Amazing (And I am Picky)
Carnival Paradise Cruise Review to Caribbean - Western
4 Night Western Caribbean (Tampa Roundtrip)
Sail date: August 14, 2014
Ship: Carnival Paradise
Cabin type: Oceanview
Traveled as: Couple
Reviewed: 10 years ago
Review summary
I am extremely well traveled and sometimes hard to please and I just wanted to say that this cruise was absolutely amazing. We had sailed one other time in the past with Royal Caribbean on one of their newly refurbished boats and yes, that ship compared to the Paradise was a bit nicer, but we read online that was to be expected. We are from Tampa, so we were happy for the easy in and out convince as well as the great price!
Spectacular customer service! Although this will not be the newest ship in the fleet to cruise on, it is seriously clean and well cared for and not to mention THE STAFF IS AMAZING!!!! Every single person who waited on us even in passing new our names (they must train them on remembering names and drinks because everyone who even waited on me once, remembered my name and preferences- it was truly awesome!). The customer service blew Royal Caribbean out of the water. I am sold on this company now just because of their effort and literally, I could feel how hard everyone was trying to make it a truly memorable experience and to which I am grateful.
There were tons of things to do on the ship! The comedians (2 guys) were just hilarious. We were there for 4 nights and I didn't get bored once. We went to multiple shows a night, every night and came out laughing and happy! There was ping pong, mini golf, a basketball hoop, big chess, bean bags and tons more. During the day they have big bingo tourneys, activities in the casino, trivia, sales in the ships stores. They kept us busy to the very best of their ability and it worked! We had a blast around the ship.
I would also like to say the FOOD WAS AWESOME! I feel like i gained 5 pounds from how good the food was on the ship. I guess they have 100 people that work in the kitchen and every one of them has a culinary degree and 3 years at a high end restaurant and it showed in the food! We did the Chef's table event for $75.00 per person and I highly recommend it! It was worth every penny. We were served Kobe beef, which the chef said alone cost them $75.00, so everything else was just icing on the cake. 7 courses of awesomeness. The Chef was such a great man and he even used to work for the King of Dubai, which is really cool.
We do not have kids, but the kids I saw were entertained and having a blast. To lay out and hang out, we stayed on the Serenity deck for adults 21 and older and it was amazing!
In short, this will not be the most luxurious cruise you will ever take, but it will be the most fun. I would do the same cruise over and over if I had room in the budget. I highly recommend!!!
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Food and Dining
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Children's Programs
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Ship tip
1) Chef's table. It is the best $75.00 a person you could ever spend! 2) Instead of booking snorkeling through the ship hit up the booth for El Dorado snorkeling Tours its $40.00 and worth every penny. 3) Visit the bar behind Hotel Barracuda. Its where the crew go when they are off- awesome