This was my wife's 30th birthday cruise so I wanted to make it special for her. Its hard to find a practical cruise around her birthday because its spring break weekend but this one was semi affordable. This was my fourth cruise and my wife's fifth cruise so we know a little bit about what we're doing. As usual I got on cruisecritic.com to see what people were saying about the boat after I booked it. Despite the Splendor being one of the newer ships it didn't have the best reviews. A lot of people complaining about pink donuts, smells, the service not being very good and the food not being good. Also the week before our cruise the Splendor had some issues and had to change his itinerary. The change in itinerary was to the Bahamas a place we had been to a few times before. There was a possibility we would have itinerary change or they might have to cancel if the fix didn't work on the boat.

All of my apprehensions were pushed aside for this was our best cruise thus far. I guess because of the issues on the week before a few people cancelled their bookings. The upgrade fairy gave me a call a couple of days before and I was able to upgrade our interior room on the seventh floor to a balcony room on the eighth floor for $300. Carnival sent us an email a few days prior and said that our boat was completely fixed and all of our stops San Juan, St Thomas, Grand Turk and the Dominican Republic were all a go. Not only that but there would be an extended stay in St. Thomas until 11pm and Chris Tucker would give two live shows on the boat!!! Stoked. The comedy director said that this cruise including Chris Tucker shows had 30 live comedy acts during the week.

The decour on the boat was busy but not nearly as bad as people were saying. The main Lido pool was a bit small but the adult pool in the back of the boat was a great asset. The pool at the back of the boat had two hot tubs and a great sandwich spot right by it. The food in the dining room, lido deck, the sandwich shop, the barbecue spot, the pizza spot, and the burgers and fries spot were outstanding. The boat was easy to navigate, after the first day I just about knew where everything was. The spa was big and awesome and relaxing. The DJs on the boat werent bad. Our corny cruise director Mar Q wasn't the best but wasnt the worst either. We had an outstanding time. We had such a good time that we already had a cruise booked for October 2018 but when we got home we booked another one for October 2017 as we couldn't foresee having to wait a year and a half to go on another one. Great job Carnival.