Legend Jan 20-Jan 27/08 Review Kind of long

[CanadianEh!]

Well here i am sitting in Tampa looking at the weather at home and seeing -30 Celsius and wondering why I am not back on the legend. So as I sit in my hotel watching her pull back out to sea I figure now is a good time to review our recent trip.

 

Here are few answers to some unanswered questions:

 

Yes there is now 9 holes of mini golf on the Legend up by the running track.

We were able to board around 11:30 not the standard 1:30 they say (seems to be common)

Formal nights are Monday and Friday

 

 

Now for the review and at the same time if you have any questions just ask and i will let you know.

 

 

We flew in from Calgary via Toronto on Saturday stayed at the Embassy Suites downtown. The cab ride from the airport was like 22 bucks. It is a very nice hotel and we were able to get some good pictures of the legend coming back into port after dry dock (as well as the inspiration as it was leaving)

 

So back to the review

 

We had room 5220 upper deck sort of mid ship. A nice room, worked well and the balcony was nice to have.

 

Sunday was uneventful, it was a little rough heading out after we went under the skyway bridge.

 

The interior of the legend is really interesting - the decor is.... tacky is the only way to describe it but hey it was not enough to really make me annoyed it was just different.

 

Day 2 @ sea nothing was just a bit rough again lots of side to side motion but not enough to make anyone sick. This was our first formal night.

 

We had Josico and Arini as our waiters in truffles these two were the best wait staff I have ever been served by they were very personable and friendly. We had the late seating which ended up working well with our excursions.

 

Day 3 Grand Caymans

 

We had a private tour booked with Captain Marvin's we went for the 9:00 island tour with the 11:15 String ray city and Coral gardens snorkel.

 

We originally had the 8:00 o clock tour booked but decided to change it due to tendering. Just to let you know you can make the 8 tour we were on the third tender and made it to captain marvins by like 7:25.

 

The Island tour was neat got to see some neat stuff. The Snorkeling at coral gardens was not that good the water was rough makes it really hard to snorkal. The stingrays on the other hand were incredible

 

Tendering was super easy just line up like cattle and wait till they put you on a boat they each hold like 250 people so not an issue there.

 

All the times that you see are ship time so like everyone has said don't change your watch or you will be screwed!

 

Last tender leaves 1 hr before the ship is supposed to set sail and they mean be on because every port we left right on time. The captain marvins tour got us back to the pier around 2:00 so we were 1 hr before the last tender, don't leave yourself short on time because they won't hesitate to leave without you!!

 

Day 4 Cozumel

Went golfing here and my wife and her friend went on a highlights and shopping tour. All four of us really have no desire to go back to Cozumel not my cup of tea. I golfed at the golf and country club due to a screw up by carnival they had our team time booked for 9 and we docked at 9 so that was next to impossible. Adam the golf pro was great he comes along with you, plays some holes and helps you out with your game.

 

Day 5 Roatan (Belize and roatan switched on this cruise supposedly it is the only 1 that they are doing this on)

 

We did Tabanya beach day via carnival. It was great I think we snorkeled for 3 hrs. The water was calm and the fish were amazing. There were a couple men in kayaks that were throwing food to make the fish swarm around you - that made for amazing pictures! The beach was great. It poured rain the first hr we arrived but it stopped in like 25 min and the sun came out. The drive to the beach is great, lots of great scenery.

 

Day 6 Belize

We did cave tubing with Explore-Belizecaves (remove the -)

 

Dennis and Gilharrie were absolutely the best tour guides.

 

The news letter you get about tendering in belize is bull it says if you are not on a carnival tour you cant get off till 9:30 all we did was go to the follies lounge and said we had a private tour we had to be there by 9 they gave us a white sticker with a number on it. There were two carnival tours that left before us as they were doing all day tours, then we were on the first tender to the pier which took about 15 min. Dennis was waiting just outside the terminal with a sign with my name on it so we hopped in his van and were gone. We beat all the other tours to the cave tubing site and started the walk. It was an easy walk but hot and it can be slippery. we used some Tusa water shoes they worked great. We did two caves and were coming out of cave 1 when the carnival group was just getting in so we blew by them with out issue. Dennis and Gilharrie took complete care of us we didn't even have to work I sat in the last tube taking pictures with my Waterproof digital camera which worked great. One thing to note - we were a group of 4 with 2 guides, the carnival groups were upwards of 50 with only one guide. There were men standing at different points on the water to catch anyone from the larger groups that had gone astray. Dennis was phenomenal, very friendly and just as interested in us as we were of him. He was very accommodating and even stopped to help us buy some good Belizean rum. He would stop at nothing to make sure that we were all happy.

This was also the second formal night.

 

 

Day 6 Day @ Sea Nothing special again.

 

 

Day 7 Arrived back in Tampa :(

 

First things first if you are not a US resident you get to get up at 6:15 in the morning to clear US immigration which takes all of 15 min then you get to go eat, the hurry up and wait. You will have time to go back to your cabin and shower or just relax (but you won't have your luggage as it goes out the night before - so make sure you keep a carry off with anything you might want for the morning)

 

Frankly the worst part of the cruise was the disembarkation procedure just seemed way to long but hey I was tired.

 

Shows:

 

The shows were mediocre at best but you have to appreciate them due to the effort the cast puts in. Singing and dancing just isn't my thing.

 

The First comedian had a family show and an adult show (at midnight) i think his name was Thomas brown. He was really funny but if you are easily offended stick to the family show.

 

 

The balancing show was unreal. This guy is crazy and it is really cool, so was the Juggling show.

 

the comedians we saw were also really good.

 

Food was really good in my eyes rooms were great the whole cruise was great.

 

We really enjoyed our first cruise and will definitely be cruise Carnival again. The staff was friendly, bar prices were reasonable (we spent more in purchasing the pictures that they take than we did at the bar) and the towel animals in the rooms at night were highlight!!

 

Now all we have to do is adjust back to a life where we can't eat and nap whenever we want and there isn't someone coming into our room behind us to clean up and turn down our bed at night :)

[newfietraveldiva]

Sounds like you had a great time! We were on the Legend last July and loved it! I can relate to the winter blues. After three snowstorms in the last week, I'm counting down til we cruise in March on the Valor.

 

Have a safe trip home.

[reno3]

Is there a big screen on the Legend?

[BostonTerrierMom]

Thank you so much for posting such a quick review - We sail on the Legend in two weeks and I was waiting to see something about the changes. Hopefully weather is good in two weeks...now I need to start thinking about packing :)

[ncbuckeyes]

I sat in the last tube taking pictures with my Waterproof digital camera which worked great.

 

 

What kind of waterproof digital camera do you have? We are thinking about buying one!

[CanadianEh!]

Nope no big screen or if it had one it was hiding really well because I didn't see it.

 

their was a movie night in the Follies lounge though I think.

 

as for the underwater camera i just bought one of those vivtar 6200W it was like 159 bucks at amazon.com takes 2 AA's and 1 gig SD memory cards worked great only problem was it ate the batteries up fast i had to have two sets of 2500mAH Nickel Metal batteries with me when i used it.

 

for the price i was not expecting much out of it but it exceeded my expectations the video mode under water is awsome

[bellybutton]

Did you notice if they had the CO2 club for the teens in the capers?

[092306]

Glad to hear you had a good time on your recent cruise. Sorry to hear about the weather back home.

I have a question for you. My wife and I are deciding to sail again on the Legend(we did it for our honeymoon) and at the ports you went to, was the shp docked or did you have to take a tender to get to the dock. Could you tell me what ports you were docked and /or tendered? thanks you so much

[travelerdave]

Cayman will be a tender

Cozumel will be docked at a pier

Belize will be a tender

Roatan will docked at a pier

[Prairie_Gal]

Glad to hear you enjoyed your first cruise. Yes, it is FREEZING here in Alberta. Maybe you should wait until Thursday to come home, it is supposed to warm up by then. You are really going to feel it after being in the beautiful Caribbean for a week.

 

Thanks for the review and the tip on the camera, I will have to look into that one. We just took a disposable one, and it was good in full sun, like for the stingrays, but in shade it was not so good.

[092306]

thank you travlerdave for the info

[MikeNKim]

Thank you for the review. Looking forward to my cruise in a few weeks.

 

As a Canadian did you have the option of self disembark??? I really prefer this but we couldn't do it on Miracle but where allowed on Celebration and Magic so just curious if I had the option on Legend.

 

Thank you

 

Kim

[CanadianEh!]

Thank you for the review. Looking forward to my cruise in a few weeks.

 

As a Canadian did you have the option of self disembark??? I really prefer this but we couldn't do it on Miracle but where allowed on Celebration and Magic so just curious if I had the option on Legend.

 

Thank you

 

Kim

 

As canadians we are not allowed to on the legend as we did not meet the condition of having to be an US citzen which sucked because we were group 15 and had to wait almost 2 hrs to debark.

 

 

as for the port question the comments already provided are correct.

 

also the camera is a little harder to get as it is only available in the US. another option is the pentax w30 if you dont want to spend 300 to get an olympus personally i didn;t want to spend that much :)

[big_duck]

 

First things first if you are not a US resident you get to get up at 6:15 in the morning to clear US immigration which takes all of 15 min then you get to go eat, the hurry up and wait.

 

That's to bad. I was hoping I was finally done with this BS. Haven't had to do that on a cruise since 2005.

 

I guess there is no hope the U.S. Immigration will get it's chit together in 6 weeks. :(

[MikeNKim]

Thanks for the info. I do prefer self disembark but I guess since my flight doesn't leave Tampa till 4ish I am in no hurry to get off the ship.

 

Hey Don see you in a few weeks.

 

Kim