Carnival Fascination Review

We had a ball... could have been better.

Review for the Bahamas Cruise on Carnival Fascination
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nrayorr
First Time Cruiser • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Aug 2010
Cabin: Ocean View

Check-In: This part of the process was a lot faster than when I went on a cruise as a single man. The process was pretty quick, took no more than an hour compared to 3 hours the last time. I was pleasantly surprised. It really helps a lot when you complete some of your information online which is the reason I believe it was faster. The last time I cruised the online service wasn't available.We were able to go to the Lido deck to grab a bite to eat. The food was good to us. We never really had cruised together so there was nothing to compare. The food was plentiful and we took advantage of the assortment that they had. From there we went to our roomWhen we got to our room it was in very decent shape. The port window was pretty dirty from the outside, so that could have been improved upon. Our travel agent knew that my wife and I were going to celebrate our anniversary, so she made arrangements to have some chocolate covered strawberries and a bottle of champagne delivered to our room before we got there. What a wonderful surprise that was! My wife had crashed in the bed not realizing how draining the flight was since this was her first time flying. I let her sleep for just a bit otherwise she wouldn't get used to the time zone change. While she was asleep I decided to look around a little bit more and then we had our muster drill. This didn't happen the last time I cruised, so it surprised me. My wife was awakened by our cabin steward and joined me.We had a day at sea planned, so there was plenty of time to look around the ship. The ship was small, but that was fine by us. The ship was very nice, the deck looked a little old, but it was a pretty old ship. The pools were very crowded most of the time and the water was warm which didn't help me at all. Thank the Lord for AC! We had our first drink and we knew that our budget was going to be increased just a bit because the drinks were good... not watered down like my last cruise. We then went back to the cabin to get ready for dinner. Once again, the food was great. SO much better in the dining room versus the Lido Deck. I had no idea that the food would be so good and plentiful. I had two of everything I had ordered. Fantastic!So, we ended our evening with some evening entertainment. It was a variety show and wow... I WASN'T IMPRESSED! It was not good at all except for one lady that had a pretty decent singing voice. My wife was sitting there with a look on her face that could only be described as, "Are you serious?" I kept my hand over my mouth in order not to laugh... it was terrible! From there we had a couple more drinks and the went to bed.The next morning we woke up to the ship not moving at all. We didn't know what was going on, but it through off our itinerary. The reason was that there was some people on board that might not have been legally able to travel because of customs. The breakfast wasn't all that great to me because we had decided to eat in the dining room. Not saying that the food was bad but it just wasn't to my liking. Because of the customs thing our first excursion cancelled because of timing. Once we got to Key West my wife and I decided just to walk around, but once we got off the bus we immediately came across a kiosk that was selling excursions. The prices were outstanding, we both booked a para sailing adventure that cost the same as one of us would have paid with Carnival so we were ecstatic. The city was so nice and clean, I would love to go visit there again. The company we para sailed with (the name escapes me) was nice. They were friendly and very nice. They recorded our time in the air, the price was a little steep in my opinion ($30.00 for a DVD), but we paid it because we wanted to capture that time. We went back to the ship after spending time shopping around Key West.Once we got back on board we had dinner and once again the food did not disappoint. The staff had prepared a routine which was fun to watch. We sat with three other couples which all were very nice and gave us some pointers as we were the ones who were new to cruising. What was interesting is that one of the couples took our very first picture on board. So, that made it even that much easier for my wife to relax.We didn't care too much for Nassau. The first time I went I did a tour, but we decided to snorkel. The company did just fine, but I wasn't having a great time because all three of my masks didn't seal, so I took on a lot of sea water and got a little nauseous. But after a sandwich I felt better. The drinks they served on board the boat was fine, but I really didn't care for the facilities. Very dirty and smelled bad. My wife had a great time snorkeling, so as long as she had fun I was alright. The owner of the boat said that his wife owned a "store" back on land, so we decided to go there. Big mistake! The store was actually a huge tent with 60 vendors crowded in. Her section was way in the back. When we were ready to leave it was like being attacked by a mob, almost every vendor tried to sell us their wares. We really didn't care much for that experience. The actual stores were better. All in all our trip to Nassau wasn't great. However, we didn't tour and we didn't go to Atlantis.We spent the next day at sea, soaked in the sun and tried to go to a comedy show that was very packed. We decided against the show and decided to just chill in a hot tub. For the most part we did enjoy ourselves and immediately booked another cruise, but in the Southern Caribbean this time around. We look forward to going.

Cabin Review

Ocean View

Cabin 6A
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