I just got back from the Carnival Paradise 4 day Long Beach, Catalina,
Ensenada, Long Beach cruise.

Background: For my parents' 50th wedding anniversary my siblings and I took
them on this cruise. My brother brought his two kids, my younger sister
brought her husband, my older sister came alone (all kids and her husband
were working) and I brought my teenaged girls. My parents have been on
many, many cruises, usually HAL. My younger sister and her husband have
been on Disney a few times, my older sister had been on a few cruises,
including Carnival, and didn't like Carnival before, and I've been on 5
other cruises, 1 Disney, 3 HAL, and one Regent. My brother was a cruise
virgin. We picked this cruise as most of the family could make a 4 day
cruise, but not a week. We were meeting in LA for the anniversary party,
and didn't want to fly again. I would not have picked this cruise or
itinerary if it were just me and my kids.

And though we had a good time hanging out with the family, I wouldn't really
recommend this cruise for less than a large family reunion type thing.

Embarkation:
About half of us were in suites, so we had VIP embarkation. All of our
luggage was small enough to carry on ourselves (note, mine was a size up
from what an airline would consider a carry on.) and we did so. That saved
us from the long check your luggage line. Then we didn't have to stand in
any other lines, as they usher you into the VIP lounge, check you in (I did
have my pre registration done) cut you into the front of the security line,
and then off you go to dodge photographers and get onboard. It took about
10 minutes from the parking lot to my room. My sister, who was not aVIP,
took about 45 minutes. So I thought it was painless.

Accommodations:
I was in a Penthouse Suite, and this was the smallest room I'd ever sailed
in. Okay, I'm spoiled. But when this is your top of the line choice, well,
perhaps you might want to come up with better choices..And our room pretty
much clashed with itself, which we found quite amusing. The smaller rooms
had much classier décor. Hmm, too much decorating budget and they go
astray. The beds were extremely comfortable. The shower was nice, it was
over a tub. We didn't try out the tub and see how the jets worked. There
wasn't enough room for my suitcase under the bed, and we ended up shoving it
into the closet. I'm used to more storage room, but we three ladies did
okay.

Wireless worked in the room, as did cellular. We only used cell service in
port in Catalina, so I'm not sure how much the cellular at sea actually
costs. Wireless internet cost $36 for two hours. Air conditioning worked
really, really well. Controls are on the ceiling. And if you can't get it
turned off, I found our wonderful cabin steward was able to get it to turn
it off. Warning, after 36 hours of a nice temperature in the cabin it
started to smell like cigarette smoke, and we don't smoke. The heavy air
conditioning blows that smell away.

Dining:
I always hear about the dress code, and no, they never denied entrance to
the dining room to people in shorts or tank tops or bathing suits. (Though
those in bathing suits did look like their shorts were dry.) On the other
hand, though people were dressed like they do to hit the mall in southern
California, they were very well behaved. I can't say I ran across one rude
guest in either the dining room or anywhere else on the ship, and on formal
night I thought everyone looked rather spiffed up. Maybe they weren't quite
up to the "jacket and tie" look, but they certainly looked nice to me. My
girls and I were in cocktail dresses for formal night. We were adorable.

The food, well, I've had better beef Wellington, but I'm not sure I didn't
get the wrong order. As my daughter mentioned my brother across the 11
person table from me was complaining his was too rare, and mine was too well
done, but we couldn't really hear each other all the way across the table,
and it didn't occur to me they gave us the wrong orders. The lobster was
better on our other cruises, but then again, lobster could be fresh in New
England, so that's not really a fair comparison. Nothing really hit me as
WOW, but nothing in the dining room was inedible either. Plate were always
clean at the end of the meal. I'd put it as good as one of those large
charity ball dinners.

Food in the Paris (Lido) was pretty pathetic. I had breakfast there once,
and thought about lunch once, and after looking at it went for the pizza.
Their choice of fruit for breakfast was grapefruit, oranges, or oranges and
grapefruit slices. Really? Melon was apparently out of their price range.
The pizza was pretty good, but the service at the pizza counter was somewhat
puzzling. They had all their selections in a case, and so there you were,
looking at a pizza and you'd say I'd like a slice of that one, and they'd
say "we don't have that one right now." I'm pretty sure I'm looking at
one.. They need a better system, maybe making those say, warming cases, and
only put the done pizzas in there..There was soft serve ice cream or frozen
yogurt always available. And sometimes that really was your best option.

They did have a sushi bar tucked away on Carnival Avenue. (Or Boulevard or
some cute name like that.) The sushi was never raw fish, and always
something tasty. You could only get one or two selections at a time, it was
meant for a taste, not a meal. And it was wonderful. We'd get a few pieces
before heading off to dinner.

Service

There was a coffee bar with a cute French name I forget. The barista
working there was a bit confused, as people would be standing there waiting
to be served (and these are paying customers, this place was not free) and
yet she'd be doing inventory. I saw this happen not once, but twice in the
same day. Now how often do they really need to do inventory in one day?

I'm not sure where she learned customer service, but that trainer apparently
got to many crew members on this cruise. I found many instances where I
definitely wouldn't say Carnival is trying to get our money. To the
contrary, guest were there, ready to hand over Sign&Sail cards, and yet the
employees would not drop other activities, such as playing with a crumpled
up piece of paper, to wait on them. Perhaps they weren't trained to think
of waiting on people offering them money as a priority, or maybe they are
just tired of working on the ship, but either way it was quite the turnoff.
I actually left pictures I was considering purchasing and walked away from
the photo area, as of the two cashiers one was arguing with a customer and
calling them names (and I didn't hear the customer say anything rude, they
just asked for a folder for the picture they had bought..) and the other was
tossing around trash, I imagine to work on his future as a cruise ship
juggler.

The dining room waiters were good, the cabin steward was great, but the
people working the Paris (Lido) restaurant bussing tables were pretty
clueless. I saw them carefully stepping over spilt ice cream, just leaving
them there, as if that were someone else's job. The tables seemed to be set
once with silverware, but once they were cleaned, the next people had to
track down the silverware themselves. My mom found them in the bussing
stations. And these employees were experts at almost cleaning off a table,
say picking up everything but one glass. This left the folks standing
around with trays wondering if that table was vacant, or if someone really
was around somewhere that wanted that glass.

The maître'd in the dining room was also interesting. He'd interrupt the
conversations of the whole room at the end of dinner to announce the next
day's activities. He was accurate on stuff going on in his dining room.
Not so much on stuff going on outside his dining room. And he wasn't funny.
Perhaps he'd be better served going back to wandering the dining room and
talking to tables individually.

Ports: Catalina and Ensenada

Catalina was a tender ports. Despite what the maitre'd told us, you can
just wander down to the tendering decks after 8am but before 9am and hop on
a tender. Since the maitre'd kindly misinformed the rest of the passengers,
saying tendering for the masses wouldn't start until after 10am, the tenders
were nearly empty, and no lines. Avalon is a square mile of cuteness. We
rented golf carts (three four person ones for our party of 11) and did the
hour or so tour. Okay, there were members of our party that did not seem to
understand the "no rental carts" sign meant them, so we had a bit of trouble
finding the scenic route, but it was well marked. People who read signs
should have no trouble. Warning, most golf cart rentals are cash only, and
at $40 an hour, not pocket change. We went for the three hour rental ($80)
but came back early, and the pro rated the hours and gave us back $24.

Then some of us then did some shopping and eating, while others actually
tendered back to the ship for free lunch and then tendered back for our 2pm
glass bottom boat ride. Use your AAA card for glass bottom boat tickets,
you get a discount.The glass bottom boat ride was cool; you really could see
the fish. The tenders were the Catalina water taxis, and the drivers were
very friendly, offering to give exciting rides, or telling you Catalina
history while on your tender into town. I was used to the ships using their
own lifeboats for tenders, so this was a nice change for me.

We docked in Ensenada. It was very cool that you woke up and looked out the
window and there was the largest Mexican flag I had ever seen. So you knew
where you were! There was a small shopping center right off the ship, and $2
shuttles into the shopping district. After you paid $2 for this short ride
they spent the entire 5 minute ride trying to sell you another bus ride to
perhaps better shopping and a blow hole. My brother and I and our kids were
on the shuttle, but we didn't try the trip to the blow hole. We wandered
and shopped the main street, eating in one of the larger restaurants there
that didn't have associated trolleys with dancing girls. (We were with
children.) I found the city as tacky, but not as seedy as I expected. We
were particularly drawn to the wrestling masks they sold everywhere. For
the life of me I couldn't think of a single person I knew that would pine
for a "Hello Kitty" wrestling mask and cape, so I didn't get one, but Boy
was I tempted.

Entertainment:

My daughter is a dancer. I've sat through many a dance show. And needless
to say, she's seen more dancing than I have. The dancers on this ship were
her number one peeve. She thought they were awful. She thought they were
so awful she had to go see every show, and our entertainment was watching
her watch the dancers. But yeah, I had to agree with her, the dancers were
pretty bad. In general, I've found dancers that are confident in their
steps and their dancing can dance full out, and you are so enamoured with
their movement you don't notice if they are off. These dancers were not
confident. Some of it had to do with costumes. I'm not sure how confident
anyone is dancing in a g-string. Some of it was they apparently were not
familiar with some of the numbers. And some of it were their technique was
not as polished as kids who take 15 hours of dance a week. As she pointed
out, the show was obviously choreographed for different dancers with a
different skill set. Even my 14 year old non-dancing nephew noticed, "they
tried to dazzle us with eye candy, but it still couldn't cover the dancing."

They had comedians do 30 minute sets to give you a taste for their blue
midnight shows. Both were very funny. The second one did the standard
cruise "my room is small, the bathroom is weird, you eat a ton, there are
men in speedos" set that was exceptionally funny. He had a great delivery.
I didn't make the midnight shows, too late for me. They also had a magician
that was doing up close tricks that were displayed on the video screen
behind him. Unfortunately, all you could really see off the cards was
glare, you weren't sure if perhaps the cards were blank or if it was the
card he said. From the reaction of the people up close I'm sure the tricks
were amazing, but the technology wasn't there to share with the whole
theatre.

There seemed to be live music in most lounges, but we didn't hang out in
any, so I'm not sure how good they were. The cruise director, Karl with a
K, was extremely good. He could run the games and make them hilarious
without embarrassing the contestants.

Debarkation:

If what you are looking for in a cruise is one you can get off of fast, this
is the cruise for you. We got a VIP letter saying if we carried our stuff,
and met at the American Bar we could get off at 7am. But you didn't need
the letter, they started calling floors at 6:40am. I was standing in front
of the ship with my whole party of 11 at 7am, hugging goodbye, then heading
for the parking garage. I did hear one employee say to another he thought
they could get everyone off the ship by 8:30. (Note: immigration on this
ship is done off the ship, inside the dome using for embarkation, this means
you aren't waiting for the people with foreign passports. When I walked off
there were no lines, the immigration folks were ready for us.)

As I mentioned, all in all this type of cruise is great for a family reunion
type thing. Traditional set dinner times guaranteed you hung around
together at least once a day. We got to spend lots of time hanging out with
family we don't see tons of. The cruise was a nice back drop for that type
of thing.