Jenifer Croat

Age: 30
Occupation: Civil Engineer
Number of Cruises: 1
Cruise Line: Carnival
Name of Ship: Destiny
Sailing Date: January 12th, 2003
Itinerary: Southern Caribbean


I have to admit, I was very nervous about our upcoming trip on the Destiny after reading all of the bad reviews on this and other websites. But now that the trip is over, I have to say, I have NO idea where the bad reviews came from. We had a wonderful time on our cruise and would do it again in an instant! The only bad thing about my vacation was being away from my daughter for a week!!!

I would say it probably isn’t the most family-oriented ship, although there were plenty of people with children on board. And they do have a day camp for kids, but I have no idea how good or bad that program is because we didn’t bring our daughter on this cruise. However, if you like to party and have fun, this ship is definitely for you.

EMBARKATION: They’ve got this down to a science. We got to the ship about 12:15pm, had minimal wait times for screening luggage and getting registered, and were sitting on the Lido deck, sipping our drink of the day by 12:45pm, at the latest. If there had been a long wait, like I’ve read in other reviews, the waiting area is enclosed so rain is not an issue.

ROOM: We were in cabin 8235, which was an ocean view room with a balcony in the 8C category, starboard side. I don’t think it would have made that big of a difference being on the port side because half of the ports we were on the docking side, the other half we were on the outside. The rooms were pretty much as shown in the brochure. But they have tons of storage space for all of your clothes and luggage. The bathrooms are much bigger than I expected. In fact, we were thrilled with the size of the shower. Plenty of hot water and good water pressure. The hairdryers provided are terrible, but we brought our own and had no problems using it. The balcony was a definite must have. Won’t even think about trying it again without one! It was so beautiful waking up in the morning (or before bed) and sitting out on your balcony, watching the islands or water go by. Very peaceful!!

SERVICE: The service was excellent. The waiters were so friendly and helpful. As an example, one night at dinner, I ordered the Prime rib, medium rare. When it came out, it was a little done for my taste, but it still tasted great so I didn’t complain. When our waiter, Ismail, came back to check on us, he saw my prime rib and asked if it was too done. I told him no, that it was fine, but within minutes, he had another one sitting in front of me, cooked perfectly, and he was so apologetic. Our room steward was extremely helpful also and took great care of us! I wish I could have brought her home with us!!! Oh, and we loved the fact that the tips were automatically put on the Sail and Sign card. It was one less thing to worry about at the end of the week.

FOOD: The majority of the food was excellent. There were some things that we didn’t care for, but my husband and I are extremely picky eaters, which is why we like the all-inclusive thing because we can try new things and not worry if we don’t like something. Almost every night, my husband ordered two entrees because they all looked so good, and then I’d help him eat the second one. And most nights the plates were licked clean. (Not literally!) The buffet lines were never long, and the food was usually warm and fresh. The exception to that was the breakfast buffet on Lido deck; it left a little to be desired. But that problem was easily solved by eating breakfast in the dining room.

PORTS:

St. Thomas – St. Thomas is a beautiful island!!! We were with friends that had been to St. Thomas in the past so they showed us the ropes. We took a taxi over to Sapphire Beach, about 20 minutes away I think. It cost $8 per person, each way. Sapphire Beach is much less crowded than Meghan’s Bay, which is the more popular beach on the island. Sapphire Beach has the most amazing colors of blue in the water and has some great snorkeling. It was a great way to start the day. After spending a few hours laying in the sun and playing in the water, our cab driver, George, picked us back up and took us the scenic way back to the shopping area near the port. He gave us a great little tour. We then shopped for a while and headed back to the ship. One things to add, late seating for dinner is a must have. We never felt rushed to get back to the ship so we could make it to dinner.

Martinique – I would have loved to have more time to spend on this island! Although I heard bad reviews from others on the ship, we loved Martinique. I guess it depends on what you do there. Our plan was to take a taxi to St. Pierre to see the volcano and museum. The taxi drivers there are very pushy though, and our driver, Miguel, basically told us he would take us on a 3 hour tour of the island, for $40/hour (for all 4 of us), during which we would see the volcano along with a few other sights. Well, we agreed and were so happy that we did. We even extended the tour by an hour so we could stop an eat lunch in this little open-air café on the black-sand beach in St. Pierre. Besides seeing the volcano (from afar; it’s too long of a hike to hike up it in the time you’re on the island), we stopped and hiked a little in the beautiful rainforest, we saw Balata, a gorgeous, historic, Catholic cathedral, toured a Rum distillery, and drove around some of the ruins in St. Pierre from when Mt. Pelee erupted in 1902 (ish) and wiped out the town. Then we headed back to Fort-de-France to do some shopping.

Barbados - I didn’t see much of this island because my back went out that morning. But my husband went on the Jolly Roger Pirate Ship Excursion offered by the ship and had a terrific time. Warning though, it’s all the rum punch you can drink and it was definitely not for kids!

Aruba – Another beautiful island! In Aruba, we rented a jeep for the day ($60 +$19 for insurance) and explored on our own. The street map we were given was horrible, but it didn’t seem to matter. Aruba is such a small island and we felt safe at all times. We set off to find the Natural Bridge and somehow, by taking, a left here and a right there, found it, and got to see a lot of Aruba in doing so! After touring that side of the island, we made our way over to Palm Beach where we relaxed by/in the water for a few hours before we had to head back to Oranjestad for the Submarine Excursion we’d signed up for. That was a fun excursion. You take a boat ride out to a submarine that takes you 150 ft below the water surface. We saw sunken ships, a sea turtle, lots of fish and coral, plus how many people can say they’ve been in a submarine. After the submarine ride, we shopped and stopped at a few of the bars on the strip before heading back to the ship to get showered. Then, to end our day in Aruba, we headed to Carlos and Charlie’s; an awesome bar about 2 blocks from the ship. It reminded me a lot of Spring Break in college!!! We had to be back on the ship at 10:30pm, so at about 10:25 pm, almost everyone in the bar shuffled out and start heading back to the ship. Everyone was laughing and dancing in the streets, and when we got back to the boat, there were tons of people on the balconies of the ship, laughing and dancing with us.

NOTE ON THE EXCURSIONS: You can generally find them for about half the price if you set them up yourself before you go or while on the island. But I talked to one guy that signed up for a scuba diving trip that way and had trouble finding a taxi to take him to the site because he was a party of one and they all wanted to take the bigger parties so they could make more money. He finally found someone to do it, but it took him about 20 minutes and he almost missed the dive. But as an example, I researched horseback riding in Aruba ahead of time and it was $50 pp. For the exact same beach ride with the exact same ranch through the ship’s excursions, it was around $85-90 pp. Because my back was still sore, we didn’t end up doing this excursion so I’m afraid I can’t tell you how it was.

FUN DAYS AT SEA: These were relaxing days. We basically laid around in the sun, explored the ship, ate a lot, drank even more, and met a lot of great people! Hi Nancy, Melissa, Carl & Denise!!! The pools were very small and very crowded, but there are showers all over the deck so you could cool off and those were great. The waterslide was fun, but it’s salt water so we didn’t do that too many times.

DEBARKATION: As the cruise director said at the debarkation talk, this day had the potential to really suck. But Carnival had things very organized and I think they went as well or better than I could have hoped. We were one of the last decks to be called to leave the ship, and I think it was about 11:30 when we finally set foot on land.

GENERAL: We would definitely do this cruise again. The only thing we didn’t like was that we felt rushed to do everything we wanted to do on the islands in the short amount of time we were there. We’d like to return someday to all 4 of the islands we stopped at so we can explore more. As I said earlier, this ship probably isn’t the most family-oriented ship, but if you like to party and have fun, this ship is definitely for you.

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