My 7 night B2B (3 night/4 night) Imagination Cruise Review (Beware its long!)

[gill_boo]

Phew, I don't know what to say. What a week!!! After having been on the Fascination and the Sensation previously I thought I knew what to expect. Let's just say the renovations Carnival is initiating for the Fantasy class are phenomenal. I would have to say they are working on not being the ship with crap anymore by far. Everyone here knows the crappy white plastic furniture that adorned the Lido deck. Well not anymore. The Imagination now sports metal framed loungers. No more will those damn back parts fall apart so that when you try to sit up in one fluid motion you aren't surprised when the chair just falls back. Also, no more yucky plastic seating. Nice yellow padded chairs with tables have replaced them in the eating area on the Lido. By far my absolute favorite was the Serenity deck. Wider loungers with 4 inch foam cushion. It got a little crazy out there once it filled up with people everywhere but I loved it since I was usually one of the first out there and never had any issue getting a chair. The chair hogs were out in full force however, a woman came out one morning and put her Carnival towels on 2 chairs beside me at about 8am. At noon a young couple came up to me and asked if I knew who was using those chairs, she said she had been sitting in a chair in the shaded area for about an hour and a half and had seen no one use them. I told her what I had seen, she went over to the staff on the deck and the staff actually did a full sweep of about 15 or so chairs with towels that hadn't been used all morning. It was nice to see and the waiting crowd swooped in to take the chairs. A few angry people appeared over the next hour saying they had their towels on chairs and now people were in them. She politely smiled and said that reserving chairs for longer than 30 minutes was not allowed, then handed them back their towels. They went off in a huff of course, but I thought it was well handled and nice to see, FINALLY.

 

I'm not going to do a day to day review. Its all just melted into one long day in my brain now and I don't think I could even try and separate it all out. Josh, our CD, was really good. I actually chatted a bit with him and with the assistant CD since she is from a city about 30 minutes from my home, unfortunately I can't for the life of me remember her name right now. Embarkation was easy, only took about 20 minutes. Arrived at the port at about 1pm so I was able to go straight to my room and drop off the luggage. My table for the first part was an older group, but they were really nice and chatty which was good since I was sailing alone. Had some very funny conversations and we all had a great laugh when on the last night one of the older (I hazard a guess in his 70's) gentlemen left dinner early to go meet a "new friend". His buddy fessed up and said it was a date. It was very cute. My second table was a younger crowd, a little quiet at first but they got better as the cruise went on. They seemed to rely on my cruise experience for tips and tricks on what to do and where to go. I was happy to help out and I mentioned cruise critic as a great place to get ideas to them.

 

Nassau was nice, chilly in the morning. But once the clouds cleared and the sun came out it got a lot warmer. I chose to do the Aquaventure, which was a big waste of money because of the weather. But oh,well. Came back to the mainland and wandered around the straw market. Bought a few "designer" handbags. I found it funny that a lot of the locals in Nassau were wearing "winter" clothes. Long pants, turtlenecks and hats. All the tourists were wandering around in shorts. I think we were all just glad to be away from the crazy snow we have had this winter. Once the sun came out at about 2pm it got warmer. I was thinking of heading back over to Atlantis but I had been limiting my excess spending so I could buy stuff for gifts for people. So I just headed up to the serenity deck and lay in the sun for a bit.

 

Key West was really nice. I love this port. Walked up to the butterfly conservatory myself here. Very nice to see, and I was glad I went up a lot earlier than I originally planned because they filmed a bit of the Carnival excursion that went there and there were so many people in there. When I went through there was 5 of us. Its small but there are tons of butterflies. I had one land on my hand and he stayed with me for a while and then oddly enough I said to him, "I need my hand back little guy," and he flew up and off my hand and landed on my shoulder, weird. Then just wandered back down Duval Street, bought a couple of things here and there. Stopped into CVS to get some Diet Coke and water. Then headed back to the ship.

 

Cozumel was ok. At first we were told we were docking downtown which I thought was great. But I guess another ship beat us into port and stole our spot so we ended up down at Puerta Maya. The furthest away pier. I didn't even bother going downtown. Instead I headed to Paradise Beach. That was so busy it was insanity. I wanted to check it out since we are doing a family cruise in October and I wanted to guage if it would be good for the kids. I think after about an hour they would be bored. We will probably opt for heading over to the mainland and going to Tulum to show the kids some real history rather than waste the day there. I only stayed for a couple of hours. The food was blah, I had nachos and a lime daquiri. The nachos were gross and had some weird pureed bean stuff on them. Had it been actually beans I could have dealt with it, but it wasn't and I couldn't eat them and they wouldn't get me a new one, even with the fact that no where on the menu did it say this bean stuff was on them. I wasn't very happy with the service. If you are looking for a bit nicer spot, head to Paradise beach but then walk down the beach to the Carlo's and Charlies area as it has hammocks and beach beds.

 

The food in the dining room each night was phenomenal as usually. I love the french onion soup and the caesar salad. I had ribs one night, they were great and the prime rib twice was great both times. Now other than the dining room, I basically ate from the deli. The food on the buffet always looked kinda gross. I had some on the last day and I was right. The only edible thing was the southern fried chicken. The loaded baked potatoes were not cooked enough, the soup was cold, the bread was stale. The rice was hard, the milk was warm. I could go on, but I think you get the idea. I will stick with the deli and pizza from now on.

 

I found my room steward to be a bit odd. He would be out there working when I left my room each morning, usually no later than 8am. However I would pop back in usually around noon and my room still hadn't be cleaned, so I have no idea what he was up to. So eventually I would come back and have a bit of a lie down in the afternoon for an hour or so before getting ready for dinner. I would get back to my room around 5pm and I swear every night before I started putting up the privacy please sign he would be knocking to get in there at about 530pm to do my turn down. Now, I had late dinner which I prefer and on past cruises I have rarely even seen my steward since he followed my schedule and always got in there when I wasn't there. This room steward seemed put out when I was in the room and he couldn't get in there on his schedule. He didn't even clean my room 3 times, I don't know where he was but it never happened. I didn't adjust my auto tips because I knew that would affect not only him but the others as well, but I sure didn't give him any extra as I usually do.

 

I do have to say, the system of having to reclear customs is odd. They asked us to meet in the atrium lobby for about 1030am. We then sat there for about an hour, something was holding up the debarkation of the rest. Then they had someone walk us down, which was actually quite difficult for one of the older passengers and they had no wheelchair available for him. So they walk our group of 10 down to customs, we each speak with the customs officer and then they escorted us right back up. At that point they told us we would have to wait to set up our onboard account with them because the accounting department hadn't uploaded the new accounts to their system yet. There was already customs officers onboard the ship so I don't see why they didn't just do the declaration with us right there in the lobby and they already had the credit card information so there is no reason they couldn't have just used the same information as long as I didn't want to change it. Just seemed like a round about way of doing things. I have had to clear customs before on the ship in Port Canaveral since I am not a US citizen and that would have been a much easier way of dealing with the B2B passengers.

 

Staff I have to mention. Josh, the CD was great. Go do the movie trivia with him, he has hilarious clips and we all had a great laugh. He chatted with us B2B cruisers as we waited to clear customs. One of the couples on the cruise were on their 48th Carnival cruise. They live in Florida, go figure. They mentioned some kind of issue and he gave them his ship cell phone number and told them to call anytime 24 hours a day if they needed anything. Elena at the atrium bar is a sweetheart and funny. I told her she should be getting into the cruise director avenue and she said she hadn't thought about it. She liked bartending, even though the days were long. I may even write to Carnival about how wonderful she was. I know they base promotions and raises on customers complaints and praise.

 

Overall, even with some of the issues I had a great time. Anytime on a cruise is better than back home dealing with snow and cold. I really did like the improvements Carnival is making to the Fantasy class and I think with the current addition of the balconies to the Sensation they are only going to continue making these ships more attractive to us cruisers. This is definitely the ship for kids with the waterworks area and Camp Carnival must be doing a great job because unless you were up on the waterworks deck you never really saw the over 400 kids that were on this cruise. They are also currently putting in the Circle C area on right now too. If anyone has any questions feel free to ask!!!

 

PS Sorry this was sooooo long

[pauline664]

Thank you for your review. My DD and her BF and myself are considering this cruise for Sept. 2009. Looking forward to it.:D

[gill_boo]

No problem.