Carnival Cruise, Carnival Splendor Review

Overall Rating

The Oz club 15-17 years old was extremely well designed with a bar type set up and mini seating areas. Well done interior designer! My two children who participated had a great time with the other teenagers although they did say the staff that was looking after them ending up really being just a DJ. Getting on and off the ship went very smoothly - in Dover. Due to the long line up for taxi's we opted to roll luggage downtown. It took about 40 minutes but we needed the exercise. Excellent stateroom and waiter service.

The best bar is the piano bar. Unfortunately smoking is allowed and it is not that big so as soon as two or three people started smoking we had to leave - happened twice so we gave up the bar. Food- We have taken 7 cruises and this is the first cruise that doesn't offer both an appetizer and a choice of salads. On the left side of the menu it is titled "Starters", the right side being the main entree. A caesar salad was always listed as a starter so our waiter was very obliging and let us choose a starter i.e. crab cake, soup, and the salad was always added for us. No sherbet - cleanse the pallette was provided on the formal dinner nights like other cruise lines - thus just didn't seem to have the flair on the "Formal Nights". The big screen TV on the Lido deck is somewhat of a detriment as it almost seems that the vacationers sit on the deck in a trance watching videos all day and nothing really happening on the deck. My husband told me he could have watched "Cher" on TV at home.
The pizza is good however one staff member had great difficulty keeping up. Also icecream bar was advertized that it was open 24/7. Only one of the two operated and it was not always open. The Vegas style show had some good acts but some really poor ones. The music always seems to be from the 50 - 60's - 70's. Can the acts be updated to songs from the 90's? Our maitre d' introduced himself to my husband only - totally ignoring me and our 5 children. We never saw him again till the last night on the ship when he was smiling at the door on our way out. There was an envelope provided for his tip in our cabin. The other tips are automatically taken from your account unless you request otherwise. Spa is beautiful - although I had the Swedish massage and too much time is given to showing the brush, what's happening next etc.

Overall I would rate it 7 out of 10. My overall feeling was that Carnival is now catering to the family as the Kids Club seems to be very well staffed, with games etc. etc. The drinking age is 21 and over and coming from Canada where the drinking age is 19 - was a bit difficult for my 2 sons 20 and 19. Our waiter did say he would be fired if the boys had wine at dinner so obviously we did not have any wine. We checked at the front desk and they confirmed this is the case. The pink circle decoration is overdone. A lot of men do not like pink that much so I think it was a big risk to make a ship so pink. Overall the decoration seems to be a hodge podge of everything without achieving anything. Sorry!
We did take the Le Havre D Day tour and it was very well done and extremely well organized so a 9.5 out of 10 for it. Signing towels out on the deck is a real nuisance - however I guess if people are stealing them it is a necessity. The blankets at night were a wonderful touch - thank you.