Ecstasy review 1-12-08 part 1

[tisabee]

This was my 5th Carnival Cruise, 2nd time on the Ecstasy in 3 months. I was traveling with 12 of my girlfriends to celebrate my 40th birthday. We left all children & husbands behind and headed out Saturday morning. Arrived at EZCruise around 11:45, they were friendly, fast & efficient. We breezed through the line at the terminal with no issues and were onboard by 1pm, first drink of the day in hand and ready to celebrate. The agonizing 11-month wait was finally over and we were ready to relax.

We had three in our cabin, plenty of room & storage space. The beds are fantastic & I love the weight of the duvet. Our cabin steward, Agus was simply the best ever! He was never “in the way” and always had a smile on his face. Kindly asked us how we were doing, if we needed anything. I think Carnival should clone him!

We had requested an 8pm dining time & were given 8:30. Not a problem. They had us seated 11 at a one table and 2 at a table close by. Talked to the Maitre’d about the possibility of splitting us into more equitable tables but he was not able to accommodate. Luckily the table with 2 from our party had 2 extra seats & we just rotated 4 of us through that table. Our dining staff was unfortunately less than stellar. I did not experience this on my October sailing on this ship (with the same dining room time) with a group of 4. We were continually bumped into, water glasses left empty, wine unpoured (even after being charged the $10 corkage fee) overall a poor service. This has not been my experience on any of my previous cruises with Carnival so I was disappointed but figured it was just a fluke. Our food was also not the best we’ve had in the dining room. The warm chocolate melting cake was divine and most of us ordered that ever night.

Pizza, burgers and sandwiches were delicious. Believe me, we didn’t go hungry!

We spent a lot of time in the piano bar and enjoyed Angela very much. Made her an honorary “birthday diva” and she wore her tiara proudly. We went to karaoke a couple of nights and had fun despite the hostess. We turned in our request to sing, she told us the evening was already booked. We sat/sang along with the next 5 passenger/singers and then she proceeded to take the stage to sing her song, hmmm. That didn’t sit too well with our group as we thought she was there to facilitate our Karaoke careers! We walked out and hit the casino. I was rather lucky, hitting little jackpots here and there, always a bonus. I don’t do well with the cigarette smoke so we didn’t stay too long.

I can’t speak to the shows as I didn’t see them. Some did go to see the comedians and enjoyed them, except were a little put off by the female comedian as she was extremely raunchy, funny coming from a group of middle aged women gone wild but that’s what they said! The 13 of us went to Playa Uvas in Cozumel to snorkel, eat & drink ourselves silly. Which is exactly what we did. The staff is so gracious and over all fabulous! Spoiled us rotten and all for the low price of $35 pp. Can’t beat that with a stick!