AZDivers

2 minutes ago, Chet Rhodes said:

Having just got off the sister ship Celebration, I have to say that most of your comments are spot on for us as well. I don't believe I will ever cruise that size of a Carnival ship again. Prices remain the same, but ships are totally understaffed.

 

Having just been at Amber Cove and Grand Turk five years ago, I was looking forward to those stops again. I was sorely disappointed. Jack's Shack was nothing like it used to be, and you'll go broke sitting there and paying the current prices. Magaritaville was nothing like a laid back Caribbean atmosphere, but a ghetto nightclub at 3:00 in the morning. What a letdown at Amber Cove when the main entertainment at the pool that day was a twerking contest.

You nailed it.

5 minutes ago, daveo6313 said:

Thanks for your honest list.  Some of those cons make me not want to go on the Madi Gras at all.  I wonder if that is a port location deal or just a bad week.

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.

44 minutes ago, Frank12 said:

We love the Mardi Gras but agree with you on several of your Cons.  The size of the casino and availability of tables is completely ridiculous for that many passengers.  Two $10 blackjack tables (14 seats) for 6,000 pax. 

Elevators are terribly slow and always super crowded.

Buffet food on Lido deck was not good at all.  Thank goodness for Street Eats, Guys, and Big Chicken.

Piano Bar (Brad) was terrible. I saw several reviews where folks said how great he was.  They have obviously never been to a great piano bar!😜

 

We did have really good food in the MDR.  You must have hit a bad week.

 

And yes, Alchemy and Fortune Teller bar have fantastic drinks!

 

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.

Thanks gang

5 hours ago, Tyler414 said:

CC ?    Cruise Critic or Celebrity Cruises???  Two completely different things...

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.

On 9/13/2022 at 3:15 PM, ryano said:

 

Neither will I and only one visit to the MDR to get escargot and tiger shrimp during my last cruise confirmed that.   The escargot were cold and rubbery and not what I remembered from the past and the "tiger shrimp" looked like the tiny shrimp that came on the shrimp cocktail.  None of the food was warm either.   It couldnt have been the crowds as there was only 1800 guests on a ship that holds over 4000.  It was the quality of the ingredients and temp food was served at.  All my specialty dining was excellent however.  Their trick worked on me 😉  

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

On 9/13/2022 at 2:44 PM, NightOne said:

 

I was on the same cruise as you and I would not agree with your opinion on the food. 🙂

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

10 minutes ago, yogimax said:

It’s all a matter of personal taste and opinion.  We were on the same cruise and found the menu to be the standard, predictable fare.  The short ribs and lobster were delicious and service was excellent,

 

What was far more troubling were the long lines to get into the dining room for MTD.  This seems to be the new norm fleetwide.

 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.

On 9/10/2022 at 2:54 PM, LATTELOVE said:

Amazed at all those beautiful Architechtures. 

Food looks so good too.  🙂 

 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.

On 8/19/2022 at 7:58 AM, gizbug said:

I've called RCCL many times and said wife doesn't drink, she wants refreshment package, I want the Deluxe Beverage, and they have no problem just giving it to me.

 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.

On 8/17/2022 at 12:33 PM, SDA1125 said:

So this popped up today 

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

On 8/17/2022 at 11:03 AM, vjmatty said:

Cruise Planner just listed DBP at $90 per day on a port-intensive Enchantment sailing in the Eastern Med October 2023....it's almost like they are trying to scare people away from buying it.

seems like it!

7 hours ago, Stealthdog said:

We stopped getting the drink packages on all lines.  We went through the numbers and were paying so much more on the packages and also were overdrinking to justify the purchase.

 

Between brining wine on board, discounted bottles in specialty dining (some lines), loyalty perks (some lines), and OBC (some sailings we have over $1k) the drink packages on all lines just seem to be a ripoff.

 

Now we book all our cruises without the drink upcharges (we remove "free" at sea drink package on NCL and remove all in on Celebrity).

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.

7 hours ago, klfhngr said:

We didn't, we only got one.

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

2 hours ago, Tiggerontheseas said:

 

Crazy, isn't it?  Here is mine for the Odyssey of the Seas TA next October.  Granted, that price is quoted in CAD but that still works out to approximately $98.00 USD (the same that your cruise is showing as the onboard price before discount).  No discounts as of yet for us.   For 15 nights, if we tried to drink enough to cover the cost of the package we'd probably end up comatose.  LOL!   We are definitely planning a la carte unless it goes waaaaay down.  

 

Deluxe Beverage Package

Full Sailing - 15 Days

From $125.42 CAD / per guest per day

 

Insanity. 

1 hour ago, klfhngr said:

Upcoming Oct NoS cruise we got one DBP and one coffee card. 80 a day for DBP. We're not getting off the ship, so it will be worth it!

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

On 8/14/2022 at 4:08 AM, zackarykeef said:

Piggybacking onto this thread…

 

The drink package has always been my hold up with Royal. As you can see, I’ve mainly cruised with NCL, and they “include” the drink package. I recently have also started with X and MSC, who also include the drink packages. We definitely like to have our fair share of drinks on cruises, so a package is a must.

 

Royal never runs included promos, and it seems like it’s around $1000 more on top of the fare to add it, which is crazy. This is why I haven’t sailed Royal, especially when their prices really aren’t cheaper than competing lines who do include drinks.

 

The one ship Royal cruise I did take (Jewel OTS), we added the package, and I still remember so many specialty and signature cocktails weren’t included. This irked me. Is that still the case?

 

I’ve been wanting to sail an Oasis-class ship for the experience, but I’m really struggling to justify it with the drink package pricing, especially since you can’t see it ahead of time and it fluctuates week to week.

 

Any input is appreciated!

 

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.

 

On 12/16/2021 at 4:05 PM, cruzer0007 said:

I don’t have experience with the specific cabin you asked about but we have booked the same category (porthole balcony) at the aft of Deck 7 for a future cruise.  We sailed on apex last week, and we did go briefly check out our aft cabin (only from the hall) and we liked what we saw.   I think it is best described a traditional balcony cabin, full sliding glass door, exterior sitting area.  The “porthole” is at the railing so there is some partial loss of viewing, but we don’t feel it’s substantial loss, and we are 10X more interested in an actual balcony and will gladly take the moderate restriction of viewing.  We do not like the IV cabins.   There are very few of these porthole balconies, and they are either in the bow, or stern area of the ship.  I think only decks 6-7-8 have them.  Hope that helps you.

Thank you.

 

What did you mean by you are 10x more interested in an actual balcony?

On 12/14/2021 at 12:45 PM, Denny01 said:

Take a look at the E-Class SR spreadsheet at the top of the X forum. It doesn’t list Apex SRs much, but the Edge 6115 SR two SRs down has a write up. The post says there is lots of noise from the theater. Take a look at that. 

 

Den

Sorry but what is X forum?