Over the next couple of days I'm going to be writing 6 different posts about our Carnival Legend Cruise. The first one in this series is going to be a little less personalized, but focus on what it is like on the ship.
Here is a picture of the Carnival Legend in Mahogany Bay.
Here is the terminal in Tampa. We were shocked by the fact that we HAD to have our passports. I had read in various places online that if you are sailing out of a US port and then arriving back into that same port that you do not need a passport. However, they wouldn't even let us on the ship without it. Also, they were very strict about alcohol. They thoroughly searched every bottle that we brought onto the ship. You are allowed to bring 12 bottles of drinks per person onto the ship, and they individually checked each seal of our bottles to make sure they were alright. This was during spring break time, and the people checking bags were talking about how they had found alcohol in shampoo bottles and the like. So if you're trying to sneak alcohol onto the ship... good luck!
Once we got onto the ship we went straight to our room. We had an inside cabin, and the next time that we cruise we will not do this. We thought that we wouldn't be in our room much and that it wouldn't matter if we had an inside cabin, but this was not necessarily true. It was worst in the morning because there was no natural sunlight in our room, and we didn't bring a clock with us... so we never had any idea what time it was. Two o clock in the morning or two o clock in the afternoon... it didn't make a difference in our room. It was always pitch black. Also it was hard to watch the sunrises/sunsets because first we had to know exactly what time it would be at because of the lack of light in our room, and we had to walk up a couple of decks to see it. We've already decided that next time we will spring for a balcony room. This picture is the storage area in front of the bed. In the right corner you can see the ONE outlet in the room. So make sure that you take some type of power cord or additional outlets if you have a lot to plug in your room.
Here is our bed. The first day and last night they put a luggage pad on the bed to pack and unpack things from your suitcase. This is a "king" sized bed. It's really just two mattresses pushed together, and you can feel the crack in the middle pretty bad. Our bed never drifted apart, but the crack in the middle was annoying because it seemed like one of us was always laying on it. The pillows were alright. They weren't great, but not the worst I've ever slept on.
Here is the bathroom. This picture might be a little bit deceiving because it looks like there are more shelves in the room than there actually are. The mirror in the bathroom has shelves attached to it, and when I took the picture the shelves reflected in the mirror. However, these shelves are very practical and useful. The bathroom was really small, but efficient. I never put my make or did my hair in the bathroom, but at the mirror above across the bed. There are no outlets in the bathroom. The only outlet is literally the one that I mentioned above.
I'm not going to lie when I first saw this toilet I said "Where is the toilet seat" it looked like it was missing a piece, but no... that's how it is supposed to be. You can see how CLOSE it is to the shower.
Here is a picture of the shower, and I admit this isn't the best picture. But don't expect a large shower. It was tiny. I felt a little claustrophobia in it. Carnival does provide you will body soap gel and shampoo. I used the shampoo and my own conditioner most nights.
Here is the outside of the ship on the 10th deck.
Here is a long view. On everyday besides the first sailing day lawn chairs covered this area of the ship. They don't set the chairs out you have to go get your own from a stack most times.
Here is the Lido deck or 9th deck. It was one of the more popular places to be. This is where the main pool was and the live music. There were also always chairs in this section. One thing about the pools is that they have sea water in them... or salt water!
These are just some pictures that I took while sailing out of Tampa.
Here is another one of the Tampa area.
This is our safety drill or our Muster area. As you can see they line people up in rows in front of each other. You can kind of see the guy wearing the orange jacket that was doing the safety drill. I'm glad that we didn't have an accident and that I needed to see or hear what he was saying... because to be honest I couldn't do either. We got to our muster area pretty quickly and I think all together the were about 6 rows of people, and about 4 of those rows were in front of us. They say that the taller people should go to the back and that the shorter people should be in the front, but it's not really enforced and most people don't want to be separated from their groups. It was pretty inefficient. They did do it before we ever sailed from the port though. After the drill was done then the ship left.
Compared to other Carnival ships there is not a lot of "fun water" stuff on this ship. I saw other Carnival ships next to us with a whole water play land. The Legend does not have that. It has this one water slide and then some pools. The pools aren't really meant for swimming though. They are pretty small in size and are meant for just sitting around.
Here is the front of the ship. As you can see by the high walls around the front of the ship... don't expect to get your "Titanic Moment". You know where she puts her arms out and feels like she's flying. There isn't any place to do that on this ship. I was slightly disappointed.
Here is the Unicorn Cafe on the 9th deck. This is the only place on the ship to get the free beverages that they offer on the ship. Also this is where the 24 hour food and buffet areas are.
Here is the pizza area.
This is the amount of pizza that they will initially give to you. I thought it was quite a bit of pizza! You can also order your own personal pan sized type of pizza with whatever you like on it. Getting that type of pizza will take you a little bit longer than just getting pepperoni or cheese. They do not make large pizzas. These two slices are half of the original pizza that they made. So each pizza is cut in 4 slices. I found that this made it more likely that they would run out of pizza before you got up to it. They would bring out a new pizza and if two people were in front of you in line it was likely that the pizza would be gone when you got up, and then you'd have to wait a few minutes for the next one. I only ate here once, but that was what happened to me.
Here is the table area. I was sort of surprised that you didn't have to bus your own table. When you are done eating you just leave your plate there and they have people around to clean the tables off.
There were a lot of seats that had ocean views. I think that we sat by a table with an ocean view each time that we ate in here. Which was twice a day. We never had any issue getting a seat by the window.
Here is the main drink station. You'll find tea, coffee, lemonade, water, orange juice, and apple juice in this area. Make sure that you get ice if you are going to drink water... because more than once I got it and it was kind of warm.
Here is the size of the cups they give you. I thought the best way to show it was to put it next to one of the bottles of pop that I had brought onto the ship. We almost always had to refill the cups a couple of times before we were done eating our meal.
Here is a picture of the buffet area. I believe is the sandwich making area. They make warm or cold sandwiches here.
Here is the grill. There are different foods here every day. We usually ate here mostly for breakfast. The breakfast was really good. It was a lot better than a continental breakfast. There were pancakes, banana bread, waffles, sausage, bacon, eggs, muffins, cereal, yogurt, potatoes... and etc... The only thing that I didn't like is that I thought the scrambled eggs were TERRIBLE... they tasted like they had been made from a powder substance and not actually eggs. They had a weird texture to them and they didn't even taste like eggs. The boiled eggs were alright though. Everything else was pretty good. Everyday they had regular pancakes and then a speciality pancake... one morning they had banana pancakes and another they have blueberry.
Here is more of the dining area.
This was the omelet station. My boyfriend got an omelet everyday and loved it. I didn't try it myself but it seemed pretty popular.
Here is the grill. This is very close to the live singing on the Lido deck. They have hamburgers/cheese burgers, hot dogs, chicken tenders, fries, and nachos in this area.
Here is a good shot of the Lido deck. You can see this is where most of the contests are, and a lot of people dance and have fun here. That is the stage for the live music. Most of the performers were decent. The entertainers were mostly in their 50's or 60's so that is the type of music that was played, but it was enjoyable for everyone.
Here is Truffles Restaurant. This is the only free sit down restaurant on the ship. They had one other restaurant which was the golden fleece steakhouse that you could pay $30 to go to. We never went to it. We ate dinner at Truffles every night. On nights when the ship was rocking Truffles was a horrible place to be in!! I think that it was probably the most rocky section of the ship. You could really feel the ship moving there. We actually had to leave dinner early one night because we couldn't take it anymore. If you have sea sick medication and you feel the ship rocking one night make sure to take some before going to Truffles.
Here is the inside of Truffles. I thought it was very pretty inside. We had anytime dining which was GREAT! We loved the flexibility. A lot of people had assigned dining times on the ship. They had to eat at either 6:15 or 8:15. We on the other hand had any time dining so we could eat anytime between 5:45 and 9:30. This was very convenient. Although it seems like we usually ate around 8 o clock anyways. But one night we went to the 7 o clock show on the ship and we liked it so much that we wanted to go back to it. When the show let out it was about 8, so we went straight to Truffles and got our food. It usually took us about an hour to eat our food. So after dinner we went back to the show and got to see it again. People with the specific dining time wouldn't have had this option, because they would have had to wait until 8:15 to eat. There are two different levels of Truffles. The top portion is for anytime diners, and then the bottom portion is for specific seating time people. The top level of Truffles is open at anytime, but the bottom level's doors do not open until 6:15 or 8:15. Often times people getting out of the 7 o clock show at 8 have to wait 15 minutes before they can be seated. Whereas we could go right up and eat. The only time that we had to wait for a seat was the first night, because people weren't in a routine yet. Every other night we only had to wait for a hostess to take us to a table. One reason people like the specific seating idea is that they have the same table, waiter, and sit with this same people all week. We on the other hand had a different table and waiter every night. Also, we only sat with other people on the first night and then we opted to sit by ourselves. I loved the flexible eating schedule, but I can understand why some people would like the consistency of the other option.
Right outside of Truffles is the menu. The left side is the same everyday. It is the everyday menu. On the right hand side the menu changes for what is going to be on the menu for that night. There was a WIDE variety of food that you could try. They only served everything once so if you see something you'd like to try make sure you get it. Over the course of the cruise they served things like lobster, duck, prime rib, chicken, turkey, steak, fillet mignon, alligator bites, escargot, frog legs, shrimp, various types of soup, pasta, and many other things. Those were just some that I specifically remember. On the lobster night after we ate our first round of lobster and shrimp we both asked for another lobster, and they brought us out a complete new plate of food out. We realized over the course of the cruise it seemed like the plates were already pre-made and then just heated up. Because one night I wanted to eat the chicken dish, but I also wanted the shrimp from the other dinner... so I asked my waiter if I could have the shrimp on the side. Well he came out with two plates for me with both dinners. Overall the food was alright... there were often times when it was only luke warm, but for the most part it tasted pretty good. The prime rib that I got on the ship was not high quality at all... and the escargot was a lot different than the escargot I got when I went to France... but overall it was a pleasant enough experience.
Moving on to the ship... This was our first cruise so we had a learning curve to get over as far as the layout of the ship. On every level there was a detailed floor map posted. This was helpful finding things on that specific floor, but they did not have an area that had a map of the whole ship. So on the first night or two it was hard finding out which floor the casino was on, or where the dining area was at. It was like we started at the top and searched each floor map individually to try to find what we were looking for. When you walk onto the ship they will hand you a pocket sized map of the ship... don't even take it. It wasn't worth anything to us, and wasn't detailed at all. Luckily after the first night or two we figured out where most of everything was at.
Here is one of the many elevators on the ship. There are plenty of elevators for everyone. The only time we had an issue getting an elevator was right after a show let out. What we did was go up one level and catch an elevator going up on that level. Most people stayed on the floor where the show let out and had to wait.
Here is a typical hallway with cabin rooms on it.
Here is the staircase area. As you can see at the top of the staircase there is a clock. At every floor there is a clock at the top... but these are the ONLY clocks on the ship!! The sad part is that some of the clocks on the different levels weren't even set.
Here is a zoomed in picture of the clock so you can see it better. It was kind of hard to know what time it was because we don't wear watches and our cellphones were turned off on the ship. Luckily I had my ipod touch that I kept on me so that we knew what the time was. It is especially confusing when you go onto the shore, because most of the islands are an hour behind the ship. Carnival stays on the ships time, but other cruise lines like Celebrity stay on the islands time. We bought excursions outside of Carnival so often times we would be on an excursion with people from the Celebrity cruise line. They would say that they had to be back by 3:15 and we'd say we had to be back by 4. However, what could throw you off was that we actually had be back to our ship 15 minutes before they had to be at theirs. So you have to be careful about that!!
Here is the shopping areas. The ship has really good deals on bottles of alcohol, but they won't let you have the alcohol you buy until 8 pm the last night on the ship. As you can see above they have prices 2 for $24 or I even saw some bottles were 4 for like $30.. be careful with this because when you are going through customs at the end of the cruise you are only allowed to have 1 liter of alcohol per person duty free. So if there are two of you and you buy a "deal" 4 for $30 you'll be paying extra for the other two bottles at customs. The same thing goes for cigarettes.
Here are the watch and jewelry stores. On the last day at sea there will be crazy sales in these places. They had a watch, bracelet, necklace, and earrings combo for $20. It was intense though!! There were TONS of people in the store fighting over trying to find a watch set that they liked. Some of those ladies were pretty aggressive.
Here is the wall of photos. At different times a professional photographer from Carnival will take your pictures. This mostly happens at dinner or when you are getting off the ship. Also you can pose to have pictures taken with a background. They post those pictures here for you to buy. The pictures change everyday so if you like the picture by it when you see it! We only just looked at our pictures everyday, we never bought any. I had read from most people not to because the pictures always get ruined on the way home anyway... and with my history I believed that would happen, and the pictures weren't cheap at all!!! I ended up taking over 300 pictures on our trip anyway. I did buy a nice photo album for about $20.
Here is the main lobby area. It was very pretty!
Here is the bar area by the karaoke section. You can see the piano in the background where people sing karaoke. We watched people performing one night and it was pretty funny! The lady hosting it is super nice.
This is the sitting area for karaoke. There aren't a TON of seats. We were had pressed to find a seat, but in the end we were able to.
Here is the donation center... ohhh sorry I mean the Casino. On the fourth night on the ship the cruise director did a poll during one of the shows... he asked how many people had lost at the casino, and almost everyone had. There were maybe five people in the room that were up. Don't even bother playing the slot machines... they are very tight machines. You will play and play and you won't even hit a thing. If you want to play in the casino go for the card games.
Here is the table game area. As you can see they have a lot of tvs in there. If you like soccer... you'll be happy. If you are like my boyfriend and want to watch games involved in March Madness you won't be so happy! They had ESPN in some areas of the ship (not our room!) but it was the Caribbean ESPN not the US ESPN... because they were mostly showing soccer games. This infuriated my poor boyfriend.
Here are some pictures inside of Follies. Follies is where most of the activities occur. All of the big shows are in Follies. I wish that I could have taken some pictures of the shows themselves, but due to copy right issues they don't allow you to record any performances or take any pictures.
Here is another view of the area. Most of the shows we saw were very enjoyable and good quality. They had a jazz night, a mo-town night, and then a show called The Big Easy. We really liked the Mo-town show and the big easy show. They were both a lot of fun and exciting. The jazz night was a little bit before our time, but a lot of people thoroughly enjoyed it. We saw a lot of older people dancing in their seats and loving life during it, but for us... it was just ok.
I like this picture because it shows you a view from the back of the theatre. Every area has a table for two people to share. This is very convenient to set any drinks that you might buy during the show. And trust me there are plenty of people trying to sell you drinks!! They charge you for the drink, then add in tax, and then add in 18% gratuity so the drink servers are more than happy to get you a drink. You'll have multiple guys ask you if you want a drink during any given show.
Here is the balcony area of the theatre. We never sat up there, but it was often packed. It is easier to get a good seat during the 7 pm show than the 9 pm show. The 9 pm show is a lot more crowded and its completely a full house. Make sure you get to that show early if you want a good seat.
We loved the Punchliner Comedy Club. I think that we went to multiple shows every night. The comedians were great. I would recommend going to the shows. We never went to the family shows, because we always watched the main show of the night and ate dinner while they were going on. We were more interested in the adult shows.
Ahhh.... here is the best area of the ship! The adults only Serenity lounge.
This area had an adults only pool and hot tub. Also it had padded lawn chairs!! They were SO much more comfortable than the regular lawn chairs around the ship. They also had a couple of hammocks and little pods to sit in. We thoroughly enjoyed this area of the ship, and we came here for a couple of hours everyday. We even got into the hammocks a few times. You have to really be focused to get onto it. Once they open up it doesn't take but a minute for someone else to go on it.
Here are the padded chairs. There are some like these ones that are pretty much attached to each other, but then there are other that are individual that you can move around. These chairs are at the rear of the ship, and you have a great view of the ocean. It is a little bit hard to get two seats here together, but we managed it everyday/every time we went there. Some people are jerks and are chair hogs. Nothing made me more angry than to see 30 chairs with towels and other junk on them with no one in them. The pods were the WORST for this... we never got into one. People would just place their stuff in it and leave or go and sit on the edge of the pool. You can see in my picture the one pod in my picture is the same way. It would make me so made there were about 8 pods and usually more than half of them would just have people's junk in them but no one would be sitting in them.
Here is the under shade sitting area and bar in this area. There are plenty of guys trying to bring you drinks here too. These drink guys work so hard though. I would be in the serenity deck around 11 am and then later on at midnight I would see the same guy serving drinks in the comedy area. They work 12 to 14 hour shifts a day. You have to give them props.
Here are the regular chairs that are spread out throughout the ship. We were ruined by the other chairs. We found the Serenity deck chairs before we sat in any of these. After sitting in the Serenity chairs... these weren't comfortable at all anymore. So the majority of the time we stayed in that area.
Well that sums up the Carnival Legend. This was our first cruise so I don't really have any other ships to compare it to. Overall we had a pleasant time on the ship. I think that if anyone complains about spending a week in the Caribbean they are just ungrateful.
Here are some recommendations that I would make for people going on future cruises:
- Make sure that you bring additional outlets for your room
- Book a room with a balcony
- Bring your own pop onto the ship. We had MORE than enough. We actually didn't even drink our pop, but all of the Gatorade we brought was gone!
- Take advantage of the Serenity Deck area
- Sign up for any time dining
- Make sure that you go to all of the shows available.
- Take sea sick medication before going into Truffles
- Don't be shy to ask for whatever you would like on the menu
- Make sure that you have a good way to tell what time it currently is on the ship
