Live B2B2B2B Carnival Spirit Alaska/Panama Canal/Caribbean

[jam19872016]

Service:

 

I found the majority of the crew on this ship to be excellent. Crew staffing ranged from 92-95% on the different legs of the voyages and nowhere seemed short staffed except guest services after midnight.

 

Dining room service was quick and efficient with the exception of a couple nights which over the course of 33 days is pretty good. Breakfast and brunch were a bit more hit and miss which I have found to always be the case. I think it must be where crew get their start as servers.

 

The room stewards. I know I am in the minority, and I could certainly never do their job. But I just don't see this "they are stretched so thin" thing I see posted all the time on here. 

 

Four room stewards.

 

One did not offer am or pm just came in the morning. 

 

One offered but still came in the morning after we requested pm service.

 

The other two tried the same thing, but we put our foot down and insisted on PM service. We were obliged but instead of the old days where the steward would sneak in the moment you left your cabin, by 6:15 we had a knock on our door asking if we would be going to dinner soon so they could clean.

 

I never saw them in the hallway at night except the last leg. A group of them would be huddled up chit chatting in the halls most of the night. The floors looked like they had not been vacuumed since that morning.

 

This has been the same on every cruise I have taken since the restart with Carnival. More than a dozen times. Not used to brag, but to point out this is not an isolated incident or something going on with this ship.

 

RCL cabin stewards work till usually 1pm and are back around 5pm servicing the rooms and halls until after 9pm. They make less in gratuities since they do less rooms. I think they should be looking at coming to work for Carnival.

 

Rory, my steward on the Panama Canal cruise was very good at doing little things for my mom to make her feel special and I did appreciate that. He gave very good service, even if he did knock on the door every night to see when we were leaving lol.

[jam19872016]

Overall this was a great cruise and my worries about being on a smaller ship especially for this long were no problem. I don't think I would pick Spirit over a bigger ship for the Caribbean, but for Alaska and other specialty cruises I think it was a great choice.

 

Over the course of 33 days I got to meet a lot of wonderful crew who sort of felt like an old friend by the end of the trip. I really hope to run into them again someday.

 

Now for the negative. I wanted to put this in its own section because it has nothing to do with Spirit. I don't like the constant complaining about cutbacks but here I am. I'm doing it too.

 

It seems like everyday there is something new that they have eliminated or reduced. Its just becoming too much too fast and it is simply not the same experience it once was.

 

I'm not talking about some cruise taken in 1990 that cost $899 PP back then. Obviously that is not reasonable to expect.

 

I'm talking about a cruise in 2022 compared to a cruise in 2019. Or even 2021. I don't accept Covid as an excuse, and neither should you. If you do, businesses will never be held accountable to provide a quality product. 

 

I look at my experiences sailing with other companies, and I don't see where they are needing to make the same cuts to service or offerings.

 

Of course YMMV, and if you enjoy your Carnival cruise by all means continue to enjoy it and I will continue to try and enjoy mine as well but it is quickly reaching a point where I don't feel like I am getting good value for my money.

 

And worse, because the price keeps bottoming lower and lower its attracting more and more .people who don't know how to travel and who are not enjoyable to travel with. Then they have to make more cuts because the lower prices mean they still are not making money. This is a bad business plan and they should really rethink it.

 

But I do still have many Carnival cruises planned and I feel like I've lost sight of the point I was trying to make so I am going to get off my soapbox now.

 

I have a few more pictures to post that I will post in the coming days as time allows.

 

Thanks for following along everybody!

[luvcruzing]

Thank you for doing this review which included a lot of great photos and good information. I enjoyed following along.  

[Indianamale]

Thanks again for all your hard work I really enjoyed following. I was on the Spirit with you last week and with all the cutbacks we are going to start checking out other options. 

[knagl]

Thank you very much for all of the wonderful posts and pictures. I followed along with your entire journey and really appreciated all of the information as I'll be sailing on the Spirit in December. Thanks again.

[Megan_Strick]

On 10/18/2022 at 12:17 PM, jam19872016 said:

Overall this was a great cruise and my worries about being on a smaller ship especially for this long were no problem. I don't think I would pick Spirit over a bigger ship for the Caribbean, but for Alaska and other specialty cruises I think it was a great choice.

 

Over the course of 33 days I got to meet a lot of wonderful crew who sort of felt like an old friend by the end of the trip. I really hope to run into them again someday.

 

Now for the negative. I wanted to put this in its own section because it has nothing to do with Spirit. I don't like the constant complaining about cutbacks but here I am. I'm doing it too.

 

It seems like everyday there is something new that they have eliminated or reduced. Its just becoming too much too fast and it is simply not the same experience it once was.

 

I'm not talking about some cruise taken in 1990 that cost $899 PP back then. Obviously that is not reasonable to expect.

 

I'm talking about a cruise in 2022 compared to a cruise in 2019. Or even 2021. I don't accept Covid as an excuse, and neither should you. If you do, businesses will never be held accountable to provide a quality product. 

 

I look at my experiences sailing with other companies, and I don't see where they are needing to make the same cuts to service or offerings.

 

Of course YMMV, and if you enjoy your Carnival cruise by all means continue to enjoy it and I will continue to try and enjoy mine as well but it is quickly reaching a point where I don't feel like I am getting good value for my money.

 

And worse, because the price keeps bottoming lower and lower its attracting more and more .people who don't know how to travel and who are not enjoyable to travel with. Then they have to make more cuts because the lower prices mean they still are not making money. This is a bad business plan and they should really rethink it.

 

But I do still have many Carnival cruises planned and I feel like I've lost sight of the point I was trying to make so I am going to get off my soapbox now.

 

I have a few more pictures to post that I will post in the coming days as time allows.

 

Thanks for following along everybody!

Thank you so much for this review. I loved it!