Legend Review March 11 to March 18 2012

[jsjjkelly]

Hi all! I’ll try and keep my review short and to the point. We had 10 people in 4 rooms going on the Legend out of Tampa March 11th through the 18th. It was me, my husband, my 12 year old dd and my 7 year old ds. My mother and father in law were with us too. As well as my aunt and her husband. And my husband’s brother and his fiance. We live in the Tampa area, but everyone else made the trip down from Ohio for a little R ‘n R.

 

My in laws and my family went on the Splendor out of Long Beach June of 2010 while we were stationed on that side of the country. My aunt and her husband cruise a lot, but not a lot on Carnival. My brother in law and fiance had never cruised before.

 

We used Steve with an airport shuttle service, and we were supposed to be picked up at noon. Well Carlos was our driver and was no where near close to our house. His GPS was stolen out of his van and was apparently unfamiliar with the area. By the time he got to our house, we all loaded up, we got to the port around 1:30.

 

Check in was smooth, although the escalator going up stopped working….

 

Because of our later than planned arrival, we got to go right to our rooms which was nice. Our bags weren’t there yet though. We had room 8228 and it was pretty nice. We enjoyed our balcony, although never saw any dolphins, etc.

 

We did Muster Drill, which interestingly enough, you weren’t allowed to hold drinks or utilize cell phones during. I got yelled at to put mine away even though nothing had started yet.

 

After Muster was done, we went on the upper deck by the water slide to watch the boat go down the river. My kids were going down the water slide, but they had to use their hands to paddle since the water wasn’t strong enough to propel them down. It was extremely windy!!!

 

Dinner in the dining room was fun. I had read a lot of reviews about cold food, but we never had any problems with that. I do have to say no one was impressed with dinner. It was just OK. It was fine for this vacation and realizing how many people they had to serve. But we’ve had better. Just saying.

 

After dinner it was back to our rooms to unpack.

 

Before our trip, my son had fallen at school resulting in 8 stitches above his eye. Stitches were to be removed on Tuesday and they gave me a suture removal kit. I put the kit with the doctors instructions in my check through and it made it just fine. I was worried the scissors were bigger than 4 inches, but it made it through. I thought I could just choose some pictures and hit upload, but I keep getting errors. Any help would be appreciated. :-)

Shawn

[jsjjkelly]

 

I sure hope the picture works!

[jsjjkelly]

Monday

 

Monday was our at sea day. My son was adamant about not going to the kids club. My daughter ended up not going either. They both only went in the mornings of our last cruise, and being we only had 2 sea days on this cruise, I was fine with that. I went down to one of the pools and hung out while they went into the pool and hot tub.

 

We visited the casino, went to the shopping show, and in general had a good time. The guys went to a sports trivia event and my brother in law tied for a ship on a stick!!! Lucky first timer.

 

As with my last cruise, I remembered the meet and greet was at 2:30, but I had no idea where it was. I need to be better about that. Sorry to all in the roll call!

 

Half of us did the first formal night, while the rest of us went to the buffet.

 

We did the 9 oclock show and it was pretty good.

[jsjjkelly]

Tuesday

 

Tuesday we were in Grand Cayman, and we did the Jet Ski adventure with Fat Fish. Our instructions were to get off the boat pretty early as we had to meet them at the Hard Rock at 8. Being it was a tender port, we had to go to the Follies to wait for the tender. The problem that I saw with the tenders was that because we did an independent tour, we were given an I sticker. On our last cruise, we were given a number based on the tender we had. So if you were early, they’d give out 50 number ones, then 50 number 2’s, etc. Instead they’d call Carnival excursions even if the people weren’t there yet. I liked the Splendor’s system a little better.

 

We got there in enough time although the island time is an hour earlier and nothing was open. Around 7:30 island time we went over to the Hard Rock and the driver was there!! He was surprised we were early and said in all his years no one is ever early for his tours!!! He hasn’t met us apparently….

 

So he drives us to where the jet skis are and like their information said, there really are no facilities to change in. You leave all your stuff in his van. My father in law had to go to the bathroom and it was an issue.

 

Our guide was Richard and he was nice. We had 5 jet skis, 2 riders per machine. We all started off and it was crazy rough!!! At times the jet skis would hit a wave and you’d get covered in water!! Their paperwork says to wear cheap sunglasses because some riders are not used to the spray! This at times wasn’t spray but buckets of water in your face! Apparently this is a problem during this spring break time and other times it’s pretty calm.

 

What happened with us was 2 of the jet skis would go fast and keep up with Richard. I was in the middle, but I’d stop when I took a huge wave in the face. The 2 older couples were much slower because it really was rough. My aunt and her husband thought they could drive between the waves. 4 of the ski’s would be with the guide, and we’d be waiting 10 minutes for the slow pokes to show up. Word to the wise-- the adventure is time limited. Because they were slow, we didn’t get to try snorkeling. We just didn’t have time left for that. But if it was calmer, I’m pretty sure this would be a non issue.

 

We made it to where you feed the Rays and it was still rough. Feeding them was neat, but creepy at the same time. We’d go to pose for pictures and the waves would knock us over.

 

Overall it was pretty cool to be on a jet ski, and it was neat to feed the rays. But be prepared if it’s rough.

 

When it was all over we were all pretty much beat up. We wanted to go to Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville, but the driver said it’s usually a long wait, and he recommended Rackman’s. He said he goes there when he eats in the city. So we went there. It was pretty slow coming out but was good.

 

There wasn’t that much time after eating to do much else, so we made our way back to the tender. Those waves beat us up and everyone was tired.

[jsjjkelly]

Wednesday

Cozumel

 

We chose Paradise Beach as our excursion for the day. $2 chair rental. $12 pass to the toys. It was nice. We took 2 cabs over to make it easier. For those concerned, there’s a sign at the Taxi stand that has the price for the cabs broken down by per person (1-4, 5-8, etc) . I contacted them in advance because my mother in law had said she had never made a sand castle before. I had bought some beach toys and gave them to the staff at Paradise Beach when I got there.

 

So once we all got settled in, they called us and explained the rules. Everyone got a gift certificate (which I paid for in advance) and all was good. We ate lunch there and everyone thought the food was great. Our waiter was Christian and he kept everyone happy.

 

My in laws went back earlier, and when we went back we did a little shopping at the pier before heading back onto the ship. My husband went to Three Amigos with my son while I went with my daughter to all the shops.

 

After dinner, my son showed us these bumps he was getting all over his body. Gave him benadryl and hoped it was a heat rash.

[jsjjkelly]

Thursday

Belize

 

For Belize again it was an early tender day, following the same protocol as Grand Cayman. We had a late start as the first tender didn't leave until like 8:45. We were pretty glad we were on one of the first tenders out knowing this was a long excrusion. We chose cave tubing dot bz for this and we weren’t disappointed. Vittalino Jr was our guide. They sent detailed instructions how to find them once you get off the tender. It was about a 5-10 minute walk to where they were. And they weren’t kidding. As soon as you opened the door, it was a WALL of vendors all holding up different excursion signs. It was crazy.

 

After an hour van ride through some pretty poor areas, we finally arrived at this national park where the caves were. By the time we had lights on our heads, life jackets on and tubes to carry, we had about a 40 minute walk up to where we got to ride through the caves. Jonathon was his helper, and they would stop along the way to explain some of the natural vegetation. We had some 60 somethings in our group. They would not have made the walk carrying their own tubes. The walk itself was OK, but to carry those big bulky tubes and walk the uneven terrain would have been out of the question for our group. As it was I had my son’s tube, and I tripped quite a few times just because I couldn’t see my feet holding 2 tubes.

 

There were other groups there too. Cavetubing dot com and ecotours dot com. It was hilarious because these other guides would say “this is called something” and our guides would just shake their heads or bust out laughing. We also got to do all 3 caves where we saw where some of the others came in later. At one point it was so loud our guides didn’t say anything because we wouldn’t have been able to hear them. The ecotours had nicer tubes though. You always felt like you had to hold your neck up, and those tubes had nice backs on them.

 

When it was all said and done, they took us to Jr’s father’s house for lunch. It was really good. We ended up getting back to the tender with 45 minutes to spare. We thought if we would have gotten a later tender, it would have been pretty close or we would have been left behind!! All in all, those men really worked for their money and we had a good time. Was it neat? Sure. Would we do it again? Probably not. It was more work than I bargained for.

[jsjjkelly]

Friday

Roatan

 

For Roatan we booked a Victor Bodden tour. They also sent detailed instructions about how to get to them. The hill you hear about? Our group thought it was a pain, but it was nothing compared to the walking the day before in Belize. Al took us all around Roatan, but being we just wanted a tour and no zip lining or extreme anything, it was kind of limited. We did go see the monkeys for $5 and the big parrot like birds were all over us! Most had no problems landing on our heads without an invitation. So for those that are faint of heart, be advised to stay out of the cages. There was a girl in the bathrooms that had quite a nice gash on her head from the birds. Ouch.

 

We ate lunch at Hatties, but being island time is 2 hours behind the ship, we were hungry but it was only 10 o’clock there. He did take us to a gift shop where everything was quite over priced. They even charged to go to the bathroom. At one point Al even said that was pretty much all he had to show us. There just isn’t that much there in Roatan. There is the beach that Carnival built. If we were to go back there, we’d just do that and not bother going out into Roatan at all. The tour was very well done.

 

Took my son to the ship’s doctor because his rash was not going away. Dr said it was mites from the sand, yet the other 9 people in our party didn’t have them. Gave us this lice cream to smear all over his body. He said do it today and tomorrow and it’d be gone. We had the steward change all our bedding and sent out wash to be washed in hot water…. What a day. Bill for the doctor’s visit? $109. This is me with the bird on my head!!!

[jsjjkelly]

Saturday

This was our last at sea day. Chairs were hard to come by near all the pools and chair hogs were everywhere. We thought it might work better if maybe the Carnival people around the pool put a timer on the chair and when it went off there stuff went to lost and found. Maybe that would solve the problem. We moved someone’s towel, used the chair for an hour, and put the towel back when we left. They never came in all that time.

 

It was also St Patricks Day, so I had gotten our crew some festive green being we are Irish. It was a lot of fun. We had green hair, green hats, etc. One crew member asked us that in Ireland, do they celebrate like Americans do? We said yes but thought it was funny most crew members had no idea about the holiday. They did dye the beer green…..

[jsjjkelly]

Sunday

Debarkation

 

We ended up going to the Unicorn Buffet area waiting for our zone. Being we had a shuttle arranged to pick us up, and we all had zone 5 we were in no hurry. We were off the boat and waiting by 10. Home by no later than 11. Took my son to an urgent care who said it isn’t mites. It’s clearly a bacterial infection that entered his system through a banged up knee and will clear up with antibiotics. We were all pretty irritated that we went through all that trouble for nothing and now we’re out $109.

 

In retrospect, we had all bought drink coupons before we left and it worked out just fine. Each cabin took their 12 pack per person and no one had any left at the end of the 7 days. We were pretty pleased with our experience and we would do it again.

[GeorgiaMomof4]

Wednesday

Cozumel

 

We chose Paradise Beach as our excursion for the day. $2 chair rental. $12 pass to the toys. It was nice. We took 2 cabs over to make it easier. For those concerned, there’s a sign at the Taxi stand that has the price for the cabs broken down by per person (1-4, 5-8, etc) . I contacted them in advance because my mother in law had said she had never made a sand castle before. I had bought some beach toys and gave them to the staff at Paradise Beach when I got there.

 

So once we all got settled in, they called us and explained the rules. Everyone got a gift certificate (which I paid for in advance) and all was good. We ate lunch there and everyone thought the food was great. Our waiter was Christian and he kept everyone happy.

 

My in laws went back earlier, and when we went back we did a little shopping at the pier before heading back onto the ship. My husband went to Three Amigos with my son while I went with my daughter to all the shops.

 

After dinner, my son showed us these bumps he was getting all over his body. Gave him benadryl and hoped it was a heat rash.

 

 

Great review! I do have some questions about Paradise Beach if you don't mind.

 

Your kids are around the same ages as some of mine and I was wondering if they were able to use the water toys? I know some have said it was hard to pull yourself up onto them.

 

Also, do you think you came out better there by paying for things as you did them, ate, etc. or would one be better to do an all inclusive? We aren't drinkers so that's why I'm really questioning the all inclusive places.

 

Thanks!

[jsjjkelly]

Great review! I do have some questions about Paradise Beach if you don't mind.

 

Your kids are around the same ages as some of mine and I was wondering if they were able to use the water toys? I know some have said it was hard to pull yourself up onto them.

 

Also, do you think you came out better there by paying for things as you did them, ate, etc. or would one be better to do an all inclusive? We aren't drinkers so that's why I'm really questioning the all inclusive places.

 

Thanks!

 

They had 2 water toys that were about in the water about my chest high and I'm 5'7". They could get on those no problem. There were 2 giant slides out in the deeper water that they could not use without help. Those 2 huge slides were not utilized very much and were dry. When you went down them, you got like rug burns going down and it hurt!!

 

They were able to use the kayaks and the snorkel gear too. There was so much to do my kids didn't complain about the 2 big slides.

 

We paid the $2 chair rental for only 2 chairs and the $12 for the 4 of us. We had lunch and about 2 buckets of beer and my bill was 70. We chose paradise beach because of the water toys more than the eat and drink portion. I didnt think for what we did it was a bad deal. The menu on their site was the same one we were handed, and all 4 of us ate lunch.

 

I didn't check out the all inclusives, but I think for what we spent it was a good deal for the 4 of us.

 

Hope this helps!

Shawn

[GeorgiaMomof4]

They had 2 water toys that were about in the water about my chest high and I'm 5'7". They could get on those no problem. There were 2 giant slides out in the deeper water that they could not use without help. Those 2 huge slides were not utilized very much and were dry. When you went down them, you got like rug burns going down and it hurt!!

 

They were able to use the kayaks and the snorkel gear too. There was so much to do my kids didn't complain about the 2 big slides.

 

We paid the $2 chair rental for only 2 chairs and the $12 for the 4 of us. We had lunch and about 2 buckets of beer and my bill was 70. We chose paradise beach because of the water toys more than the eat and drink portion. I didnt think for what we did it was a bad deal. The menu on their site was the same one we were handed, and all 4 of us ate lunch.

 

I didn't check out the all inclusives, but I think for what we spent it was a good deal for the 4 of us.

 

Hope this helps!

Shawn

 

 

It does - thanks so much!

[TimetoCruise12]

They had 2 water toys that were about in the water about my chest high and I'm 5'7". They could get on those no problem. There were 2 giant slides out in the deeper water that they could not use without help. Those 2 huge slides were not utilized very much and were dry. When you went down them, you got like rug burns going down and it hurt!!

 

They were able to use the kayaks and the snorkel gear too. There was so much to do my kids didn't complain about the 2 big slides.

 

We paid the $2 chair rental for only 2 chairs and the $12 for the 4 of us. We had lunch and about 2 buckets of beer and my bill was 70. We chose paradise beach because of the water toys more than the eat and drink portion. I didnt think for what we did it was a bad deal. The menu on their site was the same one we were handed, and all 4 of us ate lunch.

 

I didn't check out the all inclusives, but I think for what we spent it was a good deal for the 4 of us.

 

Hope this helps!

Shawn

 

Thanks for the great review. I am thinking of doing Paradise Beach for my son as I know he would love the trampolines in the ocean. On their website, it also talks about climbing a coconut tree - did your children try this? What would you say was the highlight for your children at Paradise Beach?

[gelo7]

Nice review.