1st cruise on Carnival..the Legend. 12/29 New Years Cruise reviews?

[surfone]

We will be sailing on Carnival for the first time. The Legend out of Tampa and will be over New Years (leaves 12/29). Do the cruise lines do anything special for New Years Eves? I do wonder also about why the cost of this cruise is so much less than the others going out the same week.

[fragilek]

We did this cruise last year at new year, it was our first ever cruise and we weren't sure if we would enjoy cruises and even less sure if we would enjoy carnival (we are not game show/pool games type people). But booked as we thought that carnival suited our 2 older teens best and went to the ports we wanted. Well to answer that question, we are now booked to do a 2nd cruise and guess what its' with carnival and its just for DH and myself- We decided after our 1st cruise that the ports of call mean more to us than the cruise line (the legend ports of Belize and Roatan were amazing and we got to see my new born niece in the Cayman :). We are still not a fan of the games stuff/ contests but the boats big enough for all sorts of passengers to enjoy all different sorts of stuff.

 

We found the MDR food was pretty good- not fine dinning but we knew that before we booked. The shows were mixed 2 were good one was OK and the first one was dire (intro one) we nearly didn't go back after that one but were so glad we did. The comedy club was pretty good all of us enjoyed it (family show one did not do the adult one). A good band played in the jaz club but we only got to see it once as eldest was nearly 20yr and struggled to fit in any age category on the ship - as at home she is an adult living in her own flat at uni (for the last 2 yrs) but in the US/ ship was sort of treated as a child- not a big issue but did mean we went back to the room at night early than we would have. I would say a cruise probably doesn't suit 19 and 20 yr olds as far as night time entertainment goes but she still really enjoyed the rest of it. The 16 yr old had a ball (but we were strict on what she was allowed to do and were amazed as to how unsupervised most of this age were on the ship - they were allowed to go back and forwards to their rooms at all hrs of day and night :eek: and didn't seem to have much contact with their parents throughout the trip - ours do all meals, shows and excursions with us some even ate alone at the buffet so that they could go back to the club ).

 

I did a review (well part of one) when we got back if you want to read it.

 

One other point was that we had read on here that the elegant nights are not over dressy - they were definitely black tie and evening wear for the new year cruise.