Carnival Imagination Review

Review for the Mexican Riviera Cruise on Carnival Imagination
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endorphin8
10+ Cruises • Age 40s

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Sail Date: Nov 2014
Cabin: Interior
Traveled with children

PREFACE: This is my first Trip Review, and unfortunately this ship was one of my very first where our experience with the entertainment and service on the ship was extremely disappointing. To give background of what I compare my feedback to: 18 cruises (109 Days on ships), 9 Carnival Cruises, and have cruised on Royal Caribbean, Costa, NCL, Disney, and former Premier CL. I am Carnival Gold and parents traveling with us are Platinum and Diamond members, so not first time on Carnival or other cruises basing expectations on.

SUMMARY: I thought many times on this ship that Carnival has lost their touch and needs to re-invent themselves. Their ship activities have become outdated and other than being recognized as the absolute cheapest cruise line they have not kept up with innovating their ships, activities, and having fun new entertainment on board in comparison to the other big cruise lines. Ironically when factoring in all extra costs, they are not that much cheaper than those with newer ships and activities. And most disappointing is that frankly I am not sure they even care. Past cruises I remember a strong emphasis and request of completing post cruise survey so they could ensure the highest quality. This cruise there were not even comment cards even offered or provided….so rather than privately sharing feedback with Carnival which I doubt they had the ability or interest in reading all the comments, I decided to start doing my part in posting reviews here.

HOTEL & EMBARKATION: We stayed at Hotel Maya (Doubletree hotel) just a short walk through park next to the Long Beach cruise terminal and Queen Mary. I would highly recommend this hotel. It felt like an older hotel that has been updated. It is contemporary and service was excellent. The bathroom had a glass sliding partition door which isn’t ideal for families in a room as it lights up the room and does not block much noise from toilet flushing in middle of the night from others sharing the room, but would still recommend. Had a park and ride option so free shuttle to terminal next morning and post cruise pickup saved $68-70 from Terminal Parking helped lowered actual cost of hotel/cruise parking. We arrived late the night prior. While the kids were going to sleep, I walked along the shore and had a nice relaxing walk the short distance down to see the Queen Mary all lit up at night. The hotel pool is small but great with only a few there when we were and nice upscale cabanas and had feeling of a 4 or 5 start resort pool with view of the QM and Carnival Imagination the morning of the cruise. Our kids, parents, and spouse all liked this hotel and was a great place to stay the night before. We arrived at terminal around 11:30am. We had to wait as they were late clearing the ship and I believe boarded around 12:45-1pm that I believe is later than typical reading others reviews. Check-in was quick and easy in the Diamond/Platinum VIP checking. There was a line for standard check-in at that time. Had we not had VIFP priority access and boarding I would consider going either earlier to be near front of standard line and plan to wait for an hour to be among first on ship, or I think for most would recommend enjoying morning at hotel, avoiding rush and lines, and checking in around 1-2pm just after the rush when there are likely little to no lines. One item of bad service, was during the Diamond VIP checkin we still waited for a wheelchair for well over half hour, and at least 3 request hearing the Diamond Conceirge make we finally just helped the Grandparent walk into the terminal until we finally found our own wheelchair and pushed her onto the ship ourselves which we were fine doing once we finally found someone who could find one for us. The gentleman wrote our names down knowing we had been given a run around thinking they would call room with simple apology…. Or something but never heard anything. Same Grandma also had one of two pairs of watershoes stolen or missing out of the mess side pocket of luggage from the time I handed bags to the Porter and when it arrived at the room. We checked with Carnival but they were never turned into lost and found so they were either stolen or thrown away if they had somehow fallen out, but was strange the other pair was still in the pocket. The small outdoor convenience tent outside the cruise terminal is a great place to get inexpensive sunglasses, hats, sunscreen, or any other travel items at what seemed like reasonable prices that someone may have realized they forgot before boarding.

Cabin Review

Interior

Cabin 4D

Rooms E32 & E44 (Empress Deck 7). Avoid Empress Forward Port side staterooms at all cost if you want a quite stateroom without people being loud talking outside your room at all hours of the day and night. The Theater is directly above and can be loud during showtimes, but that was not the noise during mid evening hours that was bothersome. Access to the crew nightclub and other crew facilities access is from this hallway. The crew nightclub could not be heard, but the halls were packed with crew traffic up and down the hall at all hours of the day and they were often noisier talking than most passengers we heard. Passenger traffic was not bad or anything out of the normal someone would consider but adding the crew traffic made it the busiest hall I have ever seen, even congested at times especially during peak hours or when bags are left outside stateroom. Several times I had 10 or so crew pass by before I could walk around a housekeeping cart or other items in the hall. I have never been on a ship with even half the traffic as we had on this hallway. Our stateroom (7-032) was also the strangest layout I have experienced as most four person rooms are usually pretty standard on ships. The two upper bunks in our room were offset from one another and the queen bed below went across the room rather than with head of bed against the back wall. This made if very awkward to move around and person on queen bed near back of room would have to climb over spouse or crawl and duck around or under the upper bunk that was over the foot of the queen bed. Other stateroom (E44) that had two lower bed layout was still a strange layout of lower bed placement crossing upper pull downs rather than directly under but was not as bad positioning where it still allowed a walkway between the beds.As other reviews often note, many Carnival ships only have one power outlet in bathroom and one outlet below the mirror/vanity in the stateroom. For those newer cruisers reading this, I highly recommend if traveling with multiple people in room with camera/electronics, take a small multi outlet extension cord. I have this on my travel checklist and usually throw it in my carryon with cameras. I seem to find myself putting it out almost on queue as if I were trying to impress my wife in perfect timing as my wife mentions “there is only one plug” as if it were her first time in a Carnival stateroom each cruise. It’s a simple thing, but is always nice to have to charge multiple devices.

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