Carnival Paradise Review

3.5 / 5.0
989 reviews

Great trip

Review for the Mexican Riviera Cruise on Carnival Paradise
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999Cruises2Go
First Time Cruiser • Age 40s

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Sail Date: Jun 2008
Cabin: Ocean View

I was talked into going on a cruise by a co-worker. I was actually just going to buy my wife and I a new flat panel TV for our anniversary when we decided that perhaps a traveling vacation would be nice. So a co-worker suggested that I look into cruising. I thought it would be boring. I was 100% wrong. I don't usually admit that but I was. We had no idea how much fun we'd have. I originally wanted to sail to San Diego, Catalina Island, and Ensenada. It was a 5 day, 4 night cruise with RCI but we purchased tickets too close to the cruising date. Therefore we only had interior rooms to choose from. No thank you we said. Our travel agent suggested we try Carnival Cruise Line's baja Mexico trip on the Carnival Paradise. It doesn't stop in San Diego but at least we'd get a chance to feel what it was like to cruise and if we didn't like it, we'd be back home soon. It was only about $500 per person (minus port fees and gratuity) so we went for it and we managed to get an ocean view room. Not a bad one either.

Day 1 - I was anxious to get this started because the people at my job began counting down the days for me starting with 21. They wished me luck on my day of departure. When I arrived at Long Beach, I couldn't believe how big this ship was. Keep in mind this was literally the first time I had ever seen a cruise ship besides the Queen Mary which is permanently docked in Long Beach. So I was easily impressed. I liked the Red, White, and Blue color scheme. Also, something about seeing "Paradise" on the side of a cruise ship got me thinking this was about to be a great trip. We had to check in early since we had gotten a ride to the port. I told them we didn't mind waiting but they were nice enough to let us board with "VIP". That was cool because it was a hot day in Long Beach. As we got onboard, all of the staff was friendly. Our room wasn't ready yet but they let us explore the ship. We jumped into one of the hottubs towards the back of the ship. The staff offered to bring us drinks. I passed because I'm a cheapskate. LOL!. I didn't want to pay $7.00 for a glass of juice when I could go to the buffet and get one for free. After about an hour of hottubbing, we went to the buffet. The buffet was awesome. I ate three plates of food. I normally eat one plate and I'm done. They opened our room and our bags were right outside of them. They aren't huge rooms but they are bigger than motel rooms. We were able to unpack all of our clothes and had plenty of room left over. I like how we had Carnival towels and robes in our rooms. Very nice touch. We had our safety drills and took off from Long Beach. Dinner was okay but not quite as good as the buffet. I had steak that was a little bit dry. Oh well. Still great drinks and excellent dessert. Our waiter was awesome. Very courteous. He learned our names and addressed us as Mr. and Mrs. I didn't really require that because I don't need that much service. But it was still nice. We saw a chow afterwards that welcomed us aboard and then we were tired so we went to bed. The beds were extremely comfortable. Day 2 - We arrived at Catalina Island where we had to tender to the dock. I have to admit, even the people there were nice. Most treated us like VIP. Other looked like they had been working there too long. LOL! Anyway, we had reserved a Semi-submarine ride that didn't begin until the afternoon so we decided to go parasailing to waste a little time. My wife and I are both scared of heights but somehow I was comfortable with this so I went. I'm here to tell you there's nothing to be scared of. What a ride. My wife almost freaked out when they hooked her to the parashoot. She wanted to get out. I told them to send her up anyway or she'll regret not doing it. She covered her eyes on the way up but eventually opened them. Once up there, she loved it. When it was over we both were happy to get a great view of the island and get a free speed boat ride. By the way, when I was up there I was flown almost right over the back of the Paradise. So people actually saw me and recognized me. They waived and came up and asked me how it was when I returned to the ship later. We ate at an ice cream shop in Catalina. We browsed the shops but didn't buy much. The semi-sub ride was great, but not as fun as parasailing. Both are worth it though. That night we had stories to share with our table mates. By the way, once again the food was about a 4 out of 6. Not bad, but I've had better. We actually went to the buffet afterwards to get some real food. We only went to the dinner because it was formal night. I don't like suits and ties but my wife said I looked good so I wore one. We took pics, watched another nightly show (10 stars) and then went to bed. This was the funniest day of the entire trip as far as tourist sites. Day 3. We ended up in Ensenada. My wife loved it because she's Mexican and she got to finally eat some "real Mexican food" as she puts it. She was born in Mexico so she missed the food. We went ATV riding by the beach. This was fun because we were racing each other. I nearly rolled mine. Thank god I didn't because that would not have been cool. LOL! We returned to the ship because we didn't realize how much time we had. We swam a little and then realized we should check out more of Ensenada. We went to the Buffadora. I think the whole thing is a tourist trap. The vendors were extremely aggressive in trying to sell stuff to you. I ended up buying my wife some cooking vanilla since she convinced me that it was a bargain. At least it kept the people from trying to sell us more stuff. I have to admit, they'd all make great car salesmen. We returned to the ship again to rest our feet. Hot tub time again. Then we went and saw another program in the theater. I like all of them. Not a bad day overall.

Day 4 - This was the "Fun at seas" days. Now I have to mention that even though this is a "fun ship", there wasn't much to do on this day. My only question is why do they have all of the ship parties and fun stuff on days in which we are stopped at a port? There weren't many things to do on this ship so we ended up touring the ship. This ship isn't to big so that lasted only about 1 hour. We decided to hit the buffet a little more. That tired me out. I think I gained about 10 pounds on this cruise. We took a nap. Woke up for dinner. This night we watched only part of a show and returned to our cabins to watch some movies. Not a bad trip.

Cabin Review

Ocean View

Big enough to fit us but not enough to be impressive. Great view. Correct side of ship allowed us to see as we approached the ports. Always clean.

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