Loved the cruise its was lots of fun! Only major issue was that the cruise had a lot of kids on board running around everywhere without there parents a lot of the time, which got irritating. The kids constantly took over the pools and hot tubes and would ruin the adults quite relaxation. They would also run and shout all over the ship, which also ruined the outside movies on the top deck too.
Only other concern was that the excursions that I booked through CruiseOnly, didn't specifically inform me that the trips were not booked through the ship. I guess I presumed that the excursions would have been book via a third party through the ship; however, the trips were a separate group that we had to get to on our own. We should have been informed prior to purchasing the excursions that these trips would not be through the ship and we would be left behind if we were late to the ship, as the ship was not guaranteed to wait for us. The ships crew kept continually stating that people who booked a cruise with the ship were guaranteed to get back on the boat. This caused me a few problems on the days we did trips and a little grief when we had to rush back to ship to get back by the specified time frame. The heavy traffic day in Jamaica almost caused us to miss the boat; however, thanks to our taxi driver we made it back with only a little time left before the boat departed.
I did like the fact that the CruiseOnly excursions had less people and we were in a huge group of tourists. It made the cruise more personal and more enjoyable as well!
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
5 out of 5
Onboard Activities
1 out of 5
Too many trivia events, they needed other activities! They should have done more dodgeball, or rescheduled for better days, or later in the day when weather was better. More upper deck activities, outside activites. They needed to leave the basketball court open longer to keep the kids distracted. They also needed to make one of the pools adults only, like the one on the back of the boat. The pool with the movie screen should have been for kids. Too many kids movies. There should have been an adults movie everynight at 10 or 12, instead of two kids movies. They also should have scheduled some of the dumb party nights during the kids movie, as a replacement instead of during the adults movie. A lot of the activities seemed to be most ly for the kids even later at night. Exceptions were the one or two comedians and movies later at night. Around 10 that should have been adult only activities all over the boat. They need to shut down kids from going in pool during adults movie time.
Entertainment
3 out of 5
The shows were alright. There were about 15 shows and 3 or 4 of them were really good. The rest were a little irritating or childish. They seemed to waste the showroom a lot could have done an inside movie or two or done more shows.
Children's Programs
1 out of 5
Service and Staff
5 out of 5
Ship Quality
5 out of 5
Cabin / Stateroom
5 out of 5
Very big room, layout was extremely nice. Room looked brand new. We had two bathroom: one with a toilet and shower and the other with a tube/shower.
Not much to do in Galveston. There is really nothing right by the boat in Galveston anyway. The parking by the boat was run by third parties and the parking lot we happened to chose forgot about my family and I, as well as, three other families in the back of the parking lot. It took us almost an hour to get to the boat and it should have only taken about 20 minutes at most. We had to walk across the entire parking lot to get to where they were picking people up that had just parked. The parking lot keeps making you move around to get out of the way of new cars parking because they don't always come to pick you up by your car. The moral of the story is that you need to be extremely weary of the bigger parking lots because the one we went to was definitely poorly run. One person trying to run multiple lines into the lot, flag people waiving you into spots leave without making sure that everyone has gotten onto a bus and the only person who knew what to do was the police office running security, not any of the operations personnel. Also problems with trying to get back to your car! The parking lot we chose again only had one or two small shuttles to get everyone back to the parking lot. You have to stand in a huge line of people to get on the shuttle, even though people were going back to other parking lots on different shuttles. It's much faster to walk to your car and bring the car back to pick everyone else up and your luggage. Again parking lot is not worth $70 a week. Airport parking works much better and it's cheaper. They need to buy up all the parking lots right across the street and make a multiple level parking garage that is really big and for the cruise ships only. Then every one can walk back to their car after getting off the ship and getting on the ship, except for the people getting picked up and dropped off. This is the way they do it at the port in Miami, Florida and it works much better.
Also port personnel try to corral you after exiting the boat and they are useless because they tell you to go to the wrong spot and no one listens to them anyway, so people are all over the place. It's crazy when you get off the boat. Again things work much better at the port in Miami, Florida much better.
I'm hoping my NYE cruise has lots of kids..teens specifically. I turn mine loose but they are respectful, know there boundaries and only use the elevators as a mode of transport from one floor to another.
When I cruised the magic (2 x's), I believe something like 1,000 kids were on board - and that's including 4 of my own. It was a lot but I didn't notice any bad behavior. I would be embarrassed if my kids were unruly and I would certainly put a stop to it. Kids are not supposed to be in the hot tubs tho.
It's not Carnival's fault the parents don't make their kids behave. I agree everyone is on vacation and should be able to have fun, but unruly, rude kids are not what anyone wants to share their vacation with. There's a huge difference between kids having fun and out of control kids.
maybe you shouldn't of gone on a family cruise, such as carnival. that's going to happen on Royal and Norwegian as well, so my best bet for you would be holland America or princess.
Someone remove this review please...how did this person NOT KNOW THEY WERE BOOKING OUTSIDE A CARNIVAL EXCURSION...seems like common sense to me!! Smh...
As far as kids go, I sort of expect it when we cruise with Carnival. I have 4 kids & they do their own thing, mind you they don't use elevators, they don't yell, they are very polite. As far as the pools & hot tubs, well they are on vacation just like everyone else... There is always the Serenity Deck for adults.
I have to agree, we've never done any excursions... But they are very clear about if you don't book through Carnival & your excursion is late, they will leave you behind, which makes sense or else everyone would take their sweet time returning to the ship.
If you booked your excursions with Cruise Onlg excursions it's obvious you weren't booking with Carnival?! To book with Carnival you would do it on Carnivals website or at the excursion desk on the ship.
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