Inspiration "Live" Review 2/29-3/4

[TomAceEsq]

My wife and I are currently cruising at 40,000' on our way to LAX to hop on the four day Catalina Island and Ensenada sailing via Carnival Inspiration 2.0! Had a 5:35 out of DEN which should put us at the gate in LAX by 7:30am local at the latest. I know, I know, flying day of out of Denver in literally the heart of winter? Hey, what can I say, we rolled the dice and got lucky this time around. We usually fly in day before. But, to each their own. :)

 

I've decided to do a live review in lieu of a "got questions" thread because I really think it'll help us discover more of what I hope to be a beautiful ship. This is our first sailing on a Carnival vessel. I was initially weary of booking this cruise since, although we're younger, we prefer an older and more experienced crowd. We do enjoy a rockin' party every once in a while, but we work really hard at our jobs, and mostly just enjoy hanging out with each other in peace and quiet during our free time. That said, we look forward to, hopefully, the best of both worlds on this trip.

 

So, that said, feel free to fire away any questions you might have or anything you might want a picture of, and I'll do my level best to make it happen as soon as possible!

 

Next update coming after we land, grab bags, and get an Uber to Long Beach. For now, I need to finish this tequila and orange juice I got for breakfast. It's never too early for an adult beverage when you're on vacation. :)

 

Edited February 29, 2016 by TomAceEsq

[Keith1010]

Look forward to you additional live posts.

 

Keith

[TomAceEsq]

Thanks, Keith! Looking forward to providing you and our fellow CC'ers some info.

[TomAceEsq]

Arrived at the port from LAX via Uber at 8:55. For anyone interested, the fare was $34.

 

We're currently first in line for FTTF check-in which should start at 9:30 according to the exceptionally staffed computer stations. There's 14 workers poised and ready to start check-in which happens directly outside the dome.

 

If you look closely, you can see the Queen Mary in the background behind the check-in counters.

 

Next update once we get onboard!

 

[KirkNC]

Look forward to your updates, have a great time.

[carterd2002]

Sounds like a cool itinerary - looking forward to your updates:)

[bonstersd]

Yes! Thank you Keith! Sailing on her again in April. Can't wait to see the new 2.0 additions. Will you please save and post the Fun Times? And thanks for the Uber info. I'm going to take an Uber from the Anaheim train station in April.

[MMPERRY2006]

Someone just posted Fun times from last week! I added the link below, I was looking for the kids schedule lol

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2322154&highlight=inspiration

[Clarea]

Looking forward to this.

[TomAceEsq]

Yes! Thank you Keith! Sailing on her again in April. Can't wait to see the new 2.0 additions. Will you please save and post the Fun Times? And thanks for the Uber info. I'm going to take an Uber from the Anaheim train station in April.

 

 

It's me doing the live review, but I can see where you mixed us up since I thanked him in my second post. Haha

 

And I'll be happy to take shots of the Monday Fun Times to post them after dinner along with a couple food pics. :)

[2011mom]

Thanks for posting - I'll be boarding on Friday when you are leaving, so I am really enjoying the preview!

[TomAceEsq]

My initial feelings on Long Beach is that it has a great looking set-up, but falls slightly short on the organized side of things.

 

After checking in right at 9:30, we were informed it would be at least two hours until we could board. No problem; we packed our patience, and Carnival guests get a free self-guided tour of the Queen Mary on the day they sail.

 

A side note on the Queen Mary...DEFINITELY see it if you get to Long Beach before noon. We're history buffs, and thoroughly enjoyed walking the decks of a historic ocean liner. It's a huge plus that it's only, at most, a quarter mile walk from the outside check-in stations. We could have killed quite a bit of time there, but decided to head back to the check-in area by 11 in case by some miracle they started boarding early.

 

I digress. They started boarding around 11:30 with a massive wedding party. The workers had separated FTTF from the rest of the priority guests, but once one worker started letting the suites and platinums in, everyone kind of pushed forward and the workers opened a que belt to let the rest of the us priorities get in as well. Like I said, it wasn't a model of organization, but we made it onboard by noon at the latest, and went straight to Lido to grab some food which was not bad whatsoever. Roast beef, grilled chicken, half a pizza from Pizza Pirate, and two soft serve cones later, here I am writing this update. :)

 

I'll see you guys again after our little M&M at Red Frog, sail away, and dinner. I'll post the Monday Fun Times then as well.

Edited February 29, 2016 by TomAceEsq

[TomAceEsq]

Out of 15 or so people on our roll call, only a few of us showed up to Red Frog. Shout out to XBatt8 and JordanZ for good times, and more good times to follow.

 

The bartenders at Red Frog respond to extra tipping quite well, by the way.

 

Muster in 10.

 

[Krazyhardrocker]

It looks like you are on the same itenerary as I am doing in June with Tue at Catalina, Wed at Ensenada and a sea day on Thur. I am wondering which night on that version of the Inspiration itenerary will be the "elegant" night in the dining room. Looking forward to the rest of your review and any info on the elegant evening would be appreciated.

[RNsoon2beNP]

Im excitedly following a long as well. :)

[SadieN]

It looks like you are on the same itenerary as I am doing in June with Tue at Catalina, Wed at Ensenada and a sea day on Thur. I am wondering which night on that version of the Inspiration itenerary will be the "elegant" night in the dining room. Looking forward to the rest of your review and any info on the elegant evening would be appreciated.

 

 

Catalina will be Elegant night.

[TomAceEsq]

Monday Fun Times

 

 

 

[bonstersd]

Thanks for posting the Fun Times! What's on the agenda today?

[TomAceEsq]

We've had an interesting last 16 hours, for sure. Let's start with sail away.

 

I've been on a couple other lines where sail away is a pretty big deal in the grand scheme of things, and they plan deck parties or sail away parties accordingly. Apparently, Carnival hasn't gotten this memo. It's probably our fault for assuming a "sail away party" would actually take place during sail away. Much to our chagrin, we noticed the party actually took place two full hours before sail away, and right before muster. No wonder we had a few obnoxiously drunk people in our station.

 

Muster relatively went off without a hitch. My biggest criticism of this process is that they make you meet in a lounge or other common area, go over safety stuff, then take all couple hundred or so of you, "line" you up, then everyone trudges up two decks to where we'll actually be entering the life boats. It's another one of those things, much like the queuing process at Long Beach, which feels unorganized and not very thought out by the beards.

 

After muster, we tried finding the sail away party that had already happened, even though we were just then departing Long Beach. For a "sold out" sailing, we've never seen the decks of a ship so abandoned. There were MAYBE 150-200 people around the ship actually experiencing sail away. Where the other 2000 people went, who knows? So we ended up just coming back to our room to grab a couple drinks from our Fun Store purchases, throw on our bathing suits, and hit Serenity for a relaxing soak. Let me remind everyone that it's only about 7pm at this point. There was three people back there. That's it. We we're pleasantly surprised, but also started wondering if this would be the M. O. of the entire cruise. I guess we'll see.

 

Upon returning to our room, all we wanted to do was shower up and hit the sack. By this point we had been up since 2:30am mountain time, and it was pushing 8:30pm ship time. Wife starts the shower and, guess what, no COLD water. Even if we only turned on the cold water, scalding hot water would come out. This apparently was only happening to us somehow, and I was growing more and more frustrated by the minute. Multiple people were entering our stateroom but no one could give us answers on a time frame it could be resolved.

 

9:30 rolls around with no resolution in sight, so we go to Guest Services to see what's up. They also could not give us a timeline, so we inquired about being moved, downgraded even, just to get some sweet, sweet sleep. They were willing to move us to a similar room, which we happily accepted, but by the time we finished repacking and were about to walk out, the plumber said it was fixed. It was 11pm by this time, and we literally didn't have the strength to move us and our stuff, so we opted to stay in our original room.

 

We haven't inquired about anything, nor will we most likely, but no compensation was offered, not even a bottle of wine or strawberries. It's possible we could be surprised with it after our day in Catalina, but we'll see. Royal set my bar pretty high in customer service since they're so good at making things right. That said, maybe I'm holding Carnival to too high a standard?

 

Our plan today is to lazily check out Catalina for a couple hours and hop back on the ship for a nap so we can possibly experience some fun after dinner this time around. I'm chalking yesterday's lack of nightlife and party atmosphere to the passengers being tired from the not-so-organized embarkation process.

 

Sorry for the lack of food ****, or other pictures with this update. I left my phone in the room during these escapades last evening. :)

[bonstersd]

Enjoy your day in Catalina!

[TomAceEsq]

Catalina Island was fun. We just walked around and bought a magnet for the fridge. The highlight of our short trip was finding a brewery on the island.

 

Long story short, I once owned a restaurant with aspirations to turn it into a brewpub, but the federal government thought otherwise.

 

We were pleasantly surprised by this discovery, and had a few of their house beers which were VERY good. I spent about 20 minutes with the brewer, Eric, talking about water profiles, hops, and recipes. He's a great guy and very personable. I highly recommend anyone that's into beer and/or brewing visit Catalina Brew House.

 

We're currently on the tender waiting to get back to hopefully a fairly empty ship so we can take advantage of Guy's Burgers.

 

 

 

[MMPERRY2006]

Thanks for the suggestion, I like how you think! Hope you find some yummy treat in your room from all the shower issues.

 

Request - Kids schedule for a 7yo upload please?

Edited March 2, 2016 by MMPERRY2006
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[TomAceEsq]

Thanks for the suggestion, I like how you think! Hope you find some yummy treat in your room from all the shower issues.

 

Request - Kids schedule for a 7yo upload please?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ccw2891]

Thanks so much for this live review. I have been checking daily on info regarding this sailing...We leave the end of May and can't wait....

 

Thanks for the Uber info ... I really needed that, were they cool with you having suitcases? We have 2 standard bags, + carryons. I figure they know there picking up from the airport so that's kind of a given.

 

You enjoy the rest of your trip, how's the weather? Warm enough for swimming and lounging by the pool?...Looking forward to hearing about Guys burgers, the food in the MDR, and things to do in Ensenada.

 

Thanks again your so helpful

Edited March 2, 2016 by ccw2891

[Krazyhardrocker]

Thanks for the review so far. I would love to see the Tuesday Fun Times and hear about Elegant night in the dining room (if you ate there last night).