happen that way. Because of that and not wanting to get anyone in trouble, I'll leave it at that
*Cruiseline.com is not a booking agent or travel agency,
and does not charge any service fees to users of our site. Our partners
(travel agencies and cruise lines) provide prices, which we list for our
users' convenience. Cruiseline.com does not guarantee any specific rates or
prices. While prices are updated daily, please check with the booking site
for the exact amount. Cruiseline.com is not responsible for content on
external web sites.
Contact us
Submitting...
Need help from a personal vacation planner?
Loading...
Find the perfect cruise with weekly tips and cruise deals for as little as $30/night!
Sign up for weekly cruise deals
Join other subscribers and get the best
cruise deals of the week in your inbox every Thursday.
