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Carnival Cruise Line

MS Carnival Sprit

Your Rating:
Reviewed by: Bill Devine
# previous cruises: 3
Date of Trip: September 26, 2001
Itinerary: Hawaii

All in all, I thought that this was an absolutely fabulous cruise, but not without it's problems and drawbacks though. I will give Carnival the benefit of the doubt, as this was the first time they've cruised the Hawaiian islands with a ship this large (as all the locals said..."we've never seen a ship that large come through these islands"). If they can rectify the problems they encountered on this cruise (the long wait for tender boats and the ability of those driving them were the 2 most glaring problems, which is the only reason I gave it 4 stars and not 5), then the next time they take the Spirit through, it will be even better than the maiden voyage was.

I would highly recommend this cruise to all. My wife and I have fallen in love with the islands (first time there for both of us) and all we've been able to talk about since we returned home was getting back there...to live....forever. It was that beautiful!!

Seeing as the Spirit has only been sailing since April, the ship is still in immaculate shape and the crew did a fabulous job in keeping it that way. The public areas are plentiful, clean, roomy and quite comfortable. Some are out in the open so you can sit, relax and people watch if you like and there are others isolated enough to give you peace and quiet if that's what you desire.

One particular lounge my wife and I loved going to was the Deco lounge (Cigar Bar). Inga the bartender was an absolute gem and Conrad the bar waiter who worked with her was a riot! They were a perfect pair working together. Besides being one of the most excellent bartenders I've seen (and I've seen plenty!), Inga was very personable and sweet and after talking to her for the first time, we couldn't wait to go back there to relax and see her some more. We made it a point to stop there every day before and after dinner. They had a pianist playing there before dinner time who was excellent as well.

Big Diamond Dave at the Piano bar was a hoot as well. Good entertainer and wasn't afraid of the old "give and take" if you wanted to harass him a bit.

The entire staff working in the casino was great. Friendly, helpful (even when they were taking my money) and very personable. They didn't make you feel as though you were just in an ordinary casino and their job was to take as much money from you as possible. In fact, there was one night in particular when there was only myself and one other guy who I had met early in the cruise sitting at the Caribbean Stud Poker table (no one else at all was left in the casino but us) and they let us sit and play till 3:30 Am without one complaint.

A special thanks to all the bartenders and bar waiters on the Lido deck as well. Four pools, plenty of lounge chairs and not a lot of waiting to get a drink....for faster service, just look at one of them and say..."What's up", just like on the TV commercial...they'll be there in a flash.

One finally special thanks goes out to Vlada, the best bar waitress on the ship. She was the first waitress to offer me a beverage the first day on board and for the rest of the cruise, whether I was near the Atrium Bar, in the Pharoh's Lounge playing bingo or watching a show (those were the 2 main areas she worked) or even up on the Lido deck where she worked occassionally, she was always right there to make sure my wife and I were well taken care of.

The shops were all centrally located and offered a wide variety of items, souvenirs and essentials. A little high priced in the beginning, but came down as the cruise went on.

The 2 level Empire Dining Room was spacious, comfortable and quite nice looking. All in all, the food was quite good and there was plenty of it!

I personally am one who likes to try different types of food when I'm on a cruise, that I usually wouldn't eat at home, so I was eating some things for the first time (frog legs, venison, squid, etc). Most of it tasted delicious, but being as it was the first time trying some items, I wasn't sure exactly what it was suppose to taste like. Whatever I may not have particularly liked (and there wasn't much I didn't like), the waiter was right there to take it back and bring me something else from the menu...whatever I wanted and as much as I wanted! Yogie our waiter, Nengay the bus boy and "Mr." McNally the Maitre'd were absolutely fabulous! Coudos to all of them.

The food up at the LaPlaya Grille was great as well. There was usually 4 different varieties of food at lunchtime (all quite tasty) and the breakfast items were hot and plentiful. Only small drawback was because a good portion of the passengers was above the age of 65, it was sometimes a bit of a wait in the food lines and getting a seat was a bit challenging, sometimes it took a couple walks around before you found one.

The 24 hour pizza bar was out of this world. I actually stood there one night and just continued to sample a slice (plus calzone) from every pizza they brought out. The crust is soooo light and airy, you felt like you could eat it forever.

My wife and I had room service almost every morning and on a few occasions for a late night meal or snack. Service was quick and friendly and except for one evening (maybe the sandwich maker was having a bad night?), the food was delicious.

Lastly, I highly recommend the Noveau Supper Club (even for a $20 per person reservation for dinner). The food and service was of the highest quality (we did 1 lunch, no charge for lunch, but you still had to make a reservation and 1 dinner). If you've never dined in that type of elegance ( 2 1/2 - 3 hours, 4 or 5 courses plus complimentary courses from the chef), it's a must try event! In fact, when I made the dinner reservation for my wife and I, they asked if it was any type of special occasion and I said it was our anniversary, but that it was 4 days ago. I didn't think anything of it until we were dining and low and behold...they brought us a freshly baked chocolate anniversary cake to top off dinner...very nice touch!

We had cabin 5268, Upper Deck Aft (very back of the ship) with a balcony. Plenty of room for both my wife and I to be in the room together, showering, getting ready for dinner, etc. After unpacking, we could store all our empty luggage under the beds and then there were two full closets (plenty of hangers) and one closet with shelves. In addition, there was 3 drawers at the dressing table as well as 2 large drawers underneath the sofa (which also could have folded out into another bed). I'm 6 feet tall, 225 pounds and the shower was just fine, especially as the shower head was a stationary and hand held one, all in one. If it was just a stationary one on the wall, I may have had a little problem. No need for a hairdryer as there was one in the top drawer of the dressing table and as an added bonus, the laundry facility was directly across from our room (with an iron and ironing board). Terry cloth bathrobes in the closet were a nice addition too.

I also have to add in a special thanks to "Mandi" our cabin steward. The cabin stewards are without a doubt some of the hardest workers on the ship. According to the Carnival manual in our room, cabin stewards are suppose to work from 7Am - 12 Noon, then again from 4PM - 10PM. Not a day went by when I didn't see Mandi NOT working. He was still cleaning rooms after 12 o'clock when he was suppose to be off duty, he was the one who delivered our morning room service, every morning at 7AM and I don't think he was ever able to get off the ship to see any of the beautiful ports because of the long hours he put in. I even begged him to NOT clean our room 1 day so he may have time to get off the ship, but he ignored me and cleaned it anyway. He took care of our every need and he should be highly commended.

While I didn't make all the shows, the ones that I did see were excellent. A special commendation to the Spirit Dancers as the ship was "rocking and rolling" a bit in the beginning, which made it quite difficult for them to perform their dance routines, but they did it without a hitch. The Spirit dancers were also the ones responsible for working the lounge during the ports we tendered, passing out numbers and taking the tender groups to the gangway. They took a lot of flack and verbal abuse from some passengers, but they always did it with a smile. A special hello and thanks goes out to Angela, even if she didn't give me the $1000 scratch ticket or winning bingo card!

John Davidson was on board for one show and he was quite entertaining and friendly. He posed for pictures (and autographed them afterwards), although you still had to purchase them from the photo shop.

All the other singers, comics, performers and especially the Spirit Band were all very, very enjoyable and entertaining as well.

I personally thought Dave the cruise director was a scream, although I did hear a lot of people who were not that enamored with him. From what I understand, this wasn't his first time on the ship, but it was his first as cruise director, so I assume he'll improve with experience. He was also right there, out in the open after the bad experiences with some of the tendering problems and he took it like a trooper. He could have easily hid out elsewhere on the ship, but he didn't and he tried his best, on behalf of Carnival, to make the best out of some bad situations. Hee-Haw-Haw Dave!!

The first 5 1/2 days of the cruise were at sea and to be honest, they went by quite quickly with all that there was to do. Audience participation stuff, games, contests, bingo, shows, ice carvings, galley tour, eating, drinking...you name it, they had it. Or if you wanted nothing to do...they had that too! The weather was a little cool and breezy after we first left Vancouver and there was probably one day I can think of in the beginning that was cloudy and a little rainy. After that, and the closer we kept getting to Hawaii, the warmer and better the weather got. After about the 3rd day at sea, I don't remember another bad weather day.

Our first port to stop at was Kona, on the big island of Hawaii and this is where the first of the few problems occurred, but I don't blame Carnival for this one. I hate to bring this up during my review, but I blame Bin Laden and the terrorists for the problems we encountered at this particular port.

We were told the day before docking in Kona that we would be tendering in, but that because this was the first American port we were coming in to from Canada, we were at the mercy of the Coast Guard, Customs and Immigration. They would have to clear the ship and until they did, no one would be allowed off (this was repeated a thousand times over, so everybody should have been prepared). The mistake Carnival made here was telling everyone that tendering would probably start at around 7:30 AM. Instead, they should have just left it that tendering would start "as soon as possible" once the ship was cleared. There were Coast Guard divers checking under the ship, there were bomb sniffing dogs checking the entire interior of the ship. The ship wasn't cleared until late morning and the first tender boats didn't start leaving the ship until around 11AM. On top of that, you couldn't leave the Pharoh's Lounge after you got a tender # because they weren't broadcasting what #'s were being tendered other than in the lounge as they didn't want everyone wandering all over the place when the numbers were called and having to wait for everyone to show up for a particular tender to leave. Anybody whose cruised before knows the big lounge isn't made to accommodate EVERY passenger on board all at once, so the cramped quarters just added to the misery. This procedure was changed after this port.

After my wife and I got off in Kona (about 1:30 or so) we had a blast. We did a submarine ride with Atlantis Submarines and it was quite an experience. From there we did a bit of shopping and there was also a small beach right near by which we laid out on for a while. The last tender back to ship was suppose to be at 5:30, but after hearing that the last of the passengers didn't get onto land until 3:30 or so and seeing as there was a line a mile long at around 4:30 or so trying to get back on board, we figured it was quite safe to not try and rush back or stand in the line in the hot sun and wait, plus the Carnival crew members working the tender line told us so! So we found a nice little bar room across the street from the tender line, gathered up a dozen or so friends we had met on board that were foolishly standing in line (along with 5 or 6 crew members) and had one helluva party! The tender line got down to a reasonable amount around 7:00 PM, we paid our tab, said mahalo and were back on board by 7:30. We continued partying on board till the wee hours of the morning as we prepared for our next stop in Hilo...or so we thought?!

Stop #2 in Hilo didn't quite go off as planned and I think this is where the size of the ship played a factor and it was probably the one and only time I can say I got angry. Me staying up in the casino and drinking until 4:00Am didn't help, considering I got up at 6:00Am to go golfing on Hilo. I had just dragged myself down to the Atrium deck when "bing-bong" message time..."due to the presence of a high pressure system north of the island and high ground swells within the harbor", we weren't going to be able to go to Hilo due to safety reasons. Needless to say, not a lot of people were pleased about this. Carnival did try to make up for this non-port somewhat...after we turned around and headed back the way we came, they kept us 3/4's of a mile off the coast and took us by where the lava flow from the Kiliwae volcano met the ocean. You could faintly see the red glow of the lava and the steam plums were quite impressive as was the landscape. On top of that they had an open bar, somewhat, for an hour and a half as there way of saying "sorry", but as one passenger said..."they tried to do something nice and screwed that up". Instead of having the open bar throughout the ship, they limited it to just the Lido deck. Can you picture over 2000 passengers fighting there way up to the Lido deck for free drinks?

Next stop Maui (for 2 days). We're back to tendering again, but at least this time, you went down and got a number and could wander throughout the ship until your number was called. This went a bit smoother than Kona, but the tender drivers were still on their learner's permit I think. From what I understand there was one or two tender driving groups that kind of knew what they were doing, but I never saw them. Crash, bang, boom was the order of the day trying to dock at the pier and again back at the ship and with a passenger list of 80% 65 years and over, this was not a pretty sight to say the least.

Once on land, Maui was gorgeous. Plenty of shopping (hundreds of stores!), beautiful beaches up and down the coast and the scenery and mountain ranges were breathtaking. We found a very nice travel info booth where Jim helped my wife and I book a horseback riding tour with Ironwood Ranch for the next day. Right behind this booth was another small shopping complex with a very nice bar called the Blue Lagoon, with a very nice bartender named Jay, from Ohio worked. He told us about a happy hour he was having from 3:00PM till midnight, half priced drinks all night and free food after 9:00. Needless to say, after some shopping and more beach lounging, I started spreading the word with my fellow ship mates and we had another great bash that evening!

Now for some strange reason, which I never got a straight answer on, we had to be back on board ship by 11:30, even though we were going to be in Maui through Friday. The ship pulled out, drove around the ocean for a while and pulled back into the harbor at 6:30AM...go figure. The 2nd day in Maui wasn't suppose to require tender #'s...just go down to the gangway and get on a tender and off you go....NOT! It seems that a Royal Caribbean ship had come in later that first night and we would have to share the tendering pier with them. So at 11:00PM the first night in Maui, a notice was sent around to all passengers (but I only think 3/4's got the notice) telling everyone that tender #'s were again the order of the 2nd day in Maui as well.

Once on land day 2...my wife and I caught the bus to Whaler's Village (a definite must see for shopping enthusiast's) where we waited for the Ironwood Ranch shuttle to pick us up to go horseback riding. Never having even petted a horse before, this was a once in a lifetime experience! The scenery was beautiful, the ranch guides friendly and helpful and after an hour and a half on horseback, I now know why cowboys walk the way they do! After this it was back to the Blue Lagoon for lunch and after gathering up our "crew", we found a nice little bar across the street from the tender line and played the same game as we did in Kona...have a party, wait till the line was reasonable, pay our tab, say mahalo and back on board within 20 minutes. Next stop, Kauai....

Watching the captain (or harbor pilot) steer this gargantuan size ship into this harbor was worth the price of admission. In fact, From up on the Sun deck where I was watching, I didn't think there was anyway we'd get in here. In through a narrow opening in the harbor (with a breakwall on our left), turn the ship left to avoid the "other" breakwall which is farther up on the right, now turn the ship to the right to head it over to the pier we were docking at (yeah! No tendering!) and then spin the ship completely around so it was facing back out the way we came and put it up against the pier. Nice driving Captain!! I can guarantee you that NONE of the tender drivers were pulling this maneuver off.

I can't say too much about Kauai as about all I saw of it was the most beautiful golf course I have ever played on in my life. This was my golf make up day from the trip I missed out on in Hilo and my wife went her own way to shop till she drops.

I played on the Kauai Lagoons golf course, designed by none other than Jack Nicklaus and you could actually see it as we were pulling into the harbor (I wasn't positive that was it as we were pulling in, but I had my fingers crossed). Just when I thought one hole was the most beautiful I had ever seen, the next one was even better! Playing along the ocean, over cliffs, mountains in the background, palm trees...it was a sight to behold AND I shot a 106! Not too bad for a duffer like me from Massachusetts. A special thanks here goes out to "Radio" the golf pro aboard ship who organized the tours, along with his assistant (or girlfriend, I wasn't sure) "V". You guys were super, thanks so much!

While Kauai is the most beautiful of all the islands (from what little I saw, but mostly from what the locals told me) and was my wife and my first choice to move to, we also were told it has no night life and shuts down around 8:00 or so. So we've decide to move to Maui instead.

Last stop, Honolulu....big, beautiful and just the place you want to be if you like city life. I live in the country about 35 miles south of Boston, so I've never been partial to living in the city, but I'd have to say if I was going to, Honolulu would be the place. I've never seen a city so clean in my life! You could barely find a cigarette butt or scrap of paper anywhere. Big, beautiful buildings, gorgeous parks everywhere...even the airport had a park right in the middle of it, complete with palm trees, bushes and a large pond. I wouldn't find any of that at Logan Airport in Boston!

We did a tour of Pearl Harbor the 2nd to last day on the ship and of course it had to coincide with the first day we started bombing Afghanistan. The tour didn't get cancelled thankfully, but security was increased 100 fold. Seeing the wreckage of the Arizona that close was quite the moving experience to say the least...a MUST see for all.

After getting off the ship (not that bad a process either), my wife and I were staying another 2 nights on Waikiki Beach. We just couldn't face a 13 hour plane flight right from the ship (not to mention losing an addition 6 hours in time changes). I highly recommend staying a day or two after a cruise to unwind if you can.

From here we relaxed a bit (the back of our hotel emptied out on to Waikiki Beach) but found time to do a luau Monday night(Paradise Cove...another wonderful time) and also a sunset helicopter tour over the city on Tuesday night.

All in all, every island was a blast, Carnival definitely has some bugs to work out concerning the size of the Spirit if they are going to continue taking it through the islands and if they want to learn how to drive tender boats, tell them to send some executives to Pearl Harbor and take their tender boats out to the Arizona...smooth as butter.

A highly recommended cruise, from my stand point anyway. I know I'd get a few arguments against from some of the older passengers (I'm no kid, I'm 42 and my wife is 52), but if you let the problems get you down, then you've got no one to blame but yourself for having a bad time. Making a good time and having fun in the middle of a bad time is half the challenge, right?

I actually met someone who lives 15 minutes away from me within 45 minutes after getting on board the first day. If that wasn't enough, his wife use to live 1 mile down the street from my wife and I and her brothers played hockey with my wife's son...talk about small world! From here we met another couple from Massachusetts and from there our little circle grew to about a dozen or so and we all had a ball. My wife and I and the 2 couples from Mass are planning a reunion for sometime next month.

As I stated earlier, at least 80% of the passengers were 65 years and older. More than I thought there would be and while there was the usual number (or maybe unusual number would be more appropriate) of complainers, moaners and groaners, for the most part, everyone we met was friendly and personable. I was actually "adopted" by a sweet couple from Seal Beach California who were absolute gems. They even switched their table in the dining room so they could have dinners with us and the 4 of us had lunch in the Noveau Supper Club one afternoon. We hope to stay in touch with them as well.