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I've never cruised before but I've certainly enjoyed some good vacations. However, for our tenth anniversary I wanted to try something different. Having used up a good portion of my vacation days for other travel in earlier in the year, I wanted to do something that would only take up one day so I searched for a short round trip cruise at the closest port to Las Vegas. The Carnival 3 day to Ensenada fit the bill so I booked a Grand Suite.
We wound up getting a call for a chance to purchase an upgrade to one of the "owner suites" and I took it. Our suite was S-1 and it was on the Starboard side of the boat on level 12 looking over the pool. The suite itself was nice, but you could hear the joggers on the track above, the scraping of the deck chairs above as well, and the noise from the atrium came right through the door but thankfully did not make it into the bedroom. However, the large balcony, openness, and size of the suite made up for it.
The room was cleaned up twice each day and our room service was delivered quickly after it was ordered. The pool wasn't filled on the first day but one hot tub was opened on the Lido and both were open on the Serenity deck. The water slides were also open and fun. I think our most expensive drink was a little under 9.00 with the tip included. I've certainly spent much more here in Vegas for one drink.
Having read many reviews in preparation, I knew to expect that food would be fairly standard and that there would be a lot of drinking for this type of cruise. While the food review was dead on, there weren't very many drunken people staggering around the ship on this cruise. There also weren't very many children at all, which was nice.
The one port, Ensenada, that we visited was basically a tourist dive. We did get a good lunch there and I picked up cheesy souvenirs for my family. We didn't do any excursions because nothing really appealed to us. A tip though, the shuttle operators to the shopping area offered their own tours that were much less expensive than the ships. Many people took them up on them so if you don't want to book through the ship, you can always do that option. Another tip, the shuttles drop you off at a place that isn't right at the main shopping area. You need to walk about a block in a kind of sketchy area to get there.
All in all, it was a nice vacation. I definitely plan to cruise again, although our next one will most likely be on another line.
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