Carnival Splendor Review

4.0 / 5.0
1,475 reviews

Carnival Splendor far less than Splendid

Review for the Mexican Riviera Cruise on Carnival Splendor
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Dissappointed Cruiser
First Time Cruiser • Age 60s

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Value for Money
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Additional details

Sail Date: Aug 2009
Cabin: Balcony

Before taking this cruise, my son and I spent time online reading reviews and taking virtual ship tours. We read some negative reviews but wrote them off as grumpy people who probably generally had a negative attitude. We had sailed on Carnival twice before, and last year tried Royal Caribbean. The food was better on R.C. but we felt our previous trips on Carnival were generally more fun. So, with high hopes we booked my only week off all year and counted down the days until the fun began. Like all experiences in life it was not all good or all bad. I will try and give you a balanced evaluation.

THE GOOD 1. The ship is whimsical in decor. Alot of pink, but cheerful in a "Little Mermaid" sort of way. 2. The deck chairs were comfortable and there were enough to accommodate the huge demand. Not that you could get a chair within close proximity to a pool, but somewhere on some deck you could find an available chair. 3. Rooms were even smaller than on our last cruise but functional and reasonably comfortable. The flat screen tv got better reception than last trip. 4. The gym was slightly larger with more cardio equipment. The weight machines were Life Fitness brand. (good quality but very few in number)

THE BAD 1. Big is not better. When you get 3700 passengers on one boat it is a cattle ship. Waiting in line for the buffet on the Lido Deck took longer than waiting for the Matterhorn at Disneyland in mid summer. 2. The biggest disappointment was the poor quality of the food. Dennys wouldn't serve greasy, tough, tasteless food of this caliber. I was served raw bleeding lamb, flank steak so tough i actually was unable to saw through it, unseasoned scrambled eggs, bacon dripping with grease, etc. etc. The only saving grace was the two nights we paid $30 extra apiece, not counting tip, to eat at the Pinnacle Restaurant. 3. Because we had late seating dinner and show times and like to hang the do not disturb sign and sleep in, and missed the morning room cleaning hours. If your room is not available when the wish to clean, they skip it. When we called housecleaning on two occasions, they promised to send someone right up and never showed. After waiting several hours on two different occasions I called customer service. No one answers this line. Instead you get a prerecorded list of numbers to call if you have a problem-like you guessed it housekeeping to get your room cleaned. So, I went down to the "customer service" desk. The British lady I spoke with was curt, dismissive, and obviously uninterested. She said she would send housekeeping right up. Instead my cabin steward showed up to defensively lecture me about why the room wasn't cleaned with a do not disturb sign out. I finally gave up and we slept a third night on dirty sheets. 4. The Splendor virtual tour still shows a 24 hour food service station which serves a variety of cooked foods, sandwiches, deserts etc. It doesn't exist. You can get a hamburger until 12:30 and slices of greasy pizza 24 hrs, as-well as frozen yogurt. 5. The virtual tour also shows an enticing mineral whirlpool but fails to mention a $30 a day "spa membership" fee to use it. They also tell you that internet access is available but fail to mention it's 75cents a minute if you bring your own laptop for a poor connection which is slower than dial up. 6. No one enforces any rules. After showing up 45 minutes early for an evening show, people came last minute and sat on the stairs, completely obscuring the stage. People smoked on their nonsmoking balconies, and packs of unsupervised rowdy teenagers wandered the halls all night. 7. Lastly, while some employees were polite, MANY we not even remotely friendly and some bordering on belligerent.

Cabin Review

Balcony

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