Recently back from Carnival Paradise

[MinnesotaFrozen]

We returned this weekend from a 4 day cruise on the Paradise out of Long Beach. I thought I'd pass along a few notes.

 

The advice that I found here regarding rental cars in Long Beach was great. Using Enterprise worked perfect for us and the people there were very pleasant. As advertised, they picked us up right from the dock.

 

The cabins were in good order and we had no complaints whatsoever regarding the ship itself. We did have a little incident with the toilet in our cabin flooding our room, but the engineers eventually fixed it and wet-vac'd the room. (There's a funny story about a misunderstanding concerning a warning we received from a supervisor in the hallway to "look out, there is a wet-vac in your room"...)

 

The food, as always, was great. My 12 year old even ordered room service on a couple occasions after reading about that option here. He thought it was pretty cool. My high-schooler ordered steak or chicken every night. Our cabin steward and our waiter were excellent.

 

Ports -

 

Catalina Island. Even the shipboard comedian joked about the fact that there really wasn't much there to do. It's a nice little community with friendly people, but I'd never pay to go back there. We rented golf-carts and tooled around a bit, but really just killed time waiting to get back on the ship. There was a candy store that our kids loved though.

 

Ensenada - I'm sure there are people who enjoy the place but it left a lot to be desired in our book. Took a cab up to the highly touted "blow hole" which turned out to be a bit of spray against some rocks. Heck, at least it was Mexico. By the way, we walked a short distance from the ship and just hired a cab - it was less than half of the ship excursion rate and he hit a couple extra stops on the way back.

 

The DOTD sales the first day were incredibly annoying. We were sitting in our deck chairs reading books and I bet we got hit up every 5-10 minutes. I really wanted a "do not disturb" sign. By the last day they had backed off considerably.

 

We "smuggled" alcohol aboard in our checked luggage and our carry-ons. No one even looked in our bags or ever questioned us on it. Rum punch drinks all week were outstanding.

 

This was definitely a "Spring Break" crowd. Not the college type, but the K-12 type. More than 50% of the people on the ship were kids. It wasn't a problem, but it was definitely different than previous cruises. One example was that the "adult" hot tub was always filled with kids - morning to night.

 

I mentioned above that the wait staff was excellent. The exception was breakfast which was open seating. To be honest, at times they were almost rude. It was clear that they were saving their happy faces for their regular tables. We had a bit of a problem with breakfast actually every day. We wanted to go up to the dinning room and get coffee and wait for our kids to join us. At first, they refused to seat us until everyone was there but eventually they gave in to our pleading. (Yes, we could have gone up to the lido deck, but we wanted to sit at a nice table and plan out our day).

 

We had two "major" annoyances of the trip - neither of which will keep us from cruising with Carnival in the future. The first was our room keys/S&S cards. We had two cabins. Carnival requires that an adult be booked with each cabin which was no problem. They told us on the phone and in writing that it was no problem putting the three kids in one room and us in the other once we were on board. This worked out great except for the room keys. They wouldn't recode the two mismatched keys to the correct cabins - so we ended up one key short for each room. We dealt with it, but it meant a couple episodes of being locked out for extended periods of time.

 

The other annoyance was the staff member who did the "Hairy Chest Contest" on the Lido deck the last afternoon. I believe her name was Andy or Andrea. She screeched and ranted for 90 minutes over the PA system making it impossible to talk or read or enjoy the afternoon. At one point, the cruise director came on the ship PA and started sharing some debarkation information so she turned up her PA and tried to drown him out. She worst part was that she wasn't actually saying anything important, just making noises like "la la la" and "he'll be done soon" because she wanted to continue her show.

 

Again, all-in-all it was a great experience for our family. We spent the day at Universal Studios after debarkation while waiting for our evening flight.

[BRLady31]

We returned this weekend from a 4 day cruise on the Paradise out of Long Beach. I thought I'd pass along a few notes.

 

The advice that I found here regarding rental cars in Long Beach was great. Using Enterprise worked perfect for us and the people there were very pleasant. As advertised, they picked us up right from the dock.

 

The cabins were in good order and we had no complaints whatsoever regarding the ship itself. We did have a little incident with the toilet in our cabin flooding our room, but the engineers eventually fixed it and wet-vac'd the room. (There's a funny story about a misunderstanding concerning a warning we received from a supervisor in the hallway to "look out, there is a wet-vac in your room"...)

 

The food, as always, was great. My 12 year old even ordered room service on a couple occasions after reading about that option here. He thought it was pretty cool. My high-schooler ordered steak or chicken every night. Our cabin steward and our waiter were excellent.

 

Ports -

 

Catalina Island. Even the shipboard comedian joked about the fact that there really wasn't much there to do. It's a nice little community with friendly people, but I'd never pay to go back there. We rented golf-carts and tooled around a bit, but really just killed time waiting to get back on the ship. There was a candy store that our kids loved though.

 

Ensenada - I'm sure there are people who enjoy the place but it left a lot to be desired in our book. Took a cab up to the highly touted "blow hole" which turned out to be a bit of spray against some rocks. Heck, at least it was Mexico. By the way, we walked a short distance from the ship and just hired a cab - it was less than half of the ship excursion rate and he hit a couple extra stops on the way back.

 

The DOTD sales the first day were incredibly annoying. We were sitting in our deck chairs reading books and I bet we got hit up every 5-10 minutes. I really wanted a "do not disturb" sign. By the last day they had backed off considerably.

 

We "smuggled" alcohol aboard in our checked luggage and our carry-ons. No one even looked in our bags or ever questioned us on it. Rum punch drinks all week were outstanding.

 

This was definitely a "Spring Break" crowd. Not the college type, but the K-12 type. More than 50% of the people on the ship were kids. It wasn't a problem, but it was definitely different than previous cruises. One example was that the "adult" hot tub was always filled with kids - morning to night.

 

I mentioned above that the wait staff was excellent. The exception was breakfast which was open seating. To be honest, at times they were almost rude. It was clear that they were saving their happy faces for their regular tables. We had a bit of a problem with breakfast actually every day. We wanted to go up to the dinning room and get coffee and wait for our kids to join us. At first, they refused to seat us until everyone was there but eventually they gave in to our pleading. (Yes, we could have gone up to the lido deck, but we wanted to sit at a nice table and plan out our day).

 

We had two "major" annoyances of the trip - neither of which will keep us from cruising with Carnival in the future. The first was our room keys/S&S cards. We had two cabins. Carnival requires that an adult be booked with each cabin which was no problem. They told us on the phone and in writing that it was no problem putting the three kids in one room and us in the other once we were on board. This worked out great except for the room keys. They wouldn't recode the two mismatched keys to the correct cabins - so we ended up one key short for each room. We dealt with it, but it meant a couple episodes of being locked out for extended periods of time.

 

The other annoyance was the staff member who did the "Hairy Chest Contest" on the Lido deck the last afternoon. I believe her name was Andy or Andrea. She screeched and ranted for 90 minutes over the PA system making it impossible to talk or read or enjoy the afternoon. At one point, the cruise director came on the ship PA and started sharing some debarkation information so she turned up her PA and tried to drown him out. She worst part was that she wasn't actually saying anything important, just making noises like "la la la" and "he'll be done soon" because she wanted to continue her show.

 

Again, all-in-all it was a great experience for our family. We spent the day at Universal Studios after debarkation while waiting for our evening flight.

 

 

Do you recall the price of renting the golf carts? We will also be traveling with our two kids and were thinking of this if it is not too expensive.

[jleq]

Do you recall the price of renting the golf carts?

 

In 12/07, it was about $40 for several hours [much of your day in Catalina]

[MinnesotaFrozen]

In 12/07, it was about $40 for several hours [much of your day in Catalina]

 

It was $40/hour for a 4 passenger cart and $55 for a 6 passenger cart. There is also a $50 deposit required at rental time. The general route that they map out for you takes about 45 minutes as long as you don't stop too long for pictures. Most of the rental places had a 2 hour maximum rental.

Also be aware, it's illegal for anyone under 25 to drive a golf cart on Catalina Island. Don't ask me why an 18 year old can fight in Iraq but can't drive a golf cart, but it's the law and it's posted all over the place. (Had a guy in line ahead of me on leave from Military duty that futilely argued that exact point).

[Kurbanfan]

Also be aware, it's illegal for anyone under 25 to drive a golf cart on Catalina Island. Don't ask me why an 18 year old can fight in Iraq but can't drive a golf cart, but it's the law and it's posted all over the place. (Had a guy in line ahead of me on leave from Military duty that futilely argued that exact point).

 

It's for insurance purposes. Most rental cars companies here in Calif. won't let anyone under 25 rent a car either......

[cruisecastle]

Ensenada - I'm sure there are people who enjoy the place but it left a lot to be desired in our book. Took a cab up to the highly touted "blow hole" which turned out to be a bit of spray against some rocks. Heck, at least it was Mexico. By the way, we walked a short distance from the ship and just hired a cab - it was less than half of the ship excursion rate and he hit a couple extra stops on the way back.

 

 

 

Please ignore this description of the blow hole. The blow hole is great and shoots water in the air up 100ft. It really is quite a site to see and I would highly encourage people to see it

[MinnesotaFrozen]

I'm not sure why you would suggest to ignore my description. We were there for almost an hour and it did absolutely nothing. My understanding is that it depends on the tides and the season. We did see postcards of huge sprays but it definately did not happen while we were there.

 

I guess I would suggest doing some research and finding out if there is an optimal time to view it (high tide). The most we saw was a 4-5 foot spray in the 45 minutes that we stood on the viewing deck. I'm not trying to slam the place, but it isn't "old faithful" - there is no guarentee that you'll see anything spectacular.

 

There are videos of the blow hole from more fortunate visitors on youtube at

 

La Bufadora is the little village where the blow hole is actually located. You have about a 1/2 mile walk down the center of a open air market (or hawkers gauntlet).

 

 

Ensenada - I'm sure there are people who enjoy the place but it left a lot to be desired in our book. Took a cab up to the highly touted "blow hole" which turned out to be a bit of spray against some rocks. Heck, at least it was Mexico. By the way, we walked a short distance from the ship and just hired a cab - it was less than half of the ship excursion rate and he hit a couple extra stops on the way back.

 

 

 

Please ignore this description of the blow hole. The blow hole is great and shoots water in the air up 100ft. It really is quite a site to see and I would highly encourage people to see it

[TortieGal]

Can I ask how debarkation went? We'll be sailing her in a couple of weeks and just wondering when we might end up off the ship. TIA!

[ioneroy]

Golf Carts: Last year we rented a cart, from the booth downtown, it was $40.00 for 1 hour, but for us we got there like 10 minutes into the hour and he told us to be back on the hour, so we lost 10 minutes, he was very rude and not nice to the cruise people, I would never go back to him again, even if he was having a bad day, customer service, is and should be important.

He made us feel like we were doing him a favor!!!

But it was fun, ok, you can take the red trolley alot cheaper, but if driving is important than go for it, you have a map and were told not to go off the route.

[MinnesotaFrozen]

Our debarkation was the best of any cruise we've taken. Still not great, but handling your own luggage seems to be the way to go. The previous year we put our luggage out the night before and got stuck waiting until almost noon to get off the boat.

 

If you are in a hurry to get off, carry your own bags and head out at the earliest opportunity. (I think it was like 8am but they announce it often). We walked by the debarkation area on the way to breakfast and there was no line at all.

 

Immigration was a bit of a pain. We got behind some non-US cruisers (who were in the wrong line) and they spent close to 30 minutes at the counter. The 5 of us were through in less than 5 minutes.

 

So the net is, go early if you are in a hurry, otherwise plan on at least an hour for the whole process.

 

 

Can I ask how debarkation went? We'll be sailing her in a couple of weeks and just wondering when we might end up off the ship. TIA!

[MinnesotaFrozen]

I've got to add one more little tidbit. One of our trip highlights was when our 10 year old won the "Who wants to be a Millionaire" contest over a couple hundred people who were mainly adults. When they got down to the last 20 or so they had to stand up on stage with their backs to the audience so they couldn't cheat. He now has the ship-on-a-stick in his trophy case...

[MinnesotaFrozen]

We returned from the Paradise a couple weeks ago. Our review is a few pages back at: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=753054