Trip Report/Review of Carnival Splendor

[oskarNZ]

46 minutes ago, MadWoofter said:

Great review thanks.  

Thanks 😊

[mahdnc]

Another fine review, Karina. I still have to go back and re-read some of it. 
 

When we took our GBR cruise in Jan 2018, we also stayed in the same Sydney hotel, but when it was still under the Westin name. It was a very nice hotel. 

 

Edited January 17, 2020 by mahdnc

[mahdnc]

Exactly what was the problem with the location of the gallery on board your Carnival ship?

[oskarNZ]

31 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

Exactly what was the problem with the location of the gallery on board your Carnival ship?

Hi David.

 

The galley takes up the whole middle of the ship on deck 3 and there is no corridor to bypass it or the Black Pearl restaurant that borders it.    
That means, as an example, if we wanted to go straight from our dinner at the back of deck 3 to the theatre at the front of deck 3, we would first need to go down to passenger deck 2, walk the length of deck 2 and then pop back up at the forward stairs.  
It was a tad irritating, but we got used to it pretty quickly.  
 

Deck 4 is not really any better as the placement of the two restaurants also makes it difficult to transverse this deck.  

Edited January 17, 2020 by oskarNZ

[mahdnc]

1 minute ago, oskarNZ said:

Hi David.

 

The galley takes up the whole middle of the ship on decks 3 and 4 and there is no corridor to bypass it.  
That means, as an example, if we wanted to go straight from our dinner at the back of deck 3 to the theatre at the front of deck 3, we would first need to go down to passenger deck 2, walk the length of deck 2 and then pop back up at the forward stairs.  
It was a tad irritating, but we got used to it pretty quickly.  

Ah. That was the same layout problem as the Century class Celebrity ships (built in the mid 90’s).  One benefit was that the main dining room was at the stern and had a nice view out the back of the ship. 

[mr walker]

44 minutes ago, oskarNZ said:

Thanks for the nice feedback.  I appreciate it.  
 

I always like reading balanced reviews, so try also to write them.  But I’m also conscious that the negative stuff might come across to some as overly picky or critical.   

 

I find it helpful when people make a comment about something being  below expectations like "service in dining room was slow" or "late night food choices were limited" or similar but it's the " all the food was terrible" or "there was nothing worth eating on the whole ship" or "none of the staff knew what they were doing" or similar that loses me.

[oskarNZ]

1 minute ago, mahdnc said:

Ah. That was the same layout problem as the Century class Celebrity ships (built in the mid 90’s).  One benefit was that the main dining room was at the stern and had a nice view out the back of the ship. 

Sorry, I just edited my comment realising that the galley is not on deck 4, just deck 3.  But the issue, due to placement of the restaurants, is the same.  

[mahdnc]

On our NZ cruise this month, there was a stage performer by the name of Elton Jack. This can’t be a coincidence with your performer?

 

Edited January 17, 2020 by mahdnc

[oskarNZ]

2 minutes ago, mr walker said:

 

I find it helpful when people make a comment about something being  below expectations like "service in dining room was slow" or "late night food choices were limited" or similar but it's the " all the food was terrible" or "there was nothing worth eating on the whole ship" or "none of the staff knew what they were doing" or similar that loses me.

Agreed 👍

[oskarNZ]

1 minute ago, mahdnc said:

On our NZ cruise this month, there was a stage performer by the name of Elton Jack. This can’t be a coincidence with your performer?

 

Not the same guy, but clearly Elton tributes go down a treat with cruise passengers Downunder 😂

[mahdnc]

Two questions (forgive me if your review answers them):

 

1. Did you look into Celebrity's New Caledonia sailings?

 

2. Did you see a lot of scuba diver businesses out there?

 

3. (Ok, 3 questions)-- what did your husband and kids compare their Celebrity vs Carnival experience? For example maybe your husband liked the welding craftsmanship better on Reflection? Kidding.....

[MicCanberra]

I enjoyed the review and loved the pics.

[aussielozzie18]

Sounds like the buffet on the Spirit and the Splendor are the same ie underwhelming.  Good to read they cater well to vegetarians though.

[oskarNZ]

12 hours ago, mahdnc said:

Two questions (forgive me if your review answers them):

 

1. Did you look into Celebrity's New Caledonia sailings?

 

2. Did you see a lot of scuba diver businesses out there?

 

3. (Ok, 3 questions)-- what did your husband and kids compare their Celebrity vs Carnival experience? For example maybe your husband liked the welding craftsmanship better on Reflection? Kidding.....

1.  I probably did, since in researching this cruise I looked at pretty much every ship leaving Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne or Auckland during the New Zealand summer school holidays.  But ultimately, I was keen to try a different line (in particular Carnival, RCCL or Princess) so I did look at these options a bit harder.  In the end, Carnival was the cheapest, I liked the itinerary and the dates worked really well.   
As a side note, I think, at least on paper, that RCCL might be a really good fit for my family.  Whenever I’ve looked (both for this cruise and past ones) they’ve always been quite expensive, but one day I would like to cruise with them.  

2. No, sorry, but I wasn’t looking.  I assume there would be some in Noumea, but I’m not sure about the other islands as they are very sleepy. I can’t even remember seeing any shops beyond the temporary market stalls. I think it might take you by the surprise just how much less developed these places are than common Caribbean ports.  I loved that about them, but unfortunately it does make it a bit problematic if you want lots of established businesses offering excursions.  😕

 

3.  I don’t even need to check with my husband to know he preferred Celebrity Reflection.  He is content to spend his days relaxing in the cabin listening to podcasts, so the entertainment options that are important to me are less so to him.  Whereas, the food options are very important and we all agree that Celebrity’s were much better.  In saying that, I know he preferred the night shows on Carnival and he loved the comedy club.

And, yes, he did prefer the welding on Celebrity - and I’m not even joking 🤣.  He went on the ship tour on the Reflection and was really impressed by how advanced some of the processes are.  He didn’t do the Splendor one to compare, but even without that, we could tell things like the stabilisers were more advanced on the Reflection.  The ships are only 4 years apart, but even in seas that weren’t too rocky we felt much more movement on the Splendor.  
 

My son... I would need to ask him, but like his mum and dad, he really likes good food, and he loved Reflection’s buffet.  If I had to guess, I therefore think he’d say Celebrity.  But he did love Carnival’s slides which might sway him the other way.  
 

For me, I‘m not sure.  Celebrity definitely for a port intensive cruise, but I’m sitting on the fence if the cruise has a lot of sea days where I want to be entertained. 

[oskarNZ]

10 hours ago, MicCanberra said:

I enjoyed the review and loved the pics.

Thanks 😊

[oskarNZ]

8 hours ago, aussielozzie18 said:

Sounds like the buffet on the Spirit and the Splendor are the same ie underwhelming.  Good to read they cater well to vegetarians though.

There weren’t a huge number of vegetarian options (from memory, 2 main meals per dinner), but at least they seemed to cook them with care.

 

Plus, something I forgot to mention earlier, is that the low sugar desserts I tried were also quite nice.  We like soft desserts such as custards, mousses etc and these were often the low sugar options as per the New Years Eve dinner menu I posted.  Our experience was that they were all pretty nice and didn’t taste of artificial sweeteners.  

[mahdnc]

I missed that this was a NYE cruise. What was your sailing date?

[oskarNZ]

1 hour ago, mahdnc said:

I missed that this was a NYE cruise. What was your sailing date?

We left Sydney on the 28th December and were away 9 nights.  
I had hoped to do a slightly longer cruise that also went to Mystery Island, but at least that gives us a stop to visit one day in the future.  

[lyndarra]

1 hour ago, oskarNZ said:

There weren’t a huge number of vegetarian options (from memory, 2 main meals per dinner), but at least they seemed to cook them with care.

 

Plus, something I forgot to mention earlier, is that the low sugar desserts I tried were also quite nice.  We like soft desserts such as custards, mousses etc and these were often the low sugar options as per the New Years Eve dinner menu I posted.  Our experience was that they were all pretty nice and didn’t taste of artificial sweeteners.  

That's encouraging. The only sugar free dessert on MSC Divina was chocolate gelato, nothing else.

[oskarNZ]

1 hour ago, lyndarra said:

That's encouraging. The only sugar free dessert on MSC Divina was chocolate gelato, nothing else.

Don’t quote me on this, but from memory, they may have sometimes been low sugar rather than no sugar.

 

Either way, we ordered them when we genuinely thought they sounded the nicest of the options, so both no and low sugar was an added bonus.  😊

Edited January 18, 2020 by oskarNZ

[seashell77]

Thanks for a great, well balanced review. It's highly appreciated, as reviews on this ship since it has been based in Australia are hard to come by!.

I am on the Splendor early April and this will be my first time on Carnival as well. Majority of our previous cruises have been on NCL.

It will be interesting to compare those two lines!