Carnival Legend Review sailed 3/15/09 LONG REVIEW

[ata1976]

Great Review. Looking forward to the rest. :cool:

[igraack]

Your picture is beautiful!!!

 

Thanks, that was a morning I was up before the family sitting on the balcony with a couple of beach towels keeping me warm listening to the ipod and I noticed where the sun was coming up from. Run in the cabin to pitch darkness, trip over everything to find the camera waking entire family and wife says "what ARE you doing". I said getting the camera you have to see this sunrise. And we're all glad we did :)

[vdarrell]

Loving your cruise report.

We take our first cruise in October on the Legend so this has been interesting to read.

[killian25]

Looking forward to hearing more we are sailing on LEGEND on May 17 50 days away.......

 

We are staying in room 8234

[igraack]

So I dont remember much more than reading the capers and passing on the many activities listed. Hanging by the pool on a hot windy day at sea was about right for us. The kids went to Camp Carnival in the afternoon for the "color your own tshirt" which is a great "free" souvenir for the kids. It's the same thing they sell in the gift shop for $20 someone else said. They also stayed for couple of games and some other activity. This was to be the first formal night and Captains Welcom Aboard party. Camp Carnival conveniently has their own party scheduled at that time followed by a CampC (camp carnival) dinner. So we checked the kiddos in CampC and went to the Captains Party. Having read these boards I brought a few $ with me planning on trying the $1 tip after every drink trick. Instead of finding 1 waiter/waitress I decided to give $1 to any that would bring me a glass of white or my wife a glass of red wine. Once they knew what we wanted we were NEVER waiting for a dink. Even at the end a waiter grabbed one from anothers tray across the theater and brought it over to us. I think I had 4 glasses of wine and the wife 3. So in all $7 well spent. We didnt try the "order whatever we wanted" idea since the wine was fine by us. That was more than enough for me in about an hour, I'm sure I could've gotten more since one of the wait staff was always ready to bring us a drink as soon as we needed one. I noticed an old man Platinum member sitting across from us doing the same thing, his large family was all drinking champagne and it kept coming to them as well. So.. bring some $1's and spread the love. Since the staff doesnt ring up any drinks in this party to the S&S it makes sense that they wouldn't be in any hurry to get you a drink unless... well it's worth it for them. After the party.. off to dinner with just my DW since the kids were still with CampC. This time since it was 2 of us they asked "table for 2 or more?" I didnt understand at first but the question was did we want to sit by ourselves or at a bigger table.. We just said "table for 2" but would've enjoyed a large table with other couples had we known it was a question about our seating perference. Anyway, dinner was lobster, ordered 2 and they were small but tasty. Desert I dont remember. Anyway.. off to get the kids and hit the show. From previous Capers it said that CampC took the kids to the shows and saved the front row for them. At some point this had stopped since the capers I had seen. Maybe only on this ship? I dont know. The kids wanted to see the show. It was the "Jazz Hot" show and with my little ones .. no other seat but front and center would do.

 

THE SHOW..

Well it was "ok". My kids are into dance and in CampC had met a Carnival Legend dancer so they were excited to see him up on stage. The dancers were good, the singers decent. My one "observation" the singing talent was fine but the male singers looked up close to be pretty worn out. Not a lot of excitement in their performance. But.. kids loved the show, so it was fine. (after the next 2 evenings however the performers were AMAZING so it put this show into perspective later I think).

 

Off to bed.. and THEN our first stop Grand Cayman.

 

It should be noted now.. we did not even look to book ANY of the ships tours so all my descriptions of ports are from they "do it yourself" point of view. I grew up cruising with my family, my parents went on 20+ cruises. There were times to "ship it" and times to "wing it". In this case I researched well ahead about the different ports and knew where and how I wanted to go at each of them. We did book 1 excursion in Belize which was not through the ship and was the "Captain Your Own Boat" tour or "Your the Captain" tour. IT WAS GREAT (sorry to jump ahead here). I'll get to that later, but just know it was the only thing I'd consider for Belize if I was you (my kids heard about bats and cavetubing and were not wanting to do that, plus it hadnt rained in Belize for awhile and I heard the water was low in the river they tube on).

[snorkelingsearchers]

Please Keep it Coming! On the edge of my seat - we go in October on the Legend for the first time!:D

[GWoman8920]

Wife and I are from Missouri we were surprised at grits everyday on the buffet but must be lots who like them. :)

 

 

KC here! What about you? I was also surprised and happy to find grits as well! :D

[teacherme]

Loving your review, keep it coming.

[igraack]

KC here! What about you? I was also surprised and happy to find grits as well! :D

 

I live in St Louis now, but actually grew up in KC (Overland Park Kansas actually)..

 

GO CHIEFS :)

[igraack]

Well we made it to our first island. I had been to Grand Cayman before (long time before, but still). The one thing to know about Grand Cayman is it's EXPENSIVE. The island is VERY well rich from it's offshore banking empires and still bases it's currency on the british pound. SO.. Plan accordingly.. we knew we were going to Cozumel the next day so I figured most beach activities would be cheaper there. Our plan from the start was to sleep in, have breakfast on the ship and then go over and go to the beach. Sleep in (yeah right), breakfast (good as always) and tender over. Since we werent in a hurry we tried to let the tender line die down. It did somewhat but still waiting about 30mins on the ship to get over to the island. Once over to the island we encountered the groups of people trying to get you to do all the other stuff. Really on Grand Cayman as far as I can tell there's beach and then there stingrays. My kids and wife wanted NOTHING to do with stingrays so we planned beach all the way. Here's my biggest tip for Grand Cayman and future islands... TAKE THE FULLEST LOOKING TAXI YOU CAN. Why?? Because they will wait until it's unbelievably full before leaving. So if a mini-van is sitting there brimming with people and the driver asks if you need a ride say "yes". Otherwise you sit in your half empty mini-van until it's completely full. The only better way is to find a cab thats only a car. .then you know it's ALL yours. I didnt see any of these on Grand Cayman.. but all other islands thats what I did.. ALSO dealing with cab drivers here's my other best tip. Talk to the driver and only the driver, otherwise the person who gets the cab for you wants a tip as well. So my conversations went like this "You want a cab??" (me) "You the driver?".. until they say "yes" i didnt answer. Cabs in Grand Cayman were $5/person each way. Turned out to be about that at every island (or at least none were more than that but all were close).

 

Anyway, in my research we wanted to go to Sea Grape Beach. As most "beaches" in Grand Cayman Sea Grape is an area of 7 mile beach. In our mini-van cab that was FILLED. Everyone was winging it but had no idea where they wanted to go. This is where the cab would be tricky because he had a sign that had different beaches for different $$. Since nobody really knew where they were going they ALL got off at Sea Grape, followed my lead and paid the guy $5/person. In the end I'm sure they all made the right choice since they didnt care. Sea Grape has Calico Jacks right there for all your food/drink pleasure. We packed a cooler from the ship with gatorades we had in our room and bought some beers from Calico Jacks. We also rented two chairs and an umbrella total was $14. However the pina colada my wife ordered later was $9US so it was scary that drinks (including beer) was cheaper on the ship. Oh well the beach was beautiful, the water beautiful and the day very relaxing. Kids were happy when an ice cream truck pulled up to the public beach area.. $3 for a double scoop cone. One more thing, if you rent chairs from Calico Jacks you can use their changing / bathrooms. We noticed lots of Carnival towels and most people were from our ship or the Glory that was in port.

 

Once we wanted to head back there were PLENTY of cabs waiting and we walked up the fullest looking one thought it was full.. then he added 6 more people. Made it back to tender dock but didnt have time to buy the Margaritaville T-shirt I wanted. Bummer.. maybe next time.

 

Back on ship kids swam some more then we showered for the evening..

 

Next up.. The Amazing Lubo.. srsly this guy was Amazing...

[kimberlys]

Keep it coming! I love reading your review and good tips about the vans and taxis. What time did you take the tender for Grand Cayman?

[krissy72]

I am re-living my cruise on the Legend through you. This is great. Is Lubo the balancing guy?

[kcgozs]

We have only cruised with Carnival once before and were disappointed with the lunch buffet. Our disappointment was the hours it was open. Everytime we came back from an island the only food available were hanburgers, hotdogs, pizza, and sometimes deli sandwiches. Is the buffet on the Legend open all day? Thanks for all your information.

[igraack]

Keep it coming! I love reading your review and good tips about the vans and taxis. What time did you take the tender for Grand Cayman?

 

We waited about an hour after tendering started to go down for the tender. The tenders were large, I'd guess if you saw 2 coming over you could run down and get on one of them. Just we got in line when there wasnt one there so we waited.

 

ALSO.. the saddest thing.. we saw several groups getting ON the ship at Grand Cayman. These were all people that missed it in Tampa. I couldnt imagine getting on 2 days later :( .

[igraack]

We have only cruised with Carnival once before and were disappointed with the lunch buffet. Our disappointment was the hours it was open. Everytime we came back from an island the only food available were hanburgers, hotdogs, pizza, and sometimes deli sandwiches. Is the buffet on the Legend open all day? Thanks for all your information.

 

Pizza is obviously 24hrs. Seemed like the buffet was almost always open (an hour switch over between breakfast/lunch/dinner). There were LOTS of people eating late afternoon after getting back from ports. I dont remember the actual hours. We commented that most are probably late sitting people still hours away from their dinners.

[igraack]

I am re-living my cruise on the Legend through you. This is great. Is Lubo the balancing guy?

 

 

Yeah.. dont ruin my build up for the great Lubo though ;)

 

We were front row.. THAT is the seat for Lubo (however he sweats ALOT but understandable when you have a bike on your chin).

[tbogie]

Yeah.. dont ruin my build up for the great Lubo though ;)

 

We were front row.. THAT is the seat for Lubo (however he sweats ALOT but understandable when you have a bike on your chin).

We didn't make it to Grand Cayman on the March 1st cruise, so I am anxious to hear about this Lubo. It was probably the one show I was really looking forward to all day after reading about it in the capers. Maybe they should have warned us that he wasn't on the ship because he comes on in Grand Cayman and we didn't stop there.

[poptart]

Loving your review. Brings back happy memories our cruise on the Legend last November.

 

Can't wait for the rest including Lubo--who we thought was awesome. One of the best acts we've seen on a ship.

 

Never got any sunrise pictures--but did get an awesome sunset picture..it's in my review that's posted in my signature. Anyhow I had it blown up to a 16 x 30 and framed and it hangs over my head board--make me happy every time I look at it.

[GWoman8920]

I live in St Louis now, but actually grew up in KC (Overland Park Kansas actually)..

 

GO CHIEFS :)

 

 

Yeah, I'm very excited about the team this year! Ok enough hijacking, sorry! Loving your review!:D

[takemecruisintoday]

Wonderful review......we were on the 3/15 sailing. I was so happy with the weather.

[KimberleyFL]

Yeah.. dont ruin my build up for the great Lubo though ;)

 

We were front row.. THAT is the seat for Lubo (however he sweats ALOT but understandable when you have a bike on your chin).

 

Great detailed review. I'm anxiously awaiting the next chapter with Lubo.

[kcgozs]

Thanks for the input about the buffet!

[WinnipegCruiser]

I remember when food cruise was much better and had more of a WOW factor. I have read many threads about how much better Carnival's food is much better than what Royal Caribbean now offers, too bad because back 10-12 years ago it was sooooo good.

 

Perhaps you were more easily impressed 12 years ago. I know I certainly was.

 

It takes a lot more to WOW me today than it did 10 years ago...

[Purplesaurus]

Wonderful review!!

Looking forward to cruising in a few months!!

[dh464]

What a great trip report.:D