Carnival Legend REVIEW with PICS! 10/2 - 10/9/11

[DalovelyDamanda]

First of all, I want to give a BIG THANK YOU to all of you Cruise Critics out there! This message board is AMAZING! I know without reading all of the tips before I left, our cruise wouldn't have been as wonderful. With that said, I thought I'd "pay it forward" by writing a review of my own. We just got home not too long ago today, and I thought I'd start writing this before I forget the details.

 

We live in FL and are fortunate to live only about 45 min from Tampa. We took a 3 night cruise for our honeymoon 14 years again but none since. (So I was incredibly nervous about crusing again since so much has changed since we last cruised!) Our girls are now old enough that we thought they would really enjoy all of the cruise and excursions with us. So we booked a 7 night cruise and traveled with 2 other families that we are great friends with. (So 10 of us total - 6 adults and 4 preteens.)

 

DAY 1 - Sunday, October 2, 2011

Since we had so much luggage (yes we brought a lot!) and there were so many of us (and we didn't want to pay for parking and leave our car down at Channelside) we hired a shuttle van to drive us down to Tampa.

 

Our kids and Karen...excited to be leaving!

 

We see the whale tail!!

 

We arrived around 11am, got dropped off at the "front door" and a porter grabbed our bags. Lines were pretty short so we were onboard in no time.

 

Our kids have never cruised and it's been a long time since any of us adults have so we were all VERY excited! (We're on a BOAT!!!)

 

Us three LOVELY ladies ready to CRUISE! (l to r: Leishah, Karen and myself Amanda)

 

We grabbed seats up on the Serenity deck (Deck 9 Aft) and took turns getting lunch so we could eat together on the couch. Here are our first drinks up on deck.

 

to be continuted...

[DalovelyDamanda]

We ate lunch and explored the ship some. Our suitcases were not all ready and by our door by 1:30, but it wasn't too long in the afternoon before they were all there. Our steward was Aurelius Paulcy (spelling?? But he wanted us to call him Paulcy) and he was great. He was quiet and polite and always seemed to show up when we needed him. (Like he knew what we always needed!) We brought back the beer ice bucket from the upper deck (they guys bought a bucket of beer) and he kept that and our room ice bucket filled everyday for us. (The beer bucket tip was also found on here from CC...thanks guys!) The room had a strange smell at first. (More about that later.) We had a balcony room, with the bunk bed for our girls. For the small size of the room, there is surprisingly quite a lot of storage room!

 

The muster safety drill was at 3:15. We waited a few minutes before heading down (thanks to advice from Cruise Critic) so we got to stand in the front row thus avoiding some claustrophoic feelings!

 

I saw some great door decorations from previous cruisers and we decided we wanted to decorate our own doors.

 

Our room was 5199, right by the elevators. We heard nothing! The rooms are very well insulated (unless noisy people are walking directly in front of your door....then we heard them). But for the most part, the rooms were very quiet.

Here's my door. It reads "One Tequila..."

 

Leishah and her husband were next door in 5201. Her door reads "Two Tequila..."

 

And Karen and her husband and kids were across the hall in 5198. What I didn't realize is across the hall means "ACROSS the BIIIIIIG hallway, past the elevators..." I don't know what I thought. But they weren't just right across the hall. Oh well. It kinda took away from our sign meanings. Her sign reads "Three Tequila, OVERBOARD!" (instead of floor...get it?? haha)

 

So we finished unpacking some stuff, grabbed some of our liquor (shhhh!) and headed up to the deck before the ship left at 4:00. Be upstairs outside when it leaves with a drink....it's an awesome way to kick off your vacation!

 

Us ladies with our drinks. Notice I have an insulated cup. (Also a tip I learned from here. GREAT tip! We used these cups a lot!)

 

Our husbands showing off their "better" ends. haha

 

Me and hubby in front of the whale tail:

[DalovelyDamanda]

Arrrrgh, I'm so annoyed! I moved some pics around on my computer and now the first pics of this thread aren't visable! And now it won't let me edit my first post??? Anyone know how I can fix that?

[happylady]

Don't think you can go back to edit....just post them again. :o

 

Can't wait to see and read the rest. Thanks for taking the time to do a review.:D

[DalovelyDamanda]

Ok, well before I post more, let me repost the first pics...sorry I'm not used to posting on here. Bear with me.

 

Our kids and Karen...excited to be leaving!

 

We see the whale tail!!

 

We arrived around 11am, got dropped off at the "front door" and a porter grabbed our bags. Lines were pretty short so we were onboard in no time.

 

Our kids have never cruised and it's been a long time since any of us adults have so we were all VERY excited! (We're on a BOAT!!!)

 

Us three LOVELY ladies ready to CRUISE! (l to r: Leishah, Karen and myself Amanda)

 

We grabbed seats up on the Serenity deck (Deck 9 Aft) and took turns getting lunch so we could eat together on the couch. Here are our first drinks up on deck.

[DalovelyDamanda]

Ok, back on track now...

(By the way, as I'm typing this, I'm swaying. Oh my goodness I still feel like I'm on the boat!! I need to get my land legs back! haha)

 

 

We had Your-Time Dining (I highly recommend this!!) so we stayed up on the deck until we reached the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which was around 6:00/6:15pm. Living in FL we've crossed this before, but going under it was amazing! It sooooo looks like the ship is going to hit it!

 

 

Phew, we cleared it!

 

We headed back down to our rooms to change for dinner. (We decided we wanted to dress up everynight. I know we're on vacation but dressing up is half the fun!) We found our first towel animal (I'm sure you've all seen plenty so I won't be posting pics of the animals) and the bunk beds were ready for the girls.

 

Our balcony was amazing! (Our first cruise, we had an inside room and we HATED it. Hubby felt so claustrophobic the whole time. So the balcony was the way to go for us.) Here's a "classic" chin-shelf photo of us on our balcony.

 

Ready to head down the elevator for dinner!

[Slacktide]

Do you always take that red X on vacation?:D

[DalovelyDamanda]

Having Your-Time Dining meant we had to enter Truffles on the 3rd floor. We quickly found out that while there are long tables downstairs (for Assigned Dining) that seat up to 14 (I think I counted one for 14), upstairs, the biggest table only seats 8. We had 10 in our group. So we opted to let the kids sit at one table for 4 and the 6 adults sat together. They seated us right by each other. It was nice because we all enjoyed our own conversations. We did this everynight.

 

Our first waiter was....eh. I don't even remember his name. He wasn't bad, just not super friendly or attentive. (I'll tell you about our awesome waiter that we found on Monday.)

 

Here is my Caesar Salad (from the Everyday Menu)

 

Here's the Tender Braised Beef Brisket, today's comfort food:

 

And the Vanilla Creme Brulee for dessert:

 

I thought the food was pretty good today. The beef was flavorful and tender. And the creme brulee (a bit sweet and not as thick as I like) was enjoyable.

 

A side-note on the food. We found with all of the food that we enjoyed most of it. But, none of it "blew our minds" or was fantastic. But it was good. (And heck, I wasn't cooking it or doing the dishes, so I LOVED it! haha) I think some in our group expected better. But overall, to be fair, nothing was horrible. I enjoyed most all of it! So if you go in with the view of not expecting "amazing", I think you'll enjoy it.

 

Since it was pretty late by the time we finished (about 9:30ish) and we had a long day, most of our group was pretty tired and went off to their rooms to relax/go to bed. Karen and I wanted to dance so we went to Medusa's Lair only to find they didn't open until 10pm. So we headed up to bed too. (We soon realize after a few days, there's not a ton of things to do on this ship.) I think I read out on the balcony for awhile which was awesome!

 

So that's all for Day 1. :)

[DalovelyDamanda]

Don't think you can go back to edit....just post them again. :o

 

Can't wait to see and read the rest. Thanks for taking the time to do a review.:D

 

Thanks, happylady. That worked. :)

 

 

Do you always take that red X on vacation?:D

 

haha Yes, I keep it in my back pocket! haha Sorry! I'll stop moving pictures around now on my computer.

[Jilpo]

Loving the review, can't wait to hear more - I'll be on the Legend next week!:D Not too sure the red X is real helpful though!

[KruznKel]

I still can't see any of your pictures... maybe you can msg a host and have them remove the thread and you can copy what you have then re post once you figure out the picture issue;)

[DalovelyDamanda]

You guys can't see ANY of the pics? I messed up on the first post. But I reposted those. But you can't see any of them? Well shoot. SORRY. :confused:

[FTBoomer]

I'm on the Legend in 2 weeks and am also loving your review. Hope you get the picture working.

[KruznKel]

You guys can't see ANY of the pics? I messed up on the first post. But I reposted those. But you can't see any of them? Well shoot. SORRY. :confused:

 

Nope I can't see them.. are you using webshots or something or posting them from facebook?? If you are just copying them from your computer those don't show up.. usually..

[DalovelyDamanda]

Ok, sorry guys. I'm trying in a new thread:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=30903930#post30903930