Carnival Legend
Caribbean
November 2003
by Mr.David Junka and Dr. James Harlow
Well, here we are again with our second cruise of the year under our belts. Our last trip before the Legend was on the beautiful NCL Dawn in march, guess it spoiled us to what we would expect on the Carnival Legend this past week.
We were excited to plan for this trip on the Legend, the sister ship of the Pride, after the cruise we had on the Carnival Pride in September of 2002. Our cruise on the Pride was fantastic and we had high hopes for the Legend. Our hopes of a fantasy get away were dashed immediately as we boarded this vessel, Drab and depressing! We tried most of the cruise to figure out what was the original theme for this ship as it was not clear and complicated by the darkest, most dismal array of brown, gray, purple and gold. A tomb was the only thought we could come up with, complete with ash urns everywhere! One of our favorite places on the Pride was the Secret garden at the forward section, a place to get away from everything and feel like you were in a little garden at sea. Well, after heading out to find the same area on the Legend,The Enchanted Forrest, we were horrified to find another depressing "Cave," spooky at best and not a place to relax!
Unlike the Pride, the Legend swayed and moved like a small ship even though the winds and sea were not that bad. Where were the stabilizers? As we were in Hurricane Isadore last September and the Pride never moved, this ship rocked and rolled much to our surprise! We understand that some people do treat these ships with little respect, however there was so much that was either damaged or stained that this ship looked older than the other Carnival ships we have been on years ago.
The Food on this ship was excellent as we have found that the dining experiences have improved over the years with Carnival. (NCL could take a lesson from them as far as food!) Our wait staff (Davor and Tereza) were extremely pleasant and efficient. Every meal on our cruise was delicious and presented beautifully. The Golden Fleece restaurant was nice and except for the decor, was enjoyed as at David's on the Pride. The room service seemed to be confused and had to repeat deliveries to the room or we just waited for things that never came? Not sure what the problem was. The food that did come was very good, especially the roast beef and brie on fresh baguette! YUMMY! Again, it was so refreshing to be able to get some juice or lemonade almost anytime on the Lido deck.
Carnival needs to PLEASE... wash your bedspreads!!! They were disgusting as well as the amount of dust in the bathroom! We seemed to feel like the housekeeping staff was overworked or just too busy with other things not like our cabin steward on the Pride!
We encountered the nastiest group of people--the casino staff! VERY rude and would even push you out of areas that they wanted for their games without any courtesy, just you will have to cash out now! Never have seen so many frowns on staff!
We think that our negative experiences were enhanced by the bad itinerary for this cruise, four days at sea were all too much and the one horrible stop in Barbados! How could Carnival plan this Itinerary over a year ago with this Island which was CLOSED on the Sunday we were there! A whole day of looking at closed store fronts and more nasty people!
We did have a terrific experience in Martinique! We could have spent several days in Martinique with very friendly people, beautiful rainforests and clean historic and interesting areas of beauty! Carnival needs to go here often with their cruises!
As with all of our cruises, it's the people we meet that still keep us cruising and we met some wonderful new friends as well as reunited with lots of friends from previous cruises!
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