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Carnival Cruise Line

MS Holiday

Your Rating:
Reviewed by:Niki Falcone
# previous cruises: 3
Date of Trip: March 30, 2002
Itinerary: Mexico-Eastern

Great cruise, great service. Couple of things that I'd like to see changed, but overall a good experience and worth the money.

All of the public areas were clean and well kept. We especially like the library, but found that it wasn't open very much.

We really enjoyed the food. I would not say that it's top quality gourmet, but then again, I'm a harsh critic being that I'm from top city in the U.S. when it comes to food...New Orleans. Don't get me wrong, the food was really really good. I can't say enough about the service in the dining room. These guys work very hard for 12-14 hr. days and we were still always greeted with a smile and given top notch service.

The cabin was nice and was a good size for a cruise ship. Considering that you will spend very little time in your room, the accommodations are more that sufficient. We never saw our room steward...which is a good thing! Every morning we'd leave to explore the ship to go off into port. When we'd arrive back, our room would be cleaned, we'd have fresh towels, and there would even be cute animals made out of towels laying our bed, wearing our shoes and hanging from the light fixtures!

The entertainment was just o.k. I went to see one show and was VERY disappointed to see that it was the exact same show that I saw on the Imagination in 1996 -- 6 years ago! There's just no excuse for not creating new and improved shows.

Our first stop was Playa del Carmen. We went to Xel-Ha, a water type park. It was very nice, but expect to be rushing around if you're going to see anything. There just isn't enough time spent in port. We went to Xel-Ha by taxi on our own. This was much cheaper than buying the excursion through Carnival. HOWEVER....and this is my BIGGEST complaint of the entire trip...if you do not purchase an excursion from Carnival, you are treated like a second class citizen when it comes to boarding the tender boats to be brought into the port! If you are in a port that does not have a pier, you are ferried into the port on tender boats. This can take quite a while when you've got a huge ship full of people wanting to get off. Anyway, if you buy an excursion from Carnival, you have precedence on getting on those tenders than everyone else. This infuriated us. We were being punished for not having bought an excursion from Carnival. Who cares about the fact that we were on their ship..spending money. Hello? We sat around a lounge from 7:00 a.m. until 10:30 watching people just wandering in (that had excursions) and then watching them get on tenders, while we just waited around. We did not know this was going to be the case prior to our trip. We booked -- and of course missed -- reservations that we had at Xel-Ha for our kids to do the dolphin encounter...because we arrived there too late. We were furious. This was the one event our kids were looking forward to, and couldn't stop talking about for months before the trip!

Our second stop was Belize. We went SCUBA diving, as both my husband and I are certified. We had a good time. We bought our SCUBA excursion through Carnival.

Our third stop was Cozumel. This was our favorite stop for many reasons. First of all, the boat pulls right up to the pier, so you don't have to deal with tenders. Secondly, we did not make concrete plans, or take an excursion. We just rode with the wind...literally. I researched jeep rentals ahead of time on the internet and reserved one online for $50. When we got off the boat, there were lots of companies offering us a jeep right there...for $85! We simply took a taxi downtown (which cost us $5, split between 4 people) and picked up our $50 jeep! We then just rode around the island, looking at things, eating, talking to locals, etc. We then stopped at Mr. Sanchos beach and had a great time. The beach and water were beautiful and they had these cool swings by the bar instead of stools. There was also a big trampoline in the water that was fun to jump on. As with other ports, a complaint that I have is that you're just not there long enough to really get into it. We wanted to shop...but didn't have time.

We were disappointed that we didn't encounter anyone that we wanted to hang out with. We went with two friends of ours, and we were thankful for that, as we really didn't need to meet anyone...but it would've been nice. Just wasn't our crowd. We are going on the Holiday again out of New Orleans...actually we leave tomorrow. Seeing that we're departing out of our hometown and New Orleans is known for it's crazy, fun loving people, I think we'll have better luck this time finding some people to hang out with. But if not, that's still o.k., as we're going again with the same couple that we went with before...and we always have a great time...no matter what!