Carnival Splendor Review

Splendor Southern Caribbean May 2016; Teriffic!

Review for the Southern Caribbean Cruise on Carnival Splendor
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Tracey/Thom
2-5 Cruises • Age 50s

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Sail Date: May 2016
Cabin: Balcony

We purchased this cruise on a flash sale the month before, so it was a bit of a rush, but we'd been researching Southern Caribbean, so it all worked out. A few days before we upgraded to a balcony from an interior (someone called us and gave us a decent upsell offer). This was our second cruise on Carnival (we'd cruised Princess and MSC) and it was so much better than our first cruise on the Carnival Ecstasy.

There seemed to be less drunken young people as it was an 8 night cruise, rather than the 4 nights we did before and this made it much more pleasant for us. Still the Fun Ship - we had a blast! We decided that the time of year (before colleges and school let out) and the length of cruise is vital when deciding on what kind of cruise you want to have. We love children, but so many parents seem to take their supervisory hands off their children on a cruise, and it just makes lots of other people unhappy. You can't do anything about other people (or their children!), so it's best to plan accordingly.

We went to the comedy club several times, the early shows only - the Adult shows had ridiculously long lines. One night we actually got asked to leave the Adult show because they had to clear the room of anyone who might have been in the earlier show. That was rather offensive.

Cabin Review

Balcony

Cabin 8A

We originally booked an interior and then upgraded to a balcony a few days before. We were not sorry, this was Forward, so we felt a little more movement than we usually do, but nothing too bad. It was our first balcony experience and now we might just be ruined for another interior! There was a sofa, where perhaps 2 bunk bed might have been, so we felt it was very roomy, 3 closets not the 2 we normally get in an interior, and extra drawers too. The bathroom seemed like the standard size, the water pressure was great, and their was plenty of hot water. We liked the little retractable line in the shower to drip dry wet bathing suits as I know they frown upon clothes being left on the balcony. We would have preferred liquid soap rather than the bar soap, but that was no big deal. We requested one bathrobe and a couple extra washcloths and they were in the room. One thing to remember is that after the first night when the steward starts leaving towel animals on your bed...you'll always have plenty of towels! As silly as they are, we really like those little animals, and hope they never get rid of them, as it's a signature Carnival things. The bed was very comfortable, great pillows, the a/c worked well. This cabin had metal dividers, so we could see the reflection of our neighbor's bottom half (that and the fact that he was rather loud) when he was on his balcony. The banging of the balcony door (it's windy) is so irritating, we took extra care to hang onto ours so as not to add to the irritation.

This cabin is close to the bridge, it was fun to watch the captain/officer stand against what would be his rear window, and look out to sea. One evening we saw him with binoculars and got ours out too - we thought we was watching what appeared to be another ship in the distance on fire, but then we decided it just had lots of bright dancing lights. Note to others, on a balcony, there are people above you (we were on the 6th deck) that can look down on you, even if you can't see them. We liked that the safe was not in the closet but in a little cupboard under the desk, next to the fridge, which also was in a cupboard. Made the whole cabin look much nicer. There was lots of desk space, huge mirror, telephone, 2 bedside cabinets, 2 bedside lamps plus a lamp over the sofa. Even though on the map, there was a small white space directly below us (the phone rep. told us it might be a dressing room for the theatre) we never heard any noise from the theater (although we were at dinner during the first show, and attending the second show), we never heard any rehearsals or noise from it and we took naps on sea days. Although it was easy to get to the theatre, it was a little bit of a hike to the dining room which was Aft and therefore at the extreme opposite of our cabin. We would definitely recommend 6218.

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