fascination review----long

[wags111]

we stayed at hampton inn by the airport the night before. they offer a cruise pkg so we were able to park our truck there while cruising. they offered shuttle to and from terminal. hotel location was awesome. 2 miles from outdoor mall and in same parking lot was zaxby's and longhorn. A++++

 

the shuttle picked us up at 11, took us to the terminal, we booked a suite and i MUST SAY VIP CHECKIN is the way to go! they moved us to a little room to do our paperwork and we relaxed until ready to board. i think we were on the ship by 1230 and were told there were delays due to coast guard inspection. we have never booked a suite before but might think about it again for VIP checkin. daughters were in inside stateroom and were about to go through VIP checkin with us.

 

we have been on the conquest class before but never the fascination ships. they are a little dated but in good condition. the lido buffet smelled like urine to me a few times throughout the cruise. my husband didnt smell it but i certainly did. the entire ship smelled until we left port. someone told me its the way jacksonville smells?? who knows.

 

bon voyage party was good. fun watching the ship go under the bridge. we were drinking and the waiters were very pushy. they did offer DOD cards. coke cards were 20. for children and 27. for adults. they do add tips to those and i bought the carnival tumbler for 4.95 so i think total was close to 57.00

 

1st day at sea we just relaxed by the pool. this was captain's reception and captain's dinner night. lobster and shrimp on the menu. i dont eat lobster but do eat shrimp. thats what i ordered, gave lobster to BIL, ate shrimp then ordered steak. the food in the dinner rooms is ok. the melting cake is probably the best thing i had :D. the crab cakes are wonderful. i am a meat and potatos kinda girl and was looking forward to cracker barrel as the 1st stop off the ship LOL.

 

2nd day was HMC- OMG! i love this place. the excursion desk closed early but you can go to the purser desk and still book excursions. we had forgotten to check on parasailing at HMC so we called the pursers desk at 2am and they only had 9am open. this was the 1st one of the day and we needed to be ready to get off the ship by 745. so we ran down paid for the excursion and off to bed. 745 would come early. called for wakeup call- they woke us up, we dressed and headed for the tender. this was not a problem at all. very easy on and off. my daughter and niece loved the parasailing and said they would do it again. the boat holds 8 and there were only 7 so they asked if i wanted to ride and take pictures. well of course i do! that was cool. after that we went back to the ship ate breakfast, grabbed our towels and headed back to the beach. it was packed by the time we got back over there. all the blue mats had been rented out :(. we rented a tube for $9 and floated until a storm rolled in. it was getting pretty late in the day and we were about ready to go physically but not mentally so we headed for the tender. the line was really LONG and it began to rain a nice steady rain. i was on the bottom floor of the tender, dry and happy! this place is beautiful and the buffet was good. there are chickens that run around LOL there are 35 people that live on this island and my niece asked one of the guys if he would marry her so she could live there. he said i've got a ring, do you have yours? we really enjoyed this day and could have stayed there another. 2 people in our party got extremely burnt here. so be careful and reapply sunscreen!

 

next day was Nassau. been there and done that. took a few of our folks that had not been there walking to the straw market etc. we ate at the hard rock and it was wonderful! nice air conditioned building. we went back to the ship and people watched from our balcony. there were 6 cruise ships in port. 4 of which were carnival. 2 HUGE private yachts that was unbelieveable! we had to be back on the ship by 930 as we were leaving at 10. from the look below we could tell there were missing passengers. we hollared down and sure enough we were missing 2 people. we waited until 1020 and began to pull away from port. here comes a golf cart halling azz down the pier. there was a girl and boy in their 20's that appeared to be drunk (guess they had been at senor frogs too long) the girl was missing a flip flop. the boat stopped pulled back over and we let them on. as the girl was boarding the ship everyone was cheering. she was waving like ms. america, someone from the ship grabbed her arm and pulled her onboard. pretty interesting. i was a little sick at my stomach thinking about leaving someone there but my husband was laughing and said we should have left them :eek:. more later...................

[wags111]

i didnt know how much i could type before it cut something out........

 

next day at sea was good. BIL and SIL renewed their wedding vows. this was well planned and went well. we hung by the pool enjoyed the hairy chest contest etc.

 

we had a party of 12, 6 adults and 6 teenagers in a total of 6 rooms. we booked the teenagers inside cabins across from the adults. this worked great. we gave them walkie talkies but it was hard to hear them with some much going on we turned them off. one of the 1st nights we were on the ship the girls had went off somewhere. i told them i was going to bed to call me when they came in for the night. well i guess with the motion of the ocean i was sleeping so well i didnt hear the phone. i woke up at 5am not remembering that i heard from them, called their room NO ANSWER, knocked on the door, NO ANSWER i woke my husband and was freaking out! they finally answered the phone and were in their room asleep. the next day i went and had a key made to their room so if i woke in the middle of the night i could open the door and see that they were in there. which worked out well i might add. the teens were 14,15,18,19,19 and 21 all girls except the 21 yr old.

 

we only went to one show and the talent show. we skipped dinner 2 nights just to lazy to iron and get dressed! we were happy eating in the LIDO buffet. we did eat breakfast every morning at the buffet and it was great. we went to karaoke several times it was great. this is a do not miss!

 

we were back in jacksonville by 5am, VIP's leave the ship 1st. we were off the ship and waiting on our shuttle by 815am.

 

we had a great time. not sure that we will do 5 day on smaller ship again. we prefer 7 day on larger. i do get seasick and wear the patch. i did experience queasiness (did i spell that right?) for about 5 days after i was off the ship. not sure what was going on there. we had all been sick prior to cruising and i wondered if that might have had something to do with it. we didnt get on the ship sick, all had been to the dr begging for antibotics not wanting to be sick on vacation. we did have to fill out a questionare about sneezing/coughing etc prior to boarding.

 

the 21 year old had never been on a cruise and knew that you couldnt take on booze. he wrapped a liquor gift set with a flask in wedding paper since his parents were renewing their vows. sd if he got caught he would tell them he bought his parents a present. it made it to his room still wrapped. he was pretty excited about this!

 

anyone who is interested marlboro light cartons are 23.95

 

we had bought door decorations at party city so we could easily identify each others rooms. this little punk kid about 12-13 ripped my daughters off the door and someone stole the fish we had put on my SIL's door. not sure why people cant leave alone stuff thats not theirs.

 

hope you enjoyed my review. please let me know if you have questions.

[MsShel330]

It sounds like you guys had fun!

I'm hoping that my family can go on another cruise this year.

[firefly4423]

well that was a good read! thanks, good to hear you had a good time.

[avp1234]

We were on that sailing with you and your review could have been ours! We also stayed at the Hampton, stayed in a suite and thought the VIP check-in was wonderful! Did you see the line? We also smelled the urine smell at different times and had hoped once we left port it would be gone...oh well. This was our 1st cruise and we were surprised at how many people dressed up for elegant night. I was so glad I brought a formal gown and suit for my husband. I guess I wasn't sure what to expect after some of the posts that I had read on here. All in all, we really enjoyed ourselves and are going to book another trip in February, maybe on the Dream. I can't believe how much we liked cruising and we are now hooked!

[Meemers2005]

Thanks for the review!! Wow, cigarettes for $23.95 I will be stocking up on those:) !!! I am paying over $42.00 for an off brand here in Ohio.

[cruiseapril]

Interested in your review. We were on the Fascination in April and didn't notice any odors. Hope that's fixed.

 

Also- we thought the Karaoke was great on the ship. Highly memorable.