How Motion Sickness Ruined Our Carnival Cruise Ship Experience

After coming back from England, I had three days to get ready for our cruise. My husband, Len, gets motion sick with any travel, so he had contacted his doctor to get the prescription patch for behind his ear. He put this on the night before we were traveling.

Sunday we were up early as our trip was door-to-door service. Our taxi came at 8.15 a.m. and took us to the bus. We all got on the bus and off to Port Canaveral. This took around three and a half hours. We did security and immigration at Port Canaveral. Len and I had to go to a separate desk, as we are Resident Aliens.

Then it was onto the Carnival Fantasy. Embarkation was at 1.30 p.m. and it was only 1.00 p.m. so we took our hand luggage with us and headed to the lunch buffet at the Windows on the Sea bar and grill. We were very hungry and enjoyed the meal. There was a salad bar, entrees, desserts, cakes, and fresh fruit. The free drinks were iced tea, sweet lemonade, apple juice, coffee, hot tea, and iced water. As we don’t drink iced tea or hot tea, and Len is diabetic, it did limit him to what he could have.

Our stateroom was on the Empress level, deck 7. There were 4 lots of elevators so we had no trouble finding it. Len’s suitcase was already waiting outside our door. When we opened the door we were impressed. There was a king-size bed with a table my side and a chest of drawers Len’s side. His one had 5 drawers in it. A telephone was above it attached to the 3-door wardrobe that had hanging spaces, drawers, and a safe. The end one had the life jackets in it. There was also a chair to relax in. The television was high up in the corner and could be seen from the bed. Over the bed was a picture, and of course the feature of the room was our really large window.

We opened up the door to the bathroom and we had a shower, with shampoo and body liquid soap, in containers attached to the wall. There was a small basin with a shelf over it, a toilet, and plenty of towels. There were also 2 extra large towels for us to use on board the ship. Carnival also had two white robes with their logo on them for our personal use.

We stayed in our cabin until 4 p.m. when the evacuation rehearsal was performed. This was not pleasant. We all had to come out of our cabins and head to our station. It was a long way and up flights of stairs. We then had to wait until everyone had arrived. We were all hot and sweaty and couldn’t wait to get the life jackets off. The men were fine, but ladies with big boobs had difficultly finding the steps.

My case finally arrived just before we were going to dinner. I had put a smart pair of trousers and a blouse in my hand luggage just in case.

We checked the daily Carnival Capers that gave us details of everything going on. There was a tour of the ship and as we hadn’t been on this one before, we were glad to be shown around.

Our main meal of the day was in the Celebration Dining Room at 6.15 p.m. We were on table 127 and would have the same seats each night. The first 2 evenings the meals were wonderful, but the other two were very disappointing. I wouldn’t eat the tough fillet mignon, but knew I could get a smoked salmon sandwich in the deli, and it was made in front of me.

Getting back to the cruise we headed to Freeport. The first night we went to bed early because we had been up at 5.00 a.m. The weather was not nice to us. The boat moved around a lot and I had to go to the Purser’s desk for a seasick pill. I lay down and not only did the bed move but so did my stomach.

Monday was our day in Freeport. We got off the ship and walked a 100 yards and the rain came down in torrents. We ran back to the ship and that is where the majority of the passengers stayed all day. We couldn’t go on the deck to sunbath or use the casino so our options were limited. While Len was resting in the stateroom I went to the gym to workout. It was a state of the art one and I enjoyed my time there. From here I changed into my swimsuit, had a shower, and headed for the spa. I got in and within 5 minutes 2 ladies came in, took off their shoes, and got into the spa with their jean shorts and tops on. This upset me so much that I got out immediately. I didn’t go back to the gym, spa, or swimming pools after that experience.

Monday evening we were heading for Nassau. The seas were churning and the winds were high. The ship moved about so much that again we had an early night. I took another seasick pill. Len’s patch probably was helping him a little but not enough with those rough seas. He was up most of the night throwing up. Tuesday morning we were docked at Nassau. We had a light breakfast, cereal, fruit, yogurt, coffee, and juice. Then it was off to the town center. We headed to the diamond shops, and after a couple of shops Len felt sick, so it was back to the ship.

Later in the afternoon he felt better so we got a water taxi and went over to Paradise Island. Atlantis Casino is the reason people go over there. We walked in and I doubled my 5 bucks to 10 and then came back. I think the fresh air really helped Len.

Tuesday evening we did the cocktail party with the Captain. Everyone dressed up and we got to shake his hand, have champagne, wine, or whiskey sours, and some appetizers. The band played and after wards the Captain introduced other high-ranking members of his crew. We then went to dinner. The Captain was not at our seating.

Len and I checked out some of the duty free shops but did not purchase anything. We sat in on an Art auction and enjoyed that. I had fun in the Casino playing the 1-cent machines. Actually I played 20 lines, as that was the only way you could win anything. Over the 4 evenings I think we lost about $25, so that made me pretty happy. We also took a look at the mid-night buffet. They had beautiful ice carvings and the food was in wonderful shapes of flowers, animals, etc. We didn’t wait until 12.30 a.m. to eat, but just wanted to capture that moment.

Wednesday was a day at sea. We got up and switched on the television to find that a hurricane would be parallel to Cape Canaveral at 8.00 a.m. Thursday morning. The time we would be disembarking. You can guess how we felt. We went to the disembarking information meeting and was told that as we were Resident Aliens we would have to be processed on board the ship at 6.15 a.m. Thursday morning. No one would be able to get off the ship until we had been proceed and they were starting at 8.00 a.m. We would be fined if we did not comply. When I come home to America from England I always come in with my American friends and told ‘Welcome Home’. I felt like a visitor being treated this way.

Later in the day we had an up-date that we would be coming into Fort Lauderdale. We went to the meeting, and immigration would not be coming on board, so Len and I would be going through immigration with everyone else. I canceled my wake up call, but they still phoned at 5.00 a.m.

Our last day was sunny and we did go on deck. We took lots of photographs of it. We walked the jogging path and generally got as much exercise as we could. We met friends and had lunch with them. We went for the deli food again, although they do have 24 hour Pizza too. Some of our friends said that the food this trip had not been up to the Fantasy’s normal standards.

We put our cases outside our door on the Wednesday evening and just had our clothes for the next morning and our hand luggage. The following morning we were up and out of our stateroom by 6.30 a.m. We had breakfast at the buffet. The lines were so long that we went for the Continental breakfast. That line was empty. All our party met in Cat’s lounge by 7.30 a.m. so that we could all get off together. The owner of the Cruise tour company was with us and he had phoned the bus company so that the driver would pick us up at Fort Lauderdale. The alternative was that Carnival would get us to Port Canaveral, where the hurricane was, and then we would be picked up from there.

Disembarking was easy and we only had a 30-minute wait for our bus. The driver was excellent. We got home at 5.00 p.m. only to find that our friend had put both the locks on our door, and we couldn’t get in. 45 minutes later Len was back from finding her at the hairdressers with the keys. I was ready for another vacation by the time I got home.

Likes.

The deli, Casino, the Captain’s Cocktail Party, the piano bars, the elegance of the atrium of the ship, the turn down sheets and chocolate mints at night, 2 of the 4 shows.

Dislikes.

Firstly the weather, which was out of their control, the Comedian show, the Magic show, the lack of staff in the spa area, 2 of the dinners, very little to do when we were docked in Freeport.

Personally I wouldn’t go on another cruise because it took Len another 5 days to get over the 5 day cruise. If Hurricane Ophelia hadn’t been in the Atlantic it might have been a totally different cruise for us.

Carnival takes either credit card details or cash upon arrival. They charge $10 per person, per day as gratuity for their employees. The over 900 members of staff did an excellent job and this was totally deserved.

Our trip ran around $800 for the 2 of us plus an extra $74 for insurance.