A couple of questions for the Carnival people: How does Spirit compare with Paradise and Splendor--which one would be your first choice? And any ideas on why they would be using San Pedro for Spirit when they have their own terminal in Long Beach? It can't be that hard to juggle three ships...can it?
I like that they are doing 15 days to Hawaii like HAL; I hope Princess takes notice.
And I like the 9 day Mexican Riviera itinerary that includes La Paz--a welcome change from the "classic" (read tiresome) 7 day.
The Spirit class ships are the most elegant in the Carnival fleet. It is their best design in my view. Easily the best passenger flow and logical layout of public areas.
We have only been on two Carnival Ships. The Pride, twice. The Spirit three times. We much prefer the Spirit. While they are the same class ship seems like the Spirit was better staffed and the general flow of the ship was better.
We also will welcome a few new ports. Nine days also sounds good.
The Paradise is the final ship of the Fantasy Class. While the Splendor is an evolution of the Destiny-Triumph-Conquest Class (the same design as Costa's Concordia Class).
The Fatal Flaw with the Fantasy and Destiny design is that they have two dining rooms - fore and aft, with the galley in the middle. This cuts the ship in two and does not allow you to travel the entire length of the ship on one or two decks.
The Spirit Class has one extra-large restaurant at the back of the ship with the galley below it at the back of Riviera Deck. This is why the traffic flow is much better.
I hope they don't change too much. We we scheduled for a cruise to Acapulco and they changed to Puerto Vallarta. We are to sail from San Diego March of 2011 on a 9 day cruise. RickyB
We have sailed on all the Carnival ships (except 3 and we are checking those off this year)....
The Spirit is about 90,000 tons...
Paradise is about 70,000 tons...
Splendor is about 113,000 tons...
Spirit has a better layout than the Splendor
BUT the Splendor has those Spa Cabins with the Cloud 9 amenities that I LOVE (and I am not even a Spa person).
Also the Splendor has no smoking anywhere on LIDO (since it has a retractable roof and it is considered "indoor" space).
The Spirit is my favorite class of ship because of the flow....but I loved the Splendor too because of the Spa Cabins.
My wife and I are split. You had enough of Acapulco on the first visit. She loves Puerto Vallarta.
I on the other hand could do Acapulco a few more times. Puerto Vallarta is a great place also.
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