First Carnival Cruise: What to expect?

This blog on what to expect on first Carnival cruise will answer all your questions on what to book in advance of the cruise, how to prepare for the carnival cruise, what to not forget and how to make the best of your time on the cruise.

Your time on cruise:
First things first. Your vacation time on cruise is split between sea days and shore days. Sea days are the days cruise ship will be in the sea and as expected Shore days are your excursion days, when you will get to step out of the ship, onto the ports and land.

Booking Excursions on the cruise:
When you book your cruise it clearly mentions the number of days ship will be at sea and the days when it will be visiting ports. The cruise line will also share with you all the different options you’ll have to book an excursion tour through the cruise ship or on your own. For most of the excursions cruise line excursions will be more expensive than the ones you book personally.
Recommended to book an excursion trip of your choice in advance else sometimes the highly rated and preferable ones may run out.
If you book a personal excursion, one of the best ways is to check out for the ratings of these excursions on Tripadvisor. Also read carefully through the details to make sure your requirements are met. We were on this cruise with extended family – three generations and hence we had both the elderly (my parents) and young kids (youngest being 1 month shy of 3yrs). In this situation we had to pick the Caribbean excursion with someone with a good rating, trustworthy and who was willing to do all the activities with novices.
Similarly for us, a big question was Chichen Itza, Uxmal or Dzibilchaltun and we finally decided on Dzibilchaltun due to being closer to the port (30mins one way vs 2hrs in the case of the other two), having a cenote at the ground level and a nice museum. Additionally, with the additional time we had at hand, we visited one of the old villas in Merida which was good fun too. You can read this post to know more about our day in Progresso, Yucatan and my view on Chichen Itza vs Uxmal vs Dzibilchaltun.

Carnival hub app and WiFi during cruise:
Make sure to download the Carnival hub app on your phone to access the schedule of activities and events on the go. It even has details of the menu in different restaurants and provides functionality of chat within family members on the cruise.
Not many people realize that ships don’t get regular telecom signals while in the sea, as there probably are no telecom towers in these seas and oceans. Most cruise lines thus offer internet connectivity via wi-fi for those who prefer to have some internet connectivity even on the sea-days. Note that you can save a lot if you puchase the WiFi options and packages prior to your cruise.

Activities on the cruise ship during days at sea
These activities will make sure you never have a dull moment. No matter what age your kids are, you can rest assured that you’ll be more often choosing between 2 or more activities at the same time.

• Hasbro games: clue, trivial pursuit, game night,
• Dr Seuss parade and story reading – The cat in the hat
• Bean bag toss challenge
• Art scavenger hunt and digital scavenger hunt
• Towel folding fun, class and towel animal theatre
• Morning trivia, daily puzzle, morning show, friends trivia, super heroes trivia
• Dance classes – line dancing, deck dance party, Latin dances
• Spa Pamper afternoons; ladies and teenage girls
• Make it with Michael: art and craft workshop to create a keepsake souvenir from the cruise
• Health oriented workshops like acupuncture, taking care of your feet and soles and the like.
• Movie Night on the decks. Since its night time, you can pick up a blanket at the decks, find a place to lounge, pick up some popcorn and enjoy the movie. We had watched Crazy Rich Asians during our cruise.

What to pack for the cruise?
This post lists down the 10 things you need to pack for the cruise especially if you’re traveling with kids.

Staterooms on the Carnival Cruise
As with any cruise ship, the rooms are more the size you’ll find in a middle of the city hotel in London than a lavish suite in Bath. It can get stuffy in the room if you’re a family of 4. Thankfully for us, we were three families traveling together so we booked an extra room just for the 4 kids where they had their bunk beds and it turned out perfect as its too difficult to cram them in the bed within the stateroom and there’s no place for an extra bed or anything of that sort.
That said, the rooms are complete with basic amenities and no complaints there. Very well kept and cleaned.
They even had a washer and dryer on board which was a big help.

Food and Restaurants onboard the Carnival Cruise
There were many different restautants onboard the Carnival Valor, the cruise ship that we opted for. There was something fresh at almost all times of the day (even in the evenings) and being vegetarian we loved their hearty burritos, desserts and pizzas. Meals at all times had a good spread too for different palates. Kids loved the fact that they could take an ice-cream 24hrs a day. One of the days we even found Idli and Dosa as part of the breakfast menu.

Reservation for Formal Dining
Carnival Valor also had formal dining options for which you have to reserve a place in advance. Be very careful about the time you pick for dinner. It turned out that we had gone quite wrong about it as the time we picked clashed with the sleeping schedule of the younger one. I strongly suggest picking an earlier dinner time as you can be almost sure kids will be up and after a full day’s of activities will be ready for dinner too

Last but definitely not the least.. Enjoy to the fullest as there is no boring moment on the cruise!!