Carnival Fascination Review
Rating by category
Additional details
This was our first cruise when we didn't go with friends. My 9th, and hubby's 8th. (he missed last year due to a hip replacement). We were celebrating our 6th anniversary, and decided to spend it at our favorite beach, Half Moon Cay. We are an older couple (in our sixties) and enjoy cruises as an affordable way to travel and unwind.
After making sure that the house was clean, and the kitty sitter could handle our herd of cats, we headed to Jacksonville from Atlanta. Since we got a late start we had breakfast just south of town, a disappointing Cracker Barrel in McDonough, and then really hit the road. We arrived at the Holiday Inn Express Blount Island around 5, took our suitcases up to the room and then jumped back in the car and headed up to the Sanddollar restaurant on the river. Dinner was great, the view and the temperatures perfect and the service was terrible, but we are on vacation and could finally relax. We went back to the hotel as it was getting dark and decided to go for a swim. I thought it was refreshing, hubby thought it was cold, and there are no lights in the pool at night so I got out when I realized I was swimming with a bug, And the bug was swimming better than I was. LOL!
The hotel is clean, the free breakfast enjoyable, and the proximity to port is less than a mile. We have stayed here three times before, and will stay there again if we decide to cruise from Jacksonville again. We decided not to use their shuttle and drove and parked at the port. Parking was 75.00 dollars and very safe. (we found this out on our return).
Cabin Review
Porthole
A good cabin, very close to the front of the ship, which keeps hall traffic and noise level down. Riviera portholes are larger, but on the Empress deck you are closer to the MDR, and "the fun".
Port Reviews
Nassau
We walked to the Pirates Museum and spent an hour educating our selves about a pirates life. After we toured the museum we visited Christ King Cathedral, this is a must do, it felt like we were in Europe, so much history on the walls here, and the stained glass windows were beautiful.
While we were walking through town, someone approached my husband trying to sell him marijuana. This was one block from the ship. We have wandered through Belize, one of the scariest places to just wander, and no one approached us trying to sell drugs. Just say no, who wants to spend time in a jail in a foreign country. This really doesn't help a country where our own embassy warns us of crime. By the way, only two ships were in port, both of them Carnival.