Review: Carnival Cruise Lines - Fascination - [January 30 , 2005]

[Net Reviews]

Review By:

Reviewer Comments:

My wife and I (each are 51) have cruised once before, on the Mercury, in
2000, a seven-day western Caribbean. We considered it as close to a perfect
vacation as we've ever had. That time it was just the two of us celebrating
our 30th.

This time, we were putting together a family vacation/trip for her side of
the family. We ranged in age from 19 to 78. Her younger brother, wife and
son had been on a few cruises before, but for most, this would be their
first time on a cruise ship. For our first cruise, I had done all the
research and had picked the Mercury as best suited to us. This time, my wife
did the research and cost was going to be a major factor, as well as timing.

During her research, she registered with Carnival to get access to prices.
She found a four-day cruise on the Fascination out of Miami to Key West and
Cozumel. The price was almost too good to be true, $329 pp plus fees, for a
four day cruise. After talking to her younger brother, who had done this
exact cruise on the Fascination last year, we all decided to go for it. We
called our "personal cruise planner" at Carnival to book the cruise. In the
course of discussions with her, she, upon learning that about half of us
would qualify as seniors, quoted us an even lower price, if we would let her
split us up as far as cabin assignments were concerned. We agreed and got
the cruise for $229 pp plus fees. An even better price thanks to a Carnival
employee.

Most of us live in NC, one in GA and two in Florida. We all agreed to drive
down the day before to be safe and rested before beginning our cruise. My
wife's younger brother is a member of Disney's resort timeshares so he
booked us in the Disney resort at Vero Beach, just 3 hrs away from Miami. We
enjoyed our brief stay there very much.

The next morning we got on the turnpike and breezed on down to Miami
arriving just before noon and immediately boarded. Check in took us about
thirty minutes, as we had pre-registered with Carnival's fun pass on their
web site. It would have been quicker, but with us being split up, each cabin
had too register two sail and sign cards, which took a little longer.

We were told our cabins might not be ready for another hour, so we all went
to the buffet for lunch. I would say it was ok, nothing special, but
adequate. After lunch we stopped by our cabins to get it straightened out
(getting the couples back together) with the keys. We had a total of 15 (was
supposed to be 16, but because of a death in one of my wife's brother's
girlfriend's family, she could not come, thank goodness for insurance.) So
we had eight cabins. Only one of those cabins was made up into single beds.
As one couple was a widow of one of my wife's brothers and her mother, this
worked out perfect, though none of us stayed in the cabin we were assigned.
Still it only took us about five minutes to get it worked out. We all had
cabins on the Rivera deck (#4) the lowest passenger deck and forward in the
ship. When we first got off the elevators and were walking forward to our
cabins, we all noticed a fairly strong smell of sewage in the hall. But it
didn't extend into the cabins, thank goodness. It also cleared up within a
couple of hours, only to return while we were docked in Key West, the next
day. It was gone again shortly after we sailed that afternoon.

About half of our checked luggage arrived before we were ready to go
exploring; the rest was waiting for us when we returned to our cabins the
next time.

Our cabin: Large enough, but a stupid layout. The beds made up as singles,
pushed together and pushed up against the wall, so that one had to climb out
of the foot of the bed, or over the other person. To compound the problem,
there is a large life jacket box in the corner, which is against the foot of
the bed against the wall, this forces the person sleeping against the wall
to have to crawl around the box at the foot of the bed, while getting out of
bed. No refrigerator to keep water or drinks cool. Ice bucket only refilled
twice a day. The bathroom: Shower was very large, but the counter around the
sink, was very small. There was no hair dryer. There were plenty of towels.
And speaking of towels, there were two beach towels in the cabin that were
supposed to be replaced every night, but were only replaced once during the
cruise. There was more than enough storage and the card-operated safe worked
fine.

Cleanliness: Over all, the ship was kept very clean with only a few
exceptions. The wall and rail mounted ashtrays were not emptied enough and
were often overflowing. Drink glasses sitting on an ashtray, which we
noticed, before retiring one night, were still sitting there at nine the
next morning.

Our cabin steward kept our cabin very clean and we did not see him, other
than once in a while in the hall.

Pool and hot tub areas: There were plenty of chairs, with more deck areas
for sunning than on the Mercury. We never had a problem finding a place to
lounge.

Food: We ate breakfast everyday at the buffet. It was fairly good, but with
no real variety. The omelet station had the same things everyday. They
switched each day between pancakes and French toast, but other than that,
the same things everyday.

Lunch: After the first day, we ate hamburgers at the grill, as few things on
the buffet were appealing. The were good and quick, only had to stand in
line once.

Diner: My wife and I ate in the dinning room each night. Others in our party
switched back and forth, except for the last night when we all got together.
We had two large tables, but most nights only used one. You would think that
would make it easier on the wait staff, but each night we felt rushed
eating. On the Mercury, dinning was a relaxed enjoyable experience. On the
Fascination, it was rushed. Our third night, while at Cozumel, we went to
diner at 8:45 a little late for the late sitting. We found both our tables
to be full of people. We asked our waitress what was going on and she rushed
us to the two only open seats at one of our two tables. She basically
ignored our questions about why there were others at our tables. After
sitting down and introducing ourselves, we learned that these people were
the early sitting that had been allowed to eat late. It was a very good
thing that the rest of our party had decided to eat at Pancho's Back Yard.
So it worked out, but could have been messy, as we had filled up one table
each other night and use part of both tables two of the four nights.

The food overall: It was pretty good, nothing I would rate as excellent
though. Other than being rushed at diner, our waitress and assistant
waitress were both very friendly. No problems getting an extra entree, or
appetizer if wanted. While they remembered our drink preferences after the
first night, they couldn't remember that we wanted fresh cracked pepper on
our salads and I had to ask each night.

Entertainment: This was probably our biggest disappointment. I had always
heard that Carnival had good entertainment. Celebrity's dancers were better
by an order of magnitude. The comedian to put it plainly; sucked. His first
show in the main showroom was dull, so dull it put me to sleep. We gave him
another try in one of the lounges where it was supposed to be more adult. We
left after he started arguing with a man with downs syndrome in the
audience. It was leave, or go up on the stage and slap the fool. I elected
to leave. Nobody was laughing by then. Hopefully he was fired. There was a
balance artist that was very good. The singers were not all that. They use
way too much audience participation in their entertainment, which some seem
to like, but it's not my idea of entertainment.

As for our visits to the ports: In Key West, all of our party took the free
Conch Train to the downtown. We all went to Mel Fisher's museum and then
walked around doing some shopping.

The first afternoon on the ship many of us had gone to the welcome aboard
speech by Matt the cruise director. He told us that because of the number of
ships that were going to be in Cozumel, we wouldn't be able to dock until
after 4:00 but that they would be tendering us in starting at 11:30 am. With
preference being given to those on the shore excursions. Those not going on
a shore excursion would have to muster at one of the lounges to get numbers,
starting at 11:00 am. Everyone in our party signed up for two of the
excursions, two to Tulum, and the rest to the introduction to Cozumel and
shopping tour. My wife and I tried to sign up to the latter tour only to
find it sold out. So we went to get our numbers. They made us stand outside
the lounge and started giving out the tickets 15 minutes late. They had not
said that only one from each party needed to be there, to get as many spaces
as needed, so it was very crowded and didn't go very smoothly. But we did
get number 3, so it wasn't too bad.

Upon our arrival in Cozumel, my wife and I went up on deck to watch. We
motored just past the Carnival dock (not the one downtown, the one further
out.) We watched the hired tenders, two large mono hulls and one large
catamaran try over and over to get secured to the side of the ship. It was
not that rough and the wind was not blowing that hard, but they were having
a very difficult time. As an aside, I am a Captain. All my brothers' in-laws
are Captains. We all handle boats and ships. These tender operators did not
know what they were doing. The Captain on the Fascination could have helped
by maneuvering the ship to make a lee, but did not. All in all, a very
unprofessional operation.

They finally, after almost 45 minutes, got the catamaran tied up and my wife
and I went back to our cabin to get the things we needed. We stayed for a
few minutes and didn't hear them call our number, so we finally decided to
go get a burger. Just as we finished eating, we heard them call 7 through
13, we went down and got right on. They had called our number while we were
in our cabin and of course they didn't broadcast that call in the cabins.

As we were walking down to get on our tender, we saw the rest of our party
being led down to the other tender. This was about 1:00pm. They had been
waiting in the show lounge since 11:30 and had only been told that things
were delayed. The funny thing was, the only reason they had signed up was to
get off the ship earlier. We actually made it to shore ahead of them by a
few minutes. Though the couple that was going on the Tulum tour did manage
to get off on an earlier tender, the one that also carried the numbers 1
through 6, the one we should have been on.

We rented a car at the pier from Alamo and spent the rest of the day driving
around the island at our own pace, stopping here and there. One place we
really enjoyed, I had read about on the Internet, Coconuts Bar and Grill. It
sits on the highest hill on the island. With tables sitting beside a drop
off with only a small rope to keep you from going over. It's a hard climb up
the steps to get up there, but we thought it was worth it. We each had one
drink and shared a plate of beef nachos, "Very Good."

They have a pet Parrot that will crawl up your arm and will kiss you and
will let you pet him. The also have a very large 30 year old iguana that
loves to be petted. According to the articles of clothes that were nailed to
the inside of the roof, it gets pretty wild at times. Also according to the
stacks of photo albums on the bar. VBG.

On our way back, (we had gone the opposite way, along the beach to the
backside and back through the middle,) we got caught up in the road
construction that's going on the beachfront road downtown. We ended up
going through some interesting neighborhoods, but I wasn't ever
uncomfortable. Everywhere the people seemed very friendly. Even when we went
by the corners where they had very large loudspeakers set up playing music.
(There seemed to be an election going on.) We ran into the rest of our party
at the ruins and downtown. They were being moved around like cattle and were
taking our time. I think we had much more fun.

We used the early disembarkation and were in our cars by 8:15.

Over all we had a great time. There were problems, but they were, to us,
small and didn't really matter. Was it as good as our Mercury cruise? No,
not by a long shot.

On our Mercury cruise, which was seven days, it didn't last long enough.
This time it was only four days and we were ready to go home.

Would we do the same cruise again? Yes, if the price was right, but we think
Celebrity is more our style.