Just another Fascination review from San Juan

[kelib]

I know there are a few other Fascination reviews out there so I apologize for any duplication of information. I am a female , traveled solo and first time on Carnival. Was attracted not only by the ports which I had done years ago on the olde Windjammer Barefoot Cruises, but also it was a smaller ,older ship without all the bells and whistles. I personally just want to relax and enjoy being on a ship.

First quick info on SanJuan since I came in Friday night. I stayed at the Sheraton Old San Juan which is about a block and a half from the ships dock. I chose this since I wanted to see a little bit of OSJ and if I stayed at a beach I would have never left.

There is a free tram that stops about a block on either side of the hotel, one jus a little bit left of the dock, and the other just past Señor Frogs in front of the ferry terminal. The tram has many stops including the forts. Had lunch at Barachina, known for it's Piña Colada's... They were delish and may have possibly ruined me for all Piña Colada's going forward.

Back to CVS, they do have a selection of wine, beer and other libations...and their prices were not much different than your local. Came in handy when I developed a blister from walking in my sandals for the first time of the season to get some liquid bandage... And also snacks.

I took a taxi both to the hotel and again from the ship to the airport. Both times it was $21 plus $1 for each bag. Not sure if the price changes with more than 1 person.

If possible I would suggest you go in a day early and just enjoy OSJ, it is a very pretty area.

[LMHC]

We would love to hear another review. We depart on June 5th so any information would be helpful. Thanks for taking the time.

[kelib]

I know people will shake their heads and make comments about FTTF, I had a bad experience on long lines for NCL Star with very long waits and with bad knees just did not want to go through that again. I also bought it before reading the nay Sayers, but my choice.

Checkout at the Sheraton was 11:00 and when I went down others with their luggage were starting to make their way to the ship. It is a short walk and not even an issue with my bad knees. Got there a few minutes after 11:00, porters took my luggage and off to what I thought would be waiting till noon check in. Not only could I check in, they were already calling people to board . I checked in with a another couple and we were escorted straight to our own security scanning station. In room and talking to my steward by 11:30. I can't say that this will be the norm, just my experience( the ship looked pretty ready when I left the other day a little after 10:00 am.

Went to Serenity for awhile, had a little lunch then went back to room around 2:30. Luggage waiting for me so unpacked and organized by 3:00 pm not bad.

Because of all the staggered check in's, the ship did not get crowded till late afternoon.

Due to the late hours for all on board, they have open seating in the MDR. this was not a great experience for me. Due to it being a Puerto Rico port, there were many locals on board, and many either know no English or limited. I just happened to be 1 person sitting with 9 people who spoke no English. Let's say uncomfortable for my first meal. Our waiter saw I was upset, and at the end of dinner ( which I left a little bit early ) took me over to check on my regular seating and was assured that I would be sitting with English speaking table mates the rest of the week. Was really nice all week though when my first night table mates saw me they made sure to greet me, and even had a friend to translate that they really felt bad for me that night.

Next was the muster... Or better described as the "cluster muster" . I was with group D and we were to all meet in the night club. Of course everyone wandered in, and this was also the case for all children to get their wristbands. Toddlers 2 hours after bedtime with a lot of strange people around is not the greatest experience . I am used to someone with a clip board actually marking that I attended instead of some people walking around with click counters while everyone is actually moving.

They then want you to walk in lines of 2 to the next deck.. Really!!!! People have been drinking all day, they are worried about walking a straight line let alone try to walk next to someone. Get up to the actual station, they start letting the parents of the cranky children sneak away and drill is finally over.

So now everyone is on Lido deck and ready for sail away. Hint..get a spot over by the starboard side... It is a wonderful sight sailing by OSJ with its lights on including the gates,wall and fort. Truly stunning sail away.

The party continues with a mix of line dancing, music and salsa dancing ( which got a big cheer)

Next, we discuss how the initial disappointment of my guarantee room turned out to be a room I loved.

[kelib]

When looking for a vacation I had a few land vacations and this cruise picked out. Seemed like prices in February were just a little high. Leap weekend came and Carnival had a GREAT sale on guarantee ocean view rooms. When I can get a cabin for under $1000 which includes all taxes and single supplement I am happy. The suspense is killing me as I look at my booking everyday to see when my room is assigned. 4 weeks out I am assigned, pull up the deck plans and my excitement deflates a little. Riviera deck way in the aft section. I think no wonder they gave us these rooms, no one would ever volunteer to pick these rooms. I say to myself to suck it up buttercup, you got a great deal . At least looking at the ships plan most of what I wanted was all in the aft anyway, and I think I spent 70% of my time in all of the aft elevator locations.

About my room, it was clean, bed and pillows comfy. No fridge by my steward Agustin brought me ice twice a day. Nice vanity set up, but hint...if you need to look close up to apply makeup or anything similar bring a small magnifying mirror with you.

Thing I liked the least was the safe... You need to swipe a card, but I usually want to lock up the card. I just threw everything in without locking and put a few things in front of the door.

Thing I liked the most ...the shower. It was small but the water pressure was awesome . Also never had to waste for hot water, almost instant. Did not use the shampoo, but the shower gel had a nice light fragrance to it. I brought a small scrubby with me which is easier to lather than a washcloth.

This will be the thing people would love or hate. I always sleep with a white noise machine, fan, something. The engines lulled me to sleep every night . I never had to pull out my iPad. App for white noise . And you never need an alarm clock in the morning... Pulling into the docks takes care of that, I just looked out the window then went back to sleep.

One other thing that I noticed about the rooms back there is that because the hallway is a dead end , you do not get people walking down the hall at all hours.

So, even though on the surface it may seem like not the greatest room, I ended up loving my little home away from home.

[sparks1093]

Loving the review! We can't wait until October (although I suppose we'll have to:)).

[suz1450]

I leave on June 5, can't wait!!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

[cmukid87]

Can't wait to hear more. Still have 18+ months but I'm so excited!

[Clarea]

Looking forward to more.:)

[AzJunkGirl]

Thanks for the information.. leaving for San Juan the 17th can't wait for the pina coladas! :D

[kelib]

Before I forget and since it is conversation on other threads:

 

Yes, they have tablecloths

 

No discussion on how many times they will make up your room. In fact, I told my steward Agus one night that he really did not have to make up my room since I had spent very little time there and he was adamant about making sure I had ice, fresh towels and turn down. Loved this guy ;)

 

I had a bottle of wine in my tote when I boarded and it was not even acknowledged that it was there.

 

Also, I mentioned on another thread they are building a Walgreen in the old Sheraton Casino. Looks like it will open this summer and it is only a block and a half from the ship. So don't forget to bring your Walgreen/CVS cards that you would normally leave at home

 

One added thing about Barachina...they have a place in the back where you can check your luggage if you want to wander around OSJ after debarkation but before your flight. May be a tough walk if you have luggage so get a taxi. I saw a lot of people who were just getting of the Adventure of the Sea doing this on Saturday. Not sure if there is a cost but something good to know if you have a later flight.

Edited May 19, 2016 by kelib
added more

[kelib]

So I booked this cruise and pretty much was all on board with the Cheers package. I had the free package this past fall with NCL and took FULL advantage of it.

About 3 weeks prior to the cruise I came down with a nasty bug that took away desire to eat or drink ... still was not full up to speed by the beginning of the trip ( I was not contagious) but due to not knowing how I would feel I backed off getting the package. Glad I did and this is why:

 

This being the port intensive cruise I found myself off the boat more than expected. The only days I would have broken even was the first day and the 1 sea day.

I went on 3 excursions that "advertised" fruit juice only to find that they were watering the punch down with RUM..." I had one excursion where the rum hit me pretty darn hard.

Then 2 excursions I found my self ordering drinks at the bars where we were at. Basically I drank more off the ship than on.

I had a few wines with dinner, some after dinner drinks. I am not into the expensive whiskeys, tequilas etc. When my final bill came it was not far off the amount I did on a 3 day RCCL cruise.

I did get 2 12 packs of water for the room and brought one bottle of wine for myself.

Just the opinion from someone who enjoys her Adult beverages..

[bizeebeth]

Thanks for the review. Leaving on June 5 with the family and can't wait!

[CruiseChrisCruise]

We are also cruising June 5th. We are so excited, it's almost here.

[Bringonthesun01]

Loving the review so far!! Cannot wait till October as well.

[kelib]

There are 2 other current reviews/ trip reports , some of them are FAR better than me about describing the ship...kudos to the picture taking... I did not take one picture the entire time.

Some things I would like to mention. Yes, she is an older ship and you should know that going in. She does not have all the bells and whistles that some of the other ships have, spending time complaining about it while you are on the ship does no good. Also complaining about the limited casino hours.. If you saw the itinerary you would know that there was only one sea day and she leaves late at night in Puerto Rico... Rant off

 

There are small pocket size ship layouts in your room and I think at checking in. Handy to have for the first day or so. The elevators confused me for the first day or two. What I did not notice till Friday so I do not know if this was for the whole cruise is that the Mid ship elevator had signs directing you to use to get off the ship instead of going to the crowded front debarkstion area. They were letting you get off the crews debarkation which was so much easier. So if out are on the back half of the ship and on deck 7 or below, stick your head in the elevator lobby to see if they are directing you to use that elevator. you still had to get back on the regular ramp with the rest of the passengers

[kelib]

My favorite place was the over 21 Serenity located on deck 9 aft. 2 ways to get there.. Either go to the back if the buffet, out the door and down the stairs, or go through Puttin on the Ritz lounge on deck 9. Just be mindful that there may be something else going on there so enter quietly. There was a wedding in Barbados there so I avoided that area and took the long way out of respect.

This serenity is smaller than other Serenity's on other ships , there is no pool and just 2 hot tubs. Still nicer to have padded loungers and tables between the loungers. You can also check out towels there so no need to drag up your towel from your room. When it is busy like sea day there was a cabana guy taking orders for drinks, other times there is a bar at the back of the buffet. Since all of my excursions were in the afternoon , I would spend a little bit of time there in the morning there where it was almost empty. I did bring down my breakfast there a few times to get away from craziness of the buffet. Rina was in charge of the area all week, and by midweek she knew my room and cabin number for towel check in purposes.

Just remember tat sea day..Tuesday was the busiest day there and as the week goes by and more people discover it , it tends to get busy as everyone comes back on board.

Edited May 22, 2016 by kelib

[kelib]

Time to talk about what is near and dear to our hearts...food.

Breakfast...I only had breakfast on the Lido deck , I did not take advantage of the sea day brunch. I have to admit that the buffet seems to be more limited compared to my past 2 ships which were the Majesty of the Sea and NCL Star.

they did have a superstar area for continental style breakfast, but I found it "mildly" irritating that if I picked a croissant there, I had to go and cut into the buffet line to get butter. I will go later into what I felt was an odd way that they organized their buffet lines... Which to be honest were not organized.

Of course they had the bacon police and some of the items were so far back due to lack of space that sometimes I could not reach certain items. Was totally shocked that I could not find hardly any watermelon on board. .

There was s a combination juice in the machines Thai really loved and was disappointed that they were out by Saturday. In fact I noticed being out of quite a few things by Saturday were missing

Also not sure if this will be going forward a regular occurrence but on the first day the lines for breakfast were ridiculous. Hopefully for all of you it was a fluke, but I did not even try to get in line and stuck to a continental breakfast that day

[kelib]

The way me excursions ran I never really had a true lunch on board, so I missed the Wok and the Rotiseree the grill on the Lido deck was open till 6:00 PM, so it was great to get something to tide me over to late seating.

Notes of interest: really like the potatoe salad... After that you will see salsa( okay really the other stuff, just don't think spell check will help me out) and white stuff which tuned out to be sour cream. Around the corner and after you hit the spot where you will have the server handing over burgers, you will find the flour tortilla chips to go with. If you want cheese, don't worry, that will be farther down the line past the hot dogs. to my shock and amazement I kept on getting hot dogs... They were really good. I guess they wee the best option to hold me till dinner, but really, I spent this much money to love a hot dog, sometimes I don't understand myself.

Other than tha I was glad it was there and most of the similar fare was available at late night. On the late night beach party they did have late night Taco night which I was still too full from dinner.

Then there is swirls... Never to full for a small late night cone.

[kelib]

I had the 8:15 seating and was lucky to have some great table mates. Breaking down food by courses sine I can't remember the day to day, and may not even remember everything I ate.

Keep in mind that I know food is VERY subjective, but I will try to give reasons behind my opinion. One of the things is I do not like things too salty and as a result it skews dome of my taste preferences compared to others.

 

Before I go into appetizers let me talk about bread. This is one thing where Carnival lost points with me. How hard is it to have bread/rolls warm. Also all you had was a slice of French baguett or this one roll that had no color to it. By mid week I was just flat out refusing it.

 

Shrimp Cocktail. I love shrimp, but I thought that this shrimp was very bland and just blah. The tiger shrimp that they serve in some of the entries were what I would expect of a shrimp cocktail , I would have preferred 2 of them compared to the 4-5 of what they serve. It is also on a plate of just stuff, but just a very small dab of ketchup ( would not even call it cocktail sauce) that basically takes care of one shrimp. Other people liked it and ordered it all week, do it must be fine for others, just not for me.

 

Fried shrimp. One night they had a fried shrimp app, temporary type batter. Okay, found it better than shrimp cocktail.

 

Pumpkin/squash soup. Not sure which it was, but it was cramp and good

Escargot.. On second elegant night. Not the best I ever had but I enjoyed it. TIP be careful if dripping butter, one of those that best to bring the napkin all the way up.

 

Caprese stack... One of my favorite things at home and one of my favorite things I had on ship

Crab cake... Where were you all week. I should have asked for a few of these and made it my entree... Best app all week hands down ( served on last night)

[realtrip]

Fabulous review!! More, more, more, Please! I can't wait to hear what you did on excursions.

[kelib]

Fabulous review!! More, more, more, Please! I can't wait to hear what you did on excursions.

 

You may be disappointed :D

[kelib]

Onto the entrees:

 

Pasta with a tomato sausage sauce. This was the first night and I wa still in search of my appetite from being ill prior to the cruise . This is one of those items you can also get as a smaller version as an appetizer. I not the smaller version as an entree. It was okay

 

Skirt steak. For me this was a huge disappointment especially after getting some really good reviews. I ordered it medium where I should have ordered it rare. Then 2 of our new table mates showed up almost 30 minutes late so they held up our entrees so they could get caught up. As a result my steak was so dry and over cooked, and by the time we got it I was not about to start the whole process over again.

Elegant night lobster and shrimp. The lobster was small but to their credit not over cooked. Finally got some shrimp worthy of the name, so thumbs up on this meal.

Seafood Newburgh . So this was not what I totally expected. It was not a Newburgh sauce but more of a fish/lobster sauce. Too salty for me and no one else got it at the table for me to compare. After I scalped the sauce off the scallops and shrimp were pretty good, the mussels a little overdone. I think this is the night that there was all a rice pilaf type of side dish that was quite good

 

Elegant night #2.. I got the chateau briand ( what...spell check does not have this..horrors) and it was cooked exactly how I wanted it. Had a nice peppery sauce ( not too much sauce) and I enjoyed it.

 

Lasagna . You could also get this as an appetizer also. This was very heavy with meat and could have used more sauce for my liking. This night I seemed to be the most tired so to be honest food was just not my thing, and I ate the full appetizer of mozzarella and tomatoes that this was just too much for me.

 

Prime rib. Came out the way I wanted it, rare . Last night and I still did not learn... He came by with the Au Jus and he got a little heavy handed before I could tell him to stop. Not bad just a little bit more than needed.

I also have to say that just for me I would have liked to see the baked potato given another 15 minutes in the oven.. A little bit harder than my preference. On the last night they did come around with all the fixings for the baked potatoe.

On the last night they slso served a bacon Mac n Cheese that she let me taste. It actually was quite good and wish they had it on another night when it was not up against Prime Rib.

[kelib]

The first night coincided with Mothers Day and they passed around a special chocolate desert that was okay. Little did I know that you could also pick from the dessert menu and I missed out on Creme Brulee . They also gave all the woman carnations and it lasted in my room the entire time in a nice glass of water

 

Chocolate melting cake. This one scares me since I know it is a huge favorite. I got it on the first night of regular dining. The top tasted really good, but the I did not know whether to drink the rest or what. I was so disappointed. I will admit that one of my table mates got it every night and it looked better than that first night, I had just moved on.

 

Bitter and Blanc... Again big favorite here on the boards and I can see why. Again the sauce was too much for me and I would have been better just getting it on the side. I am not a huge bread pudding fan, but this was pretty good, I can honestly see why some people really love it.

 

Cherries jubilee ... Should have given the melting cake another try... I had trouble even remembering that I had it.

 

Baked Alasksa. Not bad, but you could tell how evident it was in cutting corners, there was basically no cake in it at all.

 

Chocolate raspberry cake... My 2 favorite desert flavors together. The chocolate cake was a little bit bland, but the raspberry and Creme was a very tasty tart and sweet combination.

 

Grand Marnier mousse. If you expect to taste any Grand Marnier or even a hint of orange you will be disappointed . As a vanilla type of desert it was good, and this time I put the sauce on the side.

Edited May 22, 2016 by kelib

[kelib]

The team in the MDR do their little nightly dance. We all know it is hokey, we all have our levels of how much we like hokey. I personally did not care one way or the other. I found more amusement in watching which waiter was really into it and which ones could not wait till it was over. The red,white and blue jackets mentioned on another review did not make it into our week. Only saw one asst. waiter wore it for a few minutes one night. Also the Matri D was a hoot and very friendly.

 

The assistant staff was very effecient.. You took 2 sips of water out of your glass and they were there refilling it for you.

 

If you are in the Immagination dining room that has the fixed seating, then the Beverly Hills bar is right over you on deck 9. Very easy to get a pre dinner drink or glass of wine to take to dinner with you. The steps from the bar go right into the dining room.

 

Regret that I never got to see what the Taste Bar was all about. Dinner at late seating sometimes ran a little bit latewhich made it tough to get into some of the shows on time

[realtrip]

You may be disappointed :D

 

No way! enjoying the review too much.:D