Our trip was marred by the fact that Carnival were not prepared for so many passengers joining the ship at Ford Lauderdale. The queue lasted for over 2.5 hours, only to be followed by a security alert before we could get on board. This meant we didn't join the ship for 6 hours in total. We were held in an unpleasant empty terminal with no seating and for quite a while with no food or water, until one passenger collapsed and then suddenly, food and water began arriving. There was no explanation as to the reasons for the hold up, apart from eventually all three homeland security agencies arrived and blocked us from leaving the terminal building, even locking the doors at one point. Whilst security alerts are unfortunate, there was no excuse for the initial delays whilst queuing and certainly, there was never any apology. Also, please be aware that the price you pay for the cruise is not all you pay. 15% service charge is added to all drinks and you are still expected to tip maitre d's, etc. An automatic charge is also made for tips for stateroom staff as well. Some of the entertainment was not that good at the time we were on the ship and was decidely second class. Other entertainment was world class. One lady even set up an art class to keep passengers busy on the days at sea because you could not even get in to the dance classes, they were over subcribed.
In all, we would never go cruising with Carnival again. We have written to complain about several things wrong on board (and we are not serial complainers) but all we got was a short letter from the office of the President fobbing us off saying that events were "unusual!. Were they unusual? Surely cruise lines have contingency plans or emergency plans. They certainly seemed very amateur in their handling of such a large amount of passengers.

Splendor is Carnival's newest ship.Sailed on the 3 day sailing from Dover to Amsterdam,this cruise was part of the inaugeral sailings.

We are pretty new to cruising,1 Princess and 3 P&O cruises so far--the latest P&O on 31st May 08.

If you have cruised with Princess or P&O you will quite gob-smacked at the decor of this ship,everything is a funny brown pink colour,lots of lights(on all the stairs)glass lifts and garish mismatched colours everywhere.Somebody told me that all Carnival ships are the same.After the initial OMG! we got used to it and quite liked it--it is fun!!

We had an inside cabin on Empress deck and they were fine for a short trip,plenty of wardrobe and drawer space-no tea or coffee making facilities but we ordered this from room service.No chocs on pillows but towel animals on the bed each night.

Entertainment was fantastic-3 great shows in the main theatre--Vroom show on the last night was great-moterbikes on stage and lead singer on a great big glittering ball suspended from the ceiling.Also motown show on the second night was fantastic for us as we all grew up dancing to that music.lol.

There was a jazz trio in one of the lounges,a disco,a trio in the atrium (very good )kareoke in the morrocan lounge and a fantastic piano bar(singalong with Ron Pass)did not get to all the bars as only on for a short time.

Myleene Glass? is Splendor's godmother and we had a wonderful time on the lido deck watching the naming ceremony-sun was shining and loads of free drinks!!!!

Food--there are so many places to eat on Splendor that we did not get around to trying them all (shame).

I can say that Carnival's food will knock spots off of P&O.The main dining rooms are the Golden Pearl and the Black Pearl--the decor in these rooms take some getting used to--looks like a load of fried eggs on the ceiling.lol.

I had fillet steak,loin of lamb and lobster all of which were superb.Try the warm chocolate melting cake with vanilla ice-cream-Mmmmmmmmmmm had this 3 nights running.

Self-service has lots of nice options for breakfast,lunch and tea time--great deserts.

There is a sushi bar,grill for burgers fries etc,all night pizza and a great deli bar.There is also a good Morrocan bar where yuo choose your own ingredients and they stir fry it for you.

Did not use the pools or jaccuzis as weather was'nt too good,but all looked good and they had a great area for children.

Did not use the gym or spa area's but again they looked very nice.

All in all we had a fantastic 3 days.I have read other reviews where some people were not happy with this trip--mainly slow service(I think this was due to lots of press and V.I.P's on board with free drink passes)service was a bit slow but it did not worry us,the whole cruise was fabulous and are looking to book a Carnival cruise for next year.