To be totally honest, I did not always have a good image of what a 3-night weekend getaway cruise would be like. I had visions of fall-down drunk post-college aged couples stumbling around the ship spouting four-letter words endlessly. Not quite the cruise getaway I pictured to bring my wife and kids but, the cruise pricing for the 3-night cruises are very good and hard to pass up. So I decided to grit the teeth and sail away to Baja Mexico on the Carnival Inspiration.
I have sailed out of the Long Beach Cruise terminal once before and it remains by far the easiest to get through. It certainly helps that only one ship at a time can use the cruise pier. I went straight to the parking structure and found a spot near the elevators. Grabbed the two bags, the wife and the two kids and in five minutes we were entering the "dome". Another two minutes to get through the security screening and about five more to get to the check in counter. The counter to make our sign and sail cards and take the photos for the card took about five minutes mostly due to the pleasant chit-chat with the agent. Off we go to the obligatiry embarkation photo and in total, we go from parking the car to boarding the Inspiration in less than 30 minutes. Now, to be honest, we arrived a little earlier than the Carnival paperwork advises. Surely this process will take much longer later in the day, especially after the airport coaches drop off.
On board with five and one half hours until sail away. With our bags in tow we head straight to the Lido buffet area and find a good seat to view the original Queen Mary and enjoy the first of many meals on board. The kids go for a hot dog and chicken tenders with french fries, my wife goes for a salad and some penne pasta and I go for the Mongolian Grill with chicken and shrimp. The kids enjoy their lunch, I mean, what could go wrong with a hot dog, chicken tenders and french fries? My wife enjoys the salad bar selection and her pasta dish and my Mongolian stir fry was wonderful. Good start of the cruise but with the cabins not ready until 1:30 we head out to the pool area to check out the bean bag toss and ping pong. We kill enough time and head to the cabin to drop our bags.
Now, I guess that I can be considered a bit of a cabin snob. I have not sailed in anything other than a balcony cabin (except the 3-nighter about a year ago) for too many years to count but the Fantasy class ships only have balconies with their suites. So I book us into an Ocean View cabin. With the upper berth open and the trundle bed out it was a tight fit when we were in the cabin getting ready in the morning or for dinner. The cabin is sized right for two passengers but 4 is definitely close quarters. The upperberth extended out slightly over the foot of the queen bed and the trundle covered the floor between the foot of the queen and the wall. I got spoiled having a balcony as my private changing area when the wife and daughter were changing in the cabin. Still, including sleep, I estimate that I spent no more than 20 hours in the cabin for the whole 3-night cruise.
Let me talk about the food on this trip. This is very subjective to the individual so my views may or may not be similar to yours. I am a primarily meat, potatoes and beer guy. Not too particular of a palate but definitely know what tastes good to me. There were some hits but also some misses. The biggest miss was the Lasgna Bolgnese one night in the Main Dining Room which I just did not care for in the least. The 24-hour pizza was a miss when prepared by the day time chefs but late night was noticeably better. The hits, on the Every Day menu the Atlantic Salmon was very good, one night in the MDR the comfort food selection was St Louise Style BBQ ribs which was also very good. From the regular menu my lobster and jumbo shrimp dinner on elegant night was very good as was the Penne Mariscos dinner on another night. The Prime Rib on elegant night was just OK, nothing to write home about. I did not have a lunch or breakfast in the MDR but on deck, the made-to-order omelet station had varying results depending on who cooked your order. One morning mine was prepared by a woman with a tag of Sous Chef who made the perfect omelet but on another morning one of the regular line cooks made me one and it was a little over cooked and was falling apart when it got dumped onto my plate. Those were my impressions but then again, I sail Carnival for the fare value and the Youth Program.
I sail with two children on this cruise. One is in the age group for Camp Carnival (8 to 11) and the other is in the group for Circle C (12 to 14). Both have participated in the youth programs of previous Carnival cruises and both look forward to the cruises primarily for the Youth Program. The Camp Carnival group activities which were most popular were the make a Tee shirt, a ship-wide scavenger hunt, and a dance party. The Circle C group most popular activities included some video gaming, a dance party, and a pizza party. To be able to participate in a scavenger hunt for the Camp Carnival group, the kid must have sign-in and ssign-out priviledges. That is the parent(s) have given Carnival Youth Staff the authorization to allow the child to come and go as they please from the program. My kids participated in most of the activities and would join my wife and I for lunch and dinner.
I was not expecting too much from an entertainment standpoint being only a 3-night weekender and was very pleasantly surprized. There were two comedians on board who performed a family friendly show one evening and also performed two nights a late evening adult show. The family friendly material was honestly pretty weak and not worthy of a smirk but the adult shows were roll on the floor laughing funny. Be aware though that the adult shows contain content and language very inappropriate for children. Still, Smiley Joe Wiley and Big Jeff Wayne had me laughing so much my sides began to ache. I did not catch the welcome aboard show but assume it was the standard Carnival welcome show with the inflatable Carnival Ship prop but the two other nights had a VIP Dance Club (think that was the name) and a Motown show which were outstanding and great upgrades recently. The eight singers/dancers of the cast provided high quality song and dance and the finale of the late Motown show they asked the aufience to follow them out to the atriukm and they continued the song and dance for another 45 minutes with guest participation. It was fun. Another fun show that is a standard on the Carnival ships is the married game which is structured like a grown up version of the Newlywed Game. They pick a newlywed couple, a 20-30 year married couple and a 50+ year married couple where the spouses sit with their backs to each other and have to answer questions on a tablet. At the end of the questions they compare answers to get points. Some of the answers were just very funny in how different the wife perception is from the husband.
Ensenada. It is not too far of a walk from the cruise pier to the bus station at the starting end of the shopping district; maybe 1.5 miles or 2. There are shuttle buses for $2 per person into town and $1 per person to return that take passengers to the bus station. The shopping area of town is very easy to navigate and for mobility device users, most corners had curb-cuts and many stores had a level entrance. Other than shopping, there is not much to do in Ensenada other than the tours to La Bufadora, a winery or horseback riding on the beach. The Cruise line offers a La Bufadora Adventure for $39.99 per person and horseback riding for $71.99 per person. If you are looking for tour deals, on the shuttle bus from the pier, you will be offered a $5 off coupon (off their price of $20) for nearly the same La Bufadora tour that the cruise ship provides and have an option to add an hour of beach horseback riding for another $25. La Bufadora Advernure bought on the ship $39.99 or bought at the bus station $15 to $20 depending if you got the $5 off coupon. Beach Horseback ride $71.99 bought on ship or $25 when added on to the La Bufadora Tour bought at the bus station. Now the caution about doing your own tour in town is that if the tour does not get back to the pier in time the ship may leave without you. This is true however, most tour operators know that if they get to be known to miss ships that they will go out of business. Always make sure you know whata timne the ship sails and have a watch set to ship time (do not depend on your cell phone which may adjust to local time automatically).
Disembarkation went very smooth for us. We drove to the pier so there was no flight to worry about and we were self-assist debarkation; we carried our own bags off. We woke, showered, dressed, packed and then went up to Lido for breakfast with our bags. After eating we went to the Empress deck and got in line for self-assist debarkation and in about 15 minutes we had cleared customs and were walking to the parking structure. One of the easiest debarkatons I have had. One thing to remember about the Long Beach Cruise terminal is that parking is $17 per day. The three day weekend cruise cost $51 to park. If this had been a 7-night cruise ($119), I would consider booking a local hotel with a "snooze and cruise" program where you stay the night before the cruise, get free 7 night parking and get a free shuttle to the pier. I just have a hard time paying over $100 for my car to just sit in a parking garage and figure a hotel package I at least get something out of my $100+ dollars.
Well there it is, Carnival 3-night Ensenada weekender cruise. There are some very good fares for this and the 4-day cruise which includes a stop in Catalina which make it a perfect geetaway for past cruisers and also makes for a good introduction to cruising for first timers to see if they like cruising. IN 2014, Carnival is adding a second ship, the Imagination, to Long Beach to provide more 3 and 4 night Ensenada cruises. What are you waiting for? Bon Voyage.
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