Carnival Spirit Review

4.5 / 5.0
1,075 reviews

Carnival Spirit needs to TRY HARDER!

Review for the South Pacific Cruise on Carnival Spirit
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Salstarat
10+ Cruises • Age 70s

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Sail Date: Jan 2017
Cabin: Balcony

In 2001, my family thoroughly enjoyed an earlier cruise around the Caribbean on Carnival Triumph which had fantastic food, first grade entertainment and an absolutely brilliant Cruise Director who was all over the ship organising amazing activities ... sadly all of this was lacking on the Carnival Spirit from Sydney on an 8 day cruise to 3 ports in New Caledonia ! It seemed apparent that, on this cruise, Carnival could not be bothered providing the same quality of service, entertainment or food to Australians that it provides to its American passengers departing from Miami and Fort Lauderdale which would indicate that the Cruise Line is either totally complacent about the cruises in the South Pacific or has a little bit of contempt for Australia/NZ and Australian/New Zealander passengers.

If Carnival thinks/believes that they can provide a highly expensive but second-rate product to passengers from Downunder, then they should think again because I heard quite a few "seasoned" cruise travellers on the ship complaining about the lack of attention to detail, the poor quality of food and the overcharging for watered- down alcoholic drinks, shore excursions and poor quality photographs which was rather blatant and very annoying. Also, the reduced cash prizes for Bingo was disappointing compared to the huge cash prizes offered on cruises departing from America - and we pay a lot more for the tickets into the bargain.

My husband and I have been on more than 20 cruises on many different ships from a wide variety of Cruise Lines visiting ports all around the world over many years, so we feel we have the experience to make an informed comparison. The entertainment crew were less than average and many of the organisational and administrative staff were Americans who could not relate to Australia or Australians in any way. It is highly recommended that Carnival should employ talented Australian entertainers as they do on the Princess and P&O lines that depart from Australian ports. However, we must give kudos to the brilliant performance by Miss Houdini and her back-up dancers on the last night of the cruise - their combined magical/dance show was absolutely fabulous and their professional performance outshone the lacklustre Carnival entertainers who, despite being fairly good dancers, were very poor vocalists.

Cabin Review

Balcony

Cabin 8A

Outstanding cabin ... no complaints there. Our cabin crew were flawless!

Port Reviews

Sydney (Australia)

We embarked from Sydney

Isle of Pines (New Caledonia)

We all loved the Isle of Pines .... a truly beautiful location. It would be nice if there were more excursions that travelled around the islands showing passengers more of the natural environment away from the townships and ports.

Noumea

Have been to Noumea many times so just took the local Hop-on Hop-off bus trip which was OK

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