I Tried a Carnival Cruise and It Wasn't What I Expected

every year two and a half million people take a carnival cruise and for years I've wanted to try it myself most of the news that you'll hear about Carnival sounds something like this now with a cruise ship Horror Story fight a scrap a brawl another fight on a Carnival Cruise ship that violent fight involving dozens of people the Brawl on the Carnival Magic but we all know how one-sided the news can be and I've also heard a lot of good things about Carnival Carnival described themselves as being the fun ships and I like fun so when I saw a very cheap crew sailing out of New York City I knew that it was a gamble but I hope that it would pay off the cruise that I booked was seven nights long it visited Canada and I booked the cheapest cabin on the entire ship the ship that I booked my cruise on was the Carnival Magic she was built in 2011 and her maximum passenger capacity is a little over four and a half thousand as far as Carnival ships go she's not the newest she's not the oldest and I hope that a ship somewhere in the the middle will give me the best overview of Carnival once we got to the Manhattan Cruise terminal embarkation was incredibly easy we'd already entered most of our information at home into the carnival app so when we got actually to the terminal all that we had to do was show them this barcode and go through security we also did have to show them and arrive can app which we needed to go to Canada we also needed to show covet tests but that is not needed anymore as soon as we checked in we had our first photo taken in front of one of these photo backdrops at this point we had no idea just how much taking these photos was a part of a carnival cruise but we were about to find out there were quite a few things on this cruise that I was used to from cruising with other cruise lines but Carnival really took those things and took them further they definitely don't do anything by halves and one of those things is Photography they go all in on the photography walking into the Carnival Magic we were instantly in the middle of this Atrium I saw a comment from Paul on one of my photos saying that I looked as though I was in a pinball machine and I could not agree more especially with these things on the ceiling The Atrium is so bright it is so colorful it is definitely not to everybody's Taste and to be honest it's not to my taste but it did set the scene on our Carnival Cruise start as you mean to go on a couple of years ago I took a cruise with the Italian cruise line Costa Costa owned by Carnival and as a result the ships are very similar in fact the ship I sailed on when I cruised on Costa was the Costa luminosa and now that's been transferred to Carnival and soon it'll be sailing as the carnival luminosa I am interested to see if they keep or take away this massive statue that was in The Atrium it was quite funny because the color had started to change where people touched it so then those was a different color and so was the bum I did touch it I did enjoy my Costa Cruise there were definitely some disappointments the food on my Costa Cruise was the type of food where you didn't know if it was hot and it's cooled down or is it cold and it's warmed up to room temperature that was quite a few years ago I've heard a lot of good things about Costa's food since but I hope that on this Cruise the food in the buffet would be better we embarked around 12 30 and we were sent straight to our Master station to do a very short safety drill it is the law that a safety drill must be done before the Ship Sails away or shortly after it took at most 10 minutes we sat down they showed us how to put on a life jacket and what to do in an emergency and then we were free to go pre-pandemic it wasn't uncommon to do your master drill on the Promenade deck and everybody would be there at the same time so you'd all have to stand in lines of five it could be quite hot and it really wasn't very pleasant I hope that it never goes back to that our cabins weren't available until 1 30 so we went out to the top deck I was instantly impressed by just how much space there was I do find that on a lot of the newer and the bigger cruise ships they've given up a lot of the outside seating space over to other stuff and usually stuff that costs money when the announcement was made that our cabin was ready we headed to our room on Deck 12. our cruise director was called Ryan and in every single announcement he called us his Carnival Magic family I had no idea at that point just what a big part of a Carnival Cruise the cruise director is I've been on Royal Caribbean Cruises I've been on Norwegian Cruises I thought I knew what to expect but I didn't I also had no idea what a big part of the Casino Bingo and cookies would be on this cruise but it was very fun to find out our cabin was very comfortable it was very clean I definitely think that this style is outdated but it was very similar to my Costa Cruise cabin so I was prepared for this my Costa cabin was the same but in different colors not better colors just different colors if you compare this cabin to a newer cabin like on a MSC cruise ship maybe a piano cruise ship I think you'll see what I mean by outdated this type of bed skirt I think would date anything our cabin was right above a nightclub it was right at the end of the ship and it was right by the stairs I'm gonna bring you a separate video All About That cabin so just check below that you are subscribed there's definitely some quirks in this cabin that you need to know about as we sailed away from New York I had my first taste of a carnival Deck Party these happened quite a lot during our cruise and I think more than any other cruise line that I've cruised with it wasn't necessarily that the parties were bigger and that they were better on Carnival it was just that they happened pretty much every day something was happening every single evening if you haven't sailed out of New York you have got to put it on your bucket list right now I could honestly not believe that I was standing there I could not believe that I was seeing these views and in glorious Sunshine it was a dream come true in lots of destinations around the world places like Norway cruise ships aren't allowed to play music out loud because it does disturb the people who are on land in New York though there are no such rules like that I guess New York is a pretty loud place already so they don't really mind one extra source of music I thought that the entertainment on the ship would be reserved for the deck parties and the theater entertainment but honestly I could not have been more wrong as I found out when we went to our first dinner on board we had selected anytime dining which meant that we could go to the dining room whenever we were hungry they do also have set dining so if you want to eat at a fixed table at a set time you can either pick early or late but I prefer to be a bit more flexible the my time dining worked absolutely brilliantly all that we had to do was go on the app on our phone press the button and it would tell us when our table was ready we never had to wait more than 10 minutes if I don't even know if we waited five minutes it was almost instant I didn't come on this Cruise expecting the food quality to be particularly good for the price that I paid I was amazed that there was any food included at all I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food in the main dining room on the first night I had a vegetarian Indian platter so much food and I think it was comparable with some of the specialty Indian meals I've had on other cruise lines I was not expecting that as the cruise went on I did find being a vegetarian on board more difficult than most other cruise lines but you will see as the video goes on during this first dinner I discovered the always available chocolate cake and it was amazing it was warm it was gooey and I had this multiple times during the cruise just as we were finishing up our main course a voice came over the overhead speaker or the tanoi as we say in Britain and it just said showtime at some point the waiters all disappeared not literally disappeared although to be honest if they had disappeared if this was a magic act it wouldn't have been any stranger than what really happened every dinner the waiters came back wearing these colorful jackets and they were dancing between the tables the voice on the speaker said that they put on a show for us every single night and that it was about to begin with this a song started and the waiters that were downstairs jumped up onto these tables they're tables specifically designed for dancing they're not on your table with your food but this happened every single night of our cruise I imagine being a waiter on a cruise ship must be a difficult job and adding a dance into the middle of that must make it even more tricky I did see quite a few people tipping their waiters in cash which is not something that I'm used to seeing we do tip here in the UK If the service is particularly good but it is never expected and it is just for good service Carnival do have what are called automatic gratuities which means that you pay an amount per person per night to go towards the tips I always recommend leaving these on so that you don't have to think about the tips again and the money gets to the people who are behind the scenes most British Cruise Lines do include that in the cruise Fair because we don't have that tipping culture here I would be seated at dinner and someone will be seated near us and they would kind of give their waiters some cash as they were seated I don't think I've really ever seen that on a cruise before not to this extent anyway or maybe I've just not noticed it our first day on board was a sea day and I love a sea day at the start of the cruise because it gives you the chance to kind of learn your way around the ship and to explore everything there's nothing quite like that feeling when you first get on a cruise ship you've got your whole Cruise ahead of you and you can run around and try and find everything the best I quickly learned which way I could go to avoid as many photographers as possible I have never seen so many photography stations set up each night and never ever have I been asked if I want my photo taken so many times on a cruise I did feel quite bad for the photographers who make commission on the photos that they sell I never wanted any taken on this cruise I just wanted a big sign on my head that said no thank you to the photos but I just tried to politely say no and carry on walking the staff were always incredibly polite and friendly and lovely and there were plenty of crew members around our cabin Steward was amazing we would leave for the shortest amount of time just to get a bread roll and a banana from the buffet a and we would come back down he would have cleaned our room cleaned the bathroom everything's set up they do only do your room once a day on a Carnival Cruise but every day we were left a different towel animal which was always fun to come in and see who it was on the last night I thought oh there's no towel animal here no one's on the bed Turn Around monkey right in front of my face quite often you'll find that on budget Cruise Lines it's cheap because they've cut down on how many crew members they have but it really didn't feel like that on this cruise and I decided that the cruises must be so cheap because of how thin they've made the toilet paper I've never seen toilet paper so thin on a cruise or anywhere else deck 5 had the pub on it so we would hang out here quite a lot typical Brit of course I know hanging out in the pub but it was just a great place to sit in the day there was a Promenade area outside too and it had these big seats that you could swing forward and backwards on which was cool bought myself a soda package before the cruise for around eight dollars per day and I'd definitely got my money's worth out of it I was so happy to see that you could have proper cans of soda on the soda package on some Cruise Lines you'll only get fountain soda on the package and then you can buy cans but we could have cans as many as we wanted and it was Pepsi I did find it a bit strange that every time we ordered a drink we had to physically sign for it most Cruise Lines just do it completely electronically now some will do it using wearable technology just being near them is enough but on Carnival you still have to sign it I think it's because of that tip line people do add in a dollar tip two dollar tip to a drink and if half the people on board are adding a dollar that's a lot of money there's a lot of us and a lot of drinks sold on Carnival Cruises it wasn't a problem and I see why they do it but I felt like it made the job harder for the crew and we don't want to make the jobs harder for the crew here on this channel I know you guys in this community you want to make the lives of the crew easy and it just felt like if I was ordering a can of Pepsi they had to take my card swipe my card type in a ton of numbers print out a receipt give it to me sign it find a pen take it back whereas really they could just hand me the cam you know what I mean the bar service was really good though we never had any problems and we never really had to wait long for anything our cruise was completely back to full capacity back to pre-pandemic levels outside the pub was a lovely big prom in Our Deck with lots of different types of seating and there was a barbecue restaurant there too sadly there was nothing vegetarian on the barbecue menu so I didn't eat there I actually spent the first five days of this Cruise thinking there was nothing vegetarian I could eat in guy's Burger Joint I asked them when it was quiet I think I was there early you don't have anything vegetarian do you then they wiped out these vegetarian burgers they were absolutely amazing I put on all the toppings I put on your rings on top but just put it on the menu if it exists put it on the menu I want to have it the vegetarian food that I had was always really good I just wish that there was more of it I have put together a full Food review of everything thing I ate on my Carnival Cruise you can check that out on my website Guys Burgers is a poolside restaurant created by Guy Fieri interestingly here and everywhere it says established in 1968 so we did assume that the restaurant was created then it was not Guys Burgers was created in 2011 in collaboration with Carnival and 1968 is the year that guy was born that's kind of like me saying Emma cruises was founded in the 90s when it definitely wasn't I started my website in 2016. I love a big wraparound Promenade on a ship and it was like no one realized that this was here we had our inside cabin so this basically became our own big private balcony and we would sit here and enjoy a drink when I have an inside cabin I just spend more time out and about around the ship it's important to remember that if you book an inside cabin if you book a balcony cabin you still have access to the same ship of course there are private areas for Suites there are exceptions to that but generally speaking whichever cabin you book on a cruise you still have that full cruise ship so make the most out of it on our cruise one end of the Promenade deck was always closed off not sure why so we couldn't walk all the way around but I think it probably looking at deck plans it looks like you can go around maybe they were painting it or something we did have a go at trivia but we did not do particularly well and to be honest I'm very glad that we didn't do well because one day there was a tiebreaker between two guests and the two guests were invited on the stage to do a dance off for the prize I would 1 000 give up almost any prize if I had to dance off on the stage for it I don't care what it is if you went on a British cruise and you tried to get the guests to do a dance off as a tie break for trivia you would hear some very rude words and I'd probably have to explain to you a few nasty britishisms carnivore do call themselves The Fun ships and they were living up to that at this point in the cruise I hadn't seen any bad behavior I hadn't seen any fights but I knew that there were still plenty of time for that to be honest so I think if you went to any town and City and you went into a nightclub at 5am you're gonna find people fighting in there I really think it's just that there are more people in the club at 5am on a Carnival Cruise if you went to a Princess cruise ship Club at 5am No One's Gonna Be there I went there at 9pm on my last cruise and there was only one man there and this was my dad dancing across the Dance Floor our first stop was St John in New Brunswick and we went to see a fort and then on to what is called the reversing falls it's basically an area where every day the water changes Direction the water overpowers the water and it reverses that's what I've been told anyway walking up to the Viewpoint I was honestly quite confused why everybody was taking a photo with this big scary looking building which I've since learned is a pulp Mill it was not the most picturesque of tourist spots I didn't see the water reverse but I have now ticked that one off my list I don't feel the need to rush back but I've ticked it off my list it was around now that we started to hear some mentions of a hurricane that could affect our crews Carnival added a hurricane Ian update channel to the TVs in our cabin so we could see where the hurricane was going we could see the speeds and they would let us know about anything that might affect our cruise it was lovely to be in such big open green spaces after the time that we spent in New York we walked around the residential streets and I could quite happily live somewhere like this I think I love Canada and Canadians are just the best on a few of the houses I saw signs for realtors and that is your britishism of the week we don't use the word realtor here in the UK we just call the people who sell houses estate agents I remember the first time I heard the word realtor I was watching A Series of Unfortunate Events and somebody in that show has a fear of Realtors and I had no idea what that was we were incredibly lucky with our weather in St John but the same cannot be said for the next stops in Halifax and Sydney we did our best to see as much of the ports as possible but it was very much from under our hoods and very much through the rain some people did buy Carnival ponchos which I really liked they look like ghosts floating around every night of our cruise there was a different theater show which was great the type of shows weren't necessarily my favorite but I found out that the type of entertainment on this Cruise might not be normal for a carnival cruise on our cruise every night the shows were basically kind of compilations of songs sung by a group they were great singers they were great performers but I usually prefer more going on in the theater shows I like costume changes I let set design I like choreographed dancing I like things to be colorful and it just wasn't that entertainment like this is of course Very subjective though and there were plenty of people that absolutely loved it they did have lasers they did have lasers since coming back from the cruise I've been told that there was a problem with the backdrop or the set or something and that meant that nobody could dance underneath it whether that's true or not I have no idea but I thought it was worth a mention because it may be that the entertainment that I had isn't typical Carnival Cruise theater entertainment the theater was split over two levels and I love the way that there are these little tables on the lower level I love being able to get in and out without making everybody else stand up I'm definitely one of those people who always wants to sit near the aisle I don't understand how someone can sit right in the middle with 10 people on either side and no way to get out my worst night there there were quite a few seats with obstructive views definitely up on the top level and mostly just because of these pillars but we were always able to get a good seat as long as we arrived 15 minutes before you didn't have to be there particularly early it wasn't just the regular theater shows that we saw here we also watched Deal or No Deal and we watched the Mr and Mrs game show both of the shows were great fun and as I mentioned earlier the audience were very keen to participate in them which made it so much more fun to watch this is kind of what I expected from a carnival cruise and I was also expecting things like Mr Sexy Legs competitions belly flop contests and I didn't see anything like that during our cruise some people say that these things went away because of kovid and that they just haven't come back yet but I don't really understand that because everything else on the ship was back to normal everything there were no masks on board there were no social distancing the only real change was that I got way more annoyed at people when they would just cough out into the open I thought we learned lessons about just coughing but apparently not and I also got a bit more annoyed at the lack of hand sanitizing and hand washing on the ship usually when you go on a cruise there are hand sanitizers and there are sinks everywhere most Cruise Lines will not let you into the buffet until you've washed your hands and they will stand there and they will watch you do it there was nothing like that on our Carnival Cruise I was never told to sanitize my hands or wash my hands and the sanitizing machines weren't where I expected them to be normally they're at places like the entrance to the buffet but there weren't any here the buffet is back to self-serve is now and everybody is using the same tongs so I was just very aware of that what I would do was I would use the tongs I would get my food I would find somewhere to sit and then I would go and sanitize my hands sometimes I had to try a couple of machines before I could find any sanitizer but I would sanitize my hands and then go and pick up my sandwich or whatever I was eating for lunch this part here has a deli and a specialty restaurant above it I ate from the deli quite regularly because you could just get a sandwich or you could get a wrap they had a couple of vegetarian choices and it was nice to get something that was kind of made to order they did the same thing with omelettes here in the morning and they always had so much cake so much cake in this Buffet they had multiple bowls of cookies in the buffet and I thought I was addicted to cookies but my goodness I've never seen anything like it we would often take a plate of cookies back to our cabin in the evening or we would stop off at the pizza restaurant you could get a slice of pizza you could get a whole pizza if you wanted and that was very close to our cabin so you just pick up a pizza on the way of course they did actually have some extra cookies available to buy in a cafe but I never felt the needed to buy them I did buy a donut in this Cafe and I think it had more than my yearly recommended sugar intake in it it was very very sweet apart from that the only extra money that I spent on this Cruise was 20 in the casino I actually won thirty dollars from the casino and when I won I took my thirty dollars I took it out the machine and I got on with my day I'm not much of a gambler it seemed like the rest of the passengers on this Cruise were low I have never seen such a busy casino on any cruise ship ever the casino was actually expanded in the last refit so now it's split onto two decks despite that though almost every machine and every table was being used all of the time guests can smoke in the casino and because of its location it's right in the middle of the ship on one of the main decks you do walk through it quite often the smell doesn't bother me really but I know it does for some of you the fact you had to walk through the casino so much may have been why it seems so busy to me if a casino is busy on another cruise ship but it's at the end I'll never go near it I'll never see it but on this cruise I saw it multiple times a day all day every day and it was always very very busy thankfully we missed hurricane Ian and we got back to New York without really any bad weather a lot of the top decks and the Promenade deck might be closed because it was wet but just like a normal wet Cruise I'm pretty used to that I'm from the UK including my tips and my drinks package I paid 532 dollars for this Cruise based on two sharing the cheapest guaranteed inside cabin that's for seven nights so I think that's pretty amazing price that is 532 dollars per person two people sharing it would be hard to find a hotel on land for that price and that's without taking into account the drinks the food the entertainment and the transport I never felt unsafe on this cruise and I never saw any bad guest Behavior to be honest I think I've seen worse behavior on almost every other Cruise Line I would happily take my parents on a Carnival Cruise I would happily take my nieces on a Carnival Cruise it was not what I had expected the cruise that I took on Costa which is the Italian version of this Cruise was actually about half the price of this one it was even cheaper but it was rated on Cruise Critic their worst cruise to find out how that cruise went and to find out why so many of the reviews warned particularly Americans to stay away from this Cruise check out this video next

Channel: Emma Cruises

Views: 1,067,344

Keywords: cruise, cruise tips, emma cruises

Id: TYN07oze5hs

Length: 23min 30sec (1410 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 10 2022