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Interesting First Cruise

Melbourne

My husband and I decided to try a cruise for our 25th anniversary. We had no knowledge of different cruise lines, or age of ships, etc and assumed all cruise lines were basically the same. We chose this particular cruise because of the port of calls; Bimini and Nassau, both of which we wanted to see. On arrival to Tampa, and approaching the cruise terminal, we could see our ship, along with other ships docked and immediately noticed how old it looked compared to the other lines. There were visible rust stains on the side of the ship that painters were covering with white paint, and a huge rust spot on the whale tail. Determined to put a good face on it, we kept positive attitudes and proceeded into the terminal. We had purchased the Faster to the Fun package to avoid the long lines and I’m so glad we did. We bypassed several very lengthy lines! Upon entering the ship, we were impressed with the cleanliness but the ship decor is clearly quite dated. In the atrium, both of the decorative glass elevators were out of order, which was disappointing. Our room was an aft-facing balcony and I must say the views were stunning!  Absolutely beautiful!! Our first port of call was Bimini, and since we hadn’t opted to pay for an excursion, our only option was a tiny beach at the end of the walkway. There are no chairs, nothing Carnival affiliated at all. There were a couple of local food trucks selling beverages, but that was about it. The beautiful water made up for it, though. Quite stunning!  Oh, beware of the jellyfish. They were stinging people left and right. We stayed for a bit and returned to the ship. The Nassau port was quite a long walk with no complimentary trams, and it was absolutely boiling hot. All we saw were tons and tons of shops selling the same gimmicky tourist junk, and not much else. There are no beaches near the port, so unless you opt to pay additional money, you just have shopping as an option. With some of the other cruise ships docked alongside us, I again noticed how decrepit our ship looked compared to the sleek, newer ships from Royal Caribbean, MCS, Disney, etc. 

The Guy Fieri burgers were my favorite food option, by far. So flavorful and filing. The buffet options were bland at best. They began repeating options by the second day. 

All in all, we enjoyed ourselves, because we had nothing to compare it to. Going forward, we will choose a different line until Carnival updates its ships. 

Oh! Be sure to bring a usb fan! The room never quite got cool enough for either of us. And the refrigerator isn’t actually a refrigerator. It’s a cooler. If your drink is already cold, it might keep it at that temperature. But if you’re putting room temperature beverages in and expecting them to get cold, they won’t. They also have warnings affixed stating that they are not cold enough to store medications, etc.

Room: We cruised with friends on the 7/24-7/29 sailing to Nassau and Bimini. The embarkation process went really smoothe, compared to other sailing we’ve been on. However, my family was on the 7th deck. Room was so hot! We asked for a Dan and luckily I had brought 2 usb fans after seeing reports from previous passengers that deck 7 rooms were hot. Unfortunately, that was not the only negative! We were woken up about 3:30 am the first night with what sounded like carts of dishes slamming up against the wall! It kept us up for almost an hour! After the first night, the noise wasn’t as bad but we were woken up at least once by noise every night! On the 3rd day, our bathroom smelled like straight sewer and the water was brown! Our towels and washcloths turned brown after we got out of the shower. Also,  our bathroom floor was always soaked when we got out of the shower!  The only positive from our room was our room steward who was super friendly and cleaned our room daily. I believe the negatives we experienced were way out of his control! He was super sweet and a hard worker! 

Dining: we chose the your time dining, but since the ship was at capacity, we did not get the dining we wanted. Instead we got the late dining at 8:15! This was not good at all because we are not late eaters and most of the good shows happen around that time! The worst part..THE FOOD! There were a total of 9 people in our party and I believe 8 out of 9 of us had stomach issues at some point on the cruise. We also saw several reports on our sailing group page on Facebook where several people got sick after eating. 

Entertainment: the entertainment was ok. We LOVED the 80’s and 90’s show and the Rock show in the Normandie Lounge. The comedy shows were ok. The piano bar was our absolute favorite! We were there every night!  

Cleanliness of the ship: we always saw workers cleaning! It’s an older ship but seemed clean for the most part BUT I wonder about the kitchen seeing as so many people were sick!

Nassau: we have been to Nassau before! It was beautiful but weather was a little iffy that day but we still had a great time! We did an all inclusive at Breezes Resort that day, which was not an excursion we booked through Carnival. 

Bimini: Bimini was our favorite and absolutely beautiful! You are better off to go to the beach right off the pier so you can go on and off during the day to eat/drink, because food and drinks in Bikini is super expensive!

Service on the ship: this was our 4th cruise..3rd with Carnival! We’ve always had exceptional service on any ship, but it was hit and miss on the Paradise. Several of the workers seemed miserable to be there and were very hateful. The workers in the dining room were extremely friendly and the waitresses in the piano bar were as well! The day of the disembarkation was the worst because we had workers yelling at us when we were trying to get off the ship! I understand there is a process but most were so hateful! 

Overall: we have been on 3 Carnival cruises and typically love them! Although we had a great time, I would NEVER get back on the Paradise! We will more than likely cruise with Carnival in the future but will choose a different ship for sure! We are usually not complainers, but it was really hard not to have a complaint on this ship! When you pay for a cruise, you are paying to have a relaxing, great time! Hot cabins with loud noise throughout the night with a bathroom that smells like a portajohn is not my idea of relaxing! They need more entertainment for sure! There were times not much of anything was going on during the cruise!

Had a blast, but the Paradise leaves a lot to be desired!

We live locally & wanted something we did not have to travel far to reach the ship.  We have cruised with Carnival many times but have not done so since before covid and children.  Our cabin was a quiet retreat that fulfilled our need to relax & unwind.  We were a bit surprised by the bathroom set-up that did not permit my husband to use the toilet paper roll while in its's holder. (no leg room)  The entertainment was sub par.  The 2nd big show night had only a half full venue.  The comedian's 1st show was good but then proceeded to start his 2nd nite with the same monologue.  The cruise director was not engaging enough to keep us entertained let alone the many others that left when he was on stage.  The food was plain.  Fried chicken on 2 nites...REALLY.   The cruise crew were tired of the boat load of people by the final full day (at sea) and were grouchy.  We saw dust in places that would never have been seen in days gone by.

At least it was relaxing

The good: Crew was excellent on this ship. All were friendly and professional. None of what I’m about to say is their fault.

The Carnival check in process is much better than it used to be pre-COVID. The Carnival Hub is an excellent tool for planning your days. 

The bad: the internet for $110 (5 night cruise) simply stinks. It’s 2023. There has to be a faster internet than you can get here. 

The food for the most part is not great. Best example was the Chicken Marsala that really didn’t taste like Marsala at all. A lot of food is like this. 

The foods that were truly done well were their pizza and Guy’s Burger Joint cheeseburgers. 

For drinks, they should consider getting rid of the cans and go with a system similar to the Coke Freestyle (Carnival has Pepsi). This would solve a lot of issues with wait times at the bars. Also, printing receipts for everything is so 1990. Have those receipts go to the Carnival Hub. 

The ugly: The ship itself dates back to the 1990s. Its age really shows. The decor is tired and meh. The ship has lots of little things wrong with it that take away from the experience. 

There are signs that are half lit, one that leads to a locked back door of a restaurant, and broken light fixtures throughout. 

Ice cream and pizza we were originally told was 24/7. This is incorrect. Pizza is close (9am to 4am). Ice cream is 11am to 10pm. The ice cream machines did not function well most of the time. One was broken, the other made soupy ice cream. 

There are many inefficiencies throughout the ships food operation that could be fixed. 

Entertainment: The Epic rock and 80s Pop to the Max shows are totally mis-cast. There are certain songs that should only be done by certain types of people (Whitney Houston and Meat Loaf come to mind). Both shows are simply a glorified karaoke with better singers. The highlight of the epic rock show is the pre-show riffing from the guitarist.

Comedians and the house DJs and bands were pretty good. 

The trivia host we had was from Kenya and the poor guy was admittedly teased about his accent. That aside, some question were repeated in different games. 

Destinations were Nassau and Bimini. Relatively little time spent at each (7.5 hours). 

Overall assessment is that it is time to refurbish the shop and give Tampa a good cruising experience.

Not truly paradise; Dated, tired ship

This was a family cruise that has had to be rescheduled 3 different times. 

Room Steward - 5 stars

Activities Director - 5 stars

Main Dining Room Wait staff - 4 stars

ALL food on board EXCEPT Guy’s Burger Joint -  Negative 2 stars. Please remove Southern fried Chicken from your menu until you know how to cook it properly like a True Southerner.

All Bartenders - 5 stars

Spa staff- 5 stars

This was my first time cruising since the pandemic, you could really tell a difference in total over all experience. While the room steward was great, activities director was great, dining room staff was pretty good.  The kitchen staff throughout the whole ship needs to be replaced.  The only place worth eating was at Guy’s Burger Joint. The comedy entertainment was horrible and not funny.  The one musical artist K. Taylor was fantastic!!!!! The other ones were ok, but nothing to write home about. Even had quite a few rude crew members.

Review of services and such

Rome (Civitavecchia)

Before everything else, this was my first cruise ever (and I'm 22) so I don't have any biases or pedestal to put this cruise up against. Secondly, the food given the first two days was absolutely scrumptious!!! Lord I ate so much! The buffet was splendid and the restaurant we went to the first night with reservations was absolutely out of this world! I definitely enjoyed the karaoke at the pool bar as well... There's two things that stuck out to me specifically, my room attendant- Ayoub ( superb service from all crew members onboard, however I know I am a pain as far as personal room service goes lol. The second thing is the various activities available; we attended both comedy shows on the second night and they were great! Also, the foosball tables!! Definitely brought the kid out in me! As far as cleanliness goes, it was well maintained but you can still tell that it used to be a carnival ship because certain things, like bathroom locks, are not in top shape. However I give it a 4/5 rating in my book :)

Freeport Bahamas

Pool and hot tubs were cold. Toilet overflowed twice and they tried denying it and leaving us in a stinky nasty room and still never let us switch rooms. Also we watched the cabin stuart across the hall from our room going through all the peoples stuff (even one of their phones ) while the people were gone so we refused to have them come clean our room unless we were right there. Most entertainment especially the musicians were brutal to listen to. Staff were unfriendly much of the time. They just want tips before they will acknowledge you. Pool deck was very slimmey and slippery . I fell once on it . It was like walking on ice at times. Most of the food was ok but could have had a better salad bar ( like there was no lettuce). Pizza was suppose to be 24 hours but not true. I tried to get a pizza at 5 am and they said they don't have pizza at this time. I could go on and on but have been on other cruises and very much enjoyed them . This one was just aweful in comparison.

Worst cruise ever

Recently, my boyfriend and me took a Carnival cruise on the Paradise during December 22-27 , 2014 . I was thinking , it's would be a perfect little vacation getaway. Usually we book balcony cabin, but this time we had inside cabin( booked cabin 2 weeks prior cruising) . Instead my boyfriend got very sick ( we think , from poor air circulation and mold ). We complained for 3 days, that it's very hot in the cabin, only on day 3 did the technician finally unscrewed the air vent, witch was full of mold and solid black in color. In fact, most everyone staying on the empress deck was sick and coughing like my boyfriend.
With regard to what is supposed to be the reason we all cruise (the superb food) Carnival Paradise's food was simply awful. Specifically the eggs were not real (seemed to be made from powder), the coffee and tea were not brewed. They both were made from syrup and water and tasted horrible. The juices were not made from juice. They use Vitality which is more like a juice drink full of added sugar.
The ship was dirty and proper sanitation procedures were not used. Servers not wearing gloves and taking dirty plates away and serving food right after without cleaning hands or wearing gloves.
Needless to say we would not recommend the Carnival brands and will never book with them again. They want to charge full price and provide 2nd class service.

Think before you book Carnival cruise line

The cruise was fun from the moment we embarked until we reluctantly walked off the ship. -- We got the $49 Faster To The Fun (FTTF) so embarkation was a breeze and our room was ready. Best $50 ever spent. We went directly to the buffet and Mongolian wok and had a VERY delicious lunch. Started the cruise on a full, satisfied stomach. Kids went to the O2 club where they met other kids their age 16+ and they had activities for them every day. Kids had rave reviews of club O2. There was soooo much to do on the ship. We went to all shows and participated in contests, and I even won the putting contest!! We relaxed, ate, exercised, met people, had fun at the comedy club. Too many things to list. ---- Cigarette smoke was not an issue. (unless I was at a smoking table in the casino.... where I expect smoke.) I found no overcrowding, some people complained about things that are not worth complaining about. (They are just hard to please.) Someone wrote that "the ship shows her age....." yes!! it's 20 years old!! It looked fine. If you want to be a jerk, then you can look in corners and see chipped paint. ??? If you want a newer ship, then pay the $1,100 per person for a brand new ship. ---- We had an ocean view which we enjoyed. Our room steward (Tree) was amazing! Made us feel like we were his only clients. This was my wife and my 3rd cruise. (Royal Caribbean in the past) ---Kids did the "Dolphin encounter" excursion. Worth every penny as the kids totally enjoyed it and we got some great pics also. (+$69) - The Cruise director Steve and assistant Hugo were ALL-THAT!!!!!! Made the shows even more fun. This cruise was amazing............ I could write so much more. Can't wait until we cruise again ASAP!!

DRUNK WITH FUN!!!

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