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!

[DalovelyDamanda]

Ok, can you see picture above? Sorry about the old thread. I'll repost here in this thread. :)

[FTBoomer]

Ok, can you see picture above? Sorry about the old thread. I'll repost here in this thread. :)

 

 

WooHoo, We have pictures!!

[Spring1onu]

Yep :) it's visible!

 

 

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[KruznKel]

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!

 

WOOHOO Pics!! Just msg a host to remove your other one :))

[DalovelyDamanda]

ALRIGHT! We're in business! Thanks!

 

 

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.

[nikita]

Thanks for writing a review. We were on the same cruise and had a wonderful time!

[MrFunInTheSun]

Great kick off to your review!

 

 

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[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:

[LittleJeanne]

Looking forward to your review. We've been on the Legend before and will be back on the 1st week in Jauary. I like to keep up with any changes etc onboard.

[DalovelyDamanda]

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!

[BusyFLmom]

Great review so far!!! Cant wait for more :) We have rooms 5197 and 5199 booked for March.

[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!

[BettyPC]

Great start! Thanks for sharing & I can't wait to read the rest of our vacation :D

[SkyMaster]

Great job so far. We LOVE "Legend", and can't wait to get aboard again. You're making that wait SO difficult, with your description of all the fun. :D We won't be back aboard until Feb 12th, so it'll be awhile yet. Can't wait for the rest of your review! Thanks!

 

"SKY"

[Slacktide]

Where'd the red X go? :).......Great looking pictures and family, thanks for sharing.

[my3boys4]

Love your review so far. Thank you so much for sharing. I will be going to buy my insulated cup before my cruise next month. :)

[DalovelyDamanda]

Thanks, everyone! :)

 

Thanks for writing a review. We were on the same cruise and had a wonderful time!

Oh, ya?? We probably passed each other at some point. haha

 

Great review so far!!! Cant wait for more :) We have rooms 5197 and 5199 booked for March.

Awesome! We really enjoyed our room. Having it close to the elevator was very convenient! Jump in the elevator and take it up to the 9th floor and you're RIGHT at the food in the Unicorn! haha

 

Where'd the red X go? :).......Great looking pictures and family, thanks for sharing.

haha ya, it's a better review without the red Xs! haha ;)

[DalovelyDamanda]

DAY 2 - Monday, October 3, 2011

 

I wake up early every morning for work so I was the first one up around 7:00. They were all were still sound asleep so I put on some shorts, grabbed my camera and book and headed up to the deck. There weren't very many people up yet. I headed up to Serenity and took some great sunrise photos and enjoyed some quiet time. (TIP - I highly suggest seeing at least one sunrise while onboard. It's amazing!)

 

 

 

Oh, I also grabbed some bacon from the Unicorn buffet. Mmmm, bacon, a sunrise and a good book....what more could a girl ask for?!?!?

 

So remember that smell I was talking about? Well, last night we got back to the room and it was worse. It smelled like vomit and there was an odd stain on the carpet. :eek: It was too late to have them clean it up (plus we didn't want to smell chemicals all night), but we called Guest Services and asked if they'd clean it up first thing in the morning. So I went back to the room Mon morning after my bacon and book, woke the gang up and we headed to breakfast. Paulcy was already aware of our room smell and was ready to clean it for us. (He was always ready with what we needed!) They ended up shampooing and carpet cleaning the whole room and put a big fan in there for us while we were gone so it would dry. It was all clean for us later that day! Awesome!

 

I also suggest eating in Truffles whenever possible. We quickly got tired of the buffet food after awhile. Especially on the Sea Days when you've got no where to go, you should eat in Truffles and enjoy a nice sit down relaxing breakfast/lunch.

 

We got to eat breakfast by the window...so nice!

 

So we met our favorite waiter this morning...EDWIN from Peru! He was quiet but very sweet and nice and funny. He was very observant and took great care of us! He spoke Spanish so he fit in with our group (3 of the 6 adults are fluent). We found out he worked the Your-Time Dining and that we could request him...so we did from this point forward. (I suggest sticking with one waiter if you like one for the whole cruise if you do Your-Time Dining. They get to know you better and give you better attention. There were 3 times we weren't able to have Edwin throughout the cruise (for different reasons) and we felt invisable almost. The waiters don't seem as attentive. So pick a waiter and stick with them! They remember you and give you better service!)

 

So after breakfast we headed out to lounge on the deck. Serenity was packed. But there were empty louge chairs everywhere else. (This is where we started to realize that our ship was not that full. It was great!) The kids (and some of us adults) played on the slide for most of the day.

 

(The slide doesn't empty out into the pool, which is nice.)

 

And us ladies hung out in the Serenity pool on and off.

(Putting the camera on it's timer and trying to slide into the pool to capture our photo must've been quite amusing to anyone watching!)

[kwbound]

Enjoying your review. Thanks for taking the time to post. Y'all have a very attractive group!

[blondietink]

Keep it coming! We'll be on Legend 6 weeks from today!

[nanna cruiser]

Where is the serenity deck?

[DalovelyDamanda]

Oh, I forgot to write that it took me a couple of days to realize that on the front page of the FunTimes, they write down what the sunrise and sunset time will be each day! Helpful if you want to catch it.

 

We also took lots of photos of the ship. I tell ya, there are urns EVERYWHERE! I swear Carnival must've found an urn blowout sale somewhere when they were building the ship and went crazy. Urns, urns, URNS!

 

 

 

Here's a photo showing the "glass" stairs going to the Golden Fleece Steakhouse. (Notice the urns everywhere??)

 

Looking from inside the steakhouse up into the whale tail. Everything is pink!

 

Looking down you can see the lobby on deck 2. The glass elevators are on the left.

 

Looking up from the lobby on deck 2 at the glass elevators.

[DalovelyDamanda]

Thanks everyone! I'm having fun posting my photos. Plus it's a good way for me to review the days and remember what we did!

 

Where is the serenity deck?

 

Deck 9 at the back of the boat behind the Unicorn buffets. They have hammocks and clamshell shaped chairs. But I tell you, they were always taken! I only got to really enjoy this at 7am the first day.

[DalovelyDamanda]

Monday night is Cruise ELEGANT night! (Did I tell you I love dressing up??) And we loved seeing all the other cruisers dressed in their best too!

 

Here's our lovely group of adults:

 

Tonight I had the Baked Stuffed White Mushrooms. They were yummy.

 

They didn't have the alligator fritters and we were a little disappointed. So some had the seafood fritters instead (as a replacement).

 

Ok, they had some kind of fruit bisque several days on the cruise. Tonight's was strawberry. While it tasted good, it was very sweet! (Well, at least too sweet for me.) It tasted like dessert. Actually they all tasted like melted sherbert or icecream to me.

 

 

LOBSTER TAIL and shrimp! It was very good!

 

Here's my hubby enjoying his lobster. (I think the guys all got 2 orders of lobster each)