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This was the smoothest boarding experience we have EVER had on any of our prior cruises! In the morning I noticed that Carnival had already placed a $200 deposit charge on our credit card. This avoids having to stop at a check-in desk at the cruise terminal to provide the cruise company with a credit card for a deposit which saves time at the terminal. We also had already checked in online a few weeks ago so Carnival already had all of the information that they required from us. We had printed out our boarding passes and luggage tags at home which also expedites the boarding process.
This was the first time we were ever going to leave our car parked at the cruise terminal. The cost for parking at Long Beach is either $20 or $22 per day. It would have cost about $100 round-trip to take Uber or a taxi from our house so the cost of parking wasn't a lot more than that. But, we also have somewhere we need to go at the end of the cruise that is in the opposite direction of our house so we had to have our car at the cruise port anyway.
Though Google Maps said it would take anywhere from 50 minutes to 1 hour and 20 minutes to drive to the cruise terminal, the traffic wasn't bad and the drive took less than an hour. There were a lot of cars lined up to go into the cruise terminal, but they moved at a reasonable pace. We were directed where to stop and unload our luggage. A luggage handler came to us before we were even done unloading our 3 suitcases. The suitcases were heavy so we gave him a $5 tip for helping and coming so quickly. We then drove into the parking garage. The signs were quite clear where to drive and we found a parking space right away. The garage is right across from the cruise terminal so it wasn't very far to walk.
There were 3 check-in lines. One was for people who had purchased "Faster To The Fun". One was for people who were either too early or too late for their assigned check-in time. The third line was for people who were right on time for their assigned check-in time. We had picked to check in between 12:30 PM and 1:00 PM. It was about 12:20 PM when we went to line up and they were directing people with the 12:30 PM to 1:00 PM check-in time to the On-Time Check-In Line. At about 12:30 PM they let us go right in. The line moved very fast. As soon as we stepped into a building they sent us to a table. The gal at that table welcomed us, took our photos, stamped our boarding passes, and directed us to a security check point. There was nobody at one of the security check points and we went right to that one. It took us less than a minute to put our carry on luggage through the scanner and walk through the metal detector. As soon as we got through security they directed us right to the entrance to the ship! No stopping at any counters, no further forms to fill out!
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We were directed to the steep long ramps up to the ship entrance. But, the last time we boarded at this port I noticed that there was an escalator and elevator up to the next floor. I remembered my wife had a lot of difficulty going up the steep ramps last time so we asked if they had any elevators instead of the steep ramps. Fortunately they directed us to go a different way where we could either use an elevator or escalator. We used the escalator and popped out right at the top of where the steep ramps ended. That was convenient! We skipped the photo line and got immediately checked in to walk the level open ramp onto the ship. We walked right onboard and into The Atrium Lobby. From there we took the Atrium Lobby elevator up to The Lido on the 9th level where the buffet is located.
As we stepped out of the elevator we noticed our luggage right there on a cart by the elevator waiting to be delivered to our cabin! Our room happens to be on the 9th Deck pretty close to the Lido Pool Bar and Stage. Pretty convenient for getting to the buffet or down a few levels to The Splendor Atrium and many of the other venues that are near the front of the ship.
We found a table in The Lido Buffet right at the window with a fantastic view. We had a great view of The Queen Mary and the Carnival Long Beach Cruise Terminal, formerly the home of the "Spruce Goose". You can see photos of our view above.
The Carnival Long Beach Cruise Terminal was originally built for and did house the huge "Spruce Goose" flying boat, which was moved out of Long Beach to another museum in the 1990's.
On my prior cruise on the Carnival Splendor, a 14 Day Hawaii Cruise, I noticed the two bedside lamps were plugged into two European Type C 2 pin 220 volt outlets underneath the bed. This time I came prepared. I was trying to figure out how my wife and I can each keep our cell phones on the night stands next to each side of our bed and keep them plugged in and charging. Also, my wife likes to use her notebook computer while sitting in bed so I wanted to figure out how to keep her computer plugged in while she used it. So, I purchased two 220 volt T-taps from Amazon. As you can see above, I unplugged the two bedside lamps, plugged a 220 volt T-tap into each, and then plugged each bedside lamp back into the T-taps. On the top of each T-tap is an American 3-prong outlet and on the bottom of each T-tap is an American style 2-prong outlet. IMPORTANT: All of the outlets on the T-tap still supply 220 volts so you have to make sure that ALL of your equipment can operate on 220 volts. That means that your extension cords, power strips (non-surge protected), USB chargers, computer power supplies, etc., must all state that they can operate on 220 volts. Fortunately all of my equipment is compatible with voltages from 110 volts to 240 volts. This solution worked!
There is one American style 3 prong 115 volt outlet at the desk in the cabin. If you need more you can bring along a power strip. Make sure it is NOT surge protected. It is a long story, but surge protected power strips and T-taps are not allowed on the ship and may be confiscated. I know it has something to do with the ship not being grounded in the normal way. Not only will a surge protector not protect your equipment while on a ship, but it may also accelerate the corrosion of the ship hull leading to more maintenance than necessary. Another solution is to bring along a 220 volt adapter, but whatever you plug into it must still be able to operate at 220 volts. This is just an adapter, not a voltage converter. A lot of American electrical equipment will run on any voltage from 110 volts through 240 volts but you must check before plugging in or you will likely burn out your equipment. The equipment itself should list what "INPUT" voltage it is compatible with. I have never seen any electrical device that did not list what "INPUT" voltage it accepts, though it is often written in mice type.
During most of the cruise I have to use a chair to keep the balcony door open as it won't stay open by itself. I turn the air conditioning off to avoid wasting energy. My wife and I love listening to the waves against the ship and to breath the fresh ocean air. That is one of the main reasons that we go on cruises and certainly why we always get a room with a balcony.
When I have the balcony door open I usually will put a towel down on the floor in front of the cabin door to avoid a breeze flowing out of my cabin into the hallway under the cabin door. The cabin door in this room seems pretty tight so I didn't bother to put down a towel. But, the Carnival Splendor is the only ship where I have ever seen a vent actually in the door itself. I put a couple of pieces of paper over the vent to block a breeze from flowing from my cabin out into the hallway when my balcony door is open. These two pieces of paper are just sticking to the vent from the difference in pressure between my cabin and the hallway with the balcony door open. There is nothing else holding the papers to the vent other than the difference in pressure. After taking this photo I did tape the papers to the vent. Otherwise they would fall on the floor when I close the balcony door.
There is a LOT more live music and other entertainment on the Carnival Splendor than what is listed above. This is just a listing of what will be featured in the Spectacular Theater and El Morocco for the week.
The internet on this ship so far is way better than what we experienced on our 14 Day Hawaii Cruise in January 2019 of this year. My wife and I have the Carnival Premium Internet Package. It is 8pm and we've been out to sea and away from the Long Beach port for 4 hours and the internet is still working fantastic! She is watching live streaming television on YouTubeTV on her cell phone with no problem. We'll have to see how well the internet holds up for the entire cruise.
Many cruise ships now supplement their satellite internet feed with land based wireless internet in order to improve the speed and quality of the internet connection. I suspect the Carnival Splendor is using that supplemental technology. But, relying on land based connections doesn't help at all when you are hundreds of miles out at sea in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately there is new satellite high-speed internet technology available, but the cruise ships themselves need to upgrade their satellite and internet equipment to be compatible with these high-speed services. Carnival is rolling this out on many of their Princess brand ships and is calling it Medallion-Net. Unfortunately the Carnival Splendor does not yet have this technology so passengers are stuck with older satellite internet technology and speed. Actually, the Splendor when out in the middle of nowhere seems to have even slower and less reliably internet than any other cruise ship I've ever been on. So far, that has not been true at all on this cruise. But, this cruise stays pretty close to land for the most part unlike the 14 Day Cruise to Hawaii.
Internet update: I have ceased trying to upload the full size photo images of the photos that you see on these pages. While uploading the full size photos images I got a warning message that I have never seen before that said my bandwidth has been restricted. After that warning, I started having all sorts of problems uploading my photos. Eventually my entire internet connection died and I wasn't able to do anything online. Meanwhile my wife was still merrily streaming her live TV using YouTubeTV on her cell phone using her own Carnival Premium Internet Plan. I was only able to get back onto the internet by completely logging out and logging back in.
I suspect the internet servers on the ship might have some safety measures to prevent internet hogs like myself from eating up a big chunk of the limited satellite bandwidth. Almost all internet satellites are designed to handle massive amounts of download data which is what most people do as they browse web sites, view their email and social posts, or even stream live video. The older internet satellites are not designed to handle massive uploads and most people do only a minor amount of uploading. Social posts and email replies tend to be very short and take up very little upload bandwidth unless you are posting a long video. But, when I upload a set of full size photos, I'll be uploading 20 to 30 full size photo images that are between 5 mb and 10 mb each. I would not be surprised if the ship's internet servers have software to throttle back or even terminate internet connections that attempt that volume of upload all at once. In any case, I will only be uploading the smaller images like the ones you see on this page until I am able to connect to a land based connection.
Streaming YouTubeTV: As long as I've inserted some notes about the internet at this point, I thought I'd also drop in a note about the following morning. On Sunday my wife was not able to watch live streaming channels on YouTubeTV. Instead it came up with a message that said that they are not licensed to provide live streaming video in the country we are in. Just as I side note, when we traveled through the Panama Canal on the Carnival Miracle last year, my wife was able to watch YouTubeTV live streaming TV for almost that entire cruise. I guess YouTubeTV is either licensed to stream TV in those nations or those nations have no restrictions regarding providing live TV from the United States.
We have a great cabin steward whose name is Ketut. He has been very helpful. On request he brought us several extra pillows, extra blankets, 2 bathrobes, 2 extra glasses for the wine, and a bucket full of ice for our soda and water. After taking care of all those special requests, I gave him a $20 tip in advance just to show our gratitude for all his help. I'll be giving him an additional tip at the end of the cruise. We requested that our cabin only be made up at night as we like to sleep late in the mornings.
Shortly after, Ketut brought us the tickets to the shore excursions that we had booked through Carnival for the three port stops on this cruise. One of the nice things about booking through Carnival is that you don't need to obtain tender passes at those ports where tenders are used to get you from the ship to the shore. Organizing that is all part of the shore excursions that are booked through Carnival.
We headed off to the Grand Piano Bar around 10:45 PM and spent about an hour enjoying the music there. It was pretty crowded when we arrived but we managed to find a couple of seats. A lot of people were standing and more people kept arriving. When it got to 11:15 PM and they started the "Adults Only" segment, the room slowly started thinning out. My wife and I aren't offended by the words in the songs, but for us it cuts down the enjoyment of the music when the singer slaughters a great song with his own lyrics. Also, dirty jokes are fine, but being raunchy just for the sake of being raunchy is another thing. Maybe others feel the same way too and why the room thinned out so much when the adult version started. Or maybe it was just getting late and people wanted to go to bed.
We were so happy to see Jodi, our favorite bar server, would be working the Grand Piano Bar this cruise! She was our bar server in the Grand Piano Bar when we were on this same ship on the 14 Day Hawaii Cruise in January this year. She even remembered our drink orders, Buffalo Trace Bourbon! The above photos were from the last night of our cruise in January.
After the drinks in The Grand Piano Bar, we did something we should not have done and regretted a bit the next morning. We went up to The Lido for some "Late Night Snacks". The only thing open at that hour was Pizza Pirate (open all night) and Off The Grill (open until 12:30 am). We got hot dogs and chilli at Off The Grill and then some pizza at the Pizza Pirate. At least we had skipped dinner earlier that day so this wasn't cheating too much. But, just not good to eat so late at night.
After The Lido we retired to our room at around 1 AM. I kept the balcony door open all night and we enjoyed listening to the soothing sound of waves against the ship and breathing the fresh ocean air.
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If in this report you see any typos, misspellings, factual errors or other types of errors, please let me know.
Please include the web address (URL) of the report in which you found the error. Thank you! Send your email to:
