Carnival Legend Cruise Review - Eastern Caribbean from New York
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The Entertainment
I remember our cruise director, Chris Jefferson, from when he was a social host on the Triumph. Chris is a wonderful performer and a natural on stage, but it seems he may be a better follower than a leader. The entertainment on the Triumph was far superior to the Legend. Although very funny, the entertainment organized by Chris just wasn?t enough. His social hosts were also hilarious, particularly Adam.
The games they organized were just too good to stay away from: Who wants to be a Millionaire, trivia games, Name That Tune, The Newlywed Game just to name a few. However, the number of events available throughout the day just didn?t measure up to the other ships I have been on; there were plenty of opportunities to get bored and nap. As far as nightly entertainment, the ?Las Vegas-style? shows Carnival boasts about where only in existence for two of the nights. The remainder of the evenings we fell victim to cheap (and not funny) comics, soloist singers, big bands and guest talent acts. On occasion, there were also late night shows but they started at midnight and lasted for just 20-30 minutes. Expect to go to bed before 1 every night.
The Legend?s idea of a movie theatre is a Karaoke lounge (Firebird Lounge) with a screen in front of it. The timing was also not well planned at all. Our movie was set to start as the ship left one of the ports of call. Well, the lounge just happens to be right above the engine room.
Needless to say, I missed the beginning of the movie and eventually had to walk out. Don?t expect any popcorn either.
The Legend?s main entertainment lounge is named Follies. It has a similar design to other entertainment lounges in the Carnival fleet and has the same problems as well. The first level of seating is not raised, so short guests will have a problem seeing over taller ones. The top level features seats that are, in fact, raised. However, most of the seats in the upper level feature obstructed views as in all Carnival ships. The same barriers that keep guests from falling over obstruct their line-of-site. It?s a wonder they have not fixed this problem yet. This is not a problem on other cruise lines and is a simple problem to fix at Carnival. This architectural design issue could have been avoided if Carnival paid just the slightest bit more attention to the guest?s point-of-view.
Dining / Bars
Two words that prevent Carnival from ever being the world?s leading cruise line: freestyle dining. They have wised up and now offer it on some of their ships but we have yet to see it on any Spirit-class vessels including the Legend. This is the main reason for the notoriously long buffet lines we constantly see on Carnival over and over again. The ship, for some reason, insists that all passengers eat at the same time ? so they do! On other cruise lines, such as Norwegian, freestyle dining and a variety of restaurants allow guest to choose when and where they dine. This lessens the strain on buffets and keeps the lines short almost all of the time.
The quality of the food on the Legend, however, is superb. The chefs deserve kudos. Nonetheless, they should know that no matter how good the food tastes, the management and serving of the food make the entire experience horrible. The long lines do a huge disservice to the end product. The Unicorn Café is the home of all the buffets and all the long lines. The Rotisserie, Deli, 24-hour pizzeria, The Grill, Taste of the Nations (featuring a different country?s cuisine everyday) and Asian Corner are just some of types of food you will find there for lunchtime. Unfortunately, almost everything shuts down for dinner and all you?re left with is the pizza, deli and rotisserie.
The 24-hour pizzeria, for instance, constantly has a line except for breakfast time. This is due to the pizzas not being ready when the customers ask for them. They feature about six different types of pizza and four of the less popular options are never ready. You?ve got to take what they?ve got or wait some more. And sometimes they don?t have anything. It is common for the server to ask you to wait 4-7 minutes for the next batch.
There is absolutely no excuse for this amount of wait time to be fed on a cruise ship. Cruise ships, as we all know, are segregated marketplaces. It is very easy to predict demand for certain products based on previous behavior. The Legend needs to prepare their pizza and other foods based on these measurements ? this is how they know how much staff and ovens they will need to use at any given time so the guests don?t have to wait. There should constantly be large quantities of all different kinds of pizza pies available during the peak times. Similar predictions can be made for the demand for buffets and room service to avoid long wait times. Apparently, no one at Carnival bothered to take these simple measurements to make the predictions.
Page 3 > > More on Carnival Legend Cruise Review> >
The Entertainment
I remember our cruise director, Chris Jefferson, from when he was a social host on the Triumph. Chris is a wonderful performer and a natural on stage, but it seems he may be a better follower than a leader. The entertainment on the Triumph was far superior to the Legend. Although very funny, the entertainment organized by Chris just wasn?t enough. His social hosts were also hilarious, particularly Adam.
The games they organized were just too good to stay away from: Who wants to be a Millionaire, trivia games, Name That Tune, The Newlywed Game just to name a few. However, the number of events available throughout the day just didn?t measure up to the other ships I have been on; there were plenty of opportunities to get bored and nap. As far as nightly entertainment, the ?Las Vegas-style? shows Carnival boasts about where only in existence for two of the nights. The remainder of the evenings we fell victim to cheap (and not funny) comics, soloist singers, big bands and guest talent acts. On occasion, there were also late night shows but they started at midnight and lasted for just 20-30 minutes. Expect to go to bed before 1 every night.
The Legend?s idea of a movie theatre is a Karaoke lounge (Firebird Lounge) with a screen in front of it. The timing was also not well planned at all. Our movie was set to start as the ship left one of the ports of call. Well, the lounge just happens to be right above the engine room.
Needless to say, I missed the beginning of the movie and eventually had to walk out. Don?t expect any popcorn either.
The Legend?s main entertainment lounge is named Follies. It has a similar design to other entertainment lounges in the Carnival fleet and has the same problems as well. The first level of seating is not raised, so short guests will have a problem seeing over taller ones. The top level features seats that are, in fact, raised. However, most of the seats in the upper level feature obstructed views as in all Carnival ships. The same barriers that keep guests from falling over obstruct their line-of-site. It?s a wonder they have not fixed this problem yet. This is not a problem on other cruise lines and is a simple problem to fix at Carnival. This architectural design issue could have been avoided if Carnival paid just the slightest bit more attention to the guest?s point-of-view.
Dining / Bars
Two words that prevent Carnival from ever being the world?s leading cruise line: freestyle dining. They have wised up and now offer it on some of their ships but we have yet to see it on any Spirit-class vessels including the Legend. This is the main reason for the notoriously long buffet lines we constantly see on Carnival over and over again. The ship, for some reason, insists that all passengers eat at the same time ? so they do! On other cruise lines, such as Norwegian, freestyle dining and a variety of restaurants allow guest to choose when and where they dine. This lessens the strain on buffets and keeps the lines short almost all of the time.
The quality of the food on the Legend, however, is superb. The chefs deserve kudos. Nonetheless, they should know that no matter how good the food tastes, the management and serving of the food make the entire experience horrible. The long lines do a huge disservice to the end product. The Unicorn Café is the home of all the buffets and all the long lines. The Rotisserie, Deli, 24-hour pizzeria, The Grill, Taste of the Nations (featuring a different country?s cuisine everyday) and Asian Corner are just some of types of food you will find there for lunchtime. Unfortunately, almost everything shuts down for dinner and all you?re left with is the pizza, deli and rotisserie.
The 24-hour pizzeria, for instance, constantly has a line except for breakfast time. This is due to the pizzas not being ready when the customers ask for them. They feature about six different types of pizza and four of the less popular options are never ready. You?ve got to take what they?ve got or wait some more. And sometimes they don?t have anything. It is common for the server to ask you to wait 4-7 minutes for the next batch.
There is absolutely no excuse for this amount of wait time to be fed on a cruise ship. Cruise ships, as we all know, are segregated marketplaces. It is very easy to predict demand for certain products based on previous behavior. The Legend needs to prepare their pizza and other foods based on these measurements ? this is how they know how much staff and ovens they will need to use at any given time so the guests don?t have to wait. There should constantly be large quantities of all different kinds of pizza pies available during the peak times. Similar predictions can be made for the demand for buffets and room service to avoid long wait times. Apparently, no one at Carnival bothered to take these simple measurements to make the predictions.
Page 3 > > More on Carnival Legend Cruise Review> >
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