Carnival's Jubilee Ship

by Jackie
(California)

I've taken the Carnival Cruise line once before for a trip to Mexico. It was a 7 day cruise aboard Carnival's Jubilee ship. The ship itself was pretty cool and it was my first time on a cruise. We were to sail down to Mexico from Los Angeles and visit the ports of Puerto Vallarta, Alcapulco, and Cabo San Lucas.


I remember we set sail and the first day was just full of excitement. Like I said, it was my first cruise, so it was very very fun exploring the ship and being waited on and everyone was just so courteous and nice. It was almost like we had a temporary extended family at times because you would be on a boat with the exact same people for an entire week and a lot of times you'd see the same people on the shore excursions.


The dining was very formal on the Carnival ship. I know some cruise lines are a bit more casual. But on the Jubilee we had set dining times and for dinner we'd share a table with another family. The dining room was a lot more formal and the food wasn't exactly what you'd normally find. Some of the food was great and some was horrible in my opinion. I wasn't too fond of what they served up for dinner most of the time.


The cruise had several activities on board such as bingo, shows, tournaments, arts & crafts, etc. I did feel like it was all geared toward an older crowd though. In fact, I just felt like Carnival in general seemed to attract that kind of a crowd. The bummer came when we were to arrive at our first port of Puerto Vallarta, I believe on the second day of the cruise. But to our luck there was a tropical storm brewing off the coast and our captain didn't want to risk being trapped in the storm out at sea. Somehow the storm was very fast moving and we ended up not being able to go to any of our intended ports. So my first cruise ended up being a disaster. We spent 6 out of the 7 days onboard the ship. In order to not make the trip a total disappointment, we were able to stop at the port of Ensenada, which is where the 3-4 day cruises embark to. It was fun being able to experience at least one city in Mexico. The culture and environment was definitely different, but I wish we were able to go to the original ports. I heard they were beautiful. The crew did try their best to keep us entertained during our time onboard the ship, but it wasn't expected that we couldn't dock anywhere so they didn't have anything extravagant. They added more rounds of bingo, arts & crafts, and probably game tournaments. But to be honest I'm not sure what I really did with that time. I did bring some books and they did have a library, so perhaps I spent most of my time reading.

But that just goes to tell you that it wasn't a very great trip if I don't really remember most of it. I know I can't really blame Carnival for a tropical storm. I guess it's good that they thought of our safety first. The thing though is that they didn't reimburse any of us for that trip or even give us like half the money back or whatever. They only gave us a dumb voucher for a discount on a future trip. As if any of us felt like returning at that time. In fact I haven't ridden on Carnival again. Just to give a perspective on time, this was probably like 10 years ago. I think that if the price was right (as in really affordable)


I would give Carnival another try.