SPLENDER REVIEW (w/pics) :)

[shonandsuzie]

We have just returned from a fabulous cruise on Carnival Splendor to the Mexican Riviera out of Long Beach California. This is my 13th cruise and my husband (Shon’s) 12th cruise. We have sailed on Carnival, Princess, Norwegian and Royal Caribbean. We don’t prefer any particular cruise line, we just love to cruise! We always cruise the first week of September for our anniversary and this cruise is especially special b/c we dropped our youngest off to the dorms on Monday and flew out for our cruise on Friday. We are feeling free to say the least!! It has also been the coldest summer in Michigan that we can remember. Seriously, like week’s over 68 degree highs. Unacceptable! With all of this in mind, we need this vacation to be perfect and I will give the ending away right now and say that it was! J

This review is going to be pretty long. I am still in my excited vacation mode while sitting at my desk around people that really don’t want to hear any more about my “perfect vacation” at work so I will have so much fun writing out all of the details for those of you who care and understand.;)

I hope that the information with be helpful to other’s in some way.

FRIDAY (9/4)

Long Beach:

We flew into LAX Friday afternoon and rented a car from Budget. Initially, they gave us a hilarious car. It was big and ugly! We weren’t happy but would have just dealt with it until we got inside and noticed the strong smell of cigarette smoke. Budget has a $200 fee for smoking in the cars so we wanted them to write down that it smelled of smoke. They said they couldn’t do that so we refused to take that car. In the end we got a cute little Camry which was clean and smelled like air freshener J. We planned to have dinner at the Spaceship restaurant in the middle of the airport but it was being remodeled L. We had to go to plan B which was actually down in Long Beach.

We headed down to Long Beach to our hotel. Unfortunately, we booked our hotel in San Pedro because I got confused about the Port location. On a previous cruise, we went out of San Pedro and I assumed San Pedro and Long Beach were one in the same. We stayed at the Crowne Plaza because we stayed there in ’07 and thought it was pretty nice. We paid $65 through priceline. The hotel is nice and the location is great…yeah, if you are on Norwegian or Royal Caribbean (lol)

This day was our anniversary J We headed down to Long Beach from our hotel and boy was the map deceiving! It is much farther than we thought! So…we did what loving couples on road trips do and argued all the way there….…L We planned to go to Parker’s Lighthouse for dinner but didn’t bring directions. However, 10 stupid quarrels later and we found it! (Okay, I have to admit, I remembered the name wrong. I was thinking it was called Harbor House. I had read reviews about it but since we planned to go to the Spaceship Place I didn’t write down the name.) Once we got there, it was exactly what we hoped it would be! We had a fabulous, delicious and romantic meal.

Afterwards, we walked around the Marina area and looked in the shops, heard live music and played Skeeball at the amusement area. And I almost forgot! While walking toward the restaurant, we saw Carnival Paradise sitting in the Harbor. That was the very first cruise ship we ever took. Awww. So romantic, we kissed and reflected about that cruise. It was a perfect evening!:p

(TO BE CONTINUED)

[luv2cruise777l]

Great start! I can't wait for more!:)

[shonandsuzie]

SATURDAY (9/5)

We slept in and then drove around the corner to a yummy breakfast place. Several of us from our roll call group made arrangements for a Limo Tour of Los Angeles. The rest of the group stayed at the Hyatt right in Long Beach (right across the street from Parker’s Lighthouse btw) so we drove down to meet them there. That hotel was the bomb! We will definitely stay there if ever in Long Beach again. It is close to all of the action. Lots of things to see and do within walking distance. Anyway, we met our group and hugged as if we had known eachother our whole lives so we knew we were going to have a great time! The Limo was awesome! The Limo driver was very cool! Our tour was good too. We went to Santa Monica Pier, Rodeo Drive shopping, Up in the hills and to see Michael Jackson’s house, Pink’s Hot Dog stand, and many other spots. It was so funny stopping and getting out of the limo and having other tourists take all kinds of pictures of us b/c they thought we were famous celebrities! LOL Our tour was 4 ½ hours and we split the cost of $400. After the tour Shon and I went to “The Laugh Factory” to see comedians and laughed our butts off. Very fun. Couldn’t ask for more!

 

 

 

 

[MzOhioLady]

Suz - You Go Girl!! I'm Loving the Review! You and Shon look like you were having big fun in LA!

[shonandsuzie]

SUNDAY (9/6)

We were so sleepy this morning. We lazed around, drank Starbucks and headed to the port. We returned our rental car about 5 minutes from the Port and then took a taxi to the Cruise ship. The taxi was pretty cheap, I think like $10 with tip. We arrived at the ship at 11:30 or so. We had VIP embarkation so we went in a little building showed our paperwork and got our sign and sail cards. We then waited in the “VIP” area until 12:00 and got onboard. It was quick; so simple that Shon and I kept waiting for the catch. Funny thing happened while we were waiting for the x-ray machine. Some lady tried to take a picture (which you apparently cant do in this area) and the security guard went nuts! She started yelling “Mam, Mam, No No!” and rushing across to get to the lady. The lady was saying “sorry I didn’t realize…”and tried to put her camera away. The security guard took her camera and continued to yell at her and deleted the photo. It was pretty extreme to say the least. (Now, because the world is totally small…that offending lady was one of our table mates. She was a sweetheart.)

Once on the ship we went up to feed our faces (you’ll notice we did this a lot and the scale reflected it when we got home but more on that later). I thought the lay out of the Lido Buffet area was very good. Plenty of spots with window views and close to drink stations which is very convenient. We weren’t allowed to our cabins until 2 so we toured around and took some pictures. We had initially booked a Spa Balcony for the special spa priviledges so we were particularly interested in the Spa and to see what we were missing. We switched from the Spa Balcony to a suite when Shon spotted a special Michigan resident rate for suites (which ended up being cheaper than the regular spa balcony). Once we got to our cabin we said, “ WOW!” I must say we LOVED the Category 11 Suite. We were in Cabin 7248.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We got settled in and Shon took a nap and then we headed to our informal CruiseCritic roll call Meet and Greet at the aft lido bar. What a great turn out! We met, shook hands and got ready for sail away. We had early dinner so we then hurried to get dressed for dinner…well, that was pointless b/c we didn’t have our luggage yet. Shoot! We went on to dinner in our shorts J. We had a large 8 person round table in The Black Pearl. Our table mates were so fun! We were loud and hopefully didn’t bother others too much. We also all ordered multiple appetizers, meals and desserts every night..(again, contributing to the scale results…) We did not go to the Show in the theater because walking past the Casino we met our new beast friends “Michael” and “The Blues Brothers”. Michael was a R&B entertainer who performed outside of the Casino each evening from 8 to 1. The Blues Brothers was a penny slot machine that allowed us to play from 8pm-2am off of $20 each night! We did take a break to check out the piano bar and the disco. Both were fun! Man, we love cruising!

 

(I have to add this "VIP" waiting area shot.....)

 

TO BE CONTINUED.......

[shonandsuzie]

Suz - You Go Girl!! I'm Loving the Review! You and Shon look like you were having big fun in LA!

Hey! You were supposed to wait 'til you get back from your trip to get all of these details!:eek::rolleyes:

[shonandsuzie]

MONDAY (9/7)

Sea Days..LOVE THEM! We relaxed, ate, slept, sunned, played and explored. We had our formal Meet and Greet with the cruise director this afternoon. Goose brought a few gifts and did a quiz.(Shout out to Host Mach for helping us get this arranged!) The set-up was not very convenient for a group this large b/c we met at the aft lido bar area and it just was not configured in a way that allowed easy mingling or conversation. Goose arranged for a ship photographer to come and take our picture outside of one of the dining rooms and we all tried to be still and smile nicely. Our group hopes we’ll get a spot on the front page of CruiseCritics. I think we should because we were all sooooo cute J

(This is us getting set up..see aren't we cute?)

 

 

(me with Goose and his assistant at the Meet and Greet)

 

It was so good to meet everyone that we had been chatting with for 6 months or more. After our photo, most of the group went down to the casino where we had a “Slot Pull”. We found a machine, put $10 bucks in each and took turns. We didn’t get rich but a great time was had for sure! We had formal night tonight so we dressed up got photos taken and headed for our free drinks at the captains party! That night I took my first bubbly bath in our Jacuzzi tub! J Every night should end like this!

TUESDAY (9/8)

Yay another Sea Day! I worked on my tan, Shon went to the gym, we had an awesome day.

[shonandsuzie]

Photos from Formal Night.....

(mmmm, free drinks!)

 

We were filmed while taking a picture of him filming....lol

uh, oh....too many free drinks...now Shon has his hands full.....

[Handsome58]

Keep it coming!!!!!!!!!

[TakeMeAway1001]

Great review so far, loving it!

[shonandsuzie]

WEDNESDAY (9/9)

Puerto Vallarta: This place was HOT. Instant sweat when we stepped out of the ship. We had not pre-booked any excursions b/c we do not like having to be anywhere at a set time on our vacations. We had researched to find a couple of things that we could do at each port. We thought we would take a taxi to the beach or a resort but the HEAT made us crave air conditioning and Tequila! There was a booth set up that was selling tours which including both for $25. Sounded good so that’s what we did. I am so glad b/c it was a blast! We had our guide “Ricky Ricardo” and a 4 hour tour. We stopped and bought $1 Coronas and Margarita’s in a can and filled Ricky’s cooler. We stopped to shop, take pictures at multiple views and went to tour the Tequila factory. Yum-and I don’t usually like Tequila. This stuff was smooth! . We stopped at a hill-top restaurant for authentic Mexican food. Beautiful views and delicious food! The ship stayed in this port until 9pm but we were back in the comforts of “home” by 6. We had just enjoyed shrimp fajitas but we still made it to dinner. We didn’t want to miss a night with our cool tablemates. And had no choice but to eat..again. After dinner we went to “Our Spot” and Shon won $100! Woo Hooo! Like I said, you gotta love cruising.

 

 

 

 

(Shon with Ricky Ricardo)

 

[shonandsuzie]

THURSDAY (9/10)

Mazatlan: We planned to go to Stone Island here…but when we woke up we were in the mood to lay by the pool and chill. So that is what we did! All day! And to our pleasant surprise, “Michael” was out playing in the Lido area today. Shon went up and told him it was our anniversary week and he sang to us. J Then Shon got us BBC’s (which was our very first cruise drink 10 years ago J ) This may have been my favorite day. The ship was pretty empty and we just enjoyed the facilities. The weather was nice and sunny and hot.

 

FRIDAY (9/11)

Cabo : Cabo is a beautiful port. We woke up this morning to a beautiful view of beaches, boats and rock formations. We were there pretty early and the announcements were urging people to hurry off since the ship was only there for part of the day. It was a true disappointment that we did not have more time here. There were several things that we wanted to do and it was impossible in the allowed time. However, we had a fabulous time! Again, we did not pre-book any excursions and had read that we could get a water-taxi fairly cheap right on the pier. We were on the fence between taking one to Lover’s Beach or a different more active beach. After the view early this morning, we decided we just had to get over to Lover’s Beach. We took the tender over to the pier and were approached by several different vendors for the water-taxi/tour. We picked one and off we went for $12 each (later learned that another person haggled for $10 each but $12 sounded fair to us anyway). We, along with 5 other people, toured the area by small “glass bottom” boat and our guide threw out food for the fish in a snorkeling area which caused the fish to jump up out of the water! Beautiful, colorful fish were popping all around us. The guide said that we could go back to pier or be dropped of at either beach area and picked up later. We (of course) chose to go to Lover’s Beach for an hour and our guide came back right on time to get us. Lover’s Beach is perfect. The stone’s provided nice shade, the water was very clear. Some people were snorkeling out a ways so I guess there were fish to see. Thank goodness they didn’t come near me! There was one small problem and that is that the sand was sooooooooooooo hot. We walked from the Lover’s Beach side to the Divorce Beach and my feet were burning so bad I nearly cried. We tried to walk along the rock edge where the shade was but still. Owww! If I were a bit smarter I would have simply worn my flip flops..lol J Once back on the peir, we went to shop a tiny bit and then tendered back to the ship.

This was formal night.

 

 

 

(MORE TO COME......)

[shonandsuzie]

More Cabo pics but our camera does not do this place justice in the least......

 

 

 

[caribbeanboy]

What happened that you guys left Long Beach late? I was on the Mariner and saw that you guys also left almost 1 hour late. Btw don't you have any pic from the Mariner leaving San Pedro?

[shonandsuzie]

What happened that you guys left Long Beach late? I was on the Mariner and saw that you guys also left almost 1 hour late. Btw don't you have any pic from the Mariner leaving San Pedro?

Hmmm. Couldn't tell ya? we didn't even know that we left late. I saw the Mariner as we were leaving the hotel to head to Long Beach but never even thought to take a picture. We were a bit tense b/c we had to drive over to Long Beach, find the car rental place and so on. We could have about walked from our hotel to jump on the Mariner though.

[kbalthaser66]

WEDNESDAY (9/9)

Puerto Vallarta: This place was HOT. Instant sweat when we stepped out of the ship. We had not pre-booked any excursions b/c we do not like having to be anywhere at a set time on our vacations. We had researched to find a couple of things that we could do at each port. We thought we would take a taxi to the beach or a resort but the HEAT made us crave air conditioning and Tequila! There was a booth set up that was selling tours which including both for $25. Sounded good so that’s what we did. I am so glad b/c it was a blast! We had our guide “Ricky Ricardo” and a 4 hour tour. We stopped and bought $1 Coronas and Margarita’s in a can and filled Ricky’s cooler. We stopped to shop, take pictures at multiple views and went to tour the Tequila factory. Yum-and I don’t usually like Tequila. This stuff was smooth! . We stopped at a hill-top restaurant for authentic Mexican food. Beautiful views and delicious food! The ship stayed in this port until 9pm but we were back in the comforts of “home” by 6. We had just enjoyed shrimp fajitas but we still made it to dinner. We didn’t want to miss a night with our cool tablemates. And had no choice but to eat..again. After dinner we went to “Our Spot” and Shon won $100! Woo Hooo! Like I said, you gotta love cruising.

 

 

 

 

(Shon with Ricky Ricardo)

 

 

Was the name of the restaurant that you went to up at the top of a hill called "Ah Curumba" or something like that? It looks familiar.

[shonandsuzie]

Was the name of the restaurant that you went to up at the top of a hill called "Ah Curumba" or something like that? It looks familiar.

I thought someone might ask that so I took a photo of the menu :)

 

You were right! :)

[shonandsuzie]

SATURDAY (9/12)

Sea Day again J We had a nice lazy day…(okay it’s becoming even more clear why our scales tipped when we got home J )…Shon did a slot tournament. He was cute but he didn’t win .

Later, our roll call group had a cabin crawl scheduled so several of us went around to eachother’s cabins to check them out. This was really fun! I recommend others do it too b/c it is a good way to check out what all is available…and it’s a fun way to be silly and get toasted!

(This is one of the balcony cabin's and .....she's a good rum runner.....)

**I have pictures of all of the cabins that I will post later*****

 

We took a nap, packed a little and went in search for food. They also had a bunch of sales today so we checked out the t-shirts and liquoir. We had our final dinner with our new friends L and headed out to find The Blue Brothers and Michael one last time

Final dinner :(.......(man, see how tan we got??:cool:)

[shonandsuzie]

SUNDAY (9/13)

Can you say simple, easy, quick?? I don’t know if it was our timing? Or what? But we just walked off the ship. Really! We had a small line after we picked up our luggage to go through immigration but I have never went through this quick. I wish we had timed it so I could say for sure how long it took but maybe 5 or 10 minutes? We took the ship’s transfers to LAX for our flight home. I think I would prefer to just take a taxi but we didn’t research this part ahead of time. Our flight was at 12:30. We got to the airport at about 10:45. LAX was ridiculous! After such good luck with lines on the ship, we were a bit spoiled but this line was nuts! We did get to experience some crazy dude yelling and cursing out another passenger while getting ready to go through the xray machine. Shon and I both thought we must have been on “Boiling Point” or “Punked” b/c that dude was tripping! Our flights were uneventful. We got home, took out our fleeces L and took a taxi from the airport home. We jumped on the scale…….reality kicked in………vacation is over. Do I dare tell the numbers? Why not! I was up 10 pounds!!!! Shon was up 17 pounds!!!! We have work to do! ( as I write this review, I have dropped 2 of the 10 and Shon (of course!) dropped 7 of his 17) This is way more than we have ever gained!!!!

MISC. NOTES:

WEATHER: We were a little worried b/c we did the Mexican Riviera route in January of 2007 and it was cold. Every day of our trip was sunny and hot this time. People warned us that the first sea day may be too cool to lay out in the sun but that was not the case this time. The last sea day was a little chilly though. Puerto Vallarta was HOT. The kind of hot that makes you want to run back inside. Matzatlan was pretty hot and humid, too. Cabo was Hot and Sunny but didn’t seem so heavy and humid.

SHIP ENTERTAINMENT: We thought the singers on this ship were excellent. There was a couple that sang in the lobby each evening who sounded just beautiful. Of course, we thought “Michael” near the casino bar was excellent. He sang very well but he also had an excellent grasp on how to include his audience. The calypso band near the pools made me so happy! I love it when they actually play calypso music from the carribean instead of classic rock songs. It just feels right to me. Ron in the piano bar always had a crowd. We couldn’t hang out in there b/c that was one smoky room!

We didn’t go to one formal show in the theater. We did catch the comedians though. And "Quest" Fun Fun Fun..it’s amazing what people will do! Lol.

CRUISECRITIC ROLL CALL: I cant comment enough on how great our roll call group was this time. There was no pressure to be around everyone all of the time but there was always someone to be around if you wanted to-if that makes sense. “Good boundaries” is what we call it in my professional field….fun cruisers is what we call it in vacation mode. J

Outside of our roll call group, we thought the other cruisers in general were just happy fun people this time. No grumbling and complaining to speak of. Almost everyone we met was very friendly.(we did hear some interesting stories about some lady running around slapping people, and a fight on an excursion but thankfully neither incident involved us).

CAPERS: I have them all but I cant scan them. I can look up info if anyone wants me too J

[shonandsuzie]

Oh Gosh....how could I forget to include Baby Man? Those of you who were on this sailing already know but for those of you who didn't... There was this dude dressed like a baby every day and night of the cruise. Baby bikini's at the pool, baby dresses at dinner (yes, even formal baby dresses for formal night!), he drank his drinks from a baby bottle..he was at the club dancing in baby outfits...everything. The story is that he lost a bet and in exchange for a couple thousand dollars, his friends had him dress this way and watched his every move. I don't know, he seemed to be enjoying it all a bit too much...:rolleyes: Anyhow, I can't finish my review without adding this picture of Baby Man:

 

I was too far away to get a good shot but that's him!:eek:

[MzOhioLady]

Suz - You did an excellent job on your review! I wish I was there. But thankfully I have one coming up in just One More Day!! YAY!!

[surfer_00]

fabulous! thank you so much for taking the time to write a great review with awesome pictures!!! i will be on the splendor in about a week. i cant wait considering i booked last november! again thank yuo sooooo much!!!

[Indiansbaseball]

Awesome Review !! You and your hubby look like great fun to cruise with. Thanks for taking the time out to post :)

 

Jen

[Litewait]

One question.. What did you think of the pink???

[shonandsuzie]

Awesome Review !! You and your hubby look like great fun to cruise with. Thanks for taking the time out to post :)

Jen

thanks!We are really fun!:p and easy to please.