For the past three days, Joe Palko has been guest blogging from a four-day Western Caribbean cruise on the Carnival Paradise from Carnival Cruise Line. Today we have his final installment from onboard as the cruise ship makes its way back to Tampa, FL after a port call in Cozumel, Mexico.
One of the things we did during the day was 90’s music trivia, which was a lot of fun. We met a lot of great people and played together as a team. Although we didn’t win, but it was fun. Interestingly enough, we had said we’d meet back at 2 PM for regular trivia, which turned out not to have a host. We waited until 2:15 when someone had made the comment “I guess they aren’t going to show up for this event either.” The other activity (I can’t remember what it was!) we wanted to go to this morning we sat there for a half hour when someone finally came and said “the host is sick, she’s not coming.” This is disappointing. We did attend the afternoon cruise ship version of the Honeymoon Game, and it was funny. The older couple that had been together for 35 years were totally adorable, and got every question but 1 correct.
The best part of this cruise for real, is the Punchliner Comedy Club. Both comedians were truly hilarious and provided solid entertainment from 7:30 until after midnight.
We also went to the show on Sunday night. Kudos to both of the singers, and the entire cast as they had amazing voices. Of course, I didn’t pay attention to the name of the show, but it was basically the history of music over the decades, with popular country songs, 70s, 80s, and 90s songs. The set looked a little old, much like that of a local playhouse in a small city, but the performers were great.
We did make it to dinner in the main dining room and the food was ok. I sent you pictures of the food to post, including meatloaf. Yes! Meatloaf on a cruise. I had it was it was good.
We made it back to Tampa, and I can honestly tell you that in all my years of cruising, I have never seen such an easy customs experience. We did wait around the ship for a little longer than I had wanted to before we got our clearance, but once we started leaving the ship, this was the fastest disembark I’ve ever experienced. The valet was also incredible, with the valet bringing my car in less than one minute.
Port of Tampa, an amazing place to cruise from, hands down…
Overall notes, the main dining room offers decent food, but the other buffets have very average, even subpar food. The pizza is very consistent and is always a nice backup when hungry. The staff was pleasant, the room steward was also great. The port was amazing in every way. For the price of this cruise, I was pleased. I think Carnival does a great job at providing a consistently average product for a below-average price.
Personal Day-By-Day Carnival Paradise Cruise Review:
Photo Tour of the Carnival Paradise:
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 Paradise Photo Tour as well as in the day-by-day review of the cruise at the links above.