Carnival Splendor Review
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I could easily go on and on about how great a time we had on this cruise, but I will try to keep it brief. Our embarkation process was smooth sailing. We took the shuttle bus from the airport directly to the ship. Upon arrival, our luggage was quickly tagged and whisked away to the boats luggage holding facility. We made it through the line to receive our sail and sign card/room key in about 15 minutes and were on the boat in around 30 minutes total. There were a large number of cruisers embarking but the process was handled in a very systematic and organized manor.
Once on the boat, we headed up to the Lido deck to grab a drink and wait for our room to be made available. The promised time was 1pm. We ended up heading to the room around 12:30 and were pleasantly surprised to find it ready for us to occupy. Our luggage was delivered on the bed within 2 hours. Considering the number of guests and amount of bags that needed to be shuttled around, it was impressive to see our bags upon our return from a late afternoon lunch.
Drinks: Coffee, Tea, Ice Tea, Milk, Lemonade, and various other juices were provided free of charge via room service or any of the restaurants. This was very convenient. We purchased a soda card for about $50 that gave us unlimited soda for the entire cruise. We also purchased two drink of the day cards for about $25 each. This entitled us to five alcoholic, fruity, drink of the days. We recommend not purchasing any of the cards. Though they were convenient at times, it would have served our purpose just fine to order and pay for the drinks as we went along. The prices were reasonable. There is an automatic 15% gratuity added to all drinks but it doesn't come close to the normal one to two dollar tip per drink I would tip at a normal bar. Considering some of the reviews I read before I left for this cruise, I was pleasantly surprised. Most beverages were $5-$7, sodas were $2 without the card, and huge 1.5 liter bottles of water which we ordered to our room ran about $5. All drinks contained plenty of alcohol and were mixed properly. Considering some of the reviews I read before I left for this cruise, I was pleasantly surprised. I personally recommend trying a long island ice tea as it provided quite the kick.