It is hard to have a bad time on a cruise and this was no different! We really enjoyed ourselves. This was the kids first cruise and they definitely want to go again. The customer service and food need to improve, but everything else was great.
Embarkation
4 out of 5
We got Faster to the Fun for Carnival which is supposed to get you on the boat faster. Our boarding time was set for 11 am, but we did not get on the boat until after 1pm. I didn't feel that it was necessarily faster, but the process was easy. No complaints about boarding!
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
3 out of 5
I was disappointed with the food on the boat. I have been on a couple of cruises and the food is normally the highlight. This was not the case this time. The food was just ok. The desserts were not very good at all. Honestly, the best dessert on the boat was the 24 hour ice cream station!!! As far as drinks I purchased the Cheers program which gets you up to 15 beverages "free". It wasn't worth it to me as you would have to drink more than 8 drinks per day to get your money's worth out of it.
Onboard Activities
4 out of 5
The kids absolutely LOVED the water slide! My younger kids really enjoyed the splash park area as well. Mini golf and ping pong were hard to play as they were outside and it was always windy. Camp Ocean was awesome! For my youngest child the staff gave me a cell phone to use on board in case of emergency which was really nice. We did not use the fitness center, but it was large and the machines looked to be well maintained.
Entertainment
5 out of 5
I really enjoyed the comedy shows. My one complaint is that they repeated the shows. The would do one comedy show in the first part of the cruise and then do the same show in the second part. They did that in cased you couldn't make the first one. However, we were able to make both of them, but had to do something else as it was the same show. We really enjoyed the musical shows in the main lounge! They played a lot of 80's music which was awesome. The kids enjoyed the movie night that happened on the Lido deck every night. The movies they played were very current: Doctor Strange, Beauty and the Beast, Moana, etc.. MarQ was the cruiser director and he was outstanding! He was very energetic!
Children's Programs
5 out of 5
Camp Ocean was AWESOME!
Service and Staff
3 out of 5
The service on the boat was just ok. We had some issues that came up and it took a while to get them addressed if they were addressed at all. Our stateroom steward was probably the worst offender so to speak. We called him about room issues and he wouldn't respond at all. He would just say ok and then never show up or fix issue. We had problems with service at dinner. The first couple of nights at dinner it seemed like the waiter just couldn't catch up even though he had 2 other waiters to help. If you ordered a drink you were lucky if it arrived before you left! After that it got better I think because less people were coming to the dining room so the waiter didn't have as many people to wait on. Also, we preregistered at carnival and most of that stuff didn't register with the boat. We had to go to customer service several times to get things fixed. The Dr. Seuss Breakfast was run by this really, really nice girl. She was outstanding! It took a long time to get service at any bar even if no one else was standing there!
Ship Quality
3 out of 5
This is an older and smaller boat. The boat was clean. It was just outdated.
Cabin / Stateroom
4 out of 5
We were happy with the room! It was 1 adult and 3 kids so we were comfortable. We were rarely in the room, so anything else didn't really register!
This is a city LOL! We did the Chocolate Factory tour and made our own chocolate. This was great! It was a bit expensive, but we really enjoyed the experience. I had to book this through the Chocolate Factory myself which was not the easiest thing to do. Carnival did not offer this as an excursion. Also, other websites did not differentiate between kid and adult prices whereas the factory did. It was cheaper to book it myself, but the process was horrible. We walked there with small children. It wasn't a bad walk. When you ask anyone about time to get somewhere everyone says 5-10 minutes. It doesn't actually end up being 5-10 minutes though! We wanted to look at shops and stuff though, so, we didn't mind the walk. We went to the market to shop, but the prices they would quote were so ridiculous I didn't really buy anything. You could get them to come down, but some of them would get mad.
This was beautiful! This is run completely by Carnival. We did the stingray excursion here. It was outstanding! The guy that did the presentation is like a stingray whisperer or something! He was great! I really like this one because I heard that you cannot take pictures at the one in Grand Turk. You can take as many pictures as you want here! After the excursion we went to the beach and hung out until it was time to go back to boat. They did a barbecue feast that does not cost. The food was just ok. The burgers were burned. However, if you want alcohol then you have to pay. The beach was gorgeous. There was a lot of algae though.
We went on a snorkeling excursion here. The crew was wonderful! Happy was one of the crew members and he got in the water with us. He pointed out stuff in the water and helped out. It was really fun. The beach was crowded and gorgeous. We did a little shopping here as well.
They have a pool area when you get off the boat. They have a zip line, kids splash area, water slides. You don't need to do an excursion as you can just stay here. The zip line was really fun, but they have a minimum weight of 80 pounds. They will weigh you! They have a minimum age of 8 as well. The slides you have to be 48" tall whereas the slide on the boat you only have to be 42".
Fastest disembarkation ever! We walked right off the boat and straight through customs with no lines. It was wonderful! This is where the Faster to the Fun benefits came in.
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