Carnival Cruise Line
Paradise Cruise Review
Baja Mexico

Bob Lausten
Occupation: City Government
Number of Cruises: 1
Sailing Date: November 10th, 2006

We (husband, wife and 3 teenagers) went on the cruise November 10-13 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of my wife’s aunt and uncle. There were 45 relatives on the cruise so we looked forward to a good time. The cruise was organized in April. The Carnival representative was easy to work with and handled all the arrangements with flying colors.

We arrived at the ship at 2 pm. Getting on board was rather painless. The wait was approximately ½ hour. Once on board we found our group enjoying cocktails on the Lido deck. Our luggage arrived at our two rooms shortly after getting on board. The rooms, on the Riviera deck, were small, however, served their purpose. I wasn’t expecting the 4 star hotel, and was happy that the ventilation and TV worked in the room.

The food was pretty good. We had the early dinner time, 5:45, which was the only time to get everyone in our party (45 people) to the table. The wait staff (Dennis and Aneishia) were excellent. Food on the Lido deck (breakfast, lunch, late night) was also good. There’s always a selection to suit your taste. If you’re looking for gourmet food then go to a fancy restaurant and get off the boat.

The entertainment on board was also decent. It’s not a Broadway show, but entertaining enough to keep you interested.

On Saturday, the boat arrived in Ensenada. If you’ve never been there you aren’t missing much. It’s not Cancun.

Back to the TV. As a diehard Nebraska Cornhusker fan, I was on a mission to find a way to watch the ABC telecast of the Nebraska-Texas A&M game either on board on in Ensenada. Sure enough, the TV stations on board (ABC-NBC-CBS) originate out of Denver which carried the game. The foreigners on board learned how certain foul words can be used as nouns, verbs and adjectives after listening to me!

The boat got rocky on Sunday and numerous people fell victim to a little sea sickness.

From reading previous reviews we thought getting off the ship in Long Beach would be a problem. We had a 1 pm flight out of LAX and decided to self carry our bags off the ship. We were told that early disembarkation would begin between 7 and 7:15 am. We got to the off-ramp at 7:15 and there was no line. It was really smooth, actually too smooth as we now had a couple hours to kill. Some remaining members of our party (the local Angelinos) stayed on board until around 10 am in the dining room and also made it off the boat without any problem.

All and all, a great trip for the weekend. Nothing negative to say about Carnival. I’d cruise with them again if I ever decided to cruise again!.




 

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