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Carnival Imagination Cruise Review to Mexico

Cruises: 7+ cruises
Review: 1
Helpful Votes: 39

Overall rating:

4.1 out of 5
Verified Review
Carnival Imagination

4 Night Catalina & Baja Mexico (Los Angeles Roundtrip)

Sail date: April 14, 2019

Ship: Carnival Imagination

Cabin type: Oceanview

Cabin number: E73

Traveled as: Large Group

Reviewed: 5 years ago

Review summary

Fun trip to take with your kids or not...Lots to do on and off the ship. Food is pretty good, the drinks are plentiful(buy the Cheers program 1 specialty coffee and 3 alcoholic drinks will even you out with the cost of the Cheers program, if you drink more than that, including sodas, you'll pay more than what you did with the Cheers program.) We would do this trip again in a heartbeat. Happy Cruisin'!!!!!

Embarkation

5 out of 5
Faster to the Fun gets you on the ship in record time(with FTTF, your "scheduled window" time to board

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

4 out of 5
Food was plentiful, easy to get to and delicious. Main dining room was a two hour dinner for our party of 10 but we enjoyed our time together. We ordered 3-4 appetizers and two dinners most nights. We wanted it all and we got it.

Onboard Activities

5 out of 5
My only complaint is there is TOO many things to choose from. Couldn't get from one to place to the other fast enough. You'd have to try really hard NOT to find something fun to see or do.

Entertainment

4 out of 5
Shows were pretty good for a cruise ship. Those people worked hard to perform and it showed.

Children's Programs

4 out of 5
All our kids loved the clubs and the entertainment. They had a BLAST.

Service and Staff

5 out of 5
Phenomenal people, service and room stewards. We were all spoiled rotten with great service all around. Great people serving you is why Carnival is so successful. Without them, your trip would be less than mediocre.

Ship Quality

3 out of 5
The Imagination is being retired this year or relocated to Florida. I forget which. The ship is smaller than the newer ones by far, the decor is old but the ship is clean. Trust me when I say you aren't going to be bothered by the decor. You won't have time to worry about that.

Cabin / Stateroom

4 out of 5
My room was handicap which meant the bathroom had a seat and lots of grab bars which I needed. I'm not in a wheel chair but needed easy access to the bathroom. That was the ONLY difference between my room and my kids next door in a regular room. They had to STEP UP to get in their bathroom, mine was level with the room. I thought for sure they'd stumble in or out of the bathroom but it didn't happen. It wasn't an issue. The rooms were great though. Tons of closet space, drawer space, shelves and a safe I used constantly.

Ship tip

Under the excursions, buy FASTER TO THE FUN. You'll be sorry if you don't. I will NEVER travel on Carnival without it. This was my first time to get it since they introduced it a few years ago. It's a perk that allows all the members in your room to bypass lines. You get to board whenever you want, you get to tender off the boat without waiting in line, you have your own line in guest services, you get to disembark in your own line. You get dining priority IF you don't have "my time dining'. Check it out, it's worth the extra $50-70 bucks.

Ports of call

Long Beach (Los Angeles), California

4 out of 5
The ship embarked and disembarked here. We never did anything in long beach.

Catalina Island, California

3 out of 5
Not a whole lot to do here but I highly recommend renting golf carts to see the island. It's a fun way to see everything and get some great pictures. We rented for two hours which allowed us to stop and grab a beer. Book in advance or you won't get one. Many people found that out the hard way. I booked mine as soon as I booked the cruise. I did NOT go through Carnival. I booked on my own....besides, Carnival doesn't offer a golf cart excursion!

Ensenada, Mexico

4 out of 5
Ensenada was great. I booked a tour with "Tours by Locals" to go to La Bufadora (the blowhole) because I don't like bus tours. With tours by locals, I got to custom design our tour. We had 19 of us cruising together, including our kids. We wanted more time to see La Bufadora, shop in the huge open market and eat right there at the famous fish taco place. Afterwards, we went to a cool petting zoo where you could pay a high cost to pet and play with tigers and leopards, big snakes and monkeys. It was fun to check it out. We also had time to go to the beach and look around. The tour that Carnival offers is more expensive and it was two hours shorter than our tour which is primarily why I contacted this company. Should anything happen where Carnival can't dock at one of it's scheduled destinations, you get a full refund if you purchased an excursion through them. Tours by locals will give a full refund 24 hours or more if you cancel but only IF you buy their super affordable insurance, which I did.

Disembarkation

5 out of 5
Walked right off just the same way I walked right on. We opted to put our luggage out the night before. We got up, got dressed, ate at the buffet with our backpacks that had our overnight stuff, then we walked past people waiting in line to get off(they had to stagger people bc they didn't want the lines too long while waiting to go through customs). We waited around 10 minutes to get through customs while others waited 30 minutes or more. Want to know why? Because we paid a porter to get our luggage and the porters walk through a diffent line. No waiting!!!

Traveler Photos

Golf Carting in Catalina Ensenada
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1 Comment

jdwoodworth    5 years ago

Great post. Thanks for the information

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