Quicky Splendor Review

[Ronnie3750]

Just off the Splendor - and we met with good and bad - overall the good won out to give us a great week.

Good: Balcony spa stateroom on Panorama deck. We loved the spa's thermal offerings and used the spa every day. So handy just to go up the private elevator. DW said her Thai massage was one of the best massages ever. Also enjoyed the Elemis toiletries and purchased some from the spa.

 

Bad: Our dining room waiter and assistant waiter were simply inept. The first night was chaos - food mixups, trying to give my salad dressing to my wife, even though her Caesar was already dressed and would not have benefited with the addition of balsamic. Later in the week we found out they should also have grated fresh parmesan. One piece of bread each. Never to return. Waited 40 minutes between salad and entree. Absolutely no knowledge of the menu - What is the fatoush salad? "Uh, it has mixed lettuce." That was the answer. Does this soup have dairy in it? "I don't know." Is it creamy? "Yes" 2nd night, my son waited for his baked potato fixings, which we asked for twice. Finally the assistant came with sour cream. As he cut his potato open, the Asst waiter just walked off without a word. Now, we are not demanding, but I did speak up about that. Ordered dessert and coffee. Dessert came. Mentioned that we also ordered coffee. Finished desserts. Mentioned we ordered coffee. Cups came. Twenty minutes later, still no coffee. Assistant waiter said he forgot.... Things improved over the week, but this was just not the level of dining room service we've had on any other cruise. A number of other people we talked to said the same. We did see other tables getting what seemed to be excellent service. I know they no doubt had many new staff on startup, but they also had many weeks to give some training.

 

Good: Most of the food we ordered was very good. We were all very happy with its quality and presentation. Quantities varied - some dishes were quite small servings; others were huge.

 

Good: The stage shows. Stylish productions, excellent male and female lead vocalists, great dancers. We enjoyed each of the three comedians we saw in the Spectacular showroom - genuinely humorous and entertaining. We are early-to-bedders, so didn't go to any other comedy shows, but we heard positive comments from others. The jazz band was top notch. And a plus is offering free drinks to all at the farewell party.

 

Bad: I actually spoke to customer service about this one. On a number of occasions we were cut off by staff and a couple of times even bumped by them. I couldn't believe when I was walking down the corridor and I was motioned to get out of the way of an approaching crew member. Some basic customer service training needs to be done here. I must say MOST crew were very good, but it is the few irritating experiences that can stand out.

 

Bad: Cutting 2 hours off our Puerto Vallarta stay to make it to Cabo rather than Mazatlan. Why not arrive a little later in Cabo so PV could be enjoyed to its fullest. Then tendering at Cabo, the first unplanned day was a horror story, waiting hours to get off and then hours to get back. Even the second planned day, lineups to return to the ship sometimes reached more than an hour.

 

Good: Our room steward Gabriel was absolutely the best we've ever had. Always a smile and clearly enjoyed his work and interacting with his passengers.

 

Good: Our disembarkation - off by 10:45. Can't believe the others were so delayed. Painful.

 

This was our first Carnival cruise and we are very pleasantly surprised by the experience. I'm sure with the complaints they received, dining room staff will certainly be forced to quickly improve. Other passengers said this was not the service that had come to expect from Carnival. And the pleasure of the Cloud 9 spa really sold us.

[MDavis23]

If you did not have a spa room, would you feel the spa amenities would be worth purchasing? Was the muster drill before you departed? Thank you for taking the time to post.

[kath00]

Thanks so much. Any thoughts on how crowded the pools felt? Also, did they ever close the retractable roof (especially as you left and approached LA and got cooler)?

 

I heard there were a LOT of children on this sailing... Were they very visible or off doing their own thing? Also, did you have any kids club experiences?

 

Thanks for your quicky review...

 

Katherine

[Jolimont]

Outside of the US (and possibly Canada) you do not get coffee with dessert, you get it afterwards. In France we ask for coffee WITH dessert all the time, explain that we like it at the same time. Does it happen? Usually not.

[BlendedFamily]

Just off the Splendor - and we met with good and bad - overall the good won out to give us a great week.

Good: Balcony spa stateroom on Panorama deck. We loved the spa's thermal offerings and used the spa every day. So handy just to go up the private elevator. DW said her Thai massage was one of the best massages ever. Also enjoyed the Elemis toiletries and purchased some from the spa.

 

Bad: Our dining room waiter and assistant waiter were simply inept. The first night was chaos - food mixups, trying to give my salad dressing to my wife, even though her Caesar was already dressed and would not have benefited with the addition of balsamic. Later in the week we found out they should also have grated fresh parmesan. One piece of bread each. Never to return. Waited 40 minutes between salad and entree. Absolutely no knowledge of the menu - What is the fatoush salad? "Uh, it has mixed lettuce." That was the answer. Does this soup have dairy in it? "I don't know." Is it creamy? "Yes" 2nd night, my son waited for his baked potato fixings, which we asked for twice. Finally the assistant came with sour cream. As he cut his potato open, the Asst waiter just walked off without a word. Now, we are not demanding, but I did speak up about that. Ordered dessert and coffee. Dessert came. Mentioned that we also ordered coffee. Finished desserts. Mentioned we ordered coffee. Cups came. Twenty minutes later, still no coffee. Assistant waiter said he forgot.... Things improved over the week, but this was just not the level of dining room service we've had on any other cruise. A number of other people we talked to said the same. We did see other tables getting what seemed to be excellent service. I know they no doubt had many new staff on startup, but they also had many weeks to give some training.

 

Good: Most of the food we ordered was very good. We were all very happy with its quality and presentation. Quantities varied - some dishes were quite small servings; others were huge.

 

Good: The stage shows. Stylish productions, excellent male and female lead vocalists, great dancers. We enjoyed each of the three comedians we saw in the Spectacular showroom - genuinely humorous and entertaining. We are early-to-bedders, so didn't go to any other comedy shows, but we heard positive comments from others. The jazz band was top notch. And a plus is offering free drinks to all at the farewell party.

 

Bad: I actually spoke to customer service about this one. On a number of occasions we were cut off by staff and a couple of times even bumped by them. I couldn't believe when I was walking down the corridor and I was motioned to get out of the way of an approaching crew member. Some basic customer service training needs to be done here. I must say MOST crew were very good, but it is the few irritating experiences that can stand out.

 

Bad: Cutting 2 hours off our Puerto Vallarta stay to make it to Cabo rather than Mazatlan. Why not arrive a little later in Cabo so PV could be enjoyed to its fullest. Then tendering at Cabo, the first unplanned day was a horror story, waiting hours to get off and then hours to get back. Even the second planned day, lineups to return to the ship sometimes reached more than an hour.

 

Good: Our room steward Gabriel was absolutely the best we've ever had. Always a smile and clearly enjoyed his work and interacting with his passengers.

 

Good: Our disembarkation - off by 10:45. Can't believe the others were so delayed. Painful.

 

This was our first Carnival cruise and we are very pleasantly surprised by the experience. I'm sure with the complaints they received, dining room staff will certainly be forced to quickly improve. Other passengers said this was not the service that had come to expect from Carnival. And the pleasure of the Cloud 9 spa really sold us.

 

I've already posted my own review, so I'm curious to ask you a few questions based on your review. It was our first cruise of any kind.

 

1) Sorry for your dining experience. what room were you in and which seating? We were in the black pearl, early seating, and had FANTASTIC service every night we were in the dining room. Our wait staff was knowledgeable, quick, and very entertaining. They got big tips at the end. By the end of the cruise they knew exactly what desserts we wanted, and even offered coffee to us based on our previous orders.

 

2) I missed the jazz band... arg... would have liked to have seen them. but with four kids it was tough to do everything. The sheer variety of activities offered on the Splendor should make anyone happy. There's such a wide range of choices, if you end up bored then it's your own damned fault! :-)

 

3) The Cabo thing didn't bother me as I'd never been to the Mexican Riviera at all so that was ok. I do agree the tendering process in CABO was a pain in the ass, especially the first day. There was a HUGE gap on the first day. if you had #s 1-20 you were good. We had 26, and it took a whole hour or more to get from 20 just to 22.... We barely had enough time to walk off, do some shopping and get back in line. The lines both days to get back on were long, but the 2nd day seemed to go faster since we weren't sharing as many tenders with other boats. CLEARLY Cabo needs to build a dock or two... but maybe there's something I don't know about which prohibits this.

 

Overall it was excellent and our kids had a great time... so did we. There are things we would do differently next time... but we chalked our first one up to learning experience. I would GLADLY sail the Splendor again.

 

As for the number of kids... from what I know talking to other people, there were no more or less kids than any other ship... parents take their kids out of school no matter what time of year. Ours just happened to be on their mid-winter break and weren't missing school.

[LBumb]

thanks for posting

[steveholtam]

Thanks so much. Any thoughts on how crowded the pools felt? Also, did they ever close the retractable roof (especially as you left and approached LA and got cooler)?

 

I heard there were a LOT of children on this sailing... Were they very visible or off doing their own thing? Also, did you have any kids club experiences?

 

Thanks for your quicky review...

 

Katherine

 

The pools were never crowed as fas as I saw. They did close the roof on the last sea day like normal. But it was raining anyway. They should have closed it the night before during the deck party actually.

 

The number of children was average. Visibile sometimes, and not at others. The typical roaming packs... My daughter, 10, did some of the club carnival stuff and had fun. Her favorite was the late night party till 3:30 AM! She loved it!!!

[Haoie]

That's interesting. Any thoughts on skipping Maza?

[SMSACE6]

Thanks for the review. Sorry about the things that werent so great, and yes I too would have been disappointed with that sort of dining room experience. But Im glad that it wasnt all bad, and still lots that you enjoyed about your cruise. Thanks again for sharing your experience.:)

[MikeM]

Bad: Our dining room waiter and assistant waiter were simply inept. The first night was chaos - food mixups, trying to give my salad dressing to my wife, even though her Caesar was already dressed and would not have benefited with the addition of balsamic. Later in the week we found out they should also have grated fresh parmesan. One piece of bread each. Never to return. Waited 40 minutes between salad and entree. Absolutely no knowledge of the menu - What is the fatoush salad? "Uh, it has mixed lettuce." That was the answer. Does this soup have dairy in it? "I don't know." Is it creamy? "Yes" 2nd night, my son waited for his baked potato fixings, which we asked for twice. Finally the assistant came with sour cream. As he cut his potato open, the Asst waiter just walked off without a word. Now, we are not demanding, but I did speak up about that. Ordered dessert and coffee. Dessert came. Mentioned that we also ordered coffee. Finished desserts. Mentioned we ordered coffee. Cups came. Twenty minutes later, still no coffee. Assistant waiter said he forgot.... Things improved over the week, but this was just not the level of dining room service we've had on any other cruise. A number of other people we talked to said the same. We did see other tables getting what seemed to be excellent service. I know they no doubt had many new staff on startup, but they also had many weeks to give some training.

My wife and I had the same type of problems on just one cruise. We immediately reported the entire situation to the Maître d. Next evening we had a new crew and great service.

[luvyoucarnival]

Thanks so much. Any thoughts on how crowded the pools felt? Also, did they ever close the retractable roof (especially as you left and approached LA and got cooler)?

 

I heard there were a LOT of children on this sailing... Were they very visible or off doing their own thing? Also, did you have any kids club experiences?

 

Thanks for your quicky review...

 

Katherine

A lot of kids on this cruise all very visible. i have been on cruises that you rarely got to see any kids even knowing they were there. So much fun to see them all dressed up on eligent nights. Most very very good but there where some that mom & dad were ignoring that were a pain. In the buffet we had 5 children climbing in front of us as we were trying to watch out of the window, they climbed up against the glass then up on our table as mom & dad enjoyed their lunch 40 feet away. But most of the kids were excellent and very nice to see them around the ship.

[douggw]

Home one day now from the Splendor and back to the 'rut' of making our own meals and eating ramen and cleaning up after ourselves!

 

This was wife and I 9th cruise and 5th on Carnival, so we knew what to expect from a Carnival cruise.

 

Took the family of 6 (four kids, 17, 16, 11, 9) mainly because it was cheaper than going to Disneyland. It was a fantastic cruise. How can a cruise be bad? It's all attitude I think. Sure there were things that could have been done better, but just a few:

 

I booked this cruise 14 months ago, and we were originally scheduled to go on the cruise Jan 16 but it got canceled, and we rebooked for Feb 20. I also had my brother and family, sister and family, and my parents, total 22 people, 14 of which were kids. We originally had the early seating confirmed, but due to the rebooking, we were told that all rebooks were 'waitlisted' and the actual seating time would be determined the day of sailing.

 

Of course, we got late seating, which is not conducive at all with kids. For one, it's no fun getting done with dinner at 10pm when you had kids. Second, all the family activities, orientations and shows were done during our dinner time. And if we did want to take the kids to any main shows, it was 10:30 at night.

 

On our other cruises, the people with late seating went to their main shows when the 1st seating was eating dinner, so you were not waiting until 10:30 to go the main show.

 

We went and spoke to the Maiter'D but of course there was nothing they could do since the ship was full to capacity. We couldn't even get them to move my family of 6 to an earlier meal time. Again we were told that those who had to rebook were all on the late seating, which was not true because another group of 4 that I know booked two months before the cruise, ended up in early dining.

 

Seems that when they were figuring everything out, they should give preference to those with kids to eat early. Anyhow, some of the nights our entire group missed out on the dining experience because it was just so late.

 

The band on the Lido deck by the main pool was good, but they only knew about 6 songs and repeated them day after day after day.

 

As was reported earlier, the Cabo tenders were horrible. It took us almost two hours to get off the ship (both days) and we had mid-20's tickets (i saw others with 50!) and getting back was worse! The 2nd day we waiting in line for an hour and half to get back to the ship. The other ships in port (Disney, Holland America) had no lines, so I know it was not because the pier was crowded. Just seemed like Carnival didn't have enough tenders running, and those that were running, were very small.

 

Disembarking was just as delayed and long. I wish we would have been told what was happening.

 

BUT, overall, the cruise was fantastic. The mac/cheese in the rotisserie was excellent. All the baked potatoes (buffet, rotisserie, dining room) were always hard and dry. We used the rotisserie area as our groups meeting place to play games, as there was never anyone up there. The deli sandwiches were fantastic. So good for lunch. Just wish they had potato chips to go with it. They have chips for room service though I noticed.

 

Felipe was amazing! He was awesome and we loved having has as the CD. Fantastic job!

 

Dining room wait staff and cabin stewards were fantastic as well.

 

I talked to a staff member from Camp Carnival and was told that there were 700 kids under the age of 18 on board that week. There were a lot of kids, but as the week went on, there were less and less at the Camp Carnival activities. My kids stopped going mid week as they said they were bored. The pools were crowded, but of course they are going to be. The pools are not very big, and most of people in the pool were kids.

 

Water slide and spray park close at 5pm, not sure why, and three days it was closed even earlier. My kids were shooed out of the play park at 4:45 one day.

 

Sure there were things that could have been done better, but it was a great vacation and we all had a great time. Much better than staying home and going to work/school, right?

[Ronnie3750]

If you did not have a spa room, would you feel the spa amenities would be worth purchasing? Was the muster drill before you departed? Thank you for taking the time to post.

We discussed that if we can't get a spa cabin if we sail Splendor again, we would buy a week's spa pass - we used it and enjoyed it that much. That is not to say everyone would enjoy it as much as we did.

Muster drill was on Deck 4 before setting sail.

[Ronnie3750]

Thanks so much. Any thoughts on how crowded the pools felt? Also, did they ever close the retractable roof (especially as you left and approached LA and got cooler)?

 

I heard there were a LOT of children on this sailing... Were they very visible or off doing their own thing? Also, did you have any kids club experiences?

 

Thanks for your quicky review...

 

Katherine

 

The pools were quite busy - when the weather was warm. Hot tubs were usually full. The roof was closed the last night because of rain.

There were many kids on board, but we had no bad experiences - most were well behaved. We saw no tearing around. We have no young kids, so have no experience with the Splendor's kids' programs.

[MDavis23]

Thanks for responding. :)

[Ronnie3750]

I've already posted my own review, so I'm curious to ask you a few questions based on your review. It was our first cruise of any kind.

 

1) Sorry for your dining experience. what room were you in and which seating? We were in the black pearl, early seating, and had FANTASTIC service every night we were in the dining room. Our wait staff was knowledgeable, quick, and very entertaining. They got big tips at the end. By the end of the cruise they knew exactly what desserts we wanted, and even offered coffee to us based on our previous orders.

 

2) I missed the jazz band... arg... would have liked to have seen them. but with four kids it was tough to do everything. The sheer variety of activities offered on the Splendor should make anyone happy. There's such a wide range of choices, if you end up bored then it's your own damned fault! :-)

 

3) The Cabo thing didn't bother me as I'd never been to the Mexican Riviera at all so that was ok. I do agree the tendering process in CABO was a pain in the ass, especially the first day. There was a HUGE gap on the first day. if you had #s 1-20 you were good. We had 26, and it took a whole hour or more to get from 20 just to 22.... We barely had enough time to walk off, do some shopping and get back in line. The lines both days to get back on were long, but the 2nd day seemed to go faster since we weren't sharing as many tenders with other boats. CLEARLY Cabo needs to build a dock or two... but maybe there's something I don't know about which prohibits this.

 

Overall it was excellent and our kids had a great time... so did we. There are things we would do differently next time... but we chalked our first one up to learning experience. I would GLADLY sail the Splendor again.

 

As for the number of kids... from what I know talking to other people, there were no more or less kids than any other ship... parents take their kids out of school no matter what time of year. Ours just happened to be on their mid-winter break and weren't missing school.

 

 

We were Black Pearl lower level, late seating. By night 3 our food was coming well paced, and we were offered bread at least three times during the meal, but our waiters anticipated very little. I don't think they had any training and they certainly weren't naturals. There were no little extras to make the experience beyond ordinary. Other cruises, the waiters either brought our "usuals" automatically or asked if that was what we wanted. On our last cruise, our granddaughter really enjoyed the fish tapenade offered the first night. The last night, the waiter had two orders made especially for her. Now that is what makes the experience special.

So happy you had a great experience.