mrscastle

Does anyone know if Carnival removed the spring rolls from the everyday apps in the MDR.

They appeared at least once in a six-day cruise on the Splendor.

Day 4 follow-up -- I forgot that we did the Build-a-Bear workshop after coming back from Half Moon Cay! It was super-cute, and definitely worth the money (it was actually the only souvenir that my toddler got that week). He chose the Cat in the Hat to build, as we had been hyping up that he was going to meet the Cat this week on the "big boat."

The Cat cost $30, while the other animals were less expensive (but, you didn't have to buy clothing for the Cat!) As the child walked in, they picked a little stuffed heart out of a basket, then when they got started, they all did a cute little dance/routine with the heart. Then they called each child up in order that they arrived, picked an animal, stuffed it, then had it sewn up. It was a pretty speedy process -- I have a impatient child, and we were about 10th on the list and it didn't take super long.

I think they did this 3-4 times throughout the week.

Doing the dance

Stuffing his cat (he got to step on the pedal, so he did most of the stuffing!)

Sewing him up

wow that is pricey!

 

Glad you mentioned dramamine... I'm sure I'll be one to get sea sick on the tender boat (which will be a new concept to me as we've never been on a ship that needed to tender).

 

I know you have little man but was there an adult only part of the beach?

Not that I saw, but I'm sure if you made the effort to walk much farther down the beach, the crowds would drop -- and, ergo, the kids. Of course, given that we sailed while school was still in session, I didn't feel like we had a ton of kids on our cruise.

Was the aft pool adults only?

I was on the May 21-27 sailing, and yes, it is.

Sorry to keep you guys in suspense! I try to avoid the computer on the weekend, and my husband went out of town, so I was spending lots of time with the 3-year-old. Anyway, so where were we? Ah, Half-Moon Cay! Here we go.

Day 4 (Day 3 of the cruise)

Half Moon Cay

I'm sorry to say that I have surprisingly few picture of this port. However, it's just as beautiful as everyone says it is, and it's a great place to just relax. We only spent a few hours on the island, as we wanted to take advantage of a quiet ship, but I enjoyed our time there.

The problem? The tendering. Not that Carnival did anything wrong, but these are the kind of boats/situations where I can get really seasick. Couple that with staying out until 1 a.m. with my sister the night before, and things weren't good. Tip #6: Take dramamine. It took a LONG time for them to the load the double-decker boat, and it was very choppy next to the cruise ship.

We didn't realize that, having FTTF, we didn't have to wait in the dining room to get a tender sticker. So, we waited in line, and then, as we're about to board the boat, my sister and brother in law came down the elevator and joined us. Lucky them! It wasn't a big deal, though. We were tender 6 (I saw tender numbers as high as 38), so we were some of the first on the island. Because of that, we got front row lounge chairs not too far down the beach, which was nice. Being in the back would have had such a nice view.

So what did we do on HMC? Nothing, really. We lounged, played in the water and that's about it. My dad snorkeled a little, but he said there wasn't much to see.

There was prompt wait service, but as other people have said, you can't use Cheers on the island. I'm not going go into how stupid that is. My husband and brother in law ordered a couple of buckets of beer over the few hours we were there, and I stuck with a diet coke. I have no idea how much they spent -- maybe $35 each?

Five of us headed back to the boat after lunch, while my sister and brother in law stayed on the island to eat. They said the food was the same that was on the boat, and that it was good. I decided to try out Mongolian Wok. It was incredibly good; however, there were only six or seven people ahead of me, and it took FOREVER. I wouldn't even dare to try it when there are a lot of people on ship, even if both lines were open. They can only cook 3 dishes at a time, and while they're very efficient in doing so, it simply takes time.

I'm going to be honest, I don't really remember what we did this afternoon. Lazed around, read books. My biggest goal on vacation is to read as many books as possible, so that's basically all I did if I wasn't out doing something with the family. The kiddo tried out the kid club again, and he was OK for an hour or two at a time -- but only during the day, he was never willing to try dinner time or after dinner.

Edit: I remember the deal with the kids club this day. We were going to drop him off and stay on the same deck to see how he would do. So I did, but he didn't want me to leave -- he wanted me to play with him. He wanted someone to play with, and was too shy to ask the 2 or 3 other kids in there if he could play with them. It took 10-15 minutes of me playing and cajoling and telling him that I would be right outside before a counselor finally stepped in (keep in mind, it's not like they were doing anything else) and started playing with him so I could leave. I was a little frustrated that they didn't help out earlier -- after all, it's their job, isn't it? But, he did OK there for an hour before we picked him up and took him back to our room to relax and get ready for dinner.

I forgot to take menu pictures tonight — I was so tired! — but if you scroll down to day 3 on this page, that was the menu. I enjoyed the seared tuna and kale Caesar salad for an appetizers (I have a bit of a kale salad obsession, and this one did not disappoint), and a flat iron steak (cooked medium rare) with, I think, green beans on the side. Tip #7: Always ask for your steak as medium rare, and it will come as medium.

I mostly drank Oyster Bay Sauvignon blanc with dinner throughout the week, as it's one of my favorites. A New Zealand SB, it's very crisp with a good minerality. I don't think that's actually a word nor a descriptor of wine, but I'm going with it.

After dinner, it was my turn to take the kiddo back to the room while my husband went out to have some fun with the others. I was so exhausted from the previous day, that I had no issue with that!

And it was good I did, because we did a lot on Wednesday! Next up, Grand Turk.

loving your review. Taking notes on dos and don'ts

 

By chance did you happen to see/hear if they have a photo package? like spend $x and you get y# of photos.. or spend $a and get a cd of all photos?

I'm sorry, I didn't see! I only bought one photo, and it was an 8x10 for $21.99 (insert eye-roll on the crazy price here)

On the Splendor a week or two ago, it was open probably 3 out of 6 days, but none of the food I saw them presenting ever looked good enough to wait in line. But that might have been my preference and the fact that we had early dining and I preferred the apps in the MDR>

I've never heard about this famed glass of champagne... if you would have gotten the right one would it have been included in the Cheers package ? And the one you got was it included in the Cheers package?

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Yeah, if you do a search in Cheers program threads, you'll find the name of it. I just didn't write it down. It's included in Cheers, but the one we got was, too, and it was good anyway :-) I didn't feel like bothering to sign into the Internet package and deal with the slow speeds while in the steakhouse bar to try to find the name of it.

They have a drink of the day that's $1 off all day, but I never saw any sort of drink specials or happy hour.

A few GoPro pictures from Nassau

Jumping into the water at the first snorkeling spot

Snorkeling

Relaxing by the island (I'm pretty sure that's me floating there, with no effort at all)

Enjoying a coconut

Also from the GoPro -- the Adults Only pool on the ship

Picking up from where I left off....our toddler wasn't in the kids club when we got back from our Nassau excursion.

Well, as I'm sure you guess, my mother signed him out (she had permission on the forms from me) because little guy was upset after about an hour there. We later realized there was a note from my parents outside of our room, but we hadn't gone back to the room yet.

To refresh your memory, my parents had won an excursion to Balmoral Island through the ship. Children under 5 are free, so they asked if they could bring him along. It was fine....except apparently you need separate authorization from the parents to take someone else's child off the ship, PLUS his Sail and Sign card was in our cabin. Long story short, they jumped through a lot of hoops, were able to get a new Sail and Sign card and were the last people on the transportation to the excursion.

Sadly, I have no photos from them for that day, but I'm told they had a great time and enjoyed the island; however, the provided lunch was pretty meager and it was $13 for another hot dog for the little guy (plus $25 for a baseball hat to protect his blondie head). There were apparently a lot of little tide pools that my mom (the former science teacher) thoroughly enjoyed exploring with the little dude.

I felt terrible that toddler was upset and I wasn't there, and I'm glad the kids club managed to get ahold of my parents before they left the ship. I'm also glad that Carnival has those policies in place (re: taking someone else's kid off the boat), even if it was a hassle for them at the beginning!

Anyway, so I panicked for a little while (knowing that logistically, the kid was OK because he was with my parents, but still being a worrywart irrationally), then headed to the BBQ upstairs to have some lunch. It was still early in the week, so there were only a few people in line. YUM -- this is probably some of the best food on board.

Monday (the second night of the cruise) was a formal night. We saw everything from gowns to jeans; they did not enforce it in the dining room, as there were people at a table by us who were in shorts. My family opted for slightly dressed up (button-down shirts and sports coats for the guys; I wore a strapless maxi dress made out of casual fabric). The menu was great for this night.

Cocktail Menu

The not-spicy-at-all-but-still-delicious pineapple martini

My husband and I each had a lobster tail, and then we split the prime rib. Something of note: If you want two entrees, you get two FULL entrees, one after another. There was one night that I just wanted the grilled shrimp off another entree to be added to my flat iron steak, and the waiter said sure, but he ended up bringing me a separate full meal.

Because I had gone to the cabin with the toddler the night before, my husband took his turn tonight while I went out on the ship with my sister and brother-in-law. We played in the casino (I lost.), saw a comedy show (not very funny, but it was a PG one -- supposedly this comedian was funnier in the R-rated shows), went upstairs to the steakhouse bar to get the famed $20 glass of Champagne (but did not get it, as we only asked for Rose Champagne, and we were served a $10 glass...but whatever, it's Champagne and I like it) and then danced at the nightclub until a little after midnight. I hit my 15 drinks here -- oops. They'll definitely tell you right up front when you're done, and they're pretty good about warning you when you're getting close.

After dancing, we headed to the Lido deck for some late-night food. My sister got pizza (but the line was long) and I got a burger (there was also hot dogs). La La Land was just finishing up on the movie screen, so we sat in a lounge chair and enjoyed. Then, it was bedtime.

Next up, Half Moon Cay

DAY THREE (and, just so this doesn’t get overly confusing, DAY TWO of the actual cruise)

NASSAU

Typically, the toddler is the first one up, and rudely wakes us by some form of jumping or yelling. However, today, I woke up before him and my husband (around 6 a.m.) so I took advantage of some alone time. I headed to the Lido deck to get a cup of coffee and took my Kindle to the outside deck near the adults pool. I read tips to bring your own travel mug and bottle for water – I didn’t bring the mug, but I did bring reusable water bottles – and I didn’t feel like they were necessary since I had Cheers. If I wanted a bigger coffee, I went to the coffee bar, and if I wanted a water bottle, I got one from the bar. I think I only filled up my bottle on the Lido deck once; I didn’t really want to carry it around with me.

Once the buffet opened around 6:30, I headed in for some food. I never got made-to-order eggs because I’m not a huge egg person. I didn’t eat the scrambled eggs, either.

What I liked:

- Eggs benedict.

- Variety of breakfast potatoes.

What I didn’t like:

- Bacon. It just wasn’t very good.

- The orange juice.

What I wish they had:

- They had a good fruit salad at lunch, but at breakfast, they only had melon, grapefruit, canned pears and some other lackluster fruit. I wish they had that lunchtime fruit salad with pineapple, grapes, etc., in the morning.

- Smoked salmon for the bagels.

- More bagel variety – they just had pre-sliced, pre-toasted plain bagels.

But, don’t worry, I never went hungry! In fact, I’m sad to report that the scale told me that I gained 6 pounds over the course of our9-day vacay. Tip #5(ish): Always take the stairs.

So, now we’re to the part that it seems like most people are anticipating — ports! We arrived in Nassau at 9 a.m., and four of us had an excursion planned at 9:30 – a private snorkel and sail tour with Island TimeCharters. Additionally, my parents had attended an excursion presentation the day before and won an outing to Balmoral Island with lunch, which started around 10:15, I believe.

We had toggled back and forth about bringing the toddler on the boat with us, but when he seemed to love the kids club on the first day,our decision was made. We dropped him off there right as they opened at 9 a.m.and, after giving us kisses and hugs, he ran in to play without a second thought.Score! Tip #6: Don’t assume anything. Toddlers are tricky. Wait for it…

Welcome to the Bahamas!

Anyway, we headed off the boat (Another Carnival ship was right next to us…I think it was the Magic?) and followed the directions in the emailI received to walk all the way down to Senor Frogs and look to the right, and there they were! It was a small boat, but there were just four of us, so it wasn’t an issue at all. Two people – brothers, who were awesome – were sailing the boat and/or explaining things to us. As we sailed out of Nassau, they pointed out all the different celebrities’ houses, landmarks, etc., and it was very interesting! They told us all about growing up in a rural area of theBahamas and their lives now – fascinating!

Double Dockage

We had ordered a gallon of Rum Punch to take along with us,though that ended up being the only snafu of the day – I had documentation stating that the punch was $30 a gallon (we could have brought our own on,too), but later, when we paid the remaining balance, they tried to say that it was $50. Because we had also given a tip in cash, we told them that I had emails stating it was $30, and that’s what we were paying. I hate to think that they might have had to take money out of their tip, but I’m also a little suspicious that they were trying to get an extra $20 in cash out of us. Who knows – I paid what I was originally quoted, plus a cash tip, and hopefully it all worked out on their end.

Stopping by another boat to pick up the rum punch (which was delicious!)

Details – it was $525 for up to six of us for four hours;unfortunately, my mom gets seasick in small boats, and my dad has shoulder problems, so he didn’t think he could easily get in and out of the boat. So, it was pricey for the four of us, but I think we thought it was worth it in the end. He first took us to a very small and shallow shipwreck to make sure that we were all comfortable snorkeling and swimming safely.

I will say, my husband and I have snorkeled in Jamaica andMexico and always have had problems with fogging masks – these NEVER fogged. It was fantastic, and the water was so clear!

Next, they took us to a little deeper area, which is the place we all really loved. Tons of fish and interesting underwater plants/coral. After about 30-40 minutes, he took to us an even deeper area tha the told us was going to be even better, but we actually didn’t think so – not quiteas much sea life. Overall, we saw some stingrays, eels, spiny lobster and tons of fish.

Finally, he gave us the option of snorkeling more or going to a beach on a small island – we chose the latter, and there we hung out until about 1:15, drinking the rum punch, swimming and chatting. The island was beautiful, and we could still see Atlantis in the distance, so it wasn’t too far away.

I didn't know how salty the water in the Bahamas is, but it's awesome for its floating potential. I just laid on my back and floated for a while -- I've never been able to do that before.

Our excursion was up at 1:30, and they dropped us back off at Senor Frogs. We thought about getting lunch on our walk back, but I wanted to get the toddler and the streets along the main road are pricey (and lunch on the ship is free!) We walked back, stopped in a couple stores to get Christmas tree ornaments, and I bought a coconut to drink.

As soon as we got back on the ship, husband and I headed up to the Kids Club to get the boy. They looked at us funny, asked how old he was and we joked around about how he seems so much older because he’s so tall, and they said, “no, we’re just making sure you’re in the right room. He’s not here, someone picked him up.”

WHAT?

More to come….

(Also, my husband has not uploaded the pictures from our GoPro yet, so I only have my iPhone photos….better photos of the snorkeling excursion will come later)

A few additional photos that didn't make it into previous posts.

Priority Waiting Area in the terminal

PINK polka-doted bank of elevators!

Checking out the igloo in Camp Penguin

Swimming with daddy before the pool got overly crowded.

I'm back! Unfortunately, that means I'm also back at work and in front of a computer for the next seven hours. Despite having premium wifi (necessary because my husband is in his final online class for his master's degree), I don't think I've spent so little time on a laptop/phone/internet since around 1998. Two reasons: 1) I really did want to disconnect for the week -- I didn't even want to purchase the wifi, and 2) Despite buying the premium wifi, it was. so. slow. Unless it was a must for you, it really wasn't worth it on this particular ship (I've heard it's better on other ships).

Alright, so when I left off, we had just dropped off our bags in our room. We immediately headed to the Lido deck for some food, and given that it was only about 12:15, it was completely empty. Another benefit of FTTF! Around 1:30 or 2, it was jam-packed. We all just ate a hodge-podge of food from the buffet, though I should have taken advantage of the short lines and gotten a burrito! (The one food I never tried.)

Then, of course, it was time to get started with the Cheers package! A quick note on this: Yes, I hit 15 drinks one day, but it was only one day and I wasn't aiming to hit it -- I just happened to go out to the nightclub with my sister and, next thing I knew....However, we really felt like it was worth it for us. I liked being able to get specialty coffee, water to take off the ship and, of course, any drink at any time. The liquor on the ship is pretty good quality -- Grey Goose vodka, Hendricks gin and some whiskeys that I didn't pay attention to, but that my husband liked.

Next, we headed up to the Kids Club to register our 3-year-old for the week. Unfortunately, this was really a futile effort, as he didn't want much to do with it. But, we got the cell phone so that they could contact us, and Toddler played for a few minutes (he was super-excited about it at this point).

He really wanted to go swimming, though, so we headed back to the room. At this point, it was about 1:30, and our bags had arrived! I had stashed a swimsuit in my carry-on, but it turned out I didn't even need it. Our bed had also been made by this point.

We spent the next couple hours in the pool. A quick note on the pool decks -- who the heck designed these and WHY were these materials chosen? The deck was hotter than Hades, and it was very slippery. Therefore, you had to wear your flip-flops until you hit water, and then toss them back over the benches. One day, both me and my toddler fell on the deck because of the slipperiness. I'm surprised there haven't been more complaints!

Next, we went back to our rooms, changed and congregated on my sister's balcony with drinks (that were not made of grapefruit vodka and cranberry juice that I had purchased prior to the cruise) to watch sail away from Fort Lauderdale.

Bye-bye, America! See you in six days!

We chose the 6 p.m. dinner (due to the little one; plus, we're just early eaters!) and were assigned a table on the second floor of the black pearl. Our waiter was Achmed, and although he forgot a few things here and there, he had a great personality and remembered our names, favorite drinks, the toddler's nightly dinner order and more. We would also run into him on the Lido deck for breakfast - he must have worked long days!

Menu for night one (cruise casual):

I ordered the Vietnamese Roll and vegetable lasagna, while toddler had chicken nuggets and fruit. Unfortunately, it had been a long couple days for the toddler, and he started rebelling midway through dinner, so I abandoned my very delicious lasagna and took him back to the room for the night. So, sadly, that ended day two for me.

I will be uploading Fun Times as soon as I unpacked and take photos of them!

love to know what you did in the ports. How was the entertainment? How did you get to MIA from Port Everglades? thanks

The first two questions, I will definitely get to! Unfortunately, we didn't get to experience as much as the entertainment as I would like, but I'll cover what we did see.

We took a Lyft from Port Everglades to our Miami hotel. It was about $40.

DAY TWO

Cruise day! The whole gang had purchased Faster to the Fun on my advice, because I tend to think anything that allows you to skip lines is smart. (If you ever head to Jamaica, Club Mobay – on the flight in, anyway – is the smartest thing you will do the entire trip.) Therefore, we weren't super-concerned as to what time we were going to show up to the port, opting for our original check-in time of 11 a.m.

Oh, look! You can see the ship from the front of our hotel! How exciting!

After a bagel and coffee breakfast at Einstein's Bagels, about a half-mile from the hotel, we hopped in the hotel's shuttle to Port Everglades ($6 per person; they didn't charge for the toddler, though it was unclear if that was actually the policy.) After dropping two passengers off at Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas (did you know it's the second-largest cruise ship in the world? Because we were told 18 times), the driver let us out at terminal 19, where the Splendor was docked.

Drop our bags off, and hit the FTTF line to check in. CRISIS NUMBER ONE. I have my husband and the toddler's passport in my hand, but WHERE THE EFF IS MY PASSPORT? We're searching the floor, assuming I dropped it as I was pulling them out. I'm going to cry. It's not here. I don't have my birth certificate with me because, duh, I have a passport. The woman checking us in goes to get her supervisor, and I start digging through my bag.

Oh, there it is. Yeah, I used it as ID the day previously on the flight and didn't return it to its rightful spot. Oops. Crisis averted. Tip #3: Put things back, just like your mama taught you.

But, then she says that it won't check in my boarding pass, so I have to go another desk.

By this time, the rest of the group is ahead of us, but they didn't have their trusty travel agent (did I mention that I planned this whole trip? They might have wandered in the ocean without me), they ended up in the area for general boarding. We rounded them up and headed to the priority waiting area, and then I returned to a secondary check-in desk with my passport and boarding pass. There, the lady informed me that it's not checking me in because it says I'm pregnant.

I literally laughed in her face. She asked if I'm pregnant, and while I'm not going to judge people who don't know instantaneously when they're pregnant like I did, because I know someone who it happened to, I still laughed in her face and told her that if I was, I've already done a lot of damage to the fetus. While waiting, I texted my husband with this information and he just responded, "ummmmm." After sorting it out and returning to my family, they all congratulated me on my impending non-existent baby.

We waited around another 20-30 minutes, and they began boarding at 11:45. We happened to have stationed ourselves immediately in front of the priority boarding door on the left side of the waiting area, so we were the first ones in! Getting on the ship was so easy – picture taken, up the gangway, and there we are in the PINK atrium lobby. OK, I won't harp on the pinkness of the Splendor because any research done on the ship will share that information, but yeah, it's pink. I tuned it out pretty much immediately, though.

Because we had FTTF, we immediately headed back to our rooms to drop off our carry-ons. Like I said, we all had mid-ship deck 6 balcony cabins. Ours was configured into a king-sized bed with a sofa for the little one (which we ended up rotating sleeping on because god forbid the little guy sleep by himself through the entire night – even though he does at home). Our room actually wasn't fully ready (but the rest of the groups' were), as the bed hadn't been made, but we just dropped off our bags and left.

To be continued...

DAY ONE

As I mentioned, we live near Baltimore, about 15 minutes south of BWI, so that's obviously where we fly out of. Southwest has a mind-boggling TEN flights from BWI to Fort Lauderdale each day, and I scored us each $64 one-way tickets in December 2016. Coming back was another story, but I'll get to that later. We had a relatively late flight, 1:45 PM, which was a lovely change from the crack-o-dawn flights we usually book when traveling. On the way there, it was just the three of us – my parents inadvertently booked the flight after us, and my sister and BIL were traveling from the Dallas/Fort Worth area. We took a Lyft to the airport, easy-peasy. It's really the way to go these days, unless you have friends or family to drop you off.

Now, I tend to get a little frazzled when traveling with the 3-year-old, between the luggage and the logistics and the fact that my toddler is, well...."spirited." So, once we finally checked our bags and go through security (surprisingly light and simple), we settled in at the first restaurant/bar that we saw, ordered lunch and I got started with a Bloody Mary. Vacay, right? Husband enjoyed a couple of beers, and toddler refreshed himself with a stiff glass of water.

Anyway, the flight to Fort Lauderdale was uneventful, other than the flight attendant had the audacity to buy us a couple of drinks – service on airplanes these days, I swear! She was a lovely woman who has a 4-year-old and understands the stress of traveling with little ones, so basically, she's a saint and an angel and deserved to be promoted to captain. Tip #2: If you want free drinks on Southwest, pick up a spare toddler along your way.

On second thought, don't.

One in FLL, we took another Lyft to our hotel, the Hilton Marina. It was a fine hotel, and the pool looked super-lovely on the website, but we never got to it. We walked about a mile to a plaza that had a Total Wine, where we each bought a bottle of wine to bring on the boat. What we obviously did NOT buy was a bottle of grapefruit vodka and spiced rum to put in Rum Runners. We obviously did not do it because though we had already bought the Cheers package, we didn't want to have anything available in our cabin in case we were feeling lazy. And, obviously, I don't like a challenge.

So, after we didn't buy those, we had dinner at Carraba's because it was right there and I love pasta. I can't even remember the last time I ate at a chain Italian restaurant, but I was actually pretty impressed with my scallops and linguine with vodka sauce, plus half-price glasses of house wine.

By that time, my parents had arrived at the hotel; my sister and brother-in-law arrived shortly after, and we spent the rest of the evening catching up in my parents' hotel room, while the 3-year-old used his aunt and uncle as a personal jungle gym, since he hadn't seen them in about 9 months.

Day one, out.

Hello from the friendly skies! Well, they're friendly so far, but no one seems to have a birthday cake on board. We're in route from Miami to Chicago, because we thought it would be an awesome idea to take one of the most inconvenient ways home to Baltimore. I purchased the Internet plan, so I could do some "work" (and if my husband asks, that's definitely what I'm doing), but of course, not a single password I've ever created will work on my CruiseCritic account, so I am writing this in Word to post later. And, I swear, I'm also doing work (and listening to the Hamilton for the first time in 10 days, but that's neither here nor there).

I gave a little background in my first post, but here's a few more details. We booked this cruise last September or so. Originally, we booked a cruise for this upcoming Labor Day; however, after a few weeks of discussion and mulling, we changed it to the week before Memorial Day. This was most because we didn't want a year for a vacation, but also because my sister is antsy to start a family and, as we're all aware, pregnancy and the Caribbean don't mix well together these days. Therefore, each of us paid the $150 administrative fee to change to this particular cruise. Tip #1: Actually think about when you want to go on a cruise before paying the deposit.

I really like going the week before three-day weekends because you get back with at least a day or two to get your bearings and prepare for the week ahead.

Also, I'm a writer by profession, and have the professional tendency to write way too much. This is going to be particularly problematic because I'm not immediately posting, so I'll have a few a-ha! Moments and return to add more to the top, which has only happen 4 times so far in writing this.

Without further ado, let's get started.

Can you confirm that the aft pool was adults only again.

Yes, there was a sign that said adults only and, although I didn't spend much time there thanks to that pesky 3-year-old, I never saw kids there.

I got off the Carnival Splendor just a few hours ago and am chilling in a hotel room in Miami before going to a Marlins game tonight and flying home tomorrow. I thought I'd get a head start on a thorough review, as I was obsessed with reading them in the weeks and months up to our cruise. There was good and bad, and not all the bad was necessarily the fault of Carnival or the ship (nor could all the good be attributed to it! :p)

So, to start off, a few details:

• The cruise was six days, with ports in Nassau, Half Moon Cay, Grand Turk, and Amber Cove. We did non-Carnival excursions in Nassau and Amber Cove.
  
• I traveled with my husband of six years (both in our 30s) my son (age 3), my parents (mid 60s) and my sister and brother-in-law (also in their 30s)
  
• We all had balcony cabins on deck 6, mid-ship.
  
• My husband and I, as well as sister and BIL, got the Cheers package. We also got the Premium Internet package.
  
• The ship, which holds 3,000, was sold out (or so it was told to me)
  

Pictures will accompany! I'll try to start with our pre-cruise day in Fort Lauderdale sometime today!

Sounds like an Uber will be the way to go. Thanks for all the info!

The game is at 4:05 p.m.

We're cruising in and out of Fort Lauderdale, but have chosen to stay an extra night after our cruise to attend a Marlins baseball game in Miami. Then, we're going to stay the night in Miami and fly out of Miami the next morning.

Right now, I have the Springhill Suites by Marriott Miami Airport booked, but I can cancel for free. On Hotels.com, it says it's a 17-minute walk to Marlins Park. I know absolutely NOTHING about Miami and have never been there, so I just want to find out if it's safe for a 4 adults and a 3-year-old in a stroller to walk. Otherwise, I'll book a less expensive hotel closer to the airport and just Uber to and from Marlins Park.

Thanks!

Check fare viewer to see if your price has dropped. Mine did- another $80. :) Good Luck!

Can someone help me understand this? I use fare viewer for our cruise, and it gives our category as being $300 less than what we paid ($1717 vs. $2050), but if I look it up as a new booking, it's $30 more than what we paid.

Is this a drop?

The walkways are on starboard side of the ship

So anything on that side NOISEY!!!!!! bands all night in casino. List goes on. Im in 6336. Over the casino but PORTSIDE it seems to be less noise below since theres no heavy traffic. Im right above the casino cage and know ill have no worries

 

Book port side

This is our cabin in May! I'm glad to hear that you think it's a quiet cabin -- we have a 3 year old.