This is my really long review of the Ecstasy Voyage on Jan 20th, 2003. It was a 4-day cruise to Ensenada and Catalina. It seems that every time I'm on this ship, they do something different, so I'll give you my opinion of how I felt things went. I feel I'm brave for writing this review, so don't flame me for having an opinion!
For starters, I sailed with my mom and we had a great time and will sail Carnival again. We booked an OV guarantee, but used the Kelley method to find our cabin - and we were assigned U197. So woohoo, this is a two category upgrade!
My dad dropped us off at the pier. We arrived approximately at Noon, just before the tour busses arrived. It took about 30 minutes to stand in line and check in. Definitely get passports. It made things so much easier. This ship is an older ship, so you get both sign and sail cards and room keys. This time was different, because we were then told to go through the terminal to the other side and wait for our boarding group to be called. I've never done it this way before, but the room was full and they began boarding shortly after we arrived. It took us about another 30 minutes to get onto the ship because we had to walk through the metal detectors, then outside, then we got our picture taken, then we walked up the stairs, then walked to the WAY BACK of this long line. Once we got up in the line to where we saw the top of the stairs, we saw many people cutting into line, and there was no Carnival/Security employee there to make sure this doesn't happen. But the passengers weren't too angry with that, but many did voice an opinion that this needs to be fixed (along with many things on the ship).