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If you look at the deck plan of both Spirit and Splendor, you'll notice no forward pool on Splendor. You only have the midship and aft pools. And I agree with ddvgww that Serenity is nowhere near as good as on Spirit. I think maybe becuase the bar is so small and it serves people within Serenity as well as those outside. One thing that really annoys me about Splendor is on deck 9, to walk from the Lido Marketplace to the forward inside area, is not entirely covered. So if you've got a plate of food from the Lido Marketplace and you want to take it to your room, you walk forward past the midship pool but get funneled into the entry between Red Frog and Blue Iguana bars. This area in not covered. In Port Vila, I brought back some breakfast from the Lido Martketplace and it rained really heavily. I found the seats in the Spectacular Spectacular and Lido Marketplace to be really low as . Lastly, if you look at the Splendor deck plan, you see where the Gold Pearl restuarnt is a small atrium area. It gets really crowded when people rock up for dinner and the elevators just get packed, Just be aware of this if you are unable to use the stairs. I can't say that Splendor is my favourite ship. I would much prefer Spirit or Legend return to Australia. The Spirit-class layout is just really logical.

I will say, we cruised aboard Splendor the first time back in January/February and weren't too impressed compared to our numerous sailings aboard Spirit and Legend. I found most of the seating, such as lounges and seating in the Lido Marketplace too low. I was disappointed they took away Blue Iguana Cantina which made burritos and tacos, etc. This was an undiscovered treasure in the morning for breakfast burritos if the Cantina is still available on Spirit and Legend. I do agree the Carnival Deli makes great sandwiches and the Masala Tiger is another excellent option onboard Splendor. I was also frustrated with the access to the Gold Pearl restaurant located aft. There's a small atrium where dozens of people gather waiting to get into the dining room. There's no thoroughfare from the main area of deck 4 to the Gold Pearl. You need to to five and then down. I also found the food was better onboard Spirit and Legend pre-CoVID. On the Lido deck (deck 9), where our stateroom was located, we found you need to walk outside on the lido area to make your way the Marketplace. This is problematic if it rains, which it did in Port Vila. If you're carrying food back, there's not much covered area so if it's raining, you might get wet. Speaking of the Lido, Splendor lacks the three-pools Spirit and Legend have. On Splendor, there's a pool mid-ship and one located aft. Lastly, tender access is slow and challenging. Tenders are (mostly) loaded/unloaded from the top rather than the sides. This means people take forever to walk down or up the tenders' stairways. However, that said, were booked on again in October. Given the choice from Sydney, I would take Spirit or Legend over Splendor any day.

You (or other readers) mightn't be aware there's a temperature safety feature on the dial. It's physically stopped at 30°c or so but there's a latch on the dial that needs to be depressed whilst turning the to adjust the temperature of the water. It's not that evident how it works straight away.

Sorry for the belated reply. I'll check with Carnival but I might try and book something just to use up the credit.

Back in 2020, I had a few Carnival Cruises booked and either fully paid for or deposits placed. I have about $2400 in FCC. When the cruises were cancelled, Carnival gave the option of a full 100% refund OR retaining the monies paid and $900 onboard credit to use on future sailings. I got a call from a Carnival personal cruise planner. I asked her how much credit I had and she gave me an approximate figure as shown above. However, to use my FCC, I would need to book and sail by end of March next year; she claimed I would lose it after that point. She also said I have already lost the $900 onboard credit which Carnival offered at the time. Considering Carnival resumed sailing in Australia back in October last year (2022) which doesn't give much opportunity to sail, how can Carnival simply claim that the money I paid for my cruises will simply expire when they didn't deliver the service? ACCC doesn't have any specific information and other searches just bring up results from 2021. Carnival's help pages relate to its US operations and the personal cruise planner I presume is based in the US and may not be familiar with Carnival Australia's obligation in relation to Australian consumer law. Is anyone dealing with this predicament and what advice do people recommend?

We also got off Splendor and come to think of it, we weren't offered coffee or tea after our meal in Gold Pearl. I remember they would usually come around with a box of speciality teas and ask if we wanted something like that but were given the opportunity to order the free tea or coffee at the end after dessert. I don't much drink coffee or tea so I didn't think about the omission until this thread appeared. I did notice that on our 11-night cruise, we never got the laundry promotion ($25 AUD) Carnival often run during the voyage. I asked my stateroom attendant about it who got me a bag. I completed it, filled it to within an inch of its physical limits and he took care of it. Checked my account and sure enough, the promotional price of $25 AUD was charged. I wonder if this is a tactic for reducing costs for Carnival in that staff don't offer free/discounted services or items if avoidable.

This was the wine menu from the Gold Pearl restaurant current as of last week. QRAUS_AT_WineList_1022.pdf

I used Medibank Private and once purchased, they provide a letter outlining COVID-19 coverage that is easy for the port check-in person to quickly confirm.

Onboard Splendor, it's Coke, Sprite, etc. Soda water is from a glass bottle from Cascade. Not sure if that's CCA or another supplier. I had the Bottomless Bubbles package I drank a bit of soda water before getting into the Scotchies on this cruise

My on Splendor now waiting to get off. There's a number of packages and tiers available for internet. The premium package claims to allow video calling such as Skype. I didn't get the premium plan so I couldn't test this personally but got the value plan for a few 24-hour periods. You can buy for an entire cruise or for a 24-hour period I attached the Carnival FAQ which may help I should add, my partner got the premium plan and we were able to order Skype to ring my mum but didn't try Zoom. Skype seemed to work OK considering we were in the middle of the ocean faq.pdf

I did manage to get two after Port Side shop opened up after sail away. I checked again the next morning and there weren't that many left. Yes. I believe it's an Aussie thing. I like them because I can unclip the card part from the lanyard and simply hand the card to the bartender. I leave my wallet in the safe and having a card around my neck assures me I can easily get back into my stateroom and not become locked out. We hang our lanyards up on magnetic hooks near the stateroom door so they're one thing we usually won't forget.

Yes, I'm walking around onboard Splendor now and it feels like driving in a car and not wearing a seatbelt.

Ok, thanks. We got onboard a couple of hours ago. I just remembered that onboard Spirit they were available practically as you walk in. Pixels is closed so I'll have to hunt around for some a bit later. I got me cocktails to drink! 🍸

I know this is a bit late but we were on Pacific Explorer in June only three or four sailings into P&O's return. We didn't do the Waterfront for dinner but did it for lunch a couple of days. Looking back at the menus for lunch, I realised the two days we lunch, it was the same menu. It was only a three-day cruise and we went to lunch in the Waterfront twice.

I haven't cruised onboard Carnival for almost 4 years. I know there were always Carnival-branded lanyards for sale right after boarding. We sailed RCI on a transpacific and were surprised lanyards were not commonly available and the ones that were were Alaska lanyards. You could see who us Aussies were as we all ended up buying Alaska lanyards despite not having been to Alaska! I can't find where I put my older Carnival ones so I wanted to confirm if Carnival sell them onboard Splendor seeing as that ship has made its way from the US. As Splendor is now back in Australia, I wanted to check their availability with anyone here who may have recently sailed onboard her. I asked a few yanks, Canadians and Poms and most of them just carried their SeaPass cards in their wallet or pockets. I have magnetic hooks which we hang on our stateroom walls and hang our lanyards near the door so we're less likely to forget them. Leaving them in a pocket is liable for me to forget them if I were different pants, etc.

I've never sailed on Splendor before but have sailed Spirit and Legend when they were in Australia. These ships' staterooms had one Australian AS/NZS 3112 three-prong outlet. Sailing on Ovation of the Seas in October, we found the staterooms (at least ours) had a US socket as well as a European outlet which I thought was handy although I didn't bring a Euro to AUS adapter. Does Splendor only have one available Australian socket or is there a second one available such as US or European? I want to make use of a second outlet if there's one available.

I doubt it. It was our first RCI cruise and I got my final onboard statement via email. There was no issue with them sending me the bill.

I've triple checked my Junk mail folder in Outlook again and nope, I never got a survey. Oh well, if Royal don't care for or don't want my feedback then, whatever. I just wanted to nominate some crew members by name.

We got off our transpacific cruise almost three weeks ago. It was our first RCI cruise ever. With Carnival and P&O, surveys via email are sent out fairly quickly. Both my partner and I have not received surveys, and no, they're not in our junk mail folders. Everywhere we went onboard Ovation, staff were always eager to persuade us to complete the RCI survey. Has RCI stopped sending surveys out?

We just got came back from a five week holiday a five abroad which included a transpacific cruise. My boss wouldn't appreciate me going on leave again mid December

It's over the Christmas period so you'd need to be willing to do a Christmas with the Kranks type thing. Here is the offer code when I start a booking:

I'm seeing this for Luminosa:

Nothing too specific. Maybe what power outlets we'd find on board. We're in HNL now and I forgot to pack my Aldi universal power board. I bought a small travel adapter.

Sorry for the belated reply but we landed in Honolulu on Saturday and the CBP guy was pretty cool. He simply asked how long we're staying 'til. We told him we'll be here until the 9th and it was all good. A bit of a chat later, we were on our way. No need for paperwork or any proof of an onward journey... All good.