AZDivers

You nailed it.

Kinda the main reason people post reviews IMO. I realize that some people might only get a chance to cruise every few years or something and some of us cruise multiple times a year. Also depending on a persons interests and their demographic and vibe is a big deciding factor. Its a beautiful ship. Its just this Cruise line is not for us, personally. Im glad we did it and im glad it was this ship.

We had 5 dinners there and 1 was excellent. 3 were terrible and 1 was so so

Our first experience on Carnival. We have well over 25 cruises on mainly RCL, Celebrity and a few on Norwegian. We decided to give Carnival a shot with friends that lived in Orlando. Rather than a long rant on experiences I will simply do a pros and cons. We are a 40's mixed couple, upper middle class and drink reasonably. Not big gamblers but we will drop a couple hundred when we cruise. We opted not to have a drink package on this trip. We had a Spa Cove Balcony that comes with spa access. All in all the ship is an excellent ship and its beautiful. The people were friendly. The ports were great other than Amber Cove. I will attach a few pics and vids as well. PROS: Food selection - variety, number of venues Chibang and La Capitano first visit complimentary and we really enjoyed both! Guys burger is best burger we’ve had at sea. Went twice. Shaqs Chicken was really good. We went twice. Blue iguana had really good burritos for breakfast. Grand central shows are excellent with some cons Multiple comedians show available each day (with some cons) Coffee is good and readily available Alchemy and fortune teller bar made amazing drinks. Possibly the best we had at sea. Puerto Rico port was docked in old town allowing easy on/ off around town. ONe of our favorite ports always as the cocktail scene and food is amazing here. Multiple pools but extremely crowded Many venues for music Gym nicely appointed with quality equipment They allow you to bring onboard 12 pack soda Boat very smooth, only felt rocking a couple times Guys pig and anchor is best bbq we have had at sea Our cabin steward Pei was very good. Spa was very nice, gets incredibly crowded. Could use water station inside spa along with better drainage near rain showers. Also we were there @ 8 am when opened and steam rooms not working yet. Loved level 5 immensely as its perfectly located however I don't think paying extra for the spa was worth it. Beds were decent. Pillows lumpy. CONS: Weird hours of some restaurants (street eats) Casino really crowded, smoke comingles with non smoking in the center but still smoke handled better than on many other ships. Only one craps table for a ship of this size is insane. Tried for 7 days to get in on it. No chance. No Texas Hold em tournaments Horrendous number of morbidly obese people in wheelchairs. While you always see this on cruises, it gets depressing to see literally hundreds of them. Sadly many of them were super rude as well which just makes it worse. Seeing hundreds of people with type 2 diabetes, gout and lesions on their bodies driving around with a plate full of sweets is just a rough thing to watch. So be prepared its on another level on Carnival and I wasn't quite prepared. Grand central theater has best shows on ship but poor seating options Mardi Gras theater choreography for shows was weird, seating was small, no bar service. Comedians are plentiful, but mostly black and racist. All of their comedy was race based and almost every one of them spent their show making fun of white people. Really weird deal. Casino drinks were hard to come by. Main dining room food was terrible. They even managed to screw up lobster tails. Very dissapointed. Lido buffet was small and below average quality. We don't typically eat at the buffet but went a couple of times. Amber Cove was a terrible port and could not handle volume of people from two cruise ships at one time. We got off 30 mins after gangway opened and zero chairs available. No shade, no chairs, pool packed, opted to just get back on boat. People - lots of first time cruisers, power drinkers, and gamblers who got their trip for free. The demographic was probably 25% black, 70% white, 5% other. So proceed accordingly. Everyone was very nice but this was the loudest group of people we have ever been around and it felt like a Miami Beach party the entire time. Not exactly our vibe and nothing like previous ships we have been on. No we are not bougie. Couldn’t get drink service in dining, but always offered shots that you could pay extra for High tea service - what a disappointment. Offered multiple options, failed to tell people that they were charging for anything other than Lipton tea. Macaroons were hard and stale. Gym really to small for ship of this size Closet placement terrible. If someone is in closet you can’t get in/out of bathroom or room No outlets by bed, had to have extension cord Tv channel selection is minimal (3 non carnival) stations. We don't cruise to watch TV but when you get back to your room at night its nice to have a few options to browse through. Elevator are small, and super hot with no ac (major complaint from everyone we met) Bolt was down most of the trip (we expected based on previous reviews). Small balcony. Probably the smallest we have ever had. I did like being under the life boats however as they block the sun. Pillows were awful, way too firm and lumpy. Piano bar player was awful, limited crowd interaction and could not sing a tune. Really weird that he was able to get that job to be honest. IMG_1979.MOV video_2200864550258931.mp4 IMG_1874.MOV IMG_2898.MOV IMG_2060.MOV

Thanks gang

My first Carnival cruise ever is on the Mardi Gras next week. I've sailed most of the Oasis Class ships on RCL and looking forward to seeing how this stacks up. Anyone done both ships and have an opinion/comparison on it? Any tips for an RCL cruiser coming over to Carnival for a first trip?

Cruise Critic

Just got back from ours. Posted our review to CC for review. Is this the review you uploaded through the reviews section of the site or just separate for here? We had multiple issues on our Christmas cruise on the Apex personally and they will be in my review which hopefully goes live soon.

The Escargot was cold every single night on the Allure. Sad because that's always been a fave for us.

Understandable. We all have different standards. Thanks for your input

Those lines were seemingly only for anytime dining or something. We went with early dining and never had a single line. Everytime we were leaving dinner we walked past those huge lines really baffled at how long they were. Lobster and Shortrib night was the best night by far. The other nights were kinda meh. Great service though.

This place looks amazing. Which port are you stopped at to get to this place and how far of a drive/walk?

Just got back from a great cruise to Curacao and Aruba. Although the weather was INSANELY hot the cruise itself was amazing and we had a great time on our 3rd Oasis class. However, the food was super noticeably much much lower quality than previous Oasis class ships. The main dining room most notably was super subpar compared to previous sailings, often cold dishes and uninspired menu. The buffet was also quite bad. Super basic. This was our first post Covid cruise so judging by the consensus with other sailors on board they were noticing the same thing. Is this on most RC ships right now? The service on the other hand was across the board the best we have ever had. Literally all Filipino staff, no jamaicans anymore which was interesting.

I have been hearing mixed things on this. If one of us drinks booze and the other drinks water only, I don't see why both of us would need to buy an alcohol package? Someone said one can buy alcohol package ($75per day) and the other can buy a Beverage ($30) per day but why would that be needed if that person doesn't drink soda?

Labadee might be shut down for next weeks sailings. Keep an eye on the weather.

but what if one of us only drinks water? They want $30 day for a beverage package for that person and $75 now for a person who drinks alcohol.

you need to post the ship and sail date. they vary greatly.

seems like it!

Probably smart has anyone heard that you can send a gift package to your room with a bottle of booze? I saw one of these YouTubers on a cruise channel that said you can do that.

not sure how. they tell us every of age adult in the room needs to have the alcohol package if 1 does.

Insanity.

If you didn't have to buy a Drink package for each person in the room that would make more sense.

It's hard to argue this. We are going on Allure in Sept and going to pass on the package. The pricing is just nuts considering how many days we will be off the boat and only having cocktails in the evening when we get back on.