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Review: Sailing Solo on Fascination's Repositioning Cruise April 18-24

jpm1973

By jpm1973,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

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jpm1973

jpm1973

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Thanks for stopping by this review of my first solo cruise aboard the Carnival Fascination as it repositioned from an eight-year stay in Jacksonville to its new home port running the Southern Caribbean route from San Juan. It’s been more than a year since my last review of our Carnival Victory cruise last January and nearly a year since I last cruised Carnival aboard the Victory again. In the meantime I’ve tested the Royal Caribbean waters aboard the Oasis of the Seas and Enchantment of the Seas with mixed results. If interested, you can check out my past reviews - links are in my signature.

 

Our Itinerary

Day 1: Jacksonville depart 1600

Day 2: At Sea

Day 3: At Sea

Day 4: St. Thomas 0800 - 1800

Day 5: St. Kitts 0800 - 1800

Day 6: St. Maarten 0800 - 1600

Day 7: Arrive San Juan 0700

 

Cabin

Porthole Main Deck M8

 

Your Host

Me, Scott, 42, an ICU nurse

 

selfie.jpg

 

I live in Long Island not far outside of Queens in New York, although I am originally from Chicago.

 

My past two reviews my partner, Will, as accompanied me but he has not developed the same love of cruising that I have. As such he does not ever anticipate cruising for more than three or four days at a time. I do enjoy the shorter cruises too, but really enjoy the more interesting and diverse destinations the longer cruises offer. After taking a seven-day cruise in November 2014 with my mom, I was itching to get back on a longer cruise. Knowing Will would never agree, he did say he wouldn’t mind me trying it out on my own.

 

Having never really traveled solo, I was somewhat apprehensive but knew that from past experience cruising offers great opportunities to meet new friends. So while I might technically be solo, I’d likely have the chance to meet and get to know people from all over while having the freedom to do what I wanted.

 

With that as some background, I went ahead and booked this cruise last summer through a good deal I got from some of my past gambling in the casino. It was by no means a free cruise or super-discounted cruise that some of the high-rollers get, but it was a good enough deal for me to pull the trigger and not feel like I was spending too much.

 

Why this cruise? I had been anxious to try a repositioning cruise from the experiences I’d read about in others’ reviews, and I was also interested in hopping back on another Fantasy-class ship having enjoyed our first-ever cruise aboard the Ecstasy. While I enjoy the larger ships, sailing on the Oasis of the Seas really showed me that what I love most about cruising is being on the water. On Oasis there were many times I completely forgot we were in fact sailing and not visiting some amusement park or big shopping mall. Since I’d read some great things about those who had cruised on Fascination, I figured this offered me a good opportunity to get back on a smaller ship and try a repositioning cruise at the same time. On top of that, Will decided that he would come join me in San Juan after the cruise and we’d spend a few days there, thus extending my vacation to 10 days.

 

While I’ve always cruised in at least balcony cabin, going solo meant that would be a bit out of my budget. Not ready to go completely interior, I decided to try a porthole cabin; not much more than a standard interior but still with some connection to the world outside the ship. Not long after booking I found a great airfare one way from New York to Jacksonville on jetBlue. So now all that was left was to wait the nine months to April!

 

In the meantime I started looking at options for our three ports. I stopped in St. Thomas on the Glory in November 2014, although our excursion there was canceled so we just ended up shopping a bit in the port area. St. Kitts would be completely new for me, while I’ve visited St. Maarten at least a half-dozen times on land vacations.

 

I knew I wanted to venture out in St. Thomas and check out one of the beaches. I did a little research on the port of call boards and based on what I read settled on Sapphire Beach for the day. I ended up somewhere else, but that will come later. The reviews of St. Kitts beaches seemed a little hit or miss, so I thought that might be a good port to do an actual excursion. There were several options that looked interesting, but I wanted to do something that included the water so all of the land-only island tours were out. I was leaning toward the catamaran snorkel/Nevis beach combo tour, which seemed to get good reviews. Then I read a review from seannyice81’s Liberty trip when he took this same excursion and he said he’d recommend it. So I went ahead and booked it, hoping for the best.

 

Since I was just in St. Maarten last November I didn’t plan on much. I figured I’d head into Phillipsburg, do a little shopping, and maybe spend a few hours at Great Bay Beach right downtown. Easy enough.

 

The only other “excursion” I knew I wanted to try was The Chef’s Table. I’ve heard (and seen, from a distance) how great this evening is and have always wanted to try it. Will is pretty particular with his food, so I knew he’d never be interested since the menu would likely have lots he’d never want to try. I figured being solo made this a great time to try it, so I went ahead and booked it about a month in advance by e-mailing Carnival Special Events. Within a day or two I had a confirmation e-mail from the Fascination Maitre D’ Dario.

 

Since I was by myself, I debated the value of Faster to the Fun for this cruise. I’ve had it on my other Carnival sailings and always found it to be valuable. I went ahead and purchased it again for this one, if only for the convenience of being able to drop my carry-on bags in my room and possibly change clothes once I got on board. I also decided to use Carnival transportation from the airport to the port, since everything I read made it sound like a cab or Uber would be pretty similar in price.

 

So that’s it for the preparations.

 

I’ll post a recap of what I did, experiences, and impressions of the ship, as well as a bunch of photos. There will be no food porn, however, as I am not one to take pictures of what I eat. I’ll tell you about it, though. For anyone who is interested, my pictures were all taken with one of three cameras:

 

Nikon D90 with a Tamron 18-200mm lens

Fuji XP80

iPhone 6

 

Please feel free to ask any questions as I go; I’ll do my best to answer what I can.

 

Let’s start cruising!

Edited by jpm1973
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jpm1973

jpm1973

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Day 1 - Jacksonville

 

day-1-fun-1.jpg

 

My flight to Jacksonville left JFK at 8 a.m., which meant a 5 a.m. wake up and 6 a.m. departure for the airport. I had packed the few days prior so all that was left was any last-minute items and double- and triple-checking the critical things. Like my passport, which I forgot on my last Carnival cruise last May. My tip: don’t do that.

 

Will was nice enough to wake up early to drive me to the airport. Typically traffic at that hour isn’t terrible, but it is New York after all so anything is possible. Of course there were a few accidents that slowed everything down a bit, but we made it within 35 minutes or so and I was dropping my bag with jetBlue soon after that. I made my way to the gate and saw our flight was on time, and it looked like our plane had just arrived - ironically enough, from San Juan.

 

day-1-airport.jpg

 

 

 

day-1-plane.jpg

 

Once they got the previous passengers and bags unloaded and the plane cleaned, it was time to board. We were on our way right on time and after only a short taxi, we were heading up and to Jacksonville.

 

It was a beautiful sunny day, so I snapped a few pictures along the way. I think in the last picture you can see the Fascination on the right toward the middle of the picture. It's teeny tiny. Otherwise I passed the time reading and before I knew it we were descending and landing in Jacksonville, about 20 minutes ahead of schedule.

 

day-1-fromplane1.jpg

 

 

day-1-fromplane2.jpg

 

 

day-1-fromplane3.jpg

Edited by jpm1973
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retiring soon

retiring soon

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Posted

Hi all!

 

jpm1973 ~ following your review.:D I've done 36 cruises, half of them solo since my DH doesn't like to cruise as much as I do. Solo is fun, you can do what you want & meet some nice people too if you want.

 

I'll look forward to your next cruise review too as I'll be sailing Conquest in Oct 2017!;)

 

Carry on!

 

~ Jo ~ :)

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jpm1973

jpm1973

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Once I collected my bag I made my way over to where the Carnival transport check-in desk was, and found a rather long line. Lucky for me I got in it when I did, because it just got even longer as I waited. It seemed to take a long time for some people to get checked in, though later I realized many people didn’t have their bag tags printed or boarding passes. Once it was my turn I was checked off the list and told I’d be on bus #5. It appeared that they were loading bus #3, so I figured it wouldn’t been too long of a wait.

 

Wrong. It was at least 45 minutes before another bus showed up and I assumed that this was #4, and I’d be waiting even longer. But thankfully this was a larger bus and was actually for those of us assigned to #4 and #5. Once all the passengers and bags were loaded, we set off for Jaxport, about a 15-20 minute drive from the airport.

 

Once we arrived we pulled out of the way into a parking area, which confused me. But then a security guard boarded and proceeded to check each passenger’s ID. Seemed like a waste of time to me, but I guess every port handles these things differently. Once we were all checked out we pulled out of the lot and then around to the drop-off area at the front of the port terminal. My first close-up view of Fascination:

 

day-1-ship.jpg

 

One nice thing about using Carnival transport is that we didn’t have to wait for our bags to be offloaded and then take them to a porter ourselves - they handled all of that so we were free to go into the terminal and actually check in.

 

There was a pretty good line to enter the building so I made my way to the back of it. After a few minutes though I noticed a small sign that said “Priority - F2F” and figured I might be able to bypass this line. Sure enough when I asked someone he said I could go right in. Once through security I was helped right away by an agent who took my health form and checked my boarding pass and passport. She snapped my picture, handed me my Sail and Sign card, and instructed me to bypass the boarding line and wait at the front for someone to assist me. I did, and not even a minute later I was making my way onto the ship.

 

day-1-boarding.jpg

 

Unlike the other ports I’ve sailed from in Jacksonville boarding is done onto Deck 0 via gangway rather than into the Atrium. Although the wait for the bus took awhile, check in and boarding were a breeze, taking less than 30 minutes. Not bad!

Edited by jpm1973
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jpm1973

jpm1973

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Once on board I made a quick stop in my room to drop off my backpack and change into some shorts. The 12-pack of bottled water I had ordered was already waiting for me. The room was plenty big, with the standard storage I’ve had on all my other Carnival cruises. Same standard bathroom as well.

 

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day-1-cabin3.jpg

 

day-1-cabin4.jpg

 

day-1-cabin5.jpg

 

day-1-cabin6.jpg

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jpm1973

jpm1973

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Next it was up to Lido to get some food. Nothing new here that I could tell, but always a good variety of your typical buffet food. I opted for a cheeseburger and some fries this time.

 

After eating I wandered around a bit checking out the ship. The Fascination, while new to me, is the same in layout to the Ecstasy, which I sailed on in June 2014 as my first cruise. While the decor is different the placement of venues is pretty much identical, so it made it easy to navigate. I know a lot of people dislike the Fantasy class ships and while not my first choice, I do like the smaller size and some of the outside deck layouts, especially the aft location of Serenity and the two outdoor seating areas on Lido that overlook Serenity and the back of the ship. A few pictures from around Lido and the pool area:

 

day-1-funnel.jpg

 

day-1-deck10-2.jpg

 

day-1-deck10-4.jpg

 

day-1-pool.jpg

 

day-1-pool2.jpg

 

day-1-serenity.jpg

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Catrin

Catrin

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Love your review so far! It's been a long time since I've been on a a fantasy class ship. Nice pics!!!! Looking forward to your solo adventure.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

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Jenny in TX

Jenny in TX

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Looking forward to your review and what you thought about the Fascination. We have been wanting to cruise out of San Juan for several years and just never pulled the trigger and thought about booking it next year and then heard many people complain about Carnival putting a smaller ship there so we are a little hesitant.

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