Carnival Splendor Cruise Reviews - Reviews

we spend a good moment on this cruise ,i have chosen carnival because i was supposed to go on this cruise with my daughter who turns 40 this summer ,but she was not able to be on the cruise a this time of the year for professional reason so my wife came with me, it was my four th  cruise with carnival and we enjoyed a few great shows on of them was the most famous we had seen on a cruise ship and for this was my nineteenth cruise , the  food was excellent ,but there is something that baders us yhe mandatory evacuation exercise we where out in the wind on the fourth floor, why not filling the theater ,the morocco and some other public spaces it took at least 45 min.i use  a cane to walk and standing there that long it was abusing  and why they didn t tell me to go at another place where  the handicaped people should go ,on some other cruise line it is different may be beacause of the configuration of the ship ,on the imagination it is not the way they do , i know where my muster station is and as i  get on the ship i am lookig for but may be i am an exception . 

This was our shortest cruise and our first experience on Carnival.  We compared this cruise to our other 25+ cruises and found certain aspects outstanding.  First and foremost, the food was outstanding because it was presented very nicely, the portions sizes were correctly small and the seasoning was perfect for my gourmet taste.  My husband and I both had apple pie and discovered that the crust was not flaky; that needs to be improved.  We give Carnival the BEST rating on food.  

The variety of people aboard pleased us because it was from young babies to older folks and everyone was very friendly and helpful. 

The staff aboard the ship was excellent and also a nice varied group of young, helpful personnel.  

In total, we enjoyed our cruise and because of the excellent price and ports in which the cruise ship visited, we will consider joining another group perhaps out of Baltimore Harbor.  

Thank you for a wonderful adventure.  Warren and Sally Duerbeck

The service was very good, our stateroom was roomier than I expected. Room service for our room was great.  The food was pretty good. We enjoyed the variety shows, the comedy shows and the movies on deck called Dive-In Movies. All over service was good. We met a lot of nice people.  The weather was great. We enjoyed our excursions especially the Jose Cuervo tour in Cozumel.  We enjoyed Cozumel. Mahogany Bay Roatan Honduras was beautiful, we went to the beach there.  Grand Cayman was also very pretty, but I was disappointed in Belize.  I would skip getting off he ship there next time.

this was an excellent cruise  with the Carnival Splendor.....i would like to see some "HAPPY HOUR" music(there is a dance floor right there in the lobby) at the lobby each evening..............food,as always,was "OVER THE TOP"...Housekeeping was 5 STARS all the way....would also like to see some more "TRIVIA" for us older folks,i.e. 50's & 60's music,early TV, etc.

I gave my husband this cruise for his birthday because he's always wanted to go and I've always resisted.  Will I choose cruising again, maybe not, but I wouldn't be opposed to going again with someone for whom I care deeply!  

The staff onboard were very friendly and I felt the service was outstanding.  I'm not used to having my bed turned down with a cute little towel critter sitting on top.  Now if my husband would have refrained from decapitating, mutilating or otherwise committing involuntary towel slaughter...but I digress!  Our wait staff knew and used our name during our evening meals, as did our steward for our cabin.  This through me off a bit because It was unexpected but I give them an A+ for doing this week after week with new passengers!  So bravo!

  The excursions were amazing!!!!!!  We had one that was cancelled due to lack of participation.  Admittedly, my husband was excessively disappointed, but this is out of control of the cruise line and we can find another scuba diving opportunity on a future vacation.  We chose to find a beach in Cozumel to snorkel and read our books on the beach.  Had the most amazing chicken tacos there.  In Belize we decided to kayak up a little waterway into a lagoon at the Ecobab nature reserve.  Fascinating to drive through the streets and hear about the culture, the government, the schooling, etc.  Our guide up the river was so friendly and so open with sharing her knowledge and love for her country!  Such a different world of medicine, pet owning, politics, etc.  I would do that one again, but could've used more time to take a dip in their amazing pool and recreation area!  We were given the buffet there as part of our tour and a locker for our belongings could be purchased.  But if you hate cilantro as I do, you better bring a lunch!  

Rhoatan, Honduras!  Iguana farm, was my favorite, but I also enjoyed being exposed to the countryside from the bus and from the great knowledge of the tour guide!  It was difficult being herded through 15 minute stops when I would have liked to linger, but again, that is just me, and no fault of the tour!  

Grand Cayman, oh man, I can't say enough good things about that stop!  Holding a sea turtle???  Swimming with the stingrays???? Priceless!!!!! Made the whole trip worth every penny!  

We enjoyed the movies on board, even though there was invariably people, who had an entire ship to roam around on, that congregated and talked and laughed while we were trying to hear the movie.  Course, they had to talk loud because the volume of the movie was high.  Usually they left after multiple passengers gave them the stink eye!  We also enjoyed some of the movies available in the state rooms.  We aren't big into the music scene and this particular cruise was bigger on the music scene so we didn't attend any shows which was a disappointment.  We would have liked to see something a little more in the way of Broadway type shows.  But this comes down to us being complete novices and not having the faintest idea how to find the cruise that would best meet our particular desires.

The ships decor and general condition was outstanding if you could get past the fried egg decorations all over the ceiling of your dining area!  Supposed to be pearls in their shells, but I'd say that decor idea got a little out of hand!  But truly, it was beautifully maintained and not shabby at all!  Our room was pleasantly roomy and in very good condition!  The hot water was instantaneous!  Only complaint on the room is that maintenance decided to paint some of the balconies on board and the paint fumes were sucked into the intake and blown through our air conditioning vent!  It was potent and two days we had to complain because it was making us woozy.  The second time I told them they had to give us a new room if we came back from dinner and it was still like that.  They used some sort of an ozone cleaning or filtrating machine to clean out our air and we had no more fumes!  But honestly, they should not use oil based paints next to the intakes during times when passengers are on board.  They should reserve those for short term dry dock.  Sorry, I didn't spend the money to be poisoned by fumes in my room!  

Food, if you've made it through this review this far, you've come to my opinion about the food.  Yes, there is a ton of it.  Yes, you can eat all day.  No you can not have soda unless you pay extra.  Here's the thing, as mentioned earlier, I hate Cilantro, but evidently it is so loved by the general population that it must be added to everything!  I simply didn't enjoy my meals much.  The lobster and shrimp night was delicious, the melting chocolate cake with ice cream was beautiful, the rottisserie buffet had the most amazing mac and cheese for the first few days, but then that same mac and cheese became blase on the last day....what's that about?  The souffle with orange cream sauce on the last night was to die for!  The breakfast buffet provided me with cold food that should've been hot!  I enjoyed the pizza and I all but lived on the fries from the grill!  All in all I didn't starve and I didn't have to make it myself, but I can't rave about the food.  This does not mean that you will not!  On the plus side I could make all the mocha I wanted and my husband must have visited the 24 hour ice cream bar twice a day at least if not more!  Yummy ice cream!

If you don't mind standing in long lines throughout your vacation cruising can be very relaxing.  You can do as much as you want or as little as you want.  You can learn new cultures and experience new things.  I don't regret giving in to my husband's wish to cruise and we are grateful for the good service that we were given!

I really enjoyed this cruise the ports were good destinations and the Crew were great. At times you could tell they are worked very hard and it wears on them. Even though they work really hard some of them were spot on to put a smile on your face or lend a helping hand. Such as Igoude? (Goodie) one of our waiters and also our house keeper Edis. These two made a difference in how fun our cruise was. I can't say enough good about them. Over all great crew and a fun Ship the "Splendor".

This cruise was amazing! Food was great. Only problem was sea days. If ya don't wake up at 8am or earlier ya may not get a chair to sunbath in. Thier probably only 500 chairs to 3,000 some people. The crew workers weren't that on top of people who reserve the chairs but dont sit in them. 

Getting on and off was a little difficult for us at 67 & 71 - didn't seem to cater to older people very much lot of sitting around, long lines and we were given a zone of 6 to get on, when we finally got on I asked when they had called zone 6 and the stewards just smiled, deceiving - didn't seem to help Fun Pass people either.

Loved our room balcony aft but turned out to be an awful long way from one end of the ship to the other - older people should be in the middle.  Room steward Harry, couldn't have been any better or friendlier - very pleased.  Disappointed with the food on Lido, Piza ,Sandwich Bar even Dining Room - all Mediocre - 3rd time on Carnival and probably the last.  Shows were good, etc.  We were glad we took these ports and excursions - but ports very expensive, taxis very expensive - there are things that we look for, asking lots of questions that give us better deals that many other cruisers don't know what to look.  Carnival caters to ports and doesn't seem to care about islands and information on people, products, life -

From the wait staff to our room steward these people were amazing- friendly, thoughtful and very helpful. This was my kids 1st cruise and they had a wonderful time. They really noticed how much effort the staff put into doing their jobs. 

As for the ship and its amenities- needs some updating. Decor was outdated and old school Vegasesque in style- gawdy and not really appealing. Needed repairs/upkeep in areas. The schedule of events was robust but it seemed like it lacked mid-evening events for older kids. Most shows were not til 10.

The Splendor is a beautiful ship and meticulously maintained.  All the decks, restaurants, rest rooms, gym, common areas ... everything was spotless and always being cleaned by the pleasant crew members.  This is not an Ad for Carnival, just the truth.  Carnivals logistics and customer service was outstanding. The only issue was the wi-fi service aboard. It took us a couple of days to realize that the signal was best in the center common areas of the ship, and not too good in the room.  The New Years celebration was really nice, and we finished in the Red Carpet lounge till 2:30am.  My wife and I truly enjoyed the voyage and are reserving this ship again for next new year!

I have been on a total of 7 cruises and most have been with Carnival. For the most part we enjoyed this cruise and the ports we stopped at. However, this is mainly because I booked our excursions outside of Carnival which I had found on Trip Advisory. These places were typically less expensive and highly rated. The only port we did not enjoy was Belize as there is not a whole lot to do there except scuba diving and snorkeling. The port shopping was pretty lame and the restaurant we grabbed a drink at was still pricey. The few shows we did attend were good and enjoyable. I felt that the New Years Eve celebration could have been better but overall the activities on board were pretty good.

A few things that I was surprised about this Carnival cruise was that we never met our room steward which had happened in the past cruises on the first day. However, any time we needed something it was always brought to us in a timely manner but by a different person each time so we didn't really know who was our steward was. In addition, the restaurant staff was not as friendly and as outgoing as they had been on past cruises. I also felt that the food quality had gone down quite a bit at the seated dinners. I realize they are serving thousands of people but it was still pretty bland and I had requested an appetizer that I saw other people eating beside me that had been on the menu the previous night and was told I couldn't order it. The breakfast and lunch buffets were the same typical food items you would find at most buffets and was nothing special but adequate. I found that the bar drinks were expensive as Carnival just recently increased the prices. They do offer a bar drink plan but all of the people in your cabin must purchase it regardless if they drink or not and for all of the days of the cruise. If we had gotten that plan it would have been $700-800 for both of us to drink for the week. I feel this is an insane amount of money. However, at $10 a drink it would be worth it if you are a big drinker. You are allowed to bring a bottle of wine per person onto the ship the first day and I took full advantage of this. The ship itself was clean but could use some minor repairs and maybe update the look. One thing that I noticed was that the ship air was extremely dry and I ended up with a sinus infection. I'm sure this is to combat the humidity but other people noticed it too.Our cabin was 6400 and had a balcony which was nice to have however below us was the night club which was pretty loud at times and would go on through to the early morning hours. This didn't really bother us to much as we had brought ear plugs in preparation. The cabin was a pretty good size and had a good amount of storage. The only complaint I have was that the toilet seemed to omit waste fumes from time to time. The embarkation and debarkation went pretty smoothly except for a few minor things such as which side of the theater we needed to wait on to leave. Overall the cruise was good but not the best I've been on.  

Overall the trip was fantastic. The cabin was nice (needed a little love in the way of refurbishing but clean), the food was what you expect on Carnival and you must have the chocolate melting cake at least once if not all 7 nights!!!! Entertainment was good with production shows, comedy was good except the comedy club was closed a few nights which I felt was unusual.

Nice New Years Eve Deck party, most everyone aboard got dressed for the occasion with passed champagne at midnight and live music.

The only real negative was the cruise director. Kevin Donough was invisible most of the time. I have been on many cruises and the cruise directors were everywhere and mingled with the guests constantly. He was not active nor motivating to get the guests to the on board events.

Best of all is our agent Chris Festerman. He is the best agent I have ever worked with for booking cruises. He is knowledgeable and guides us to the best deals and cabins aboard the ships. I cannot sing his praises enough.

I love cruising and enjoy Carnival, so they were my 1st choice to bring in the New Year. The itinerary was good, a stop in Grand Cayman, instead of Costa Maya, would have been a better choice, since there was very little to see or do in the latter. Food, housekeeping, waitstaff, and the Spa techs were all outstanding. My issues began w/the initial check-in. 40 minutes for security, another 15 for passport review and then over an hour to get to the actual check-in counter. This is unacceptable!!! We stood like cattle w/o benefit of even a cup of water. This process should be streamlined, if you did online c/i, have your docs in order, you should be allowed to board from security. I u/s Carnival now wants to charge people to expedite the process, but since everyone on this fully booked cruise already paid a premium in excess of 30%, this was just poor service. It along w/the lack of staff made this an unforgettable start to the cruise. Additionally, forcing people to pay a mandatory tip for a drink, coke or lukewarm coffee was insane. I had no problem w/tips for waiters, stewards & such, but I don't tip folks in Starbucks. 50 cent tip for a glass of soda is outrageous and this process needs to be ended immediately. The rest of my trip, especially ziplining in Honduras was outstanding!

We had a great time on this cruise!  The food was very good, the ship was beautiful, they had an area for over 18 years old where we could lay in the sun without all of the noise and partying!  The service was excellent.  The only improvement would be the entertainment at night.  There were only comedians, a few game shows and the ships band that put on a few shows.  We really enjoyed each of the ports that we stopped at.  It was one of our top cruises!  I highly recommend this ship and the ports!

The cruise was too expensive. The wait time to receive the cabin key was ridiculously too long. My cabin steward was very nice and friendly. The buffet crew looked sad and unhappy.

This was an amazing experience! The crew of Splendor were all outstanding, very accommodating and made us feel at home. Evening meals were spectacular in the dining room, the buffet for lunch/breakfast was well stocked with plenty of choices. Cruise Director Kevin did a very good job of keeping the place busy with entertainment choices. All in all and outstanding trip!! I highly recommend the Swim with Stingrays and snorkel excursion on Grand Turk. Those guys were great as well, Capt. Kelvin, crew Jason and David.

The worst cruise I have been on. This ships was not designed or staffed to support the number of guests on board. We had to wait for everything; the buffet had excessive long lines, had to wait for sit-down breakfast/brunch, waited for over an hour for dinner. Entertainment was lacking on quantity. Never book a room on deck 6 Aft. The night clubs vibrated our room every night. We could hear the words of the songs and the conversations of the people in the club. I will never book a cruise on the Splendor again.

Overall this was a wonderful cruise.  Lots to do on and off the ship, yet never felt rushed.  Beautiful sites, but best to have excursions scheduled for Amber Cove DR port, because that side of the island is rather poor and not much to do unless you plan ahead.  Ship staff was knowledgeable and friendly (except for 1 woman at the excursion desk). 

Will definitely cruise again!

Overall cruise was good. Food choices were plenty. Enjoyed days at sea and days at islands. Room cleaning service was excellent. A liittle bit more room space would have helped. Also it would have helped if rooms of the geoup were next to each other. 

All excited about the cruise until you really look at the ship and taste the food. Our cabin steward was awesome, waiters were great, ports were good. The ship at first glance appeared very nice, until you really looked at a ship in need of refurbishment, worn, stained, all the seats in the dining rooms and buffet were way to low. Food was good, but nothing special, unless you wanted to pay more for it. Deserts were of no taste, just cake or jello, etc. no flavor. The ice cream machine was awesome and available at all hours. The cruise director was Horrible, however his staff was very good and attentive, shows were ok. The comedy clubs was good and bad (Geechy Guy).