Short Cruise...Short(ish) Review! Imagination 4 Day Review & Pics

[AutumnBM]

Ok. 3rd cruise - 3rd review!

 

If you've ever read either of my other 2 reviews then you know typically we cruise with family (we all live very far apart) but for this particular cruise it was just myself and my husband (Jordan) and we have a family cruise booked in September on the Liberty *originally the Valor but unfortunately had to be changed* - this cruise was a bit of a surprise actually. We knew we were going SOMEWHERE in the spring but didn't know where yet...this cruise ended up being dirt cheap so Jordan jumped on it for us! I was ecstatic. Chicago has not been kind to us this "spring" as it's still in the 30's and 40's and we're STILL having freak snow showers...basically I NEEDED to get out of this place for a few days!

 

Anyways, just giving you some background on how the cruise came about. We booked it ,like, 45 days away so thankfully the bulk of the waiting was already over.

 

We did a few things different this time...

 

1) We flew down from O'Hare to Miami the day of the cruise. I was a little nervous but luckily had ZERO problems! Which is shocking because last year we had a ton of problems.

 

2) We did not check a bag for either of us. Just carry ons...and it was so much easier! If I can brush up on my packing skills I'm going to try to only do a carry on for our 7 day!

 

3) We booked an interior room. We figured - eh, 4 days! And we never even spend time in our room except to sleep sooo...why not? *My opinion on interior rooms will be later in the review!*

 

 

So. With all that being said...here's some pictures!

 

^^This is us. We're pretty cool people I gotta say.

 

^^The ship. It was old and small but it looked overall pretty good! Our first cruise was on the Fantasy which is the oldest and smallest but I thought this one definitely looked older and smaller. I won't knock it too much though because it was still a really good cruise! The most important thing to me is that it was clean...and it was!

 

^^Inside

 

^^Back outside to see Miami! It was raining SO hard when we first got there...probably for about an hour straight. I was so glad when it started clearing up!

 

^^More Miami.

 

 

Embarkation here was so insanely simple. We got into Miami at 11:30. Caught a cab quickly and made it to the terminal...once there we were on the ship literally 20 minutes later. It was awesome!

 

Once on the ship we checked into our room - it was already ready for us! Dropped off a few things, ran around snapping pictures, and then up to lido for lunch. Since I'd never ate at the Mongolian wok station before that's what we both had and it was really so very good. 4 lunches on the ship? I ate 3 of them at the wok station!

 

Then it was back to more picture snapping...

 

Will post more soon! Just waiting on my pics to upload!!

[AutumnBM]

More first day (April 15th) pics ::

 

^^Me

 

^^I love this pic of my man. He looks a lot less sleepy in these cruise pics than in previous ones!!

 

^^Sail away...South Beach!

 

^^Jordan kept saying he didn't think this cruise sailed full because it was NEVER very busy. The ONLY busy area was lido. We loved it though...The pool got busy on the last sea day but otherwise it was pretty sparse looking. The decks looked like this most of the time actually!!

 

^^First night sunset. Gorgeous!

 

^^Thank you kindly couple who took our pic because we took yours! I love this pic of us.

 

 

The sunset pics were taken after dinner. We had early dinner (as always) and it was really good! I have yet to eat anything on the ship that I just hate or won't eat. We also met 4 of our 6 table mates that evening - this was a first for us as well...eating with strangers. Didn't really mind it though as all of our table mates were nice folks. We had a group of 4 friends from Orlando and another couple from Pittsburgh. The couple from Pittsburgh reminded me a bit of us actually! The group from Orlando...not so much! But they were nice and fun and they cracked me up. Dining service was pretty great. We loved our wait staff! The only thing about the dining service I would fix is that towards the end when the shows should start - the lights would go ahead and start flashing and the music would play but the wait staff would go about their business. It just looked so uncoordinated.

 

Anyways...I have one more post coming up of all the ships in port that evening then I'm signing off for the evening. Key West tomorrow!! Key West was AWESOME by the way! Neither of us had been and we both fell in LOVE!

[AutumnBM]

Port of Miami was super busy that day!

 

^^Carnival Victory was there...

 

^^So was Celebrity Constellation...

 

^^And the Majesty of the Seas from RCCL

 

^^And lastly the Norwegian Sky!

 

Ok. So that's it for the first day. It was allll picture taking and eating. We had been up since 3:30 in the morning and had been powering through the day so we called it a night pretty early!

 

Here is where the opinion on the interior cabin comes in...We generally only use the cabin to shower and sleep. Otherwise we're never in there! Well, because we were interior and on E deck we had some serious noise coming from above us. I'm not sure if we were under the galley or not but you could here what sounded like carts rolling around and random loud booms. Cabin placement sucked. I wouldn't care to do interior again but it'd have to be somewhere else. It sucked so bad. The first night I woke up quite a few times. It got better but not by much. It was SO loud!!

 

Next up...early morning day at Key West :) Will be adding KW on tomorrow though!

[Coolcruise02]

Great review and pictures!

[LOVECRUISING100%]

Port of Miami was super busy that day!

 

^^Carnival Victory was there...

 

^^So was Celebrity Constellation...

 

^^And the Majesty of the Seas from RCCL

 

^^And lastly the Norwegian Sky!

 

Ok. So that's it for the first day. It was allll picture taking and eating. We had been up since 3:30 in the morning and had been powering through the day so we called it a night pretty early!

 

Here is where the opinion on the interior cabin comes in...We generally only use the cabin to shower and sleep. Otherwise we're never in there! Well, because we were interior and on E deck we had some serious noise coming from above us. I'm not sure if we were under the galley or not but you could here what sounded like carts rolling around and random loud booms. Cabin placement sucked. I wouldn't care to do interior again but it'd have to be somewhere else. It sucked so bad. The first night I woke up quite a few times. It got better but not by much. It was SO loud!!

 

Next up...early morning day at Key West :) Will be adding KW on tomorrow though!

Great Pic's !!!.... I also don't mind interior cabins however, on any rooms we book I always pull the map of the ship and double check what's above me.. Thanks for posting .. : )

[092306]

Glad you enjoyed your cruise! We've been on bigger and I guess nicer ships than the Imagination, but we've prefered the Imagination to some of those cruises. Great crew and a lot of fun. We had a great time on her twice.

[ATL2LAS]

I love seeing reviews of my favorite ship. Empress deck can be hit or miss depending on the location. You have the Lido right above you and it can get noisy. Loving the photos and can't wait to read more:D

[cjdixon4]

Hey Autumn -

So far, your review is pretty nice. Thanks for sharing your photos. My girlfriends and I will be on the Imagination when it sails from L.A. to Ensenada, Mexico in January 2014. I haven't sailed with Carnival in many years...can you tell me a bit about the ship and its layout? The food and entertainment? Just want to know from someone who's been on the Imagination recently what their experience was like.

 

BTW...we're all from the Chicagoland area too! ;)

[CruzerDeb]

Can't wait to hear about Key West!

[AutumnBM]

So sorry I've been slow...

 

Started a new job yesterday and I'm freakin' wiped out! I'm so sleepy!!

 

 

Anyways...

 

KEY WEST!!

 

As I said earlier, neither me or Jordan had ever been to Key West but now both of us are so in love with it that we want to go back for a few days to REALLY get to see everything! They only gave us from 7:30-1:30. However, after an early breakfast we literally walked right off the ship! There were NO lines.

 

We docked at the Navy pier so we had to take the free trolley into town. It was just a few minutes and they told us the last trolley leaves from town to the ship at 12:30. I had everything planned out already though - 3 things/places - Southernmost Point, Hemingway House, & Kermit's Key Lime Shoppe (because I have an inner fat girl that was needing some key lime pie!!)

 

I had a map printed off - the trolley gave us a map - and while they were ok, a lady outside the butterfly house gave us one of her maps which ended up being MUCH better! However, everything you need is off Duval st so it was easy.

 

First up...

 

^^Southernmost Point

 

^^Without us

 

^^I really actually wanted the Mile 0 marker but didn't see it so...random Route 1 sign it is then!

 

^^Jordan mocks me because I have about 8 pictures of chickens from KW. He just didn't get it. I thought it was hilarious! Random chickens all over the place! Anybody? Ah well. I still think the chicken placement in KW is awesome. He also didn't get my amusement by the 6 toed kitties in the Hemingway house...every time I would start talking to one he'd walk away shaking his head...

 

^^This bar also amused me. Hmm. Yeah, we didn't hit up any bars. Why? We were there early morning. Some folks might be able to go to Sloppy Joes at 10 AM but I'll pass...

 

^^I LOVE greenery and flowers. I have a pic outside the butterfly house that I'll have to upload. It was just gorgeous.

[AutumnBM]

Hey Autumn -

So far, your review is pretty nice. Thanks for sharing your photos. My girlfriends and I will be on the Imagination when it sails from L.A. to Ensenada, Mexico in January 2014. I haven't sailed with Carnival in many years...can you tell me a bit about the ship and its layout? The food and entertainment? Just want to know from someone who's been on the Imagination recently what their experience was like.

 

BTW...we're all from the Chicagoland area too! ;)

 

 

Thanks! It's been off to a slow start (started a new job yesterday and didn't expect to be as tired as I've been!) but I'm onto Key West now :)

 

The ship was considerably small. However, my husband was convinced we didn't sail full because it was never uncomfortably busy (except lido from time to time) - the decor is super cheesy too but I can overlook that! Most of the time I end up liking the decor anyways! All the staff we came in contact with were really nice to us. Our steward was great as well as our wait staff! They all got tipped extra...we did learn though that Carnival considers the Imagination a "training" ship so we saw tons of staff who were in a training period for their jobs (bar staff, photographers, being the main 2) but I would've never known. Professionalism was not lacking just because they were trainees.

 

We went to one show (Livin' in the USA) and I won't lie...it sucked! I actually like the shows normally (on the Fantasy I distantly knew one of the main singers so I was biased then...he was a friend's brother but I still thought it was good!) but nope. This show was terrible. Jordan's first words after that show? "Well. There's an hour I'll never get back of my life!"

 

The comedy was really good though! They normally are! We 'bout died watching CJ (I think his last name was Jones)...he was hilarious.

 

I gotta say...food was pretty great :) I don't eat a lot of lido food except for lunch and it was also very good. All served hot and all served good. I don't think the husband would complain either. We really appreciate good food!!

 

Wow. I've wrote you a book here!! I think you'll have a great time though!

 

How you likin' all this rain we've got today? Yesterday was gorgeous! The weather here always surprises me. On our flight back home the flight attendant read off a weather report and actually said "I'm so sorry to report this but...it's 37 degrees with light snow showers!"...I was in shorts. Imagine my surprise...;)

[HGVGuy]

I love reading your review. I'm on the Imagination on Christmas. Can't wait!! Tanks for all the great pictures!

[AutumnBM]

^^The gorgeous Hemingway home. I knew nearly nothing about Hemingway (I knew one thing...the most depressing thing...that he'd killed himself) and neither did Jordan so he convinced me to take the guided tour. The guided tours are free once you pay to get in so you may as well. I liked it! Really interesting actually. Plus, the home and garden area is really very pretty.

 

^^Just the entrance sign for prices!

 

^^I have a million pics of this house. I mostly posted this one because of the cat.

 

^^Another 6 toed kitty.

 

^^I realllllly wanted the lighthouse behind us but this is still nice!

 

^^Hemingway's writing studio with original typewriter.

[AutumnBM]

^^The entire pool area is gorgeous.

 

...I may post a few more but if the Hemingway house is something you'd like to see you can check my Facebook. It's private *I think* but I add CC members just shoot me a message with your CC name. I take a ton of pictures though if you'd like to see them.

 

^^After the Hemingway home we walked to Kermit's. I actually found Kermit's through someone's review on here and I figured we HAVE to go there! Kermit's was awesome! They have it set up to where you can sample everything...so I did. My favorite thing aside from pie being their key limeade and key lime fudge. Jordan liked all the sauces they had with chips.

 

^^Kermit. I assume his real name is Kermit. For the review's sake I'm gonna stick with calling him Kermit (or maybe Kermie haha)

 

^^Kermie is from WV...as is my husband. He spent the rest of the day calling Jordan "cuz"

 

^^Me & my frozen chocolate dipped key lime pie on a stick. There's a mouthful for ya! God this was so good. SO good. SOOOOO good.

 

^^Limeade and original key lime pie (for Jordan...also SOOOO good!) - I ended up going through 2 glasses of limeade...

Edited April 23, 2013 by AutumnBM

[AutumnBM]

I love reading your review. I'm on the Imagination on Christmas. Can't wait!! Tanks for all the great pictures!

 

Thank you! I think you will love it :D Have fun!

[AutumnBM]

^^The garden seating at Kermit's

 

^^Back on the ship.

 

An important bit about Key West ::

 

- They didn't make an announcement AT ALL for us to leave the ship on KW day. We just kind of assumed and when we went downstairs at 7:30 we walked right off. Because they didn't make an announcement, I didn't know to take a photo ID *normally they will tell you what to take with you*. I figured we were in the US so why would we need an ID? Well ya do. Thankfully Jordan thought it'd be smart if he at least carried my license in his wallet with him & it definitely was. Since we were docked at the Navy pier they came around to check S&S cards and ID's. If you didn't have a photo ID (which some didn't) - they would use your S&S card to get in touch with someone on the ship to verify you as a ship passenger.

 

 

This might be common sense to some but unfortunately (haha) to me it wasn't. The Key West cops were kinda heckling the folks that didn't bring an ID.

[cjdixon4]

Thanks! It's been off to a slow start (started a new job yesterday and didn't expect to be as tired as I've been!) but I'm onto Key West now :)

 

The ship was considerably small. However, my husband was convinced we didn't sail full because it was never uncomfortably busy (except lido from time to time) - the decor is super cheesy too but I can overlook that! Most of the time I end up liking the decor anyways! All the staff we came in contact with were really nice to us. Our steward was great as well as our wait staff! They all got tipped extra...we did learn though that Carnival considers the Imagination a "training" ship so we saw tons of staff who were in a training period for their jobs (bar staff, photographers, being the main 2) but I would've never known. Professionalism was not lacking just because they were trainees.

 

We went to one show (Livin' in the USA) and I won't lie...it sucked! I actually like the shows normally (on the Fantasy I distantly knew one of the main singers so I was biased then...he was a friend's brother but I still thought it was good!) but nope. This show was terrible. Jordan's first words after that show? "Well. There's an hour I'll never get back of my life!"

 

The comedy was really good though! They normally are! We 'bout died watching CJ (I think his last name was Jones)...he was hilarious.

 

I gotta say...food was pretty great :) I don't eat a lot of lido food except for lunch and it was also very good. All served hot and all served good. I don't think the husband would complain either. We really appreciate good food!!

 

Wow. I've wrote you a book here!! I think you'll have a great time though!

 

How you likin' all this rain we've got today? Yesterday was gorgeous! The weather here always surprises me. On our flight back home the flight attendant read off a weather report and actually said "I'm so sorry to report this but...it's 37 degrees with light snow showers!"...I was in shorts. Imagine my surprise...;)

 

 

Thanks for the info, Autumn. You pretty much summed up what I needed to know. Hubby and I were on the Royal Caribbean Oasis last fall. That thing is such an impressive ship, that I'll have to keep my expectations of Imagination at a minimum....LOL

 

We were blessed on the far SE side of Chicago to not have gotten a lot of flooding. I feel bad for those living in the suburban areas who lost all their personal belongings. One good thing though, my grass is greener than its EVER been! ;)

[amcjeep4life]

Great review Autumn! There are 5 of us doing this itinerary on the Imagination as a pre-cruise to our big "family" get together on the Breeze. You did exactly what I told everyone I wanted to do in Key West! Too funny! Sending your link to one of my fellow cruisers so she can see the chocolate covered key lime pie. Can't wait to see what you did in Coz!

[AutumnBM]

Thanks for the info, Autumn. You pretty much summed up what I needed to know. Hubby and I were on the Royal Caribbean Oasis last fall. That thing is such an impressive ship, that I'll have to keep my expectations of Imagination at a minimum....LOL

 

We were blessed on the far SE side of Chicago to not have gotten a lot of flooding. I feel bad for those living in the suburban areas who lost all their personal belongings. One good thing though, my grass is greener than its EVER been! ;)

 

So is ours! We have a beautiful tree in our front yard though that I've been waiting for it to bloom and it still looks pretty dead. Oh well. I'm hoping spring will come full force in the next week or 2...

[AutumnBM]

Great review Autumn! There are 5 of us doing this itinerary on the Imagination as a pre-cruise to our big "family" get together on the Breeze. You did exactly what I told everyone I wanted to do in Key West! Too funny! Sending your link to one of my fellow cruisers so she can see the chocolate covered key lime pie. Can't wait to see what you did in Coz!

 

Yay! Send away :) I love looking at others reviews so hopefully they will enjoy this one!

[New2Cruising24]

Great review, so far! We were on Imagination for the 3 day in October.

 

Thanks for sharing! :)

Edited April 24, 2013 by New2Cruising24

[AutumnBM]

We did Cozumel on our last cruise as well...it's lovely!

 

A crazy thing happened on the way to Cozumel. It was about 10 AM and we weren't set to dock at Coz til 1:30 so we were a pretty good ways away. Out in the middle of the big ol' ocean...I see a tiny boat. We are no where near land! Well, me and Jordan are sitting in one of the window seats watching this boat and it's getting tossed around pretty hard out there...there are people (3 from what I could tell) in the boat and they don't appear to be out of gas...just lost. It was SO weird. The sea wasn't rough but their boat was so small it was getting tossed anyways! Well, I lost sight of the boat. Next thing that happened was 3 kids and their dad come running up to some crew members that were close to us from outside and told them they had just watched a boat sink. So. Apparently the tiny boat sank. I'm not sure what all happened when they told the crew but apparently it wasn't a huge deal cause we didn't do anything about it (we were told by other staff later that if they needed any help they would've radioed & we would've rescued) - ok, well after all that excitement, about 20 minutes later ANOTHER tiny boat pops up. Where are all these tiny boats coming from?! We were in the middle of the freakin' ocean. I assumed the 2nd boat was on it's way to the 1st boat.

 

Ok. That all may have been a huge waste of your time but it was just one of those weird things! Weird to me anyways.

 

 

Last year I read a few reviews that the people went to Paradise Beach. It looked nice (and cheap...I refuse to pay a lot to swim...in my opinion beach use should be free but you can pay for drinks or food or whatever) - well anyways. Quite a few people enjoyed Paradise so that's where we went then and this time too. Last year we cruised around the time hurricane Isaac went through & the beach water was murky. We thought it was a fluke due to the weather...no...the beach is ACTUALLY murky. Lots and lots of sea weed and very rocky/shelly. So we didn't even bother with the beach this year. Paradise has a huge, GORGEOUS pool as well so we stayed in there all day! If we ever make it back to Cozumel I'm changing our itinerary up and either doing something completely different or researching other beaches.

 

However, it's a nice place to spend a lazy day. Great pool, clean bathrooms/showers/and changing rooms...and cheap but yummy drinks! Win win!

 

^^Pulling up to Coz

 

^^1 of Paradise's bar areas

 

^^Lovely!

 

^^My sweets in the pool

 

^^Paradise Beach...I did walk and take some pics. You can see how cloudy the water is.

 

^^I do like the little beach shack though!

[AutumnBM]

^^I absolutely love how they're set up. So many palm trees and flowers!

 

^^Me in the pool. I'm an avid tanner (eek! I know...I know! So bad for you!) so I didn't expect to burn...plus I was wearing sunscreen - me and Jordan BOTH got burnt! You can see it forming on my shoulders here.

 

^^Again. While I was in the pool some little boy (really little) came over around where I was and was swimming all around (impressively for such a yungin'...better than Jordan!) and there was NO ONE with him. His family was on the opposite side of the pool. His parents should be glad I was paranoid (I should really use "cautious") and I sat and watched him while he swam because they certainly weren't watching him. Even if they were watching - if anything happened to him they wouldn't have been able to get to him quick enough. Ugh. Another couple actually thought he was mine and asked questions about how old he was & how he learned to swim so young.

 

^^Our ship!

 

^^Even one of the smallest ships still looks huge when little ol' you is next to it.

 

^^Terrible quality!!! Cozumel at night.

 

 

After about 3 hours at Paradise we went back to the terminal so Jordan could do his favorite Cozumel thing - buy Oakleys. He swears they are legit and not fake *I can't tell* - but he found a place last year that sold him a pair for $35 and he is adamant that they are the real deal. This year he bought 4 pair (2 for him, 1 for his brother, 1 for his cousin) and the guy sold them at $25/pr & gave him a free shot of tequila. Yes, Cruise Critic members. That is my husband. I don't even think I need to dwell on this any more hahaha

 

 

Because we'd already done Cozumel before we didn't have any problems with the idea of just going back to the ship so that's what we did and went to dinner - we were the only 2 people from our table there that night...we actually ended up being the only 2 people from our wait staff's whole section! It was kinda awesome though - our food was out immediately and they just brought us whatever. Jordan loves grilling the staff about their jobs and where they're from and stuff like that so he asked Cesario (our main waiter) a few questions...that turned into a conversation that lasted all dinner. Whenever they (all 3!) weren't doing something they would just walk over to our table and talk to us. It was pretty hilarious! Hopefully it made that dinner shift less boring!

 

 

Last Cozumel tidbit - we left someone in Mexico! Everyone was told to be back on board at 9:30 & we were to leave at 10 - we didn't leave until a few minutes after 10:30 because we were waiting on people. We counted 13 people running. Well the ship honked 2 more times and they made an announcement for 2 men like 3 different times...at about 10:20 this straggling guy comes zombie walking up to the ship (that walk you do when you first wake up...or are seriously wasted...and just woke up!) - everyone cheered haha Well, he wasn't the last person. According to ship gossip, the straggler guy & his brother were the 2 we were waiting on. One made it. One didn't. Actually, confirmed ship gossip is that the gangway was nearly put up and they finally were untying the ropes when the last person came stumbling up - there was an officer for the ship outside who turned him away. Sucks for him.

 

They were holding all the employees of the duty free shops and everything. When we finally got the go-head to leave we watched all of them leave their shops and leave in a huge group. I felt so bad for them *I've worked a lot of retail and always hated being kept late by straggling customers*

 

 

Oooookkkk. Last up is last sea day. Aka "the day we did absolutely nothing but lounge around anywhere on the ship likes 2 cats"

[wrigley80]

Where are you guys from in Illinois??? We live out by Rockford (about 15 miles from Rockford).

 

We just booked this same 4-day cruise on the Imagination for December as part of a back-to-back with the Sunshine

[kybluecruiser]

Friends of mine were on this very cruise. Waiting on them to return. It was their first carnival cruise after sailing Royal for many years. I tried to tell them everything they needed to know hope my advice paid off. Lol