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Carnival Cruise Line
Carnival Inspiration Cruise Review
Western Caribbean

Anna
Age: 24
Occupation: Marketing Assistant
Number of Cruises: 3
Sailing Date: February 4th, 2006

Okay, let me first say that this was my first cruise with Carnival but my third cruise altogether. I have sailed with Disney 2 times previous to this cruise. Okay….here we go.

Plane ride to Tampa: Awful! We all got up at 4 o’clock in the morning to catch our flight at 7:30. While we sat patiently waiting to take off, the pilot came on the speaker to tell us that we had a bit of a problem, as it seems, someone had broken into the plane the night before and stole all of the emergency equipment out of the plane. We were to sit and wait until someone came to get these things for us. And this would be approximately an hour. Well, certainly we did not have an hour to waste as we had an hour layover in Memphis and had to be on the ship by 4!! So, they kindly took us off the plane and arranged for us to fly another airline which got us into Tampa somewhere around 2:30. We rushed to get our luggage and, I must say, the men in charge of getting our taxi did a fine job. We got on the ship around 3:30. Everything went pretty smoothly as far as getting on the ship. Though the staff was not very friendly. The life jacket drill was a disaster! This is incredibly unorganized!

Day at sea: It was cold! The deck was so full of people trying to crowd around what they would call a pool! The music was so loud! The boat was rocking ALL over the place! Not that I blame them, I understand these things happen. We opted not to go to the dining room and ate at the Lido deck. Do they ever serve anything besides hot dogs and hamburgers here????

Grand Cayman: We got to bed at a decent hour in high hopes for our day on Grand Cayman. We were awoken at 6 o’clock in the morning with an announcement. The waves were far to unsafe to allow us to tender in at Grand Cayman. So, instead of an exciting day at Grand Cayman, we were going to spend a fun-filled day at sea! Whoppee! We were credited $25 to our Sail & Sign cards which wasn’t much considering that we spent more than that gambling, trying to entertain ourselves as there is not a whole lot to do here.

Now, I know that if the captain would have put the ship in high gear, we could have probably made it to Cozumel that evening. And, I think we deserved to get off the ship. We could have made it to Mexico and spent the evening there as well as the next day. That is not what happened, not even close!

Cozumel: Well, we woke up, the sun looked as though it might peek through the clouds eventually. We got up and quickly showered and went up to the Lido deck to have breakfast before we got off the ship. Well, little did we know, we could have slept in and enjoyed our long morning shower because, even though they told us we were getting off the ship at 8 o’clock, we didn’t really get off until 11:30. Now, I understand that Cozumel is not used to having to tender people there. I understand they were hit pretty hard by the hurricane and this is all new to them but come on!! It took them forever to get us off the ship, but, you can bet your bottom dollar, they were ready to tender us back at 5 o’clock!

Day at sea: Pretty decent. We ended up going to a show that night and we got all dressed up. We did our last minute duty-free shopping and packed up.

Debarkation: Wait, wait and more waiting! Does the people on this ship even know what the heck they are doing???? This is the most unorganized vacation I have ever taken!

Overall, I would not recommend Carnival cruise line to anyone! Now, I am partial to Disney but, Carnival truly was a disappointment! I do understand that you get what you pay for but, this was ridiculous! They served the same thing on the buffet every single day! Breakfast, lunch and dinner!

I know that there were plenty of people that I am sure enjoyed their trip but, I think I heard more people complaining than smiling.

Sail Disney. You will never ask for anything more. You might pay a bit more but, it is worth it!

If you have any questions, feel free to email me!
 

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