Carnival Cruise Lines
Fantasy Cruise Review
Bahamas

Ivars
Age: 59
Occupation: Marketing
Number of Cruises: 5
Sailing Date: November 3rd, 2005

My wife and I needed a quick “battery charge” to get away for a few days. We wanted to leave from Port Canaveral (only 10 miles away). We read a lot about the Fantasy and most of the reviews were so-so. HOWEVER it was priced right. I needed to write this review because we are VERY pleasantly surprised. It seems the ship has had a complete renovation in 2005, and it showed. The cabin we had was on the Rivera Deck (lowest) with an Ocean View. It looked completely redone with new bedding and furniture. The bathroom also looked very new. As for the ship itself, I did not find any area that looked “old”. As a matter of fact, the Toilets all over the ship were very clean and new looking (I needed to use them often because of the great “Long Island Tea” I was served.

Our choice was early dinning and we had a great table of 3 other couples (all our age level). My wife and I expected very young people to be the majority passengers, but it seemed to be very well split from the 20’s 40’s and 60’s. Our cruise was 100% booked with no spare cabins. I take note of this because even though the ship was at full capacity, it NEVER seemed crowded. We even used the elevators with no problem at all.

Food on the ship was extremely good at all dining areas. My wife loved the Pizza area (24 hour service) and it was even great tasting. Dinner on day 1 (Lobster) and 2 (Lamb) for me was excellent. However day 3 was a disappointment (Filet Mignon) and we did tell the chief that too. The casino was very nice, but not to my pocketbook. However the Texas-Hold-Em table was fantastic…. My wife was not pleased that I spent 20 hours at Texas- Hold–em. All in all, we were extremely impressed with the staff and ship layout. It looks like the entire innards of the ship was re-done and looked very nice.

I’d also like to say that Port Canaveral has the Embarkation and Disembarkation science down pat. We arrived by car at 2PM and we were in the cabin by 2:40. As for Disembarkation, we finished eating breakfast at 8AM in the ships dinning room and arrived at home (10 miles away) at 9AM with our entire luggage in hand. The experience we had on the Fantasy was excellent and everyone should be very pleased when traveling on this 3 day Bahamas Vacation. I would recommend that the beverage selection in the dinning room be more that just juices and ice tea (good tasting), I’d like to see cola and milk be free at all times. Bring your own water since they do charge for bottled water.

One final note: Carnival’s gift shops now sell liquors. The prices are excellent; even better than on Nassau. One of the couples at our Dinner Table bought 16 bottles to take home since they saved over $10 per bottle compared to prices at home. Customs only allows 2 bottles per person, put they paid duty on the others ($1 per bottle) and were cleared with no problem.

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