cruzmax

Thank you so much for the great review - we will be onboard Splendor next! Will definitely try Tandoor - Mongolian Wok has been our favorite on other Carnival ships. Can't wait - thanks again!

FYI - We found a great Italian and pizza restaurant in Cape Canaveral - Papa Vito's - it's family owned. You can find the menu online.

We enjoyed so much that we have been back several times when cruising from Port Canaveral.

Yes to Riverside Hotel!! It's an older hotel, but very nice. So many neat shops and restaurants along the street, some with outside tables, music. It's great, especially if you arrived by plane and don't have a car.

We have stayed there several times.

We have used SAS Transportation several times and will again next month. Earliest flight we have had is 11:30 am. Had no problem making that one, but we do self assist (walk-off ship with our luggage).

I think you will love a cruise!My favorite excursion in our 17 years of cruising was the Dolphin Encounter/Swim With Dolphins.

Keep in mind - if you have a question while onboard, the crew on the ship most always can answer it for you.

My hint; if there isn't a dessert you like at dinner in Main Dining Room, ask for a banana split from the children's menu (it's a perfect/small size).

Wishing you a wonderful cruise!

No one has posted here since Feb 26th??

Looking for recent Winning Bids....has this thread been moved somewhere else?

Thanks for any info.

Do you veterans view Celebrity and Princess as lateral competitors? Preference?

We have had several cruises on Royal C, Celebrity, Carnival and Princess - loved them all. Our opinion of Celebrity vs Princess: Celebrity is a little better, but not enough for us to pay more for equal itinerary.

Check out the Escape. It's fantastic. This September I will lucky enough to have sailed 30 times and the Escape will be the first ship I have sailed three times, on three different routes.

 

 

 

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Thanks for the info!

Thanks for all the mini-reviews! We will be onboard in two weeks - excited! First time on Splendor, but have cruised several Carnival ships.

Great job, Carnival! I'm sure there are some crew members who have worked very hard on getting Splendor repaired and trying to keep everyone onboard happy.

The biggest difference I've seen is the median age of cruisers. Royal Caribbean and Carnival has much younger passsengers with more night life. On our Princess cruise it was definitely more elegant and upscale. But after 10 pm the ship was dead. No sing along at the piano bar, no late night comedy club, no dance clubs open, no karaoke, nothing. ☹️ Im not a party girl AT ALL, but I hate the idea of going to bed at 10 pm on vacation. Vacation is all about getting to stay up late because you don't have to get up early for work the next day. And based on my experience the upscale cruise lines like HAL, Celebrity, Princess, etc. are definitely fancier and a step up in some areas. But the ship practically shutting down at 10 pm is a deal breaker for me. I'm a night owl and love going to Carnivals late night adult comedy shows and their late night karaoke or piano bar. There always something fun to do well past midnight. 😉

We agree (and we are in our early 60's)

We have cruised several times on Royal C, Celebrity, Carnival and Princess. Here's my brief view, from a 65 yr young wife & nana:

Loved all our cruises.

Food was good on all, but we think Carnival has more venues for food with no additional charge. Celebrity and Princess have some more unique items in dining room and more silverware.

Entertainment - all were good; some of Celebrity and Princess entertainment is more classical.

Celebrity - service was excellent.

Much quieter on Princess and Celebrity - but sometimes too much quiet time for us, others probably enjoy.

Would cruise any of them again, but we have cruised most with Carnival, for the overall experience. 2 more weeks and we will be onboard - Carnival: let the fun begin again!

Thanks for your awesome review! We loved our Dream cruise 2 years ago.

We have cruised with Royal C, Celebrity, Princess and Carnival - loved them all, but we keep coming back to Carnival for the overall experience. We keep checking Norwegian....plan to try one in 2017.

We are 65 yrs young, have been cruising for 20 years, and your review reminds us why we love cruising.

Thanks again!

Because one prop is not working... until it is operational (this is for any ship experiencing any issues with propulsion) the ship will use tugs to go in/out of ports as a safety measure... I have since found out it was the high winds they decided to leave tomorrow morning...

Thanks so much for the info!

We are booked for the 3/26 cruise - hoping that the Splendor is repaired soon and everyone can enjoy their cruises.

I do believe Carnival will do their best to get the ship repaired.

Splendor spending another night in Nassau tonight... tugs scheduled for 5 AM tomorrow....

Can you explain why tugs are scheduled? Thanks for any info.

Thanks. Been looking forward to this holiday for a while, but these things are outwith our control, so we'll fly over on Friday, check our e-mails at the hotel in Miami and take it from there.

 

Even if the entire cruise gets cancelled and we're in Miami, we can fix up something while there. The only worry we have is if the ship gets sent out on Sunday, and the 'technical issue' arises again.

 

Time will tell! Looking forward to these business class flights to get the holiday going. That's our frequent flyer BA miles put to good use at last!

Hope all goes well; we have two weeks until our Splendor cruise. Hopefully we will all have a great cruise!

Your location is South Florida. My location is just outside Glasgow, Scotland. I agree my original post was a bit conflicted, but we booked this trip a long time ago and we have booked our cat into the cattery, our car into the airport car park at Glasgow for two weeks, flights down to London, flights from London to Miami, two nights in a downtown Miami hotel - then the cruise part - back to Miami for an overnight stay on a South Beach hotel, then fly back Miami - London - Glasgow. As regular British Airways customers, on the flight from London to Miami, we have managed to use our frequent flyer miles to get business class upgrades. So, we have invested a lot of time and this is an expensive trip for us.

 

I appreciate Carnival, like any cruise line or indeed airline, can suffer technical issues. Having suffered technical issues I wanted clarity and a quick decision from Carnival - which I received. I received a second e-mail from them (as some people mentioned above), which says they think they can fix the ship to allow it to follow its advertised itenery on March 12, but have given us the opportunity to cancel with full refund, and to claim any lost airfare costs.

 

Weighing up all our options, we have decided it would be a hassle to cancel the cattery, car park, domestic and international flights, two different Miami hotels - and lose the business class flights we were looking forward to, so we are going to cancel the cruise, and my wife is currently sitting on her iPad looking into return flights from Miami to Las Vegas mirroring the Sunday to Sunday timescale of the March 12 cruise. We will keep all our Miami arrangements but just go to Vegas instead of going on the cruise.

 

Part of me thinks 'just go on the cruise - it'll be fine'. There's still a doubt though. So, given the opportunity of a full refund, we're taking it. There's a lot of considerations... between now and March 12 maybe they won't fix it and we passed up the chance to cancel. Maybe thousands of people booked on the cruise cancel, and it sails out with half capacity and little atmosphere on board... who knows? We don't, and given the possibility that Carnival really don't know either (otherwise why even offer refunds and refunded airfare if they were 100% confident it will be fixed), then we're just cancelling.

 

Better go - need to get Wynn in Las Vegas booked ASAP...

I totally understand your concern; we reside in Kentucky (planning and travel expenses involved). Not anywhere near the planning, etc. you have, but we are still concerned and are considering changing our cruise.

Hope you get the Wyn in Vegas, and have a fantastic time!

Thanks for taking time to do a review of your Splendor cruise. We are booked on the one that departs on 3/26.

Thanks for the review!

We were also onboard same cruise - had a wonderful time!

A question for you: we were on Caribe deck/balcony cabin. Four days out of seven, when they brought towels, we had no washcloths - lol. Our cabin steward (Flávio) said they were having a shortage; we would call and they brought them a few hours later. Wondering if it was just a problem for us, or all cabins?

Thanks again!

Have you tried Hotwire or bidding on Priceline?

Usually works great for us!

3-1/2 star Downtown

3/12 - 3/13

Priceline

$174 + taxes

Still higher than usual, but at least better price than they were showing!

If the WheelHouse still has Fish & Chips - delicious! Anyone else know if they still have this a couple days at lunch? No additional charge 🙂

Been using computers/iPad for years; Carnival's website changes make it cumbersome, slow, and not fun to book a cruise. It was previously easy to search, compare, etc - now it's a pain!

I was going to book a cruise tonight, but think I'll have a glass of wine instead!

Photos are great but different angles can change the perspective. For instance, here's the photo of my standard balcony on the Royal:

Just got back from Royal Princess; the depth of the balcony seemed less than previous ships; I also think the size and slant of the chairs takes up some of the space. The balcony size wasn't a problem for us.

Out of 26 cruises, it was the quietest atmosphere we have experienced. We would have enjoyed more music at main pool area during the day; instead they showed movies. It was still a great cruise!!

We were on Royal last week, in cabin C606 (Caribe Deck). It was a great location for us. Booked a balcony guarantee and were very happy!