Glenda Laverty

Age: 43
Occupation: Secretary
Number of Cruises: 3
Cruise Line: Carnival
Ship: Ecstasy
Sailing Date: November 1st, 2002
Itinerary: Baja, Mexico

I went on the 3-day Ensenada cruise. My only complaint was check in. We got to the terminal at 11:15. There were about 6 employees standing in the back of the counter, but no one was checking in people. They made us wait 45 minutes before they started checking us in. It would have been better if they checked us in and then we could sit down in the waiting area until boarding time and be more comfortable. We got early boarding passes, so were able to board the ship right after check in, which was great. We had carry on size luggage, but they still wouldn’t let us carry it on, we had to check it in. Our luggage didn’t arrive to our room until right before dinner and I needed to change my clothes, so it was close. I would suggest you bring a small carry on with what you are going to wear to dinner the first night. I was pleasantly surprised at the size of the room. It was a very comfortable size. There was plenty of storage space for clothes. I left a note for the room steward to push the beds together, which he did by the time we got back from dinner. They make up the beds separate, not together, so if you want to cuddle, someone falls in the crack. It was a little cozy trying to share one bed.

I have to say, the food and service were excellent. Most dinner entrees were small, so we ordered two. I think the last night they were trying to use up food, so the portions were full size. It’s no problem ordering as much as you want. Some of the items we ordered that were good were the lobster, Coquille St. Jacque (pasta with lots of scallops, yummy), Mushroom soup, cold strawberry soup (really good), pumpkin soup, all the seafood dishes. I wasn’t too impressed with the steak dishes my boyfriend ordered. I heard the rack of lamb was to die for, but I didn’t try it unfortunately. We ate breakfast on the Lido deck, because we didn’t want to get up early enough to use the dining room. The food was good and almost the same as what they served in the dining room for breakfast. They only had the dining room open for lunch one day. The pizza on the Lido deck was very good. The ice cream machine wasn’t that great, the ice cream came out soft and runny, which was probably good so I didn’t eat as much.

We didn’t do any tours, just walked to town and walked around.

The first night they delivered a statement with the charges for the day. I noticed a charge that I didn’t make on it, so I went to the pursers desk and they checked it out and took it off my bill. The drink waiters just write down your charge number, and one of them must have traversed the numbers, so keep all your receipts and check your statement carefully.

I thought the shows were pretty good. The comedian they had was really good, but I can’t remember his name. The Gala midnight buffet looked beautiful and we took some pictures, but couldn’t stay awake long enough to eat it. They let you in to view it and take pictures at 11:30, but don’t let you eat it until 12:30am.

I was really disappointed with the dance places. My boyfriend and I do country western dancing, which consists of many dances, so you would think we could find some music we could dance to, but no. There are three places to dance. One is a disco, which only played techno music, the other was loud rock and roll, and the other had an awful band that only played cha cha beat music. A DJ would have been nice that you could request different music. The dance floors were tile and oddly shaped. We were really looking forward to dancing every night, so this was a great disappointment. We want the Holiday ship back in San Pedro.

I didn’t use the gym, but I went to look at it. It was really nice. The gym is really big and they have lots of equipment. They also have aerobic classes, which I didn’t go to either. There is a nice running track on the top deck too.

There are backgrounds set up for picture taking in lots of places. I recommend getting your picture taken at all of them. You don’t have to buy the photos if you don’t want to. We only had about 6 that we thought were good out of all the ones we had taken. One of my complaints is they print most of them in 8x10, which is the most expensive ($21.95 each). You can order 5x7’s or wallets, but you have to buy the 8x10 first. It’s a real racket. If they printed all of them in 5x7 and then we could order the 8x10s, I would have bought lots more. 5x7’s were $6.95 and 6x9’s were $9.95.

Overall, the ship was beautiful and clean, the food and service were excellent and I would recommend this cruise to anyone. There were not very many kids on board, so it was a good time to go (November).

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