I haven’t written a review in quite a while, so I figured now would be a good time to do another one. I sailed on Carnival Splendor in April.. It’s my fourth Carnival cruise, but my first on a ship that was not part of the Spirit class. I’d toured the ship about a year ago, so I had some idea of what she looks like. This was also my first sailing out of Manhattan. Generally I sail from either Cape Liberty in New Jersey or Cruise Maryland in Baltimore (and sometimes from Florida or San Juan.) Thus, I was looking forward to the excitement of seeing New York City pass by the deck of my ship.

I enjoy getting my vacation off to a good, restful start so I spent a night before at the Residence Inn near Newark Airport in New Jersey. Rooms in NYC were just way too expensive and since I had a free Marriott night, I was able to save money. I opted to use trains and cabs to get around rather than pay the $40 per night fee to park at the pier, not to mention that driving in NYC is not high on my list of fun things to do! I took NJ Transit from my home in Central New Jersey to Newark Airport where I hopped on the hotel shuttle. In the morning, I returned to the airport to take NJ Transit into NY Penn Station where I grabbed a cab for the quick, $12 cab ride to the pier. Generally, I do not travel light, but since I’d planned on using mass transit, I did my best to streamline. For a change, I left the laptop home, but still had a rolling duffle, rolling, carry-on garment bag and a couple small totes. It wasn’t terribly hard to manage, but in hindsight, I still over packed!

After handing off my bags to a porter, I entered the terminal, checked in, moved right through security and onto the ship. Fairly smooth-and basically non-stop from the time I entered the terminal until the time I crossed the gangway onto the ship. Read more