The other day I posted some notes and photos of Joe Palko‘s cruise on the Carnival Splendor from Carnival Cruise Line. Joe has been gracious enough to share his thoughts on the cruise with my readers and just filed his “wrap up” report on the trip. If you haven’t read the first part of this review, click here to give it a read then come back and read this final cruise log:
All in all, I really enjoyed this cruise. While the decor is strange in places and a hybrid of tired and modern, it is strange enough that it looks modern. It is extremely pink, if you don’t like the color pink, avoid this ship, because you will be looking at pink on a continual basis.
The staff on this cruise was excellent. Super friendly and they tried very hard at all times to please. The staff in the Black Pearl dining room was superb. We had “Your Choice Dining” and we never waited for more than 15 minutes tops.
The Lido had a lot of buffet options and the food was good, but they rarely ever had all buffet lines open so the wait was a bit annoying. The location of the Lido buffet is really awesome though, it’s near the back of the ship and very close to the pools and on-deck entertainment. A good layout.
They had Pizza Pirate and Off the Grill (burgers and hot dogs near the pool) open almost all the time, and like the rest of the Carnival ships, you could get pizza at 3 am if you were hungry. The soft ice cream machines actually had a very good quality of soft serve mix and the machines were always immaculate.
The one thing I really liked about this ship is that it is a pretty large ship that almost never seems overcrowded. There are lots of areas where you can go and not be around people.
The two formal nights were extremely relaxed in comparison to other cruise lines I’ve been on. Thankfully, going to the Caribbean in the summer, I could get away with a button down shirt, slacks and no tie.
For some reason, most of the passengers seemed to be from North Carolina, Kentucky, and West Virginia. I don’t know if Carnival was promoting this cruise to the southern states or if it was a coincidence.
As you know, I’m not much of a drinker, but there are a lot of bars on this ship and you are never far from one.
The casino is enormous for a cruise ship.
I would positively do this ship again. It’s classic Carnival though, but on the higher end of Carnival. I don’t mean this as a blow to Carnival, because I think Carnival delivers an amazing experience if you like Carnival. If your expectations are wearing a tuxedo and showing off your best jewelry, no Carnival ship is probably the right ship for you. If you like to relax, have some drinks and drop your kids off at the camp, Carnival is probably the best value in the industry.
Well there you have it! Joe’s wrap-up of his week spent on the Carnival Splendor. Be sure to check out the photo gallery page featuring some of the food from the Black Pearl dining room as well!
Personal Day-By-Day Carnival Splendor Cruise Review:
Photo Tour of the Carnival Splendor:
No vacation would be complete without a ton of photos, right? For this particular cruise, I took a bunch of photos of the ship’s interior, pool areas, the stateroom itself, and more. Photos can be found in the Carnival Splendor Photo Tour so be sure to check it out.