Loved all the stops, the crew and the weather. The food was less than it has been on other Carnival cruises though.
Embarkation
5 out of 5
SFO is an easy port to embark from. Well organized. Made people wait in lines according to their embark time so some people who wanted to cheat the system were mad.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
3 out of 5
The staff in restaurants and bars were all very friendly but I was very let down by food choice and quality. For example, the cakes at the Sweet Spot were beautiful, but every cake tasted the exact same. Blind-folded I couldn’t have said if I was eating Black Forest cake or lemon. The buffet line choices seemed to be very similar every day. I usually ended up at the salad bar because it was always fresh and rotated choices.
Onboard Activities
5 out of 5
We used the gym every day of the cruise. There was never a problem with the cleanliness or availability. Also used spa services for an over-priced massage, but I knew that part going into it.
Entertainment
4 out of 5
The Playlist Productions shows were great but the comedians were awful. They were just not funny at all. At one show the comedian was bombing so badly that someone in the audience played cricket sounds from their phone. That finally got laughs from the audience. I have been on many cruises and these were the worst comic shows we have ever witnessed.
Service and Staff
5 out of 5
The staff was great everywhere on the ship. They were always friendly and attentive. Our head waiter, Michael, would speak when we saw him on the ship working on the Lido deck and always used our names. Our room steward, Roland, was always very efficient, friendly, and asking what we might need or want. He had the funniest towel animals too. They were always posed in silly ways, not just stuck on the bed.
Ship Quality
5 out of 5
Everything seemed to be clean, polished and well looked after.
Cabin / Stateroom
5 out of 5
We are very organized and clean when we cruise so our room steward didn’t have to work that hard for our cleanings. I will say though, we dropped something that rolled under the couch and what we found there has been there for many sailings. I don’t think the stewards ever have that much time to be that thorough.
We did an excursion to Mendenhall Glacier. We realized a better option would have been a car rental because we could have seen that and many more places doing it on our own for a lot less money.
We did the “Good Time Girls and Ghosts” tour. Our tour guide was very, very good. Her delivery was very professional, easy to understand, well-rehearsed and very informed. I highly recommend this tour. Skagway is a tiny, tiny town so you can easily see it all in a couple of hours.
The ship terminal is very new, modern, clean and has a free zip line to a viewing area and another that you pay for the world’s longest zip line. My husband did that part and LOVED it. We also walked to the town of Hoonah. Very depressing little town where it looks like all 600 of the residents live below the poverty line. Houses were stacked with trash and junk in their yards and looked to be falling apart. There are two gift shops (and I use that term loosely), a nice, new brewery, and not much else to see.
The itinerary was actually changed to Dawes Glacier in the Endicott Arm Fjord because we had such great weather conditions. This was breathtakingly beautiful.
We chose the Butze Trail hike excursion. This was not much of a hike at all. We only went about a mile in to a scenic overlook and turned around to go back. I was really hoping for a real hike. The area was so beautiful and the weather was just perfect so I wanted to stay all day. The tour guide, Jonathan, pointed out many plants and told us a bit about the area’s history and significance but there isn’t really a whole lot to it. We had a small group (just 5 on the tour and the guide) but one couple was elderly and asthmatic so that really slowed us down.
Everything was done as quickly as Carnival could make it happen. This port does not do the “Smile and Go” technology apparently, so be aware you have to dig out your passports at customs! They didn’t tell us this so it took a minute to remember where zip had put them. 😒
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