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Trippingpara's 'Legend'ary Alaskan Cruise Photographic Review


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Hey, what’s crack-a-lackin’ everyone?! Trippingpara here, but you can just call me Trip. My DW and I have just returned from our cruise to the fantastically unbelievable, the unfathomable, the implausible, the incredible and the downright insanely beautiful state of Alaska and the Inner Passage. We had the pleasure of spending 8 days sailing on the newly refurbished Carnival Legend roundtrip from Seattle. I believe this will now be my fifth review here on CC. Man, am I getting salty or what?! Oh wait…nope, never mind, that’s just the rim of my margarita glass! Any ways, hopefully you’ll enjoy this review and be able to dredge some useful tidbits from it.

 

If you know who I am or have read any of my other reviews, then you already know that this review will be long and will have more images than Motley Crue’s photographic collection of groupies. Unfortunately, our photos will not have the wild and crazy debauchery of theirs, but ours are pretty freakin’ awesome just the same - in a boring, PG kind of way. Sorry guys and gals, those R rated photos have exclusive rights only. However, for a small fee of…

 

Ahh…wait…hold on…

 

I’m getting a vicious stink eye from DW. Okay, nope. Nevermind, they’re not for sale.

 

Speaking of photos, I’m currently attending the Rhode Island School of Design. It’s supposed to be one of the nation’s premier art schools but come to think of it, I’m not sure how the heck I was able to get accepted there! Apparently, their standards must have plummeted since that last ranking! Nonetheless, that means I don’t go anywhere without a camera in my hands. In fact, since I happen to be lucky enough to have two hands, I usually have at least two cameras in my possession at any given moment. Of course, that’s not counting the ubiquitous cell phone/camera that is permanently glued into everyone’s hands.

 

Well, enough of that crap, now where was I?....Ah yes, per my normal reviews, it will be broken up into two distinct areas: the first part will be a Cliff Notes version highlighting some of the main topics and areas of the Legend followed by a day by day diary style format discussing the port and events of the day in detail. The plethora of pictures will be in the diary area so please feel free to skip right to that area if you’re not much of a reader. As always, please do not hesitate to ask any questions. I write these reviews to try and give back just a fraction of all the help and assistance that I have received from others’ reviews and comments here on Cruise Critic.

 

DISCLAIMER: This review is a compilation of opinions from my DW and me. Mostly me, but occasionally I listen to my DW too. The statements made in this review are simply our opinions and views of what took place during our vacation and should carry absolutely no weight or value on how you may or may not feel about these things. If you do not like my opinions or heavens forbid, take offense to them, well…too bad, because quite frankly…my “Gives a Crap” meter doesn’t appear to be working, so please feel free to bugger off and pound sand. If you feel that strongly about it, write your own review and pontificate to your little heart’s desire there! Sound good?

 

Out-freakin-standing! Now let’s get it on!

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The Official Trippingpara Review - Cliff Notes Portion

Before I get too far into the specifics and day to day life of the cruise, for those that don’t like to read long reviews, here’s the down and dirty Cliff Notes version (don’t worry, there will be globs of photos and maybe even a video or two later on). I'll try not to delve too much into the finer details as the Legend has been around since the dawn of time and has been well documented before however, since she did just go through a lengthy dry dock, I will discuss some of the changes.

 

Itinerary: This was our first time in Alaska and has been on our bucket list for quite some time. We renewed our vows last October for our 20th wedding anniversary in Hawaii, so we’re treating this trip as an extension of that celebration (what better way to celebrate than to hit both states that are outside of the mainland!) We booked it as soon as they started to announce dates for 2018 (which was back in 2016). This trip also gave us the opportunity to hang out with my older sister and brother-in-law that moved to Seattle a couple years ago. Two for the price of one!! It was an 8-day cruise with the following schedule:

Day 1 – Seattle, Washington (depart 4 pm)

Day 2 - Sea Day

Day 3 – Juneau, Alaska (2 pm – 11 pm)

Day 4 – Skagway, Alaska (7 am – 8 pm)

Day 5 – Glacier Bay

Day 6 – Ketchikan, Alaska (10 am – 9 pm)

Day 7 – Sea Day

Day 8 – Victoria, British Columbia (10 am – 10 pm)

Day 9 – Seattle, Washington (arrive 7 am)

 

When we booked the cruise, we were scheduled to go to Tracy Arm Fjord and the days in port were different (same ports, just different days). We received a letter from Carnival in November 2016 informing us that there was an itinerary change. Tracy Arm Fjord was now being replaced with Glacier Bay and the ports were being shuffled around. At first, I was bummed that we couldn’t get onto a smaller boat for an up-close and personal view of a glacier at Tracy Arm Fjord, but then I realized that we were going to Glacier Bay instead. Save money by not taking a very expensive excursion and see multiple glaciers from the luxury of our mega-balcony while listening to a Ranger discuss the beauty of what we’re looking at? I’m taking this as an upgrade!

 

We tend to tour on our own versus taking ship-based tours, however we did opt to do a ship-based tour in Juneau. We toured on our own in Skagway, Ketchikan and Victoria (as well as in Seattle and a quick side trip to Vancouver).

 

Originally, we had booked the White Pass Train and Bus tour into the Yukon Territory through Carnival as well until I read a review on CC where the poster had decided to drive the same route instead. Genius!!! After getting over the shock of not thinking of that myself, I immediately pulled up Avis online and was stoked to find a couple cars left (I guess they usually sell out when ships are in port). Hats off to Tennessee Rose for her wonderful review and info on the drive.

 

We arrived in Seattle 4 days early to visit my sis and bro-in-law and to terrorize, err, tour the Pacific Northwest. I’ll talk a lot more about the specific ports and places we visited in the diary section. For now, let’s move onto the important one here…the Carnival Legend.

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SHIP: Overall: As I mentioned previously, there are a ton of reviews about this old veteran ship. I read many reviews that loved the Spirit class ships including the Legend. However, quite a few of them droned on and on about how old and decrepit the Legend has become which started to raise those little hairs on the back of my neck. Now, there’s not too many hairs left on my old grape, but those short critters on my neck sure do get jumpy sometimes. That is until I really started to look at the complaints. I’m not one normally prone to automatically discount a person’s complaint. Many of them are quite legitimate. But some of them…well…there are some people that would probably find something to complain about at the Pearly Gates and their reviews should really be taken with a truckload of salt (of course, don’t forget the tequila!).

“My God Billy-Bob, look at that stain. Can you believe this? This ship is falling apart!!”

Okay, don’t ask me who Billy-Bob is but there was a person complaining about this. Seriously? Dude, don’t ever come to my house, okay? My chocolate lab thinks a good time is dropping her butt and running the Daytona 500 around our living room carpet. She even likes to stick her tongue out like she’s concentrating real hard and stare at you as she does it all the while our yellow lab cheers her on. I tell you, she gets more butt scratching in than a dozen old men watching football on Sunday afternoon. I was always told that stains give the carpet character. Or was it wrinkles in the face? Anyways, she is an older ship and doesn’t have all the fancy bells and whistles that the Vista, Horizon and Panorama have, but she still has plenty of get up and go left in her.

 

Overall, we felt the ship was in pretty good condition, especially for her age. Man, I wish my broken down old jalopy of a body was in half as good of condition! Please note that the Legend did just come out of dry dock in May, so she has a fresh new coat of paint on her as well as a couple new additions which I’ll address later. Hmm…I wonder if there is a dry dock for the human body. Oh wait…isn’t that what a plastic surgeon does? In my case, that’d just be like slapping some lipstick on a pig! But I digress…

There were places where she showed her age, like on our balcony. The varnish on the handrail was completely gone and raw wood was exposed and weathered. It was very rough to the touch, not the normal glossy smooth that I’m accustomed to. There was also a good amount of rust on the frame work for the glass on the balcony. Nothing to be concerned about but I was surprised that those things weren’t addressed in the dry dock. This was also the case around much of the railings around the ship. Again, nothing major but someone left that one off the to-do-list!

One thing that was pretty obvious about the ship was the vibrations. I wasn’t surprised to feel some pretty strong vibrations in our cabin since we were only a couple decks above the drive shafts and propellers. However, I was surprised to feel them in the steakhouse on Deck 10 midships! To give you an idea of the strength of the vibrations in our cabin, imagine sitting on top of a running washing machine with a full and unbalanced load. Which may be a great feature for the women out there and it was great for lullabying one to sleep at night! You just had to make sure that you secured any loose items as they would rattle (i.e., the wine glasses couldn’t be right next to each other and we put a towel under the T.V. in the bedroom to stop that from rattling).

 

There were a lot of good things and some things that you just had to roll with on the Legend. Taking all of the above factors into consideration, my clearly scientific overall grade for the Legend…”B”. Even after dry dock, she still shows her age but she still has a lot left in her.

 

Okay, please bear with me as I intermittently write and work on photos in the background...trust me, there is plenty more to go!!

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CABINS: This was our first time with a vista suite (actually our first time in any kind of suite on a cruise ship). It was like watching a real-life cruising version of the Beverly Hillbillies! If you don’t know who the Beverly Hillbillies are, please Google them and then stop reading. You are clearly far too young and your youth, beauty and perfectly coiffed hair are already annoying me.

 

Where was I? Oh yeah, it was Stateroom 4237. Everywhere I read said that this was “the” room to get. I felt like I had the keys to the VIP room in the Viper Lounge or some other exclusive place that I don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of ever getting into.

 

And we weren’t disappointed. Okay, so it didn’t have the glamour and bragging rights that rubbing elbows and pounding Irish Car Bombs with Leo DiCaprio, Gisele Bundchen or Gigi Hadid does, but it still was a pretty sweet room. Or rooms, I should say. If you’ve never been in a Vista Suite on a Spirit class ship, it is basically a very large room that is broken up by a walk-in closet, bathroom (with whirlpool tub!) and a separate dressing room in the center dividing the area with a living room on one side and a bedroom on the other.

 

But the real star of the suite is the balcony. Ah yes, the giant, wrap-around balcony. I always dreamed of someday, lounging around in my unmentionables scratching my backside (although I don’t use my living room carpet), surrounded by a ginormous balcony gawking at the world as it sails by me. Luckily for my DW and anybody else that might have spied into our balcony, I never did lounge around in my unmentionables. The thought of the potential shrinkage factor of sailing in cold Alaskan waters was far too great of a risk to proudly stroll around in my skivvies.

 

What really topped off our vista suite balcony (as well as it’s matching partner on the opposite corner) was the fact that the 4th Deck aft is completely covered by a large overhang. Now when you’re cruising in the Caribbean, a covered balcony may not be the greatest thing for lounging in the sun trying to get that perfect level of crispiness to your skin. However, when you’re sailing through one of the wettest rain forests in America, a covered overhang becomes your best friend. Yes, the Inner Passage of Alaska is one big giant rain forest. That means rain in August. A lot of it. Stick with me people, I have tons more useless information for ya!

 

Obviously, having a wrap-around balcony meant that it was located all the way aft of the ship (aft means the very back of the ship – a.k.a. the “butt” or a@@ - just in case anyone was wondering what “aft” meant. It can also be referred to as the stern as well. You know, “stern” as in mad as hell because you just walked all the way to the back of the ship and you left your drink back at the front or “bow” of the ship). Anyways, being aft meant that it was far away from most of the other cruisers,so the hallway was pretty quiet. But it also meant that it was a bit of a walk to the main, central elevator bank(which you had to use if you were going to the Steakhouse). There were stairs and a couple elevators that were close by if you were staying aft (the MDR was right below us, so super easy to get to). We didn’t mind that the Lido deck was 5 decks above us. We like to take the stairs a lot when we travel to work off the 800 lbs. of food that I shovel down my gullet along with the metric ton of alcoholic beverages that are used to wash it all down too.

 

The stateroom itself was very comfortable and well appointed. It had the traditional older Carnival look (aka “cheesy”). I’ve learned that I really have come to like the décor and colors of the newer ships. Not everyone agrees with me, but I’m just not the biggest fan of orange couches! In my eyes, it’s like wearing white after Labor Day, you just don’t do it! I was expecting the cabins to be refreshed during dry dock, but that apparently was not on the to-do list either. I really need to send my DW to take care of that. She can whip up one helluva a Honey-to-Do list!! Same carpet, same wallpaper, lighting, completely stripped handrails on the balcony, etc. However, the old tube-based tv’s were replaced with flat screens and the phones were upgraded. So, I guess some updating was done… I had heard that the safes were upgraded from the old card swipe ones to keypunch. Apparently, our cabin was missed in that upgrade as we still had the old card swipe ones. Also, you did not need to use your card to keep the lights one. Just a simple flick of the switch does it. What a tic…that sounds like it would make a great song title!!

 

I know a lot of people wonder about getting any impact from the smokestack on the aft balconies. Obviously, I can’t talk about the aft balconies above us (they were fully exposed to the elements), we were shielded from any soot particles or residue with our roof.

 

Due to the older and cheesy décor and not refreshing the ship and cabins fully, our overall grade…” B-” That’s a general overall grade for the ship’s cabins, but for fact of the wrap around balcony in the vista suite, I’d upgrade that particular cabin to an “A-“.

 

 

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LAYOUT: Not sure if I would call this a compliant per se, but I found the layout of the ship to be rather odd and confusing. Like placing the dance club on the first deck right among a bunch of staterooms. Now, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that a dance club might get a wee bit noisy in the late evenings. Call me crazy, but dance clubs tend to have alcohol and loud music. Also, the Firebird Lounge is located forward on the same deck, again, right next to staterooms. And to top that cookie off, right above on the 2nd deck is the main Promenade where the casino, bars and lobby is at. Nice and noisy. Unless you’re a heavy sleeper or plan on passing out each night, I’d skip getting a stateroom on the first deck!

 

On several of the decks, you could only transverse from bow to aft on one side of the ship. This caused some confusion as you would have to stop and look around to figure out where to go. Some decks were not as easy to determine as you would expect. Not that this was overly difficult, just slightly confusing as you stroll around the ship. Also, on the cabin decks, you could not walk straight bow to aft. You had to constantly do doglegs back and forth to move down the corridor. With that said, I do enjoy having the MDR aft as it does not cut that deck in half. I hate trying to stroll across the ship and finding out that you now must go up or down a deck or two in order to get around the galley in the middle of the ship. Not the end of the world, but an annoyance to us.

 

Nonetheless, she is still laid out one million times better than some of the Navy ships that I have been on (where I have been lost for hours – but then again, I’m a dumb, knuckle dragging Jarhead Marine), so her certified grade is…”B -”.

 

 

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Hey Trip, welcome back! I always enjoy your reviews and your writing style and I'm sure this one will not be the exception. DW and I have and Alaska cruise in our sights for the (hopefully) near future so I'll be following this review for tips. Thanks for taking the time to do it!!

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Hey Trip! So happy to see another of your great reviews in progress! I have really enjoyed the others you've done, so I know any review you do will be a great read. You know I love your writing style and the humor, not to mention the gorgeous pictures you include. Alaska would be awesome! My parents did an Alaskan cruise with some of their friends several years ago. They loved the scenery but cruising isn't for them since they (mainly my mom) prefer their own schedule and my mom does like to change her mind multiple times on what/where/when...not really possible when you have to stick to a cruise ship/tour schedule. I was wondering how that would go since we've vacationed with them many times. Lol!!! But they really did enjoy it. In March 2006, we were on Legend's sister ship, Miracle, loved her and would love to sail on her again. It's been so long ago that I forget the exact layout, and I didn't get many interior pictures, but I do remember some of the unique decor. That was a western Caribbean itinerary. Congrats on being accepted to the Rhode Island School of Design! For photography? If so, you'll really be setting a whole new level for photography with CC reviews. I am really looking forward to following along and seeing Alaska through your pictures. Thanks for taking the time!!!

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Looking forward to the rest of your review. We are booked on that same cruise for May 2019! Thanks for writing it :)

 

Hi jc4me! Thank you for joining and you are very welcome! You are going to love this cruise. The best advice I can give for this cruise is to roll with the punches! The weather in Alaska can and does change at a moment's notice and sometimes without notice!

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Hey Trip, welcome back! I always enjoy your reviews and your writing style and I'm sure this one will not be the exception. DW and I have and Alaska cruise in our sights for the (hopefully) near future so I'll be following this review for tips. Thanks for taking the time to do it!!

 

Stinger-pr, my man! How are things in my favorite little island? I hope they are going well. You are your DW will love this cruise! You gotta go. Just give me a shout out if you have any questions at any time, I'm happy to help.

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Had a ocean view cabin on deck 1 (1172) heard NOTHING from the Follies or Firebird during our cruise. A couple of times I thought I heard faint cheering that I was hoping meant someone in the casino had hit something good but it was very low key and not something I think I would have even heard if I wasn't awake. I was worried about noise after I realized where the cabin was (of course this was after the cruise was booked solid and changing was not an option) but we seriously heard nothing outside our room. :)

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Hey Trip! So happy to see another of your great reviews in progress! I have really enjoyed the others you've done, so I know any review you do will be a great read. You know I love your writing style and the humor, not to mention the gorgeous pictures you include. Alaska would be awesome! My parents did an Alaskan cruise with some of their friends several years ago. They loved the scenery but cruising isn't for them since they (mainly my mom) prefer their own schedule and my mom does like to change her mind multiple times on what/where/when...not really possible when you have to stick to a cruise ship/tour schedule. I was wondering how that would go since we've vacationed with them many times. Lol!!! But they really did enjoy it. In March 2006, we were on Legend's sister ship, Miracle, loved her and would love to sail on her again. It's been so long ago that I forget the exact layout, and I didn't get many interior pictures, but I do remember some of the unique decor. That was a western Caribbean itinerary. Congrats on being accepted to the Rhode Island School of Design! For photography? If so, you'll really be setting a whole new level for photography with CC reviews. I am really looking forward to following along and seeing Alaska through your pictures. Thanks for taking the time!!!

 

Pghsteelerfan! How you do? Long time, no speak. How are things in VA? Going well I hope! Yep, I am studying photography at RISD. Of all my degrees, I never thought this one would be as tough as it is. I just hope that my photos of Alaska will do it justice. Welcome aboard and thanks for following along!

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Great review so far (as usual for Trip)... look forward to the rest. We will be on the Legend in that same cabin (4237) next Summer to Alaska.

 

We're enjoying the heck out of your review so far. I'm sure it will continue in the same manner. Lol hope so anyway!

Thank you for taking the time to write such an awesomely thorough one.

 

Sent from my SM-N960U using Forums mobile app

 

Hi joepeka and Cruisin Trkrs. Thanks for the kind words and for following along. Joe, you are going to love the cabin! I promise any stains left in the cabin were not made by me. I think. Well, okay there was that one...

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