Legend Review May 7 - 14th

[Honeyroastedmelnut]

Disembarkation was pretty easy and uneventful. We set our luggage out the night before and were in zone 18. We were finally off the ship and through customs around 10-something. We called the Holiday Inn Express to let them know to come and pick us up. Our shuttle was on of the last to arrive (it probably made a bunch of trips before us since we had a high disembarkation numbers). There were 9 others waiting for the shuttle so we had to wait for another as it only fits 10 people at a time. No biggie.

All told we made it back home (about an 4.5 hour drive home) around 3:30. So then back to reality.

 

Overall we really enjoyed the cruise. Yes it had some disappointments but nothing that ruined the vacation and there were a lot more enjoyable moments than unejoyable. I'm hoping that we will be able to take a 5 day cruise in the near future so that we can finally go on the sub trip.

 

Our cabin steward was Fernandes Justino. He was great. Every time we ran into him in the hall he was very personable and asked how our day/night was going. He did a good job with the cabin. Seems like everytime we came back to the room it was made up or turned down.

 

The cruise director, Wee Jimmy was quite funny. I felt he struck a good balance between being funny and informative without constantly being on the PA system.

 

The major lessoned learned is that prior to leaving home for the vacation to contact all of the private excursion people to make sure everything is still good to go. I'm sure 99% of the time things work just perfectly when making reservations. But it sure stinks when you are the 1% that has issues.

 

I really thought I would have spent tons of time in the hot tubs and the suanas. Even though I never used them I had a great time. Same thing with the dance club. Only entered it once on the last night. It was empty to we moved on.

 

Next time, especially if a 7 day cruise, I'll buy and bring more shorts. I only own 2 pair and a skort ... could have used more. I maybe one of the few who felt they needed to pack more clothes!

 

Even if your cruise is in the late spring/summer, I recommend packing a hoodie or lightweight jacket. I found the lounges to be a little chilly and was really glad I had my hoodie with me.

 

Not really cruise related but if you have a large amount of digital photos you want printed, I would advise against using Wal-Mart. It took 8.5 hours for their 1 hour photo department to print my pictures and even then they used the wrong size paper. I now have to manually trip 500+ pictures. When I submitted the pictures online they gave me a 5 hour turn around time, which I was fine with becuase I knew how many pictures I sent to be printed. When I went to pick them up at the scheduled time, I was told to come back in 1 hour. So I left ran another errand and came back as instructed. I then waited in their photo section for the next 2.5 hours. The employees were very annoyed at my presence (I didn't care) and repeatedly showed that they didn't have a clue on how to work the printer. Again and again was told that my pictures would be out soon. Wal-mart made the mistake of sending me a customer satisfaction survey a few days back. While I had no intention to complaining to the store manager (was just going to never go back to Walmart for picture printing), I had no problem accepting their survey and telling them exactly what happened. I only did the more expensive 1 hour processing and not the option where they mail the pictures to you home becuase I had planned on using Monday (which I had off) to put together my photo album when I went back to work on Tuesday. As of today, I still have photo trimming left to do before I can even start putting together the album.

[shannonrt3]

Thanks for the Great Review. We will be taking this same Cruise December 11th.

[tandemcruzr]

Thanks for the review. Legend has been our favorite ship and Costa Maya and Cozumel our favorite ports.

[cruisinsly]

Great review and awesome pictures. Thanks for posting. What an ordeal in GC!! Glad they did the right thing and finally provided good customer service for you.

[marshhawk]

Thanks so much for the review. We sailed on the Legend last year. and loved eveery minute of it. It was our honeymoon cruise, we had a great roll call and I met my BFF on that cruise,.

We did do the sub in Grand Cayman, booked through Carnival. It was fantastic-so book that 5 day out of Tampa! The sub was more than half empty, and once we settled the weight distribution, we were allowed to move left and right as things appeared in the windows. But in reality probably saw the same amount of fish as you did when snorkling in Roatan.

Roatan was our bummer, because we were supposed to dock at Mahognay Bay, it would have been the 4th week of ships there, but the sand bar rebuilt itself, and the Legend could not get in, so we had to back it up and dock at the old port. Money was short by that time,we had no excursion planned and we ended up staying on the ship. I swam in the pool all day by myself.:p Got off the ship and bought real coffee. listened to a band on land, and browsed some high ended jewelry store.

We were talking the other day about next years cruise, and decided to go back on the Legend for our anniversary. Your review came at the right time. Hubby has chosen the Altun Ha excursion for Belize(we did Goff's Caye last time)

we will love any beach in Roatan(since we sort of missed that) Grand Cayman we will do the beach, since we missed that(but did the sub) and in Cozumel-maybe we will do the Isla Passion via catamaran. ( I did Discover Mexico and shopping tour..DH did scuaba)

I loved the Bing Cherry soup! on Carnival. Will have to try the strawberry bisque .

Thanks again, and loved your pics, will ahve to back over them with DH.

[Honeyroastedmelnut]

Thanks so much for the review. We sailed on the Legend last year. and loved eveery minute of it. It was our honeymoon cruise, we had a great roll call and I met my BFF on that cruise,.

 

We did do the sub in Grand Cayman, booked through Carnival. It was fantastic-so book that 5 day out of Tampa! The sub was more than half empty, and once we settled the weight distribution, we were allowed to move left and right as things appeared in the windows. But in reality probably saw the same amount of fish as you did when snorkling in Roatan.

 

Roatan was our bummer, because we were supposed to dock at Mahognay Bay, it would have been the 4th week of ships there, but the sand bar rebuilt itself, and the Legend could not get in, so we had to back it up and dock at the old port. Money was short by that time,we had no excursion planned and we ended up staying on the ship. I swam in the pool all day by myself.:p Got off the ship and bought real coffee. listened to a band on land, and browsed some high ended jewelry store.

 

We were talking the other day about next years cruise, and decided to go back on the Legend for our anniversary. Your review came at the right time. Hubby has chosen the Altun Ha excursion for Belize(we did Goff's Caye last time)

we will love any beach in Roatan(since we sort of missed that) Grand Cayman we will do the beach, since we missed that(but did the sub) and in Cozumel-maybe we will do the Isla Passion via catamaran. ( I did Discover Mexico and shopping tour..DH did scuaba)

 

I loved the Bing Cherry soup! on Carnival. Will have to try the strawberry bisque .

Thanks again, and loved your pics, will ahve to back over them with DH.

 

If you make it back to Roatan, I highly recommend going to Tabyana beach versus the one at the pier. This was by far the best snorkeling I have ever experienced and the beach itself was gorgeous.

[ciship]

DH and I LOVED Roatan!!! Wow is/was that an awesome port of call. Too bad this stop allows for the shortest amount of time ashore.

 

This was the only morning I was up, dressed, and outside for the sunrise. It was quite beautiful to see the sun come up over the mountains.

 

 

While I missed it when the Legend did the manuaver to turn around, it was quite neat to see her back up into the port. Although I must admit this also was the only time I went outside to watch her dock. For those non-balcony traveler, the views from the Sun Deck (deck 10) were quite nice.

 

For Roatan we booked the Tabyana Beach break. I debated booking independantly with Bananarama which is essentially at the same beach. I decided on the Carnival excursion for 2 reason: 1. Bad information in an information request where Carnival told me snorkel gear was included in the price (it isn't and this made the Carnival excursion look roughly the same price as the independant). 2. I didn't like the posted cancellation policy on the independants website. They charged a $50 cancellation fee ... this was most likely for those booking rooms or diving packages and not the cruise people but none-the-less I decided against them.

 

Hands down this was the best snorkeling I have ever experienced. The water was crystal clear. No waves. Tons and tons of tropical fish to see.

If you have never snorkeled before I can think of no better place to get your feet wet. DH has had problems in the past snorkeling (panicky breathing issue with the snorkel) but he finally mastered it and really really enjoyed himself. We brought 4 disposable underwater cameras which I thought was borderline overkill ... we could have used more!

 

 

Seriously for those looking for a great reef this is it. Very easy swim out to the reef. There are guys stationed in various locations in sea kayaks to keep an eye out on the swimmers. The depth was so nice that a person just floating on top of the water could see as much as those diving the reef. For the more adventurous/experience snorklers, very easy free diving (like 20 feet) to get down at the divers level.

 

I had heard reports of the sea trek dive helmet people being along the beach to rent their gear. Didn't see them. The snuba people were there and for I think $25-30 you could rent the snuba gear which is essentially dive gear that floats on the surface and doesn't require dive certification. In preparing for the cruise, I really thought I was going to rent the dive helmets. I'm almost glad they weren't there. The water/reef was so wonderful for snorkeling that I don't think the divers or people renting the snuba gear saw anything I could see view surface swimming or free-diving.

 

 

Now at one point I did get pretty far out and quite a bit from the nearest swimmer. So of course at that point in time the Jaws theme starts playing in my head. So I swam back to where most of the other swimmers were.

 

 

We then headed back to the port area for about an hour of shopping before having to be back on board. Like Belize, Roatan had some very nice wood carvings and items made out of wood. Picked up a beautiful cutting board (a souvenier that I would actually use and not just collect dust) and some pearl earrings.

 

Tonight at dinner was the only time we were seated with others. It was nice talking to them but the timing was way off. We were seated after they had already eaten their appetizers and were waiting for their main dishes to arrive. It seemed like one of us was eating while the other was waiting to eat. A lovely couple just a little awkward. Becuase we wanted to chat with the dinner companions, neither DH nor myself really looked over the menu. We both ordered the cold asparagus soup. Now, had I been paying attention I wouldn't have ordered that. In my opinion asparagus is fabulous when cooked right and served hot but just down right nasty when cold. Neither one of us ate more than a couple bites of the soup. For the main dish, DH ordered the veal parmigiana and like it. I ordered the filet mignon and the short rib confit. Probably should have ordered the red snapper. I am quite picky about cuts of meat. The filet part of the meal was delicious. It came out a perfect medium-rare. The short rib part is frankly a cut of meat that no matter how great the cheif is, I normally don't like due to the texture. DH didn't mind though ... he happy ate my rejected beef. For dessert, I once again chose the WCMC and DH ordered the apple pie.

 

Dinner was also the other cruise elegant night. While people still dressed appropriately it wasn't a dressy as the first one. We followed the same trend with me in a cocktail dress and DH in a nice sports coat instead of his suit. For the first timers out there, the picture backdrops change and a different set of backdrops are used. I was able to get DH to agree to take more pictures since the lines were much shorter but most of them were not very good.

 

For the evenings entertainment we watched the Big Easy. A wonderful production. For the parents out there, I do agree with the PG rating. The costuming wasn't bad but the dancing was a little suggestive so it may not be appropriate for the under 10 crowd. I'm not a prude but I understand that parents may want to keep their kids from seeing things they are not yet mature enough to handle.

 

After that we went to the comedy club. I believe that night we saw Joe Bronzi. Ugh, horrible. Almost his entire routine was heckling the crowd. Not funny at all and it wasn't even good or clever heckling.

 

If you had to choose again, would you still go with the Carnival tour? Was it crowded? How long did it take to get to the beach? Were you transported by boat or car? Was there food there or a bar or anything?

[cruising3times]

Fantastic detailed review, thanks for taking the time to write it. We were on this cruise 12/09 and we are going on it again in Jan.

[micro yaya]

another tallahassee lassie, we were on the dream and missed roatan, and have a granddaughter getting married in orlando in december so we are thinking about the legend. you really made up our mind for us. we will try her out. we have stayed at the hie in rockey point before, and loved it too. clean, and the shuttle took us to the mall for the afternoon, we called for a pick up and they were there in maybe 10 minutes. naturally we are noles to die for, but we can always get good advice from the gators thanks for such a great review:)

[Honeyroastedmelnut]

another tallahassee lassie, we were on the dream and missed roatan, and have a granddaughter getting married in orlando in december so we are thinking about the legend. you really made up our mind for us. we will try her out. we have stayed at the hie in rockey point before, and loved it too. clean, and the shuttle took us to the mall for the afternoon, we called for a pick up and they were there in maybe 10 minutes. naturally we are noles to die for, but we can always get good advice from the gators thanks for such a great review:)

 

DH is a 'Nole. Besides living in 'Nole country has tamed me a bit :p

[Honeyroastedmelnut]

If you had to choose again, would you still go with the Carnival tour? Was it crowded? How long did it take to get to the beach? Were you transported by boat or car? Was there food there or a bar or anything?

 

I am going again!! Just booked the Glory which has the same ports. Will be looking forward to the Tabyana beach break. The van ride took about 30 minutes each way. The beach was not crowded at all but we were the only ship in port. They had free water and lemonade available. There was a bar there but I don't know if they served food.

 

If you go there do not rent the snorkeling gear from the building they direct you to. For $10 you can rent stuff from a guy on the beach ($5 or 50% cheaper than the prices in the building)

[stewiecruiser]

I am going again!! Just booked the Glory which has the same ports. Will be looking forward to the Tabyana beach break. The van ride took about 30 minutes each way. The beach was not crowded at all but we were the only ship in port. They had free water and lemonade available. There was a bar there but I don't know if they served food.

 

If you go there do not rent the snorkeling gear from the building they direct you to. For $10 you can rent stuff from a guy on the beach ($5 or 50% cheaper than the prices in the building)

 

 

Are there changing rooms / clean bathrooms at Tabyana ? I did read somwhere that there were lockers for rent.