Carnival Cruise Lines
Fascination Cruise Review
Key West & Calica, Mexico

Sandra
Age: 62
Occupation: Retired
Number of Cruises: 1
Sailing Date: November 20th, 2006

I tried to arrange this family reunion cruise back in October of last year. Since there weren’t many family members who could make the trip we decided to make it a “family and friends cruise” for Thanksgiving. We had 21 people with us, ranging in age from 7 years old to 82 years old. There were 17 coming from Michigan and 4 live in Florida. Those from Michigan arrived a day or 2 ahead of time, stayed at hotels near the airport and took our complimentary hotel shuttles to the pier on the day we departed. Four of us ladies had made arrangements with the Ft. Lauderdale & Miami Airport Shuttle, Inc. to take us to the pier. They billed our credit card immediately (months ago), overcharged us, then never showed up. I’ll be on the horn to American Express tomorrow about that. Learn from our mistake! As soon as we boarded the ship we headed for the Coconut Grove and a buffet lunch.

Embarkation: We got to the pier around 1:30 and got in a looooooong line to go through security. The line moved pretty fast and we got our cabin keys very quickly. It was a very long walk through the line and then to the ship, so if you have those with walking difficulties, you might want to arrange for a wheel chair.

The Ship: Everything seemed to be pretty clean and well maintained, although that’s probably because the ship was recently renovated. I guess I expected more openness and brighter colors-maybe I was foolishly thinking it would look like our local shopping mall! It’s a ship, for crying out loud! I never did find my way around because I let my sister “do the driving” and never bothered to navigate myself. Wouldn’t it be helpful to have charts of the ship for the directionally challenged? They did have small deck plans but I need more help than that. Our cabin was plenty roomy for the 2 of us and we had ample storage space. I’m sure we had absolutely the BEST cabin stewardess on the entire ship. Her name was Sunny (it was really a very long Eastern European name but she wanted to be called Sunny). She introduced herself while we were still unpacking and checked in quite often to see if we needed anything. She even checked on me a couple times when I stayed in one night with tummy problems (not seasick, other tummy problems). We, of course, got the cute towel animals and turndown service every evening. The beds were great and everyone in our group slept very well. The cabin always seemed spotless.


The Food: Being a chocoholic, I LOVED the melting chocolate cake served in the dining room, and the chocolate raspberry dessert in the Coconut Grove (is there any more wonderful combination?). I thought the food, overall, was pretty good. Not exceptional, like my 13 year old grandnephew thought, but good. Turkey was served on Thanksgiving night and it was very tasty. It was not like “Mom’s” but we didn’t have to do the dishes either. I missed the lobster (darn tummy) but those who had it said it was very good- and they know their lobster. I can’t say I had anything that I thought was not good food. If I did not like the flavor of some selection I picked up from the buffet, there was plenty else to eat. No one in our group complained about the quality of the food. Our waiters, Melchor and Leonardo were fantastic to us and treated even the youngest of the children superbly.


The Entertainment: I enjoyed the shows I saw. And I was really impressed with the lighting. Who would think they could get that much going on, on that little stage! The dancers worked their tails off. No wonder they have such tiny tails! I really enjoyed the comedy shows too. The only place I think they scrimped on entertainment was in the piano bar. Good grief, that guy was AWFUL! And, I usually love piano bars. Ah well. The teens in our group were disappointed with the teen program. They said the other kids seemed to be the hip-hop type and they were not comfortable with that. A few other kids who were not with our group said the same thing. Probably not Carnival’s fault, but one of the dads suggested that maybe there should be a dress code for the teen dances that would keep that type out. I don’t know. Maybe it just was not the ship for our “sheltered” kids.

The Ports: Since I’ve been to Key West a few times before, I was just going along for the ride. We did the pub crawl (maybe that’s why I had the tummy thing!!!). It was cold that day too. Had to wear my winter jacket. On to Calica. We took the Jeep caverns excursion. We 5 ladies squeezed our butts into one Jeep and bounced along to the beach behind our guide and about 10 or 12 other Jeeps. The beach was incredible! The softest white sand I’ve ever seen. White painted platforms with big, fat white mats to lie on, white market umbrellas and employees wearing great looking white uniforms. They served a buffet Mexican lunch, which was very good. Then we had a massage in the cabanas draped with filmy white curtains. It was so decadent!! I felt like I was in a “Travel and Leisure” magazine. Would you believe, the massage was $35 for a half hour?! Sigh. Okay, on to the cave. Very interesting. We had to wear hard hats because the ceiling was very low in spots-I had to duck down and I’m only 5 feet tall. It was dark and difficult to walk on the rocky paths. We then came to an underground lake. It was crystal clear. You could easily see the fish swimming around (shining flashlights of course). Two of us got in the water and quickly got out again (it was COLD). But several were able to go with one of the guides and they snorkeled, using flashlights again. What an experience. I’ll be talking about this for years!

Debarkation: We all decided to meet for breakfast in the dining room at 7:15 a.m. for a nice breakfast while we waited to debark. (Unfortunately, the waiter we had for this breakfast was just this side of surly). We thought that would take hours but it wasn’t long and they were asking everyone left on the ship to debark. The luggage was easy to find and waiting for us. We got on a rental car company shuttle bus and were sitting in our rental car by 10:00. Easy, easy.

The Bottom Line: You really do get your money's worth! Everyone in our group had a great time. Some ranked it a 9 or 10, 10 being the best. One of the older teens said it was his best cruise ever because his cousins were there. I hardly ever saw my 13 year old grandnephew and he wanted to stay on board for ever! And this was in spite of their non-participation in the teen program. I’ve heard Carnival called “the WalMart” of cruise lines, and I tend to agree in some ways. You usually get your moneys worth at WalMart too. Most of the folks dressed like they were going shopping at WalMart. But they were having a great time. I was too. Maybe next time I’ll take my uppity self on a different cruise line. But this time was fun too. By the way, I’m already booked on Carnival’s Victory for a cruise in February!

 

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