Mary Stout

Age: 45
Number of Cruises: 1
Cruise Line: Carnival
Name of Ship: Fantasy
Sailing Date: December 19th, 2002
Itinerary: Bahamas

My husband Chris and I took the three day cruise out of Port Canaveral on the Fantasy to the Bahamas.

We arrived at port around 10 AM. Chris teased me a lot about going so early but this proved to be a very wise decision as we had to pick up our documents there and getting there early allowed us to get a parking place up front. Since we only had carry on luggage we got all the papers/passport things finished and we sat down and waited to board. Embarkation was a breeze as we each got our picture taken for the sail & sign card. We were about 25th in line so we went through with no problems.

We found our room which was an inside on the upper deck. We were really surprised at how nice and big and well made the room was compared to what we were thinking it was going to be. The bathroom shower was huge ...bigger than our second bathroom in our home!

Once we got things unpacked in our room we went to the Lido Deck to have lunch. The Lido buffet was average not anything bad or spectacular. We then explored the rest of the ship and went back to our cabin to read the daily paper while we waited to sail.

We had late seating so we chose to go wandering to figure out where everything on the ship was.

We enjoyed the walk around the ship and finally we were on our way. We went to the muster station thing which is required and then headed back to our cabin to put away the life jackets and then relax some. The ship was nicely decorated for the holiday and all the staff was very friendly at all times during our cruise. We were We went to dinner and the food at dinner was very good...I had the broiled lobster and Chris had the prime rib. The maitre'd and the waiters were all very good and kept us in beverages and whatever we needed all through dinner. I did not hear any waiters singing though except once when they sang happy birthday to someone. We were pleased with dinner and went to visit promenade deck afterwards. We enjoyed the gift shop which was reasonably priced we thought but then we did not have to buy the disposable cameras which were about 14 bucks there.

At Nassau we took the shore excursion to swim with the stingrays at Blue Lagoon. This was fun and we got a lot of great pictures from this snorkeling experience. We then decided to just explore the night in Nassau after going back to the cabin to shower after our swim. After exploring Nassau for a bit we much preferred the quieter ambience of the piano bars and the lounges to the loudness of the Lido deck. We ate the rest of our meals in the casual dining area as we felt more like relaxing than anything else.

The sushi and wings were really delicious. All in all, this was a great cruise and we want to cruise again someday. This is a good first cruise to try out your "sea legs" so to speak for cruising. I loved it and did not get seasick at all. Although the Fantasy is an older ship both Chris and I felt she had a lot of things going for her and many more years left to sail.

The only thing negative I would say was the long lines at the buffet and the very slow elevators. We ended up using the stairs a lot but we needed the exercise too. All in all, we enjoyed the cruise a lot and hope to cruise again in the future.

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