Neil Malender

Cruise Line: Carnival
Name of Ship: Fantasy
Sailing Date: November 24th, 2002
Itinerary: Bahamas

A 4-day cruise, with one day in Freeport (Grand Bahama) and Nassau (Bahamas) each, and one day at sea (one day was the departure day) was just about ideal for me & wife, relative newcomers to cruising. It was inexpensive at just under $900 for both of us including port taxes. They added ~$40 in mandatory tipping per person for the length of the cruise, which was more than fair. We gave additional tips to the waiter and room steward.

Room steward was super efficient, the towel animals were interesting. He was out of sight but always managed to get in to do his good work when we were not around.

Freeport, Grand Bahama was the first stop and it wasn't all that interesting an island to be honest. The weather was in the mid-70s and sunny which was fine but the beaches were not the best. We knew enough not to pursue the tours arranged by the ship. Cabs are a lot cheaper, plus they allow you to go to places not promoted by the ship. For example, the International Marketplace is the best place to shop and Xanadu beach is one of the best on the island, but there were no tours there.

Nassau was much better. Apart from the downtown and shopping areas, the fort and the water tower (all of which are walking distance from the port which is nice), you can take a public bus for $1 to the Cable beach area, get back to the pier, take a ferry to Paradise Island, check out Atlantis, come back and get a meal at one of many fine restaurants, catch a night show if the ones on the ship aren't good enough, and get back in plenty of time for the departure time of next morning at 7 am. Nassau is the Honolulu of the Caribbean.. lots of traffic and people, but still enough nice beaches.

The night shows were all very good and included Broadway-style, Las Vegas-style, and a comedy & magic show. The food in the formal dining rooms was uniformly excellent. Service was very good.

Now for the negatives: the buffet restaurant on the Lido deck was very average except for breakfast which is typical. And the cutlery there was usually dirty. Pizza from the 24-hour pizzeria was poor. Pools are lousy and the few jacuzzis are near-unusable with the crowds and kids. The gym was small, but it was hardly ever crowded. (Spa treatments were expensive if you care for that kind of thing.) There was no hair dryer in the room, you queue up at the information desk to get it and pay a deposit of $20 which is returned when you queue up again to return it the night before returning. Laundry facilities were only on one level. Information/purser desks always had very long lines. Photos (which they take a lot of) are ridiculously expensive, especially the 8 by 10 which went for $20 each. Some of the above will be true regardless of which ship you go on, I would think.

They had a couple ping-pong tables and a giant chessboard which was fun. Bars and casino were OK. Cruise director was a bit overwhelming and wasted inordinate amounts of time on lame jokes even during the "debarakation briefing" which had the auditorium jam-packed.

The rooms were decent size and the bathroom/shower seemed especially generous. Lots of hot water at high pressure, even better than many hotels! Responsiveness to a complaint we had (noise from next-door room) was excellent and they actally checked with us 4 times during the cruise to make sure we didn't have any problems in that regard! I think it really depends on who you talk to, in this case the lady we spoke with at the information desk was just fantastic.. at another time when queuing up for info we ran into one of those efficient, snappy types who just wants to get on to the next guest. The ship was very stable and we were never troubled by sea sickness. The crew keep the ship very clean and well-maintained. We had to change our dinner time to late seating and that was no problem.

Overall it was a very pleasant and fun experience. There's always something to do and the crew is mostly friendly and genuinely helpful. The ship is relatively old, built in 1990 if I remember right, and there will be bigger and more feature packed ones with nicer decor.. but for the price it was an excellent vacation and we would recommend it to anyone!

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