First time Cruiser: Carnival Eastern Carribean
 

Hi all,

My family is booked for a Carnival cruise to Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, and Tortola this July (8 days). I believe it's on the Carnival Legend.

The group includes my parents, 3 siblings, 2 brothers-in-law, 2 nieces, my husband, and my 2 children.

I would love to hear from anyone who has been on this cruise or knows the line well.

I would be interested to know what shore excursions you did, or if you just wandered on your own at the ports-of-call.

What did you think about the spa services, activities, nightlife?

We will have our children with us, they will be 2-1/2 and 4 years old, do any of you have experience with the kids club activities? Evening babysitting?

We are not "tour" kind of people (my husband and I anyway), but I think this will be a good way for my family to vacation together - everyone can do their own thing or hang together if we want to, we can each be as lazy or active as we want to, and we can dine together at night. Mostly, I love that coordinating everyone will be minimal.

I plan to do some more independent research, but am mostly looking forward to a relaxing and fun time.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts!

If you don't get responses here, you may want to try Cruisecritic.com or cruiseaddicts.com . They are geared to cruising and have tons of posts that will help you. Your kids will be totally taken care of by Camp Carnival. They are great. Good Luck!

If you've never been to Puerto Rico, the thing to do is tour Old San Juan. They have some neat old forts. There's also a lot of shopping downtown.

St. Thomas has a lot of beach options (Koki Beach is OK though commercial--it's also near "Shell World" that the kids might like. There's pretty good snorkeling in Trunk Bay in St. John (you can take an excursion over). Lots of duty-free shopping here too.

You'll find lots of nightlife, live music, etc. on board ship.

I think you made a good choice for your family and should have a great time.

Cheers!

WE were on the Legend for New Year's and LOVED it! We have cruised Carnival before (4 times) and after Nov.'03, my husband said he was NEVER going to go on Carnival again. Then..........last April he saw a cruise on the Legend for $379@- leaving in 5 days! He could not pass that up so we went. Were we pleasantly surprised with the Legend. So when New Years was coming, the Legend was our 1st choice.WE have been cruising for 20 years, 40 cruises, so we know about cruising. The Legend class is now a favorite (RCCL is favorite).On our New Year's cruise, Bob Dickernson and his family were aboard. He is the president and CEO of Carnival! This is the ship he chose to cruise on so you know it must be good. Granted the decore is more the Meditranium style(I can't spell) because there are semi nudes around (but NO nudity)and the beautiful ship doesn't look like the Caribean. but who cares, you'll have a ball!
WE never take ships tours either. WE went to Magins bay, 1st time, last year, and hated all the screaming kids. We are snorklers so usually go to Coki beach in St. Thomas.Trunk Bay in St. Johns is alsoi nice and you can get a water taxi in St. Thomas or Red Hook. In Trotola we were going to go to the Baths but the water was rough so no boats went there. In San Juan go to the OLD forts.There are two, can't remember names but you see then as you come into port.
Everyone will have a great time on the Legend! Have any more questions or want to see pictures, email me at [email protected] Enjoy your cruise and..Smile....

My husband and I (aged 36 & 38)were on the same cruise in September. It was our first time cruising and the Carnival Legend was out of this world! On arrival in San Juan you don't have much time as you arrive at 3pm, we walked up to the old fort (about 10min walk)which was great but closed at 5pm. In the evening we sat outside in a bar just across from the ship and watched the locals salsa dancing. In St Thomas the highlight is the skyride to paradise point it really is paradise! The beaches are beautiful and great for relaxing but steer clear of the town if you don't have money to spend on expensive jewellry. I booked onboard the ship to swim with dolphins in Tortola, I felt it was a wonderful experience and definitely worth the $159 for the time spent with the dolphins. Be prepared however as they take a video which is $50 each and 4 photos of everyone at $12each and I felt this was a bit of a rip-off. We had no complaints about the cruise itself and would definitely cruise with Carnivel again

Thanks all for your thoughts. I am really looking forward to this cruise. Too bad it's 5 months away!