New York Sailaway for the Caribbean Video
[tube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZRrlmN_ruo&feature=youtu.be[/tube]
This entry will be a bit of a comparison between Princess and Carnival for any cruisers who are interested. We will add entries for the ports we visit in the Caribbean separately.
We called a cab at 12.15 pm to take us from the Novotel to the pier for our cruise on Carnival Splendour. The instructions were to go to 12th Avenue via 55th Street. Unfortunately our driver went the other way and when he tried to merge with the traffic to enter the cruise terminal, the Policeman on point duty stopped us and really yelled at the driver for not knowing the correct way. So we then had to go via 59th Street which took a lot longer.
Our luggage was put into trolleys outside the terminal and then we went to join the queues. Considering we haven’t cruised Carnival before and therefore did not have priority boarding, it wasn’t too bad. We were in our cabin by 2.30 pm.
In comparison to Princess ships, our room is a bit bigger, but the balcony slightly smaller. You actually do have to shuffle the 2 deck chairs every time you go onto the balcony! The lobby yells party ship – not as elegant as Princess, but much brighter and full of lighting.
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We were not given a map of the ship so we went exploring ourselves. Our cabin is 8268, a balcony on the port side. The buffet and all associated food bars (there are many of them) are all on Deck 9 (Lido) and our restaurant for dining is the Black Pearly on Level 3. Ironically I found maps of the ship on Day 3 when I went to the customer service desk.
I went a tour of the spa. It was much more spacious then on Princess but had similar areas and prices.
As you may have read in previous entries we were not happy with the entertainment on Princess this year. In contrast the entertainment on this ship is great. All the banks, duets, solos we have listened to can actually sign and play for long periods of time. The Carnival singers and dancers have put on 2 excellent shows with great music, costuming and lighting. The first 2 nights we had comedians who did family friendly shows as well as adult only shows later in the evening – they were both very funny!!!
The casino is full of smoke AND full of people – they are making a fortune!. They don’t seem to have any smoke free days so the haze does not go away and it is located midship on Deck 5 so you have to walk through it to access lots of other entertainment. I fell sorry for the singers who perform in there. We usually listen to music on Deck 3 in the Lobby Bar away from the Casino.
In terms of food in the dining rooms, Princess had it hands down. The Carnival menu is very low level compared to the Diamond Princess. However Carnival has much more variety on Deck 9 in the many buffet areas. They have the usual 24 hour pizza and ice cream. They have Tandoori, Grille and Mongolian sections all the time and then they rotate the other sections to different cuisines each day. There is also a deli open from 10am – 11pm where they make fresh sandwiches etc.
We attended a cooking class in the Steakhouse and got some good ideas for dinner parties.
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We will be happy to book another Carnival cruise and have found ourselves to be no where b near as loyal to Princess as we were before. We also want to try Holland America and a few other cruise lines in the future. We have enjoyed the change.