Carnival Splendor Review
Rating by category
Additional details
My wife and I traveled on this cruise together. It was her 5th (2nd Carnival) and my 16th (3rd Carnival). Overall we had a terrific time and would definitely do it again. I will try to point out a couple things that could be improved upon, but for the most part it was a phenomenal trip! I've read about 100 reviews of this ship (what can I say, I love cruising!), and I'm not sure where other people are coming from, but my wife and I saw very little to complain about.
We flew in from Albuquerque the day before into LAX. We took the Super Shuttle which had almost no wait, and we got to the Hotel Maya rather quickly. We were so glad we decided to go in a day early and stay at the Hotel Maya. It is a spectacular resort property located very close to the cruise ship terminal as well as the Queen Mary. In fact, we walked to both. Our room had an ocean front view with a balcony and was very peaceful. We were close enough to walk into town to the Walmart to grab some drinks for the trip (we are pretty athletic and are willing to walk a lot more than most as you will see later on). Later in the day we spent some time at the pool (awesome) and saw the Queen Mary, which was definitely worth the trip. The next morning, my wife took a Pilates class while I ran and swam in the pool. It was a perfect start to our week!
Embarkation was a breeze. We arrived at the port at about 12:15pm. We always try to carry our bags onto the ship since we want to have our stuff right away to unpack and not worry about bags being misplaced. Usually we get held up along the way by porters and terminal employees saying we can't get our bags through the x-ray belt (they always fit). No such troubles here. We were directed right into the building (a giant dome - we actually spotted it flying into LAX). We went to through the x-ray/metal detector line, got our sign and sail cards, photos, and were on the ship within about 20 minutes of walking in the building. It was the easiest embarkation I've ever experienced. I'm not sure why others have had so much difficulty with embarkation - perhaps they show up at 9am and are upset they can't get on until 11. Regardless, we had no issues at all.
Cabin Review
Interior Upper/Lower
Room 2217 is a Cat 1A. However, even though you may read that this cabin has bunk beds, this is not true. There is a regular twin bed and a bed that is also a sofa (should you be traveling solo). You could push these two together, but the sofa is a few inches shorter. It is a great room with ample space - highly recommended! The only issue we had was that because it is so far forward, you will hear/feel the slapping of the ship against the water on rough nights, which will probably wake you. We even had a sound machine to drown it out, but it wasn't totally effective. We only had one really bad night and one bad night. Otherwise it was fine.