jam19872016

Good morning everyone. Running just slightly behind my 8am plan at 822. I got one stop to make and I am on the way.

The plan is to be on the road by 8am. I don't always stick to that plan when i can't get out of bed early enough, but Im thinking back to the last time I cruised Mariner. It was one of the worse embarkation experiences I've ever had so I am going to try really hard to rally to beat the crowds. I'm all packed except for my last minute items and I am going to bed. See you all tomorrow for cruise day!

I'm always impressed when I read a review from someone who cruises a lot who still keeps a full schedule of activities. That's not me 🤣. I'll try my best to do enough to keep some posts going but I tend to get lazy and just chill. I also have to spend a couple hours a day at least pretending to work 😄. If anyone has anything they would like to know about any of these ships, ask away and I will do my best to find an answer. I can't really help with the ports, I will probably do very little port exploring instead spending that time remote working.

Hello all. I'm heading tomorrow to Pt.Canaveral to board Mariner of the Seas kicking off my Royal November consisting of 22 days onboard something with "of the Seas" in its name. Best part of side to side cruising these days? No pesky covid tests hanging over my head 😁. Here is my itinerary: 11/7-12 Mariner of the Seas. Coco cay and cozumel. Weather dependant of course. 11/12 and 13 I will be dry docked. Boo 👎. We won't talk about that. 11/14-18 Liberty of the Seas. Nassau and coco cay. 11/18-11/21 Independence of the Seas. Nassau and coco cay. 11/21-12/1 Mariner of the Seas. Two more coco cay and cozumel runs.

I wasn't even trying and I found Waldo! A post you made on a social media site made it into my feed (those algorithms are creepy, I've had it pick up posts made from other people who I have followed on here before). You did not match the picture of you I had in my head AT ALL. I figured you were not large because you walk a lot and spend a lot of time at the gym. But I thought you must at least have a large frame. So wrong and so jealous that you can eat the way you do and be so fit. Thanks for another great review and I look forward to the next one.

Overall this was a great cruise and my worries about being on a smaller ship especially for this long were no problem. I don't think I would pick Spirit over a bigger ship for the Caribbean, but for Alaska and other specialty cruises I think it was a great choice. Over the course of 33 days I got to meet a lot of wonderful crew who sort of felt like an old friend by the end of the trip. I really hope to run into them again someday. Now for the negative. I wanted to put this in its own section because it has nothing to do with Spirit. I don't like the constant complaining about cutbacks but here I am. I'm doing it too. It seems like everyday there is something new that they have eliminated or reduced. Its just becoming too much too fast and it is simply not the same experience it once was. I'm not talking about some cruise taken in 1990 that cost $899 PP back then. Obviously that is not reasonable to expect. I'm talking about a cruise in 2022 compared to a cruise in 2019. Or even 2021. I don't accept Covid as an excuse, and neither should you. If you do, businesses will never be held accountable to provide a quality product. I look at my experiences sailing with other companies, and I don't see where they are needing to make the same cuts to service or offerings. Of course YMMV, and if you enjoy your Carnival cruise by all means continue to enjoy it and I will continue to try and enjoy mine as well but it is quickly reaching a point where I don't feel like I am getting good value for my money. And worse, because the price keeps bottoming lower and lower its attracting more and more .people who don't know how to travel and who are not enjoyable to travel with. Then they have to make more cuts because the lower prices mean they still are not making money. This is a bad business plan and they should really rethink it. But I do still have many Carnival cruises planned and I feel like I've lost sight of the point I was trying to make so I am going to get off my soapbox now. I have a few more pictures to post that I will post in the coming days as time allows. Thanks for following along everybody!

Service: I found the majority of the crew on this ship to be excellent. Crew staffing ranged from 92-95% on the different legs of the voyages and nowhere seemed short staffed except guest services after midnight. Dining room service was quick and efficient with the exception of a couple nights which over the course of 33 days is pretty good. Breakfast and brunch were a bit more hit and miss which I have found to always be the case. I think it must be where crew get their start as servers. The room stewards. I know I am in the minority, and I could certainly never do their job. But I just don't see this "they are stretched so thin" thing I see posted all the time on here. Four room stewards. One did not offer am or pm just came in the morning. One offered but still came in the morning after we requested pm service. The other two tried the same thing, but we put our foot down and insisted on PM service. We were obliged but instead of the old days where the steward would sneak in the moment you left your cabin, by 6:15 we had a knock on our door asking if we would be going to dinner soon so they could clean. I never saw them in the hallway at night except the last leg. A group of them would be huddled up chit chatting in the halls most of the night. The floors looked like they had not been vacuumed since that morning. This has been the same on every cruise I have taken since the restart with Carnival. More than a dozen times. Not used to brag, but to point out this is not an isolated incident or something going on with this ship. RCL cabin stewards work till usually 1pm and are back around 5pm servicing the rooms and halls until after 9pm. They make less in gratuities since they do less rooms. I think they should be looking at coming to work for Carnival. Rory, my steward on the Panama Canal cruise was very good at doing little things for my mom to make her feel special and I did appreciate that. He gave very good service, even if he did knock on the door every night to see when we were leaving lol.

Entertainment: I felt like for the Alaska cruise the ship did a fantastic job with the programming. They had a number of themed activities for Alaska and a wonderful series of lectures from a naturalist. Panama Canal journeys cruise felt a little more phoned in. They had a speaker who did 9 lectures in total. He had four that were each done twice. Topics like, art history, photography, food, and astrology. You know, things we want to hear about twice on a cruise to Panama. Then he had one lecture on the Panama Canal. In the small lounge where they hold the comedy. During this time the big theater was being used for a shopping talk on Colombia. He said he usually has three seminars on Panama instead of one but this was the schedule and location he was given. They did add an additional seminar so that others could get a chance to see the show. Multiple events were started late because the host of the activity was just finished hosting something else. One seminar started late because it was booked to close to another event in the same lounge. They also ran very light on things to do for 16 days. If you like trivia and dance classes you are good. Otherwise, pack something to keep yourself entertained and don't rely on the internet to entertain you. It may go out for days at a time lol. I hope that wasn't too negative sounding, I really did enjoy myself and I understand that they don't have a lot of experience hosting a cruise that long and hopefully they will learn what they can improve on and do even better the next time they offer a 16 day Journeys cruise. Beyond that, Spirit had the normal entertainment offerings you expect from Carnival. I heard lots of good things about the comedians. The music around the ship I heard sounded good. The playlist cast. Well, they are starting vacation in the next week or two so I won't bother describing the one performance I saw. The piano bar was closed for most of the final leg of the trip because the performer was sick. I don't know with what but we can speculate. Erin the CD, I absolutely loved her! She is perfect for the Alaska itinerary. She is very entertaining and a great host without being loud and gimmicky like most of the CDs. With the exception of her vacations, she will be CD on Spirit through January 2024. She leaves in November for a vacation but if you get the chance to sail Spirit with her, you are in for a treat. Very sweet lady and an awesome CD.

Public Spaces and Cabin: After reading some less than flattering reviews about the condition of Miracle and Pride, as well as my own experience on the Conquest which is newer than this ship, I was worried about how well the ship was being upkept. I found almost no signs of neglect or even normal wear and tear. The ice machines on Lido were down a lot and the ATM stayed broken the entire time. I noticed looking at the balconies that I could see onto, they looked in need of some sprucing up. But other than that, the ship was clean and well maintained and anything that was broken was fixed quickly. The ship was easy to navigate but if I'm being honest, I found it odd when anyone holding a red card or higher says Carnival's ships are hard to navigate because you can't walk the entire length of deck 3. After your first cruise, isn't that easy to figure out? But I digress. Lines were rare even in spots you normally expect them like Pizza and deli and GS. Guy's and Blue Iguana were the exception they did tend to have long lines. The buffet was cramped so although the line was short, any line created bottlenecks quickly. There was nowhere near adequate seating in Lido and everyday felt like embarkation day in there. Dinnertime thinned out, but even during off peak hours for breakfast and lunch, seating was hard to find even for two people. The two day cruise, all bets were off. There were lines and crowds everywhere. Except the dining room - almost completely empty. Overall though, I agree the Spirit class is much roomier and easier to navigate than the other classes of ships in the fleet. I had four different cabins and other than a maintenance issue at midnight I had no real problems with any of the rooms except my two Ocean View rooms. I never did figure out exactly what it was, but there was an awful banging noise outside the windows every day as soon as we entered port and sometimes while at sea. It made sleeping in impossible on port days. Thankfully there were not many ports on the 16 day cruise 😆 Avoid booking even cabins from 1120-1140. They are right under the Red Frog Pub and very noisy with the worst being the even cabins from 1128-1134. If you got moved to those cabins, I would try to get moved unless you plan to be out late every night. The noise in the hallway from this area was bad, I imagine inside the cabins was probably the same.

Final Thoughts: Dining: Spirit doesn't have all the options the newer ships have but overall I was impressed with what they did have available. The dining room at dinner had some of the best meals since the restart. It wasn't five star dining by any means, but it was the best execution of the meals I've had on Carnival in a while. Over the course of 33 days there were some duds, but overall I enjoyed the MDR for dinner. During the journey cruise, they opened the MDR for lunch and I thought most of the food there was better than the brunch menu they currently serve and would like to see that rotated in more on the weeklong cruises. Brunch and breakfast were ok. I'm going to give the brunch issues more scrutiny in another section. The pay options were good and a good value other than the $18 lobster benedict which was tasty, but simply a money grab. The buffet was mostly a bust which I have come to expect from Carnival, thankfully they have many other included casual choices. Chopsticks was delicious. I only had one bad meal there and I probably ate there at least a dozen times. The deli started out strong but did have a couple sandwiches towards the end that were just not good. I enjoyed the new chicken salad sandwich, the turkey sandwich the first time I got it, and the veggie burger. I'm sad to see a few of my favorites no longer available. Guy's fries were amazing. I don't notice a difference from the way they used to be personally but maybe that's just me. I did not try the pizza but there was almost never a line except on the 2 day booze cruise. They even had a bell on the counter to ding because it was so empty they didn't even stay behind the counter working. It was crazy. Also didn't do seafood corner, Blue Iguana, Bonsai, or Steakhouse. I heard many complaints about the steakhouse but did not experience it and I'm sure those who did enjoy it didn't go around telling everyone. The ones who did not did, and I heard many random people complaining about the food and service there.

So I mentioned earlier about the issues I had with this booking and with my former PVP. After what turned out to be a great cruise, the issues seem irrelevant. But I will sum it all up since I teased at the issue a couple times. As we all know, this cruise was supposed to be on the Freedom. I spent a great deal of time researching to find a room in a desired location that was available for all four sailings. I then gave the booking numbers to my PVP to finalize the booking. That is the relationship we had, I did the leg work and gave her the credit and she handled any issues that came up after booking. Since I do mostly casino bookings, she was very valuable and had connections as she mostly specialized in casino bookings. Ask for a PVP recommendation in a casino group, and I guarantee her name will be given multiple times. As we also all know, with Covid we ended up playing the cancel and rebook game - many times. Rebooking meant extra OBC. The first two legs came with the extra OBC, $900 in total. The last two sailings were out of Florida and were not part of any rebooking and just came with the normal OBC that came with the casino promotions I booked them under. Then the ship changed to Spirit. I heard nothing for the longest time about my new room assignment. I knew the layout was very different and I was not necessarily going to end up in a cabin I would consider "desirable". I did expect that B2B would be given the same cabin across sailings. That was of course not the case. I sent an email to my PVP and asked if she could find an available cabin across all sailings or at least some of the sailings so we could avoid having to move as much as possible. I got an out of office response with an extension of another PVP to call for emergencies. I had a great relationship with her and trusted her to be able to handle my issue better than anyone else despite the fact the deadline was approaching for rebooking a Covid canceled and still getting the extra OBC. When she returned she informed me there was nothing she could do as two of the bookings were completely sold out and the two remaining cruises had no like cabins. I indicated I wanted to cancel my Alaska and Panama Canal cruise and gave some new cruises I wished to have the reservation booked to. There was only 48 hours left to do so before I would not receive the extra $900 for rebooking. Crickets. I could have followed up with another call to Carnival's main line or some more follow ups to her but I was sad to let those two cruises go and sort of wanted to keep them and was partially in shock that she stopped communicating with me. In the end I am so glad I did keep these cruises, but very disappointed in the way the situation was handled from both her and how Carnival handled the ship change to begin with. But wait, it gets worse. There was still one more hiccup. A couple weeks before the final payment was due I started getting emails that if my reservation was not paid in full I would be canceled. My bookings are always set to automatically bill my card on final payment so I ignored the warnings. I bet you can guess what happened. The booking was canceled. I called Carnival and explained what happened. She put me on hold a few times while she spoke to a supervisor and in the end she was able to get me reinstated. There were no Ocean View rooms left and I would have to be downgraded to interior which I was fine with since that was what I booked originally and what I preferred anyway. I was unsure exactly how much OBC I was still going to get since I no longer had the booking offer for $500 and the $600 for rebooking offer had also expired. I was very happy to see that the $1100 was all reinstated and the price had even come down slightly. It was explained that the autopay box had gotten unchecked during the switchover. It was strange though that it only happened on the first two cruises that I tried to cancel originally. The final two out of Florida were still set to autopay. I was just happy at this point the booking was saved because I was several days past when it was canceled before I realized what happened. I know longer use a PVP and I was very happy the cruise that I took even if it was not the one I booked.

Thanks for reading along! Deli is always so hit or miss. I had a turkey sandwich again on the last day, and it was terrible. They always have so much bread, I usually have to pull some off. Way way too much bread. I was happy to see the line was always short for the deli at least. Fries made a return towards the end of the cruise. Wish chopsticks was on every ship that doesn't have a Mongolian Wok. That food was delicious and always more popular than the buffet line. I read your review - the roaches! EEk! Glad that I did not experience any of that. Your very welcome and thanks so much for reading along!

Good morning from Miami. We're gonna go grab some breakfast and use express walk off. I've got some more pictures I have not posted yet. I will have that and my final thoughts posted once i get settled.

Going to bed unreasonably early so I might not be so tired tomorrow when I have to leave the ship. Good night 😴.

Almost hit a new step record that day just running around the ship 😆. Thanks for following along glad you liked it.

At the theater for the Q & Awesome with Erin. Caught the end of the Carnival Caper. I would like to play sometime but it's a little too drawn out. The winner did get a ship on a stick. Maybe I should do it next time. Hopefully it's not the same answer each time.

Just looking at those cakes is adding calories. Heading to the gym to work them off.

They are getting setup for the chocolate extravaganza.

Food acquired. The deli has updated its menu again and now matches the menu John Heald had posted. I got the veggie burger. That was actually pretty good. It's not going to win a taste test against a real burger but I was impressed. The patty had a good flavor and it had a number of crispy toppings to give it some texture. Even the bun was slightly crispy without being dried out and hard. It could use just a little bit of ketchup or mustard but overall a very good burger alternative 😋.

Fifteen minutes after opening and the deli still isn't open. I'm getting hangry.

Wah wah wah, no burrito for me. Maybe I have gone Loco but i am 98% sure the breakfast hours have always been until 1030. Not so anymore, I checked the app and it closes everyday at 10. 😓

Good morning. I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night. It felt like the last night where I tend to toss and turn in anticipation of having to get up early the next morning. Hopefully that means I will sleep good tonight. I'm leaning towards a breakfast burrito for breakfast. I've not had one yet this entire cruise 😯

Last casino drawing of the week and still no luck. Going to sleep now. Tomorrow will be my last day before its time to close the book on one heck of an journey.

No wait for dinner tonight. Everything was very good. Crab cake. Stuffed mushrooms. Teriyaki salmon. Greek spinach pie. Key lime mousse.

Guess it was just the one party. I enjoyed my free drinks and clapping 👏 for my ships. Now I'm back in the room relaxing for a few until dinner. Tonight is formal night and I need to send out laundry so a lot of work tonight 😁