Just back from 5 day Carnival Paradise cruise

[OC SeaPA]

18 hours ago, Decpl said:

its a shame they don't have the  Alchemy on your ship. We had it on the Liberty and was great, I think it right up there with the Martini Bar on X. Agree the dinning room leaves something to be desired but the entertainment is above X. Alot of late night shows and entertainers. We did a 12 day Destination Cruise on it and was great cruise, not a lot of over the top partying and very few kids.

We have over 50 cruises, and are top level or close on most.  Last year did Carnival short cruises, Oceania (Tahiti to LA) and RCI (cuba).  Each was good in its own way, but like to cruise, so could do 2 other cruises for what the Oceania cost.  Didn't think it was worth 2x the cost, but we are not foodies so don't go by me. 

 

I like to have fun, so Carnival was good that way.  Took my 92 year old Mom on one Carnival short cruise, and she is a cruise snob.  She loved it!  They are defintely trying to get away from the party crowd and more family oriented.  Carnival is less tolerant of drunks than NCL!  Taking the family on Carnival next.  Love X,but had to cancel an Edge cruise due to heath.  

[shipshape sam]

On 5/11/2019 at 2:57 PM, cruisingnewtoit said:

I wish I had tried X when it was the "Nordstrom's" level of food. I loved the food that was served on my HAL cruise. Edge & the soon to be Apex is out of my budget.

 

I was reading up on Carnival"s Blue iguana and how you can get vegan arepas & breakfast burritos. I loved the made to order pizza on HAL. My colleague told me Carnival has the same.

 

I'm going to look at a Carnival cruise for Europe in 2021. Hopefully they have a Baltic one or a Med one. Hoping it will have less kids if it I can find one going right before or after the height of season.

 

 

As to Carnival's Blue Iguana cantina, I was confused and/or had not paid attention to the connection with the Blue Iguana Bar.  Both are on the pool deck, but the bar is on forward side of pool and cantina is on aft side, both being on the port side of ship.  I just referred to the Blue Iguana cantina as the Taco bar and Guy's hamburgers as the burger bar.  Both were very good!  I wish the taco bar aka Blue Iguana cantina had opened earlier for breakfast.  It opened at 7 am.  Was never an issue till last day.  We were there at 6:15 getting our food from Paris restaurant and walked forward on ship to get me some chicken sausage.  The crew had put out all the food including the sausage and 2 types of scramble eggs when I got there at 6:15 am but were not open to serving for another 45 minutes.  I really liked the sausage, but did not like idea of food just sitting in pans for who knows how long especially the 2 types of scrambled eggs. 

 

As to your vegan  stmt, I think the is correct.  For sure they made burritos.  I mostly took a plate from burger line and just asked them to put all my wanted ingredients on it and then topped it with refried beans as my salad dressing.  Had lettuce, corn tomatoes, black beans, green peppers, onions, cilantro, refried beans and a couple of other items I am not recalling right now.  It was a delicious salad for me (for lunch 3 days).  Then had burgers on 2 days.  Did pick a couple of items off the buffett in Paris restaurant.  Odd name for the buffett area too?!

 

Had pizza only once, late at night and it was fresh and tasted good.  I had pepperoni.  My issue was the server dropped the round cutting utensil and at first started to keep going.  I was there with 3 other people and we said wait, you need to go clean it after it dropping on floor.  He went to a near by sink and just rinsed it off.  We complained and he just cut the new hot pizzas into 4 slices and gave them to people behind us who did not know what just happened.  Then, I suspect, he went to a backroom area to get more  pizzas ( and we have NO idea if he then cleaned the cutting utensil or as I joke... spit on it). He came back with 2 new hot pizzas and a cutter and we took our 2 slices each. 🙄

Did not die or get sick.

 

I still like Celebrity!  I though realize too that they are charging a premium and not sure I am getting the value per my value proposition as we are very low maintenance cruisers.  I also realize we were on an older Carnival ship as some others have pointed out to me in regards to my experience with the Martini bar.

 

I love the S class Martini bar and our last cruise of 12 days, 10 of them for sure were there shortly after it opened at 4 pm to meet a couple be met at embarkation for a drink.  They tried the drink of the day (each day) and DW and I tried a variety of Martini's with different brands of vodka to taste test them .   

 

I look forward to my next S class ship sailing.  I like M class too, but Martini bar is just not close to S class.  

 

So much for one of my likes about Celebrity.  🙂

 

[shipshape sam]

3 hours ago, OC SeaPA said:

We have over 50 cruises, and are top level or close on most.  Last year did Carnival short cruises, Oceania (Tahiti to LA) and RCI (cuba).  Each was good in its own way, but like to cruise, so could do 2 other cruises for what the Oceania cost.  Didn't think it was worth 2x the cost, but we are not foodies so don't go by me. 

 

I like to have fun, so Carnival was good that way.  Took my 92 year old Mom on one Carnival short cruise, and she is a cruise snob.  She loved it!  They are defintely trying to get away from the party crowd and more family oriented.  Carnival is less tolerant of drunks than NCL!  Taking the family on Carnival next.  Love X,but had to cancel an Edge cruise due to heath.  

 

Sorry about your cancellation.  Hope you can get another 25-50 cruises in!

 

We had a great trip on Carnival, have always had great trips on Celebrity ( with the fore knowledge that there could be  issues especially with ports of calls.)  WE have had 2 major changes over the years and both happened within 3 years of each other.  First one was the cancellation of our 3 Mexican ports of calls 2 days into our 15 day Panama canal cruise from Ft Lauderdale to San Francisco.  Dropped the 3 Mexican ports and picked up a 1/2 day in San Diego, did Catalina  Island and arrived around noon the day before our official day of disembarkation.  Diverted due to H1N1 virus and can't fault Celebrity.  Enjoy the changes too.

 

2nd major change was on our Antartica cruise.  Missed Falkland Island, Elephant Island and  diverted away from Antartica to Ushuaia, Argentina.  Toured Ushuaia, Captain kicked off dozens of complaining  cruisers (at least that was the rumor).  Once on board after our day in Ushuaia  and we had set sail, Captain announced that weather was going to be good in Antartica in next couple of days, so we headed back and had as I call it a "National Geographic" day in Antartica.

 

 

Edited May 12, 2019 by shipshape sam

[MamaFej]

Thank you for this thread. We are relatively new to cruising, and have thoroughly enjoyed cruising on Princess and Celebrity.

We've never cruised on Carnival, and, from social media posts I've seen from Bachelor/bachelorette party cruises and other things I've heard, it didn't seem like my cup of tea. However, Carnival will be sailing a new ship out of SoCal starting in December, and it has a 7-day cruise that lines up perfectly with our son's HS senior year spring break, so we have booked it. Reading this thread, I feel much better about the prospect of enjoying the cruise. Thanks!

 

[shipshape sam]

On 5/13/2019 at 10:48 PM, MamaFej said:

Thank you for this thread. We are relatively new to cruising, and have thoroughly enjoyed cruising on Princess and Celebrity.

We've never cruised on Carnival, and, from social media posts I've seen from Bachelor/bachelorette party cruises and other things I've heard, it didn't seem like my cup of tea. However, Carnival will be sailing a new ship out of SoCal starting in December, and it has a 7-day cruise that lines up perfectly with our son's HS senior year spring break, so we have booked it. Reading this thread, I feel much better about the prospect of enjoying the cruise. Thanks!

 

I think too that we can make or break our experiences on a cruise by our expectations.   I for sure have high expectations, but just not unreasonable. It has been rare for me to have a really bad experience with a crew member where I think the risk is highest.

 

Go with the intention that you will have a great cruise and you are in charge of whether you do or not.  Wishing you many great cruises in the future.  Glad to read that a cruise ship is coming back to the west coast.

[Mike981]

^^^^YES^^^^

 

BTW I really dislike Carnivals drink package. They limit you to 15 drinks a day and I hate having that hanging over my head. Planning on spending quality time at the piano bar tonight? Better not get to carried away during the day. You can't purchase more once you hit 15.
I know for some 15 drinks in a day seems extravagant, but not when on vacation and it just makes me feel like a child. Also they really measure the drinks. One shot or just over. At home, it's double that or more.

[johno1234]

34 minutes ago, Mike981 said:

^^^^YES^^^^

 

BTW I really dislike Carnivals drink package. They limit you to 15 drinks a day and I hate having that hanging over my head. Planning on spending quality time at the piano bar tonight? Better not get to carried away during the day. You can't purchase more once you hit 15.
I know for some 15 drinks in a day seems extravagant, but not when on vacation and it just makes me feel like a child. Also they really measure the drinks. One shot or just over. At home, it's double that or more.

 

Never managed to exceed the 15 a day limit myself when we were on Carnival. I'm pretty sure the 15 limit applies to alcoholic drinks only - your coffees and water bottles do not count.

 

Also there is a significant upside to Cheers vs the Celebrity bev pkgs: Cheers has a drink price limit of $20 whereas Classic/Premium on Celeb has a limit of $9 and $15 respectively. So if on Classic and buying $13 top shelf martinis, you have to sign for the $4 + tip upcharge. 

 

Cheers also cheaper $50 vs $59/$69 on Celebrity.

Edited May 15, 2019 by johno1234
typo

[shipshape sam]

On 5/15/2019 at 6:40 PM, johno1234 said:

 

Never managed to exceed the 15 a day limit myself when we were on Carnival. I'm pretty sure the 15 limit applies to alcoholic drinks only - your coffees and water bottles do not count.

 

Also there is a significant upside to Cheers vs the Celebrity bev pkgs: Cheers has a drink price limit of $20 whereas Classic/Premium on Celeb has a limit of $9 and $15 respectively. So if on Classic and buying $13 top shelf martinis, you have to sign for the $4 + tip upcharge. 

 

Cheers also cheaper $50 vs $59/$69 on Celebrity.

Would have to compare packages sailing on one of the new/larger Carnival ships to Celebrity.  On Celebrity we had water and coffee included with our alcohol drinks the only time we have tried it.  

[johno1234]

Just now, shipshape sam said:

Would have to compare packages sailing on one of the new/larger Carnival ships to Celebrity.  On Celebrity we had water and coffee included with our alcohol drinks the only time we have tried it.  

 

Yeah - what I meant was that only alcohol drinks count towards the Carnival 15 a day limit but non alcohol drinks are still "free". IOW you can drink a soda every 5 minutes and never breach the 15 drink daily limit.

 

[shipshape sam]

On 5/16/2019 at 8:47 PM, johno1234 said:

 

Yeah - what I meant was that only alcohol drinks count towards the Carnival 15 a day limit but non alcohol drinks are still "free". IOW you can drink a soda every 5 minutes and never breach the 15 drink daily limit.

 

 

I too like healthy pours.

 

I don't think you will get much sympathy against a 15 count limit for alcoholic drinks per day.  One would wonder why it was needed to be implemented?   My second Carnival cruise on Glory, had us starting to get on an elevator on the first evening when one of the two occupants already in elevator was just starting to puke.  Needless to say, we stepped back and did not get on.  

 

Never seen that on Celebrity or any other cruise line or any similar event/behavior anywhere on any other ship.  Not that it may happen.  Just never seen fellow passengers so drunk in over 30+ other cruises.

Edited May 18, 2019 by shipshape sam