Carnival Ecstasy Review
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We booked this cruise about 3 months in advance as a much needed getaway. We were a group of 3; ages 24, 23, and 23 but don't be fooled by our age we are avid cruisers (this was in-fact my platinum cruise). We were driving from Tampa so we left the morning of and arrived in Port Canaveral around 11am. We decided to park at the Radisson hotel (it's about half the price of the actual port), the staff was very nice but be prepared to wait somewhat. We were on the shuttle about 15 minutes after we parked but the shuttle dropped off at the Dream first, then the Ecstasy.
Embarkation: Since this was my platinum cruise we got the perk of being "vip/priority". From the time of giving the porters our bags to getting on the ship was probably a maximum of 15 minutes. We were on the ship around noon and went directly to our room to drop off our carryon bags, wine, soda, etc... Having this perk is amazing because we got to settle in right away and not lug bags around the lido deck till 1:30 when all the rooms are ready. We then headed to the lido deck for lunch and explore the ship; I will go into greater detail on these aspects of the cruise below. By being "priority" our bags were also outside the room by 2pm the latest. Just these perks alone could be a good reason to purchase FTTF for some people (on some cruises I wouldn't get my bag to at least 6 or 7 pm).
Room: We were on Deck 5 (Main deck) in an cabin M-160 an ocean view. The location of this room, in my opinion was perfect, two elevator/stair banks very close and there are only rooms below and above (no public areas), and because of this we found the room to be very quiet. The room itself was your classic carnival room, the beds were very comfortable and the flat panel TV was a nice touch. The room definitely seemed updated fairly recently. My only complaint was the shelving in the bathroom seemed more limited than usual, but we managed. Our room steward Jorge was great, he had given us an extra robe, removed the drinks from the room, and got us a mini fridge (for medical purposes), and kept the ice bucket filled every day. We did not see him too often (we spent very little time in the room) but when we did he referred to us by name which is always nice.