Splendor review from a cruise newbie

[CookieShip]

So I was on the same 11/25 Splendor sailing as the yuck review and it was the first cruise for all parties involved, which was myself (later twenties), my brother (mid-twenties), and my parents (50ish). Trying to get things down while they are still somewhat fresh in my mind. Even though I’m back at home on solid ground, I still feel like I am being rocked like on the ship, lol. I’ll also try to add some pics once I get them off all the different cameras…

The ports were not exactly ideal since I’ve been to the Bahamas before and it didn’t really hit my must re-visit list. However, the family had not been, and the rate let me pick up the tab for all 4 of us. Sailing from New York also drew me in as we have family in the area, so it was nice to combine a trip to see them for Thanksgiving (and free parking for the week ;)).

I had previously asked on the boards here about my mom having different last names on her driver license and other documents, ultimately we just got her a passport just to resolve things. She did use her DL in the ports to get back on the ship. I also had a passport and my brother had his birth certificate, things were fine for us as well. My dad has his certificate of naturalization, which involved additional examination when we were embarking and debarking. Not sure if that was normal or the agents just were not as familiar with that type of document.

We also did end up using a car service to take us to/from port to/from Brooklyn, Golden Horse 718 762 8888. We got a mini-van for $40+tip each way. To the port, driver was great, arrived on time and took us right to the terminal. However, on the return trip, different driver and I wasn’t sure this guy knew how to drive properly or get to where were going despite him running 2 GPS devices…

Back to the cruise, we got to the port early (about 12), and got zone 8 boarding. Plenty of seating and I saw there were some drink dispensers off to the side as well. Soon our zone was called and there is some picture taking, I wasn’t really in the mood for it with my carry-on luggage. Then they take a picture for the Sail & Sign card, then on to the ship. You get on deck 3, think there were Fun Times and maps available as we boarded, but I didn’t grab one then. Should try to grab one if it is your first time onboard. Since it was still early, our rooms were likely not ready yet, so we headed to lido on deck 9 for some lunch.

Around 1:45 we were done and headed down to our rooms on deck 2 forward, our bags were already there waiting for us. I got a 1A porthole window room with my brother; there was a single bed and couch made into a bed for my brother. I felt it was spacious and there was plenty of places to store things. It would have likely been more spacious if my brother didn’t leave his luggage hanging out in the middle of the room the entire time.. I really liked the tip for sticking my luggage under the bed. Since there were already couch cushions under there from my brother’s bed, my luggage just barely fit under there. I really liked the porthole windows as I could take a peek outside anytime from my room, even if we were mostly just in open waters. My parents were down the hall in an inside 4B room, they didn’t really comment much about it. Our room Steward was Kadeck and he learned our names after the first day, greeting us in the halls and such. He did what he was suppose to and I tipped him a twenty on the last night. It was a little awkward handing him cash, was I suppose to put it in a tip envelope or something? (I did leave auto-tips on so this was just some extra for the guy)

Getting around on the ship is a little confusing at first because decks 3 and 4 do not go all the way through due to the dining rooms. On the first day, we were exploring and ended up on deck 3 aft which has an entrance for The Black Pearl, but there was sign saying to go to deck 4 instead. Since we had Your Time Dining, our entrance was actually on deck 3 forward. I kind of wish they had put that (forward or aft) on the S&S cards. And if you are trying to avoid the smoke on deck 5 from the casino, you need to walk to mid (though still smokey there) or aft from one of the other decks (but not 3 or 4).

The Splendido on deck 9 goes through the whole way, which is annoying because there are 2 whirlpools and a small pool on aft, if you are already on 9 mid or forward, then you have to go through the Splendido/Buffet area to get to them or change decks. Maybe that explains some of the people you see in robes in the area? It didn’t really bother me that much as long as they weren’t dripping wet all over the place.

I’ve also heard lots of complaints about the décor of the ship, while I certainly wouldn’t put it in my own house, it didn’t bother me. A little disappointed that we just missed them decorating for Christmas. I did see they were doing some Hanukkah stuff in the Fun Times during our cruise. I saw a man with a menorah and candles one time in the elevator, I thought candles weren’t allowed?

Food was decent, I liked that they offered a variety of items so I could try new things that I normally probably wouldn’t. I liked the MDR, but my family are really more buffet people. So I started going to MDR with a party of 4, then 3, then 2, then just myself and my kindle. I can totally see why they preferred the buffet though, you can get whatever you want in whatever portions you want (in MDR, it’s easier to just give you a whole entrée with the sides even if you just want the star of the dish). While sometimes there is a line to get stuff, it will still be much less than the wait in the MDR. And if I want a cup of tea, I can go get it myself. In the MDR, the servers were always so busy that I never wanted to ask. I do wish they would put the buffet menus on the TV or maybe on their fun hub site, so I could compare which option to choose for that evening. Some items would be on both menus or the buffet would have something that was similar to what was being offered in the MDR.

I had the Mongolian Wok once, didn’t really like the sauce or the wait. I think people might just like the whole novelty of it… I really liked the burrito bar, usually very little wait there, except for the last day where people in front of me were getting 4 and 2 burritos at once. Guess they finally discovered these were tasty. Deli was nice, Tandoori offered something different, never tried the rotisserie (sometimes the Tandoori was there). The burgers from the Grill always seemed to be burnt. It always seemed to be the same guy working the Pizza Pirate, with a second guy helping him out on occasion. Pizzas were good when fresh, but seemed like there was a lot of waste as they didn’t put sauce or cheese on the edges or they would be too burnt to even be edible.

Need a break before I cover the entertainment/activities/ports.

[CookieShip]

Entertainment/Activities

 

Because of the storm/rain, this cruise seemed to be particularly rocky that they moved the dance show productions around. I only saw the ending of Vroom and I enjoyed it. My mom who isn’t even usually a fan of this kind of thing, said she saw more and liked it as well. The Beat was decent, but I have to say I didn’t really like Fiesta Latina as much. They did say it was the group’s opening performance? They also reserved a bunch of seats for Carnival people in the center on deck 4 for that performance. There was a Motown performance I did not attend. One evening we had a comedy hypnotist, it was sort of funny, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to see it.

At the start of the cruise, we had Jorge Solano and Arvin Mitchell, great shows. Towards the end of the cruise, we had Lenny Schmidt and Hank McGauley. I saw Lenny’s show and it was just disappointing, he handled a heckler well, but his material was weak. We’re like 6 days into an 8 day cruise, we’ve already heard the one about who brought their kids and who didn’t at this point… His closing joke wasn’t even an original joke!

 

 

Now if you wanted to get involved in the “shows”, they did have a stand up night that was a bit late for me. There was the game show night, which I would not put much effort into seeing. There were also smaller more casual events on the ship throughout the days, many bottles of champagne, ships on sticks, and medals awarded. Though some activities would be recycled under different names. Sometimes the mystery is part of the fun, though I kind of wish there was a directory I could turn to see the name and what each of the events entailed.

 

 

 

My top 3 would be:

Vroom

Quest/Grown Up Gameshow

Hairy Chest Competition

 

 

There was also a Cruise Director Q&A with Malcolm “Woo Hoo” Burn on the last day, that lasted about an hour that I found interesting. Obviously you can ask questions or see what other guests come up with. At our session, a lady suggested deep sea fishing off the back of the boat and shark cages… Kind off topic, but Malcolm is a tall thin guy. I had seen some posts about his heart surgery and was expecting him to be more round…

Ports of Call

Port Canaveral, Florida - We did Sea World at this port, kind of at the request of my parents. Otherwise I think I would have done a leisurely tour of the close by Kennedy Space Center. It was quite chilly, I was expecting that we could wear shorts today, but glad I listen to my dad to wear something warmer. We did a car rental from Budget and I saw the Budget shuttle leaving as we exited the port building. It ended up being around 30 minutes before the shuttle came again. I saw at least 3 Hertz shuttles in that time, so I got very anxious with our wait.

My parents did some shows at Sea World and I got the Quick Queue to do some rides. I think my brother gorged on being able to access the internet again.

There was suppose to be a Space X launch that evening at Cape Canaveral and what better place then from one of the high decks on the ship? Unfortunately it was scrapped and we just ended up being cold with no launch.

 

 

 

Nassau, Bahamas – We enjoyed the ship in the morning and took a stroll into town and Junkanoo Beach in the afternoon. Intentionally nothing was planned for this day as I knew things would be very busy with the 5 ships in port. We got to see Disney Dream and Norwegian Epic. Then there were 2 other Carnival ships.

 

 

 

Freeport, Bahamas – We enjoyed the ship in the morning again, I even got some wifi from my room. Did a walk around the port area and got back on when the line was short. Glad we did as the line stretched way back closer to departure time. They did finally open the Lido cover this day, only day it was open during the cruise.

 

 

 

Overall the trip was about as expected. The weather was crummier than expected, but not really anything that Carnival could of done about that. I would sail from New York or with Carnival again. Though I would try to avoid the same ports again.

[Vitamin_Sea]

Thanks for the detailed review. Seems like you had a good time. The weather is out of our control.

Were on the same cruise 1/28..The price was really good.

[champagne123]

It is refreshing to read a review from the eyes of a young person. I appreciate all that you have written. I think a lot of us have become spoiled over the years of cruising. We expect more for less $$$. I also think a lot of us forget what it was like to board our first cruise. Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed review. I certainly hope you will cruise again. Try a different cruise line if you are able...this way you can make a comparison.

[K8S]

Thank you for taking the time to write the review. We are booked to go on the Splendor in March 2014. Are there a lot of activities to participate in during the four sea days?

[CookieShip]

Thank you for taking the time to write the review. We are booked to go on the Splendor in March 2014. Are there a lot of activities to participate in during the four sea days?

Yes, there are lots of things to do, but sometimes it's nice just to lounge around and do nothing. I was worried about there being nothing to do, so I brought cell phone (for games and impromptu pictures), kindle loaded with a few books (only got about 60% through one book), and my full size laptop along with a few seasons of TV shows on DVDs. I really didn't need the last one, I only turned on my laptop once to save a copy of pictures.

 

They have lots of different trivia games, scattagories, charades, scavenger hunts, giant jenga, little dance classes, and other things like that to join in on through out the day. Each night, the steward will leave a copy of the FunTimes on your bed which has the times of all the events to plan your day or just take a look when you've run out of things to do on your own. They have more detailed description of some of the events.

 

They also have Tea Time on sea days, it's in the Gold Pearl dining room at 3PM, which allowed us to view the other dining room and view it from the "second" level. Honestly wasn't all that interesting, the pearl decor is just gold color, rather than black. And the seating for it is group, so you have strangers with you at the table. I think I may not have been to fond of this, just because the afternoon I decided to go, we hit a a very large wave in the middle of it and half my tea ended up on the table! Funny now, but I got quite nervous at the time.

[K8S]

Thanks for the detailed reply....funny and scary story about your tea time experience...yikes!!

[Lerin]

Thanks for the review, looking forward to your added photos.

[CookieShip]

Should be able to click on these to see the larger versions.

 

The room

 

Fun Times

 

Rough seas from the port hole

 

Turkey towel

 

They even have a short make your own towel animal class or buy their book for ~$15.

 

Or get yourself a photo op with a giant towel animal, I actually would have liked this one, but didn't know where he ended up.

[CookieShip]

The whole gang is here, if I recall correctly, from left to right, these are

Macro Scolaro (Chief Engineer)

Ettore Bovo (Captain)

Nickos Batistatos (Hotel Director)

Malcolm "Woo Hoo" Burn (Cruise Director)

 

Cooking demonstration in Pinnacle steakhouse.

 

With samples! (this was actually my least favorite dish, but it was the prettiest picture)

 

The chefs.

 

Black Pearl with bonus adorable baby.

 

Giant shot!

[CookieShip]

WMC, I actually didn't really like this. It was underdone for me, but I saw a tip you could request it more well done. I may have liked it more that way... I really wanted to try Creme Brulee, but they didn't bring it to me the one evening and the other time I saw it on the TV menu, it wasn't on the paper menu :(.

 

Comparing the two menus on Thanksgiving

 

Thanksgiving Watermelon?

 

 

Pizza

 

Breakfast

[CookieShip]

Festive folks on Lido

 

Giant Jenga

 

"Cupcake" giving a dance lesson on Lido

 

Always hard at work, even in rain and high winds.

 

All the ships in Nassau

 

A spot of nice weather in Freeport, bet everyone was a little stir crazy, so a giant line to get back on board.

[CookieShip]

Wish I knew about the 20 minute limit on edits, was hoping to clean up my first post :(. Figured once I got some of it online, I would work more quickly on the rest of it, lol.

[lovelearnteach]

Thank-you for the review and pix :).

[4merlurker]

Great review! Thanks! We'll be on the splendor next month! Can't wait!

[Jimmy Geegitz]

I have never seen Giant Jenga before. Cool.