Carnival Inspiration Review
Gilbert Cruisers
6-10 Cruises • Age 40s
Rating by category
Cabin
Value for Money
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Dining
Public Rooms
Entertainment
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Additional details
Sail Date: Oct 2017
Cabin: Interior
Traveled with children
Have sailed NCL many times in the past but decided to give Carnival a try because the itinerary was a perfect fit for the kids school break. So here goes my impression of Carnival Inspiration
First off we got to the Long Beach pier right around noon and the terminal was a buzz of activity. I showed the one lady our ticket and she just kind of blew me off and waved us to the end of a line. We slowly moved up that line and came to point where they were splitting the line. Again this lady just glance at us and moved us to another line which was extremely long. We had purchased the Faster to the Fun package that was supposed to help this so we tried asking again. Finally someone paid attention to exactly what we said and pulled us out of the line and into the right place. (The original lady looked at me and "YOU needed to tell me that. Hey I didn't know, and I showed you my tickets!) Crabby lady now in the past, I am ready for fun. By the way that FTTF purchase was worth it! We got straight on to the boat and into our room no problem. Dropped our luggage and headed for the Lido deck to find lunch.
First impression of the Lido café was strange. Was surprised to have the food at multiple locations around the room, but after awhile it seemed to work. Found the layout of the ship to be very maze like. Many times we would go to a certain floor only to find that we could not access a certain area from that elevator. We had the anytime dining so were assigned the Mardi Gras dining room. Found you could only get to it from the front elevators even though it looks like you can from the midship elevators. Nope and you have to go either up or down then down to the Atrium. Also the beautiful Atrium elevators never did run the entire trip. Side note about the elevators, they are very slow and usually crowded. People press both side to get the soonest elevator so then they stop on almost every floor for no one. Most times we got tired of waiting and just took the stairs. There are lots of stairs on this boat, but that helps burn off all that food we ate right :-)
Cabin Review
Interior
Cabin 4E
This is an inside cabin that accomodates up to 5 people. I do not recommend this for 5 adults. It is really cramped with 2 adults and 3 small children but we made it work. Our cabin steward was very nice and did a great job every day. It is about half way between the middle and back elevators on deck 5. Be careful of the shower in the bathroom. If the curtian is not positioned just right the whole bathroom floor becomes a lagoon. Not a lot of storage space in the bathroom either. Oh and the rooms don't come with a hair dryer. This came as a surprise, but we called our cabin steward and he brought us one about 20 minutes later. Also the cabins do not have a mini fridge. My husband uses insulin that needs refrigeration. We asked for a fridge and they bought us one, but 2 days later told us that we couldn't use it for insulin and that he needed to store it with the medical center. At this point we ignored the notice and just kept it with us for the last 2 days. That was pretty stupid but oh well. Overall a cosy cabin but this worked really well for our limited budget.
Port Reviews
Los Angeles
This is a nice port to drive to and park. Super easy to get into and out. The parking garage was right there and was $19/per day. Worked great
Catalina Island (California)
Love Catalina Island. I recommend snorkeling. It was fabulous
Ensenada
Eh, it was just ok. If I went again, I'd just stay onboard. Nothing special in town.
5 Helpful Votes
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