Mrs. E and I went on a cruise to the eastern Caribbean over Christmas. I wrote a review of it:
We are novices at this cruise thing, as this was our first. The Carnival Destiny is an older ship, but we found it to be well-maintained for the most part with only a few obvious glitches here and there minor in nature. Stuff worked when it should've worked.
1. OMG, the food is everywhere. And most of the time, the food is excellent. We found the Galaxy and Universe Dining Rooms (the Universe not easy to find for a newbie) were full of wait staff who couldn't do enough for you and the food, while portioned somewhat small, was excellently prepared. The Lido Deck buffet isn't quite as good, but it's plentiful and the wait lines, while lengthy at times, were doable. All the same, we tried to avoid the Lido deck Sun and Sea Restaurant for the most part as it was busy and crowded. I don't do sushi, but my wife does and she said it was good. Loved the coffee shop and the pizza is surprisingly good. The guy working the pizza counter worked hard in serving his customers.
2. Excursions. We signed up for three (horseback riding in the sea in Grand Turk; stingray encounter in Half Moon Cay, and Blue Lagoon in Nassau) and were pleased generally with only one of them (horseback riding). Not being too much of a fan of tourist traps, we felt as if we were stuck in that mode and would therefore favor not doing specific excursions but rather just sightsee or do something spur-of-the-moment. But the experience of doing excursions is valuable -- we'll simply avoid doing these in the future.
3. Music. Well, we're musicians so when they tout a "live band" that's what we expect to see and hear. Instead, what we got was an air band for the Las Vegas-esque show which featured dancers and singers. C'mon, guys, when you're putting a full horn section over the sound system and I'm looking at a tenor sax, guitar, piano, drums, and bass with the so-called music director being a drummer doing the air drum thing very badly, it makes me want to laugh. But I don't. Overall, the singing was first rate and the dancing was also excellent. Sound and overall presentation in the Palladium was good.
4. Service and Hospitality. It's a very nice touch to be addressed by name by people who seem to be genuinely interested in your well-being, and we enjoyed that. Dinner was enjoyable that way. We also like the idea of dressing up for dinner - it seems more respectful of the quality of the food and the service you're getting. WORD OF CAUTION - FOR WHATEVER REASON, PROBABLY FOR TURNOVER, DRESS WARMLY FOR DINNER. They crank up the AC and we saw lots of ladies with bare shoulders who were clearly suffering. By the 2nd night, folks were wearing jackets and sweaters. Back to the casual stuff - if you want something on a melmac plate, go to the Sun and Sea Restaurant on the Lido deck.
4a. Room Steward. The one issue that was a bit of a problem involved our room steward. It took almost 4 days into the cruise before our room steward finally surfaced. (We're not helpless and we managed well, but we did need some assistance at one point.) The cabin was being cleaned well enough, but not all of the information that was supposed to have been in the room was there, so we didn't have a phone directory or other manner of having questions answered except through Guest Services (who did fabulously). To some of our cabin-oriented questions, they looked at us quizzically and suggested we ask our room steward, to which we replied we hadn't seen hide nor hair of the guy after almost 4 days. Well, he finally showed up and our questions and issues were resolved, but we felt he should've at least introduced himself at the start of the cruise.
5. Fitness room is located within the Spa. Not a good thing, since I don't need supervision or somebody sitting at a desk to allow me to use fitness equipment. And as I get an early start with exercise, the 6 AM open time for the Spa did not square with me, especially when at 6 AM nobody showed up at the Spa to let me in. So I did my road work on the track (10 laps per mile) at 5 AM and got to watch the sun come up in the process (really enjoyed that).
6. Embarkation/debarkation were generally painless, though the security measures and constant challenges in boarding the ship can be irritating after awhile. We took the limo service from Ft. Lauderdale Airport to the Miami port, which ran well.
In conclusion, we enjoyed the overall experience and would do it again. We might want to do something with fewer kids, but we were stuck with going at this particular time of year (Christmas break).
http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=94606
