Carnival Fascination October 5th review

[Mabks0412]

So I've been reading reviews for sometime now and I've really been inspired to share my review with everyone. Obviously it's a bit delayed since it's from October 2015, but I hope you will all still enjoy it. :D

[Mabks0412]

Hey everyone! I was recently (well sorta recently) on the Fascination and I’ve always put my reviews on my own personal travel blog. So I thought maybe you all will enjoy my review here. :)

 

A little about myself (and the new husband, James). We just recently moved from Maryland to Florida (to be closer to the cruising of course!) We started in 2014 and fell in love with cruising, honestly, I don’t know why I never realized this before. No kids yet, and we JUST got married January 2016.

 

So here’s the review, it will be split between posts, and I’ll try to post as many pictures as I can, and answer any questions.

 

 

James and I actually drove down to Florida on Friday night/Saturday morning (it was during that massive hurricane that was hitting the Carolinas). We actually just missed the major weather on the way down, but we did hit some rain, so I let him drive. Long drive, but once we hit Georgia, I decided to drive. We actually drove past our lovely cruise port in Jacksonville, and went straight to Orlando since we were looking at houses in Winter Haven the next day. Got to our hotel around 5ish on Saturday. We stayed at the Park Inn in Kissimmee, you know the one right off of 192 where all the Disney action is? Yeah, and oh yeah, I was so disappointed! First, the only thing I wanted to do after sitting in the car for 14 hours was to shower. Go to shower, and…no hot water. So I sucked it up and showered anyways. After we both showered, we realized how hungry we were. So time to eat, we drove down 192 and back up and just decided to try the Bonefish Grill. If you haven’t been to one (they are all over the place), you should try it. Food pretty good and our service was great! So now it’s getting late (well kind of late for us weirdos that go to bed at 10 even on weekends and vacation). So we headed back to the hotel, figured out what to wear the next day and just checked in on the animals.

 

I didn’t get any pictures of this hotel, but they did apologize a lot for the lack of hot water.

 

So Sunday day BEFORE we get on the lovely Fascination. This day was dedicated to nothing but looking at houses. My plan was to come down, find a house I love and put an offer in. Get up early, decide to not brave the freezing water and just did a quick wash in the sink (which did warm water by the way), and we packed up and headed out to breakfast.

 

There was an IHOP right in front of the hotel, so yep that works, pulled in and went to get something to eat. Now if you know James you know that he pretty much lived off of Waffle House when he was stationed in Georgia, so IHOP was a little backwards for him. Drove to Winter Haven, and looked at about six or so houses. Plus the realtor we had that day, kept trying to show us rentals. No, we want to BUY a house, not rent one. We did find two houses we loved, one a bit more than the other (which we actually have now).

 

So after a long day of going in and out houses, we headed back up to Jacksonville. I’m telling you, I couldn’t wait to not be in a car anymore and to get out to sea. So we opted for a small dinner, grabbed Chipotle and went to our second hotel for this trip, Holiday Inn Express.

 

THEY HAVE HOT WATER!! Best news ever to me. So we went up to our room, which I thought was great, ate dinner and then I had to shower. I felt like I had two weeks of dirt on me from going to all those houses. After that, I had to re organize all the bags. See, I knew we were staying in hotels, so I brought a separate bag that I planned to leave in the car with our dirty clothes from the hotels in it. No need to lug that onto the ship.

 

 

 

Our nights are generally boring. We are always tired by 10 unless you somehow keep us up late.

[mbrownferrier]

Welcome to Winter Haven!

[Mabks0412]

Welcome to Winter Haven!

 

Thanks! We really like it down here.

[Mabks0412]

EMBARKATION DAY!!! Yes! My favorite day (for more reasons than one!) So we woke up early (like I could sleep in)…ran down and grabbed some breakfast. I wanted to be there around 10:30, I again went through the bags to make sure we had everything where it should be and then jumped in the shower.

 

When I got out, I had a surprise waiting for me. An engagement ring.

Now let me just rewind a bit and explain something, I have been married before, and I didn’t want anything huge, and I didn’t want a big deal. I made it clear not to do it in front of the entire cruise ship or anything like that.

 

 

So he had my ring sitting in the box on the dresser. At first I didn’t even notice because I was rushing around, but he stopped me and put the ring on my finger. For us, it was perfect, some of you are probably like “What the heck James?!” But no, it was great. Plus I’m glad he did it before the cruise and not during because I was able to share it with family and friends before going. :D

 

 

Checked out of the hotel, smiling the whole time because now I’m engaged to this amazing guy. Get in the car and head to the port. Thought it would take us like 40 minutes…nope, took about 15, got there just after 10. So we parked, made sure to get what we needed, locked up my car. We didn’t even get far before some guy stopped us, asked us if we wanted him to take our bags, we gladly accepted, tipped him, and walked to the building.

 

 

The last time we went on a cruise we were later getting there, and we didn’t check our bags, and there was more than one ship, so this was way different.

 

We got FTTF, and were inside in a breeze, through the lines and check in took about 10 minutes. Now we got to sit and wait. Our Facebook meet and greet we all agreed to wear blue beaded necklaces. So I saw a few while we were sitting there, and even chatted with some people next to us. Their husbands were hilarious.

 

I believe there were two wedding parties that day, so they went on first, then all the Diamond and Platinum cruiser, then us. Got our embarkation photo (I like to have this), and stepped onto our new home for the next five days. Woot!!

 

[Frank12]

Better late than never! Keep it coming :D

[Mabks0412]

Straight to our stateroom to put down what bags we did have. I had a bag full of custom made cups for our meet and greet. Then out to explore! This cruise we had our first aft balcony room. E240. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Rocking was a little much (but remember we were hitting that tail end of the hurricane during our trip out to sea). We could see my car in the parking lot from our balcony!! Bye car, I’ll see you in a week!

 

 

It's the white suv that is backed up to the truck!

 

Up to Lido to grab some burgers and sat down inside to eat. Now compared to the Magic, the Fascination is much smaller, however still pretty inside and the ship managed to confuse me all week long. I kept going the wrong way.

After this we had to find the smoking area for James. If you need to know where it is, if you are standing at the buffet area and looking at the pool on lido, it’s right in front of the bar on the right.

 

So we mingled on the lido deck for a few minutes, then went and explored some more. It was getting later, we kept running back to the room to see if our luggage was there yet. Muster drill was about to happen, so we made our way to our station. I believe it was in the back in one of the lounges. This entire time I was keeping up with our group on Facebook since we were still in port. The drill seemed to take FOREVER. Then even longer because they made us walk outside, and then back in. I told James I wanted to run back to the room and grab the cups for the meet and greet, so he and I did that (he went with me because I got turned around and couldn’t figure out which way to go). So we get back to lido deck, more people now. I started seeing more blue necklaces. James went to grab us some drinks while I handed out cups, chatted, introduced myself, etc. There was a decent turn out. We move from one bar to the other so some of the guys can smoke. I noticed we started moving, Yes! I told James that we HAVE to get a picture of us going under the bridge. No missing it. So he stood waiting while I talked more. :D

 

 

After we got the pictures, we did some more walking the ship. I will say this now; we did WAY more on this ship than we did on the Magic. So we checked out the casino even though we don’t really play much. Took more pictures, then we back to the room to get ready for dinner. Finally, luggage arrived! I changed, we unpacked, put things away, and then decided to make our way down to dinner.

 

Now let me just begin this next part with, James is a very not social person. He was not going to share a table with strangers, so our original plan was to get that fixed when we got on, however, after weeks of me being a part of the Facebook group and what not, he decided to give it a try. And we were definitely spoiled for the first time doing this.

So we were seated at a table with eight others (2 of them, a couple only showed up twice). But the rest of them, were the best!

 

We had Andy and Savannah (celebrating their anniversary), Heather and Brandon (celebrating their marriage two days before), and Wes and Emily (Also celebrating their marriage two days before). Instant friends. If I had to choose anyone to ever cruise with again besides my husband, it would be this group.

 

[Clarea]

Thank-you for the review.

[Keith1010]

I am enjoying your review/report and look forward to the continued posts.

 

Keith

[sparks1093]

Congratulations on the engagement! We'll be on the Fascination this October, so your review is timely for us:).

[KirkNC]

Thanks for your report.

[Mabks0412]

Thank you all for the great responses! :D I promise I'll be updating more when I get home tonight. It will be later though since we have to run out for a bit.

 

 

Better late than never! Keep it coming :D

 

Lol right! I just got so inspired from reading everyone else's reviews on here.

 

Thank-you for the review.

Of course! Thank you for reading! :)

 

I am enjoying your review/report and look forward to the continued posts.

 

Keith

Thank you! I will update more tonight when I get home to all my pictures.

 

Congratulations on the engagement! We'll be on the Fascination this October, so your review is timely for us:).

Thank you!! I must confess though I knew it was coming at some point during that vacation. The ring sat in the box in our house for WEEKS before. I couldn't bring myself to snoop either.

I loved the Fascination. The staff was truly awesome.

 

Thanks for your report.

No problem. :) I'll be getting more out as soon as I get home tonight.

[Mabks0412]

After dinner, we decided to call it a night and just go back to our room. I knew the next day was a sea day, so sleeping in was a possible option. (Told you we are boring!)

 

The group we were in had us all laughing like hell. After dinner, James, myself, Wes, Emily, Brandon and Heather all decided to go up to lido so some of them can smoke. That started the nightly routine of going to smoke. James and I decided to walk around after that, check out more stuff, grab another drink before bed, and TRY to stay up late. Now the key word there is TRY. Yeah we didn’t make it past 10:30. Ugh. That is probably the biggest downside to getting up at 6am every morning and being in bed by 10 every night. Even on vacation, we still have our daily schedule. I will however, spare you the sexy details and keep those to myself.

 

 

Sea day number one!

 

Now if you know us, you know that our favorite part of being on the Magic last year was getting up and getting omelets for breakfast. sWe had ordered coffee from room service…only day we did it though. So we were up around 7ish, because the room service knocked on the door 30 minutes early. We decided to head up to the lido deck (fully believing that the lines for the omelet station would be massive like on the Magic). Nope. No line. Well we didn’t mind, we got our omelets, and some other stuff (like meats and potatoes), found a place to sit outside, got our drinks and enjoyed eating breakfast outside. I do have to say though, that if you go on a cruise, eat outside in the morning. There is nothing better than sitting out in the fresh air, watching the sun come up, listening to the water and having breakfast. Especially if you are there with a loved one.

 

So if you read my other review you probably noticed we spent a LOT of time in our cabin. We have a good reason for that. We were hiding from his sister. Not really in a mean way though. James and I are mostly private people (or at least we were before I started sharing our lives on the blogs). But, we do enjoy our alone time. His sister however, I don’t think understood that. She called our room, knocked on the door, always wanting us to play bingo, or do this or that with them. We did do some stuff, but we really just wanted to spend time together.

 

Anyways, this year we decided to explore. Spend more time out of the cabin than in. We went to check out the art, check out the shops and the selling times. We also swung by and saw our photos in the gallery. We went to the casino a few times so James can smoke and check out the games. We did trivia Harry Potter style, we even went to the art auction (which by the way, I will never do again). The art was beautiful, but way too expensive for us. I just can’t justify buying a picture for over $1000. The only thing that ran through my mind was, “We could spend that on a new kitchen table, or payments to my car!” Andy, Savannah, Brandon and Heather were all there as well though, so it made it more fun to sit through. I tried to make a point every day to get the drink of the day as well. We were on vacation and drinking is allowed!

 

The first sea day on the five night cruises is the formal night. You only get one, so take one night, dress nice and go have a great dinner in the dining room! I was looking forward to this. Mostly because James was actually excited to dress up with me (and match my dress). So around 4:45pm, we started getting ready. Now I completely suggest getting ready early (like 4:00 or 4:15 early if you have early dining). The reason I suggest this is because, if you plan on taking a lot of pictures (or even just like four or so), you need time. Time to get ready, time to get out to where all the pictures are, time to stand in line because yes, there is usually a line, and time to actually get the photos taken. If you’ve been on a cruise, you know that they don’t just take one photo and say you are good. They take multiple positions, sometimes with each person alone. So just be prepared for that. We got I believe four different backdrops taken before dinner and one taken after.

 

NOTE: James loves his hats, so obviously I have no issues with him wearing them during photos. He does however take them off before entering the MDR.

 

[cruiseonthebrain]

Enjoying your review- looking forward to reading more.

[Sorry Muffin]

Congratulation on your engagement. Many happy cruises in your future .

Look forward to reading the rest of your review. I'm considering cruising on the Fascination in 2017.

[Mabks0412]

So I'm horrible, and I so sorry! Things got so crazy around here that I was super distracted. We went on our Splendor cruise and made a huge announcement, so I promise I'll be doing a review for that AFTER I finish this one first, and I promise to update it all in the same day.

 

So we left off going to bed after our first sea day.

 

NASSAU, BAHAMAS.

 

Now we decided on an excursion to Atlantis for this day. I will say though, that this excursion wasn’t all that great and time/money would have been better spent if we did it on our own.

 

So anyways, we had to be at the meeting place on the ship at 10:30am. Which gave us a LOT of time. We got up early, got our omelets, and then headed to our room to grab our stuff for the day.

 

The sucky part of this was, that a lot of people were getting off the ship and we were stuck there until our excursion left. So I felt like we lost more time in port because of this, which I did not like. When you do a Carnival excursion that requires tickets, they will deliver them to your room the night before.

 

When we finally did get off the ship, we walked to an air conditioned bus and were on our way to Atlantis. There were two other ships in port the Carnival Dream and I think a Norwegian ship. Both were so much bigger than the Fascination.

 

Now they did say you don’t have to bring your own towel, but we did anyways. That day the ocean was massively rough (due to the hurricane that had just rolled through) so we couldn’t go to the actual beach in Atlantis and go swimming. However, they do have a man-made beach (basically its water from the ocean that comes into a section they in the middle of Atlantis). It was pretty cool and the water was super blue.

 

 

Once off the bus, we had a tour guild take us through the casino (which looked super cool), and through to where the man-made beach was. There they handed out towels and the tour guild explained where the aquariums were and then we were on our own.

 

So James and I hooked the towels to his bag and headed on to one of the aquariums. It was actually pretty cool, but no matter where we go, we always end up in an aquarium. Afterwards, we walked to the other aquarium, but it wasn’t very big. Only a few things to look at. There were a lot of other groups there with tour guides though.

 

James would not be happy knowing his picture is online, so keep my secret. :D

 

So, through the excursion we could go to certain places for lunch. We decided to grab some lunch and then head back to the port area and check out the shops.

 

Lunch was entertaining. There were a ton of seagulls flying around and they would walk up to you and just stare, haha. Reminded me so much of our dogs at home. Well, there was one that had only one foot. I named him George, and he was my main guy to feed. Now as you know, I love kids, but I swear I was about to yell at one that day. This one little brat thought it was so funny to keep scaring the seagulls away as I was trying to feed them my fries. No one stopped him, and others around me also looked disgusted with the fact he did it. And no, he wasn’t just running around and playing, he would be sitting and eating, and then jump up, run to us and scare the seagulls away, and then go back to his seat. I wish I had said something.

 

So after lunch and saying bye to George, we headed back to the buses and took the next one back to port. They ran I believe every thirty minutes.

 

When we got back to the port, there were a couple shops we had to stop in. Del Sol (a shop where things change colors). For example, hair clips change from clear to a color like pink or yellow. So cute! They have shirts, flip flops, nail polish, etc. Also we wanted to go to Diamonds International. If you go on cruises often, you understand why. Diamonds International gives you a free charm. When we went on our first cruise, I got a charm bracelet and picked up charms from each port.

 

So first we got my charm :D, and then walked down the street to Del Sol where we bought a shirt for James, a dress for me, and some hair clips. After that we just walked around, were asked about six times if we needed a cab. We met a local man who wrote about ghost stories in the Bahamas. He was selling his books and signing a copy for each person. So of course I had to buy one.

 

 

The shops in Nassau aren’t like some of the other ports. It’s like walking down the street in the middle of a very busy city. So please be careful visiting there!

We headed back to the port area and had to go through security to get to a building to get our passports signed. Don’t forget to do this before you leave if you haven’t already! (Side note: We always try to get our passports stamped in every port, so if you like to do that, don't forget to take it off the ship with you).

 

Once that was done we headed back down toward the ship. Before we got there, we did take a picture in front of the Bahamas sign. We met a couple that was celebrating their anniversary.

 

CHEF'S TABLE IS NEXT!