Carnival Ecstasy Review
Christmas in Ecstasy -- December 20-25, 2010
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The cast of characters for this Christmas cruise was me, Cindy, age 50, and my husband Jim, also 50. That's it...no kids, no pets, no extended family, or at least not on this cruise. The only thing of interest we brought with us was a couple bottles of good wine. This was our 13th cruise and our third on Carnival, but we've also cruised with Princess and Royal Caribbean, and we haven't met a ship we didn't like. Most of our cruises have been out of Galveston because the lure of a cruise homeport only an hour from our house is something I've yet to be able to resist. Obviously, at least at this point in our lives, we cruise more for the ship than variety in our ports!
We decided to go down to Galveston and stay at the Harbor House the night before our cruise, so we could watch the ships sail and soak in some Christmas spirit walking around the Strand. We were successful in watching the ships sail, although Voyager didn't leave until about 6:15...she sailed by Willie G's while we were at dinner. The Strand was kind of a bust...not nearly as decorative as we thought it would be, and it was COLD!
We went to Willie G's for dinner with some trepidation, because we both thought the Landry's restaurants had declined a lot in quality in recent years. I had thought about trying Olympia Grill, but discovering $50 in Landry's gift cards buried in the pantry pretty much took care of the decision where to eat. Much to our surprise, dinner was excellent! We were both pretty beat, so after dinner we watched football for a while and called it a night early.
Cabin Review
Grand Suite
We liked our cabin and location. We had plenty of space, and a nice sized balcony. I would say a GS on the Ecstasy is about the size of a Junior Suite on RCCL or a Mini Suite on Princess. Only two things were a bother…one was pounding feet from above in the very early morning hours, and the other was the pervasive "cruise ship smell" in our bathroom. You know the smell…it's on every ship at various times…and it was in our bathroom most of the trip. Sometimes it was stronger than others, but it never really went away.
The bathroom odor was what kept me from rating this cabin a 5. Aside from the odor our suite was well maintained and comfortable. We had more than adequate storage space between the walk-in closet and many drawers and shelves. The balcony seemed deeper than the ones found on Carnival's newer ships. It was a very comfortable cabin for two people, but there was adequate space and storage for a family.