VIP Legend Cruise 03/16/2007

[The_Answer_Is_42]

So... we're back... our cats haven't forgotten us.

 

I'll post in point form because my "uncle Bob" letter will be a little longer.

 

Sorry if this turns into a book... :D

 

 

PROS:

-Ship much nicer decor than Victory, on par with Conquest

-Excellent service & food @ Golden Fleece. (Ruby, Marek, forgot the manager's name)

-Buffet and afterhours food was generally very good

-Dining Room Dessert was very good

-Excellent service @ Photo Guest desks

-Captain's party well serviced and attended.

-Embarking and disembarking was a breeze (less than 30 mins embarkation, 20 mins disembark)

-Lancelot Mcfarlane @ Lido Forward pool (thursday @ 8:00pm), right @ closing Served us even though the aft Bar (unicorn bar) was supposed to be open and serving but was closed for the parrot head party.

-Satchmo's Band on March 23/07, Excellent show

 

CONS:

-Room cleaning was pretty hit or miss.(pillow cases, Food/plates not removed consistently, Ice bucket not filled even after both the room steward Devlon and his 2 assistants were asked)

-Carnival comfort bed was ROCK HARD, caused Kelly to throw out her back on Monday and for rest of the cruise she nor I had a comfortable night's sleep.

-Food in late Monday evening in buffet was sketchy, caused me to be ill for Tuesday.

-No Dinner menus available on the In-Room Television Menu at all. (makes choosing what fare we would prefer more of a hassle because we have to go to the dining room, and each buffet).

-Crew was painting on Tuesday, and paint fumes were present until late evening, making staying in the room nigh impossible.

-Truffles' Dining Room (late seating) food was generally fair to mediocre. 1st formal night dinner, Steak was overcooked and not very tasty, Lobster Tails were very rubbery and of little taste), we didn't go back because the food and service.

-Parrothead group overtaking areas of the ship multiple times, especially with overtaking the aft (Unicorn Pool) area mutliple times for private parties or their group deck parties, there were other private parties in lounges every night as well. Big inconvenience if you wish to drink and smoke after hours. We have nothing against the Parrothead group and good on them for doing the fund raising, we knew they were going to be on board, but its putting the rest of us out for their benefit more often than necessary, advanced notice in the capers would have been nice, as well as confining their activities to a lounge preferably... They have basically turned firebird lounge into their own domain, and interfered with the shows because the music they were playing was extremely loud.

 

Sint Maarten:

-Bernard Tours' driver Victor gave a great tour of Sint Maarten/St. Martin, and really filled us in on a lot of the history and interesting parts of the 2 nation island. My advice however if you do this is see if you can jig the tour to stop for lunch on the Dutch side, as the French side was a wee bit expensive (39€/$47 for a burger, ribs and a couple beers :eek:). Last time we were in Sint Maarten, we had a hell of a lot more food for about $20 less (we had to endure a Time Share pitch before hand).

 

We skipped St. Lucia because of the problem with Kelly's back, and me eating some food that wasn't so good... We just basically stayed in the room or went up to Lido for food and refreshment.

 

St. Kitts:

We had booked a tour through Royston Tours, but Kelly had to skip this as well because her back would have been jumping out and kicking her ass all the way home. We met Royston and Ashton near the dock and the lot of us piled into the tour buses for the tour. We visited several points of interest (overlooking the port, Caribbenne Batik, Atlantic/Caribbean divide beaches and a few villages in between). I have no complaints about the tour, but I'm wondering about the visit to the beach because there was limited snorkeling opportunity because of the coral reefs... we moved toward a man made break-water/jetty, but it was close to an active construction site, so, I'm not certain it was wise to do this. Apparently the swim was worth it though, I didn't partake mainly because I wasn't into it at that time.

 

Other points:

Had we known that there were going to be a group of people that would monopolize public areas, we would have foregone this cruise. Our group only used one room for a group party once, for a couple hours. Not informing passengers/patrons that a public area was going to be shut down for a private party @ 4PM till whatever AM ahead of time shows poor regard for other passengers. It would be akin to shutting down the food service area down, very inconvenient and utterly rude.

 

This cruise has had high points, but more low points that are easily addressable than previous cruises with Carnival. This is not the best cruise we've been on, but we will continue to book with Carnival, provided that these problems don't crop up again. The little niddly things piled up pretty fast, but there were many high points that made it really great.

 

I want to thank Randy for organizing this Group Cruise, it was great fun, and I'm glad we went on it.

 

 

 

Cheers!

[BrendaB1]

Good review Matt. I knew the other group was going to cause problems when I heard they had the back pool section reserved for a private party. I would not have been happy either. Fine if they use a lounge when it's normally closed but not fair to everybody else onboard the ship to monopolize public areas. If they wanted to do that...they should have chartered the whole ship.

 

Sorry Kelly hurt her back. Hope she feels better soon.

[The_Answer_Is_42]

She's doing better today, but the tour in St. Kitts would have probably killed her.

 

The Parrot heads, if they had kept it to a lounge or something it would have been preferable to shutting the aft deck down a couple times, and basically swamping it the rest of the time. There were 2000/3000 other guests aboard... If worse came to worst, I'd call for THUNDERDOME.... :D

 

The minor problems are pretty tame except for the beds... Which was a little weird, because they've been great on previous cruises.