Review: Inspiration 11/6 - 11/11 2006

[Cap'n Mike Sandray]

My darling wife and I just got back from the Inspiration last Saturday and I thought I would write a review. First of all, this was our second cruise, we went to celebrate our anniversary and we had a blast. Our first cruise was on the Imagination in ’02 and the weather and the food were both terrible, so it took us a while to work up to trying again. We had hoped to take a similar cruise last year on the Sensation … out of New Orleans, but….

 

I will go through the standard phases most folks use here for reviews.

 

EMBARKATION: Piece of cake. We drove down to Tampa the day before, got in a little shopping and ate at PF Chang's. We stayed at a residence inn out by the airport and even though there was a Bucs game that day, the traffic was not bad at all. Got up on Monday and did a little more shopping and got to the port at 12:15. We were on the boat and in our room exactly one hour later. I self parked for $60 and it wasn’t bad at all. In the terminal we experienced a couple of lines, but all of the port folks and the Carnival folks were very nice and pleasant and we had no problems what so ever.

 

CABIN: We did sneak some liquor on board and had a minor leak from one of two plastic flasks, with two pairs of my shorts getting a little vodka-y We also took an unopened Bacardi traveler and that worked out perfectly. We put all of this in our checked luggage. No big deal and I would do it again, just more carefully. We also brought a cooler and a six-pack of cokes. I spotted Rosario, our stewart, a $20 right away and put the booze on the counter and he kept our vodka and cokes iced down (as long as they lasted) as well as keeping the other Ice bucket full and the room as clean and neat as possible. He was very good and we hardly saw him till the last night, which to my way of thinking, is how it should be, in that he was never there and in our way. We were in R104, which is outside and on the very bottom. I think it was the 2nd cheapest room you can get. We loved it, and I didn’t see much sense in trying to upgrade unless we could upgrade to a balcony and by the time I asked about that, I was told that they were all sold out. But I would never mind staying in a similar room on future cruises and I think it was a great value. It was a small cabin, but we made do nicely. Also the bed and bedding were very nice and very comfortable and we both slept reasonably well. However, there were a couple of problems. Off and on there was a sewage smell. It wasn’t terrible but often quite noticeable. One night, I can’t remember which now, I thought I smelled it in different decks on the boat. Overall, my wife noticed it more than I did. The other problem was cigarette smoke. We do not smoke cigarettes and I think we asked for a non-smoking room. We could smell cigarette smoke coming from somewhere; I suspect from other rooms near us because is was a little heavier in the hall and somewhat annoying.

 

One more thing about the cabin. Although we brought liquor onboard, we found that once we had made a drink and went on deck, we didn’t always feel like going back down to the cabin to fix another one, so we ended up buying drinks up there anyway. But it was nice to be able to have cocktail in our cabin before dinner.

 

SAILING: the first night was very rough with waves crashing into the ship and thunder and lighting. It lasted till almost daybreak the next day and reminded me of the beginning to Gilligan’s Island. We both felt the boat moving, rocking pretty good, but most of our dinner companions said they never felt a thing. We reasoned that they probably drank a lot more than we did. Also on the first night we went under the Skyway bridge about 2.5 hours after we set sail. That was pretty neat. After that first night, it was like sailing on glass the rest of the cruise and although we could tell the boat was moving, it hardly ever “rocked.” Oh yeah, the life raft muster deal took way too long, about an hour.

 

DINING AND FOOD. As I alluded to earlier, the food on our first cruise was not very good, so we decided that we were going to eat on the cruise just to sustain ourselves and we really lowered our expectations. We ate in the dining room every night but one and enjoyed the company of our dinner companions, three couples of like age. The food the first night was just so-so, but the other nights it was good. Never great, but good. We tried the pumpkin soup folks rave about and it was good. The sirloins and the lobsters were good. The salads were fresh and we generally found all of the produce onboard to be fresh. My wife liked the cappuccino pie and I liked the chocolate melting cake, but we didn’t really care for any of the other desserts. The cheesecake was pretty tasteless.

We did LOVE the grilled Reubens and other sandwiches in the Brasserie grill on the Lido deck and the pizza too. And the cheeseburgers were good too. We ate breakfast in the Mardi Gras dining room a couple of times and the food was better there than on the Lido deck buffet line, thought that was tolerable. They made some really good omelets in the dining room. So the food was good, but not great and exceeded our expectations.

 

ON BOARD ACTIVITIES: There is as much to do as you want. Lots of entertainment. We went to two shows. My wife really liked them, They aren’t my style of entertainment, but I appreciated the effort the performers put in and the band was very good. We did not go to the comedy shows. We went to Karaoke on night and it was quite entertaining till some kids starting getting involved, then it got silly and we left. About the kids: The CD said there were about 250. But we never had any complaints. There were several right across the hall from us and they were very well behaved.

 

Incredibly good deals on alcohol by the bottle, on the boat. The drinks of course are, way to pricey.

 

Also the CD was Rise and she didn’t really bring a lot to the table in that capacity in my opinion, but this was her last cruise on the Inspiration, so …

 

Other than the extra tip for our Cabin Stewart, we did the normal tipping on our sail and sign card. But I have to say I feel like the way they want you to tip the Head Waiter is almost like extortion, but we did it anyway becase he ran a pretty tight dining room.

 

PORTS: Grand Cayman: We just shopped. I bought a few Cuban cigars at the Casa del Habanos and my wife got some Dolce and Gabanna perfume that we later found was actually a little cheaper on the boat. We went to Margaritiville and had a couple of margaritas for $22. Grand Cayman is very pretty but due to the ridiculously short amount of time in port, we chose not to do any excursions, so we went back to the boat early. Every one that we talked to that did go on excursions seemed to like them a lot. Tendering OFF was kind of a hassle due to the lines, but coming back was fine (of course we came back two hours early.

 

Cozumel: Flipping sweet! We got off the boat pretty easily around 9 and took a cab ($13 each way) to Paradise beach where we got a wristband (for $9) that allowed us to kayak, snorkel and use the rafts. We only floated on the rafts, then snorkeled and that was pretty dull, really, UNTIL A THREE FOOT BARACUDA SWAM UNDERNEATH US. We got out of the water after that. We had lunch there, a steak burrito that was very good, the best salsa ever, a couple of margaritas, a couple of cold beers and a couple of cokes for about $30. They also have a nice place to change clothes and shower. We stayed there till around 1. It never got crowded and that was a pleasant surprise. After that we went to Carlos’ and Charlie’s. All I will say about that, is that place is wild! We were there at 2 PM and it was fun, but crazy. I can’t even imagine what it must be like at 2 AM. We had a blast, got the t-shirts and crawled back to the boat. We would love to go back to Cozumel.

 

DEBARKATION: Another piece of cake. We elected not to haul our own stuff off the boat. We got up at 7, had a nice leisurely breakfast, chilled out in our room till almost 9. We were off the boat at 9:15 and on the Interstate heading out of town by 10. Well within my acceptable time frame.

 

All in all it was a great cruise, but we both truly believe any cruise is what YOU make it. We went to relax and enjoy each other’s company. We met a lot of nice folks and saw some new sights and it was exactly what we wanted it to be. Go and have a good time. We sure did.

 

Peace out,

[Cap'n Mike Sandray]

I also wanted to say that we thought the boat was very clean, well cared for, and everything was really pretty. And the cruise director's name was Risa, not rise. sorry.