Carnival's MS Holiday
4-day Cruise to Baja
by Mike Hall

What, you may well ask, are a mid-fiftyish couple who love Royal Caribbean and Holland American doing on a Carnival for our eleventh cruise? A good question with a simple answer: my wife won the cruise free in a sales contest at work! So off we went to Baja on the Holiday!

As we knew from previous experience, it is easy to find the World Cruise Center in San Pedro by taking I-110 off of I-405 and just following the signs. You drop your bags off curbside with the porters and proceed to the parking lot where you prepay in cash at the rate of $6.60 a day.

We arrived about 2:00 and found embarkation to be a real breeze ... short lines, courteous efficient personnel, and even the obligatory photographer was quick and easy. We proceeded to our room, a standard outside cabin on Main Deck, which we found to be comfortable and of a good size ... not as big as on HAL, but not as tiny as RCCL. Then we went up to the embarkation buffet, which was, to be candid, a disappointment. The choices were a hamburger, chicken sandwich, stir fry on rice or pizza ... period. Not my idea of a bountiful selection. The food was perfectly good but just not very exciting.

Then we went to the port talk in the main lounge and selected our shore excursions. Following the port talk the boat drill was announced and everyone was told to be at their muster stations in about 20 minutes. This gave everyone time to go to their cabin, get their life vests, and take the ELEVATOR to the muster stations! Yes, the elevators were running just prior to the muster so no one was inconvenienced by stairs. The next surprise was to find that the muster stations were all the various lounges about the ship. We sat in the comfortable lounge chairs and watched a rather desultory demo of how to put on the monstrously uncomfortable life vests, and were then dismissed without ever going near the boats. No one took roll, no one checked out life vests, we never even saw a life boat ... quite a change after the compulsive Norwegians on RCCL and the even more compulsive Dutch on HAL. The only rule Carnival seemed to be interested in was that several announcements informed us that "international maritime law" required "absolute silence" during the drill.

After sailing we proceeded to dinner for the first of several very good experiences in the dining room. Our waiter Jai from India and our busboy Pairoj from Thailand were very courteous and professional and provided excellent service. The food selection was excellent and the meals were very well done. The only comment I would make is that it is wise to order everything on the menu ... i.e. appetizer, soup, salad, pasta and entree as the portions are not very large on anything. I am the seafood lover and my wife is the bloody beef fan and we both were able to find something to our taste every meal.

We did check out the buffets, both at lunch time and at the "alternative dining" in the evening, but never actually ate there, due to the limited selection and lack of ambiance. "Alternative dining" seemed to consist of steaks, stir fry, pasta or the ubiquitous pizza. That is not my idea of cruise ship dining, but it seemed quite popular with many of the families with kids aboard! Suffice to say, we ate breakfast, lunch and dinner in the dining room and found it all excellent!

After dinner was, of course, Showtime! The shows were excellent, especially the Vegas style dance revue which featured the best special effects and elaborate costumes I have ever seen on a cruise ship. The Cruise Director was a little annoying, insisting that everyone have "FUN" which he seemed to measure by the amount of noise that was being made ... thus encouraging the drunks in the balcony considerably. But overall the entertainment was right up at the top of the list.

Due to rough seas making tendering impossible, the itinerary was reversed and we spent the first day at sea instead of Catalina. The staff rushed about to arrange a lot of activities from Bingo to a Knobby Knees contest and we had a very nice day at sea.

The next day we arrived as scheduled at Ensenada. There, unfortunately, we received bad news from home which made it necessary for us to rush home immediately. We returned to the ship, and the Purser's office was incredibly helpful to us in every way. They offered to let us make free phone calls (usually $9.50 a minute), closed our account, credited back our unused tour tickets, and told us to go to our cabin and pack and come back in 15 minutes. When we returned a shuttle and driver were already waiting to take us to the San Diego airport. The Purser gave us complete directions about getting to LAX and back to the parking lot, even told us what rate to negotiate with the taxi driver. We left Ensenada at 11:45 and were at the airport in San Diego for a 2:00 flight, even including the border crossing! We could not have had more wonderful help than Carnival's staff gave us.

So even with the sad news from home and the unfortunate shortening of our trip, it still remains true that cruising is the only way to go. We had a very nice time on Carnival and would recommend it to those who like their "FUN" loud and constant. Overall, RCCL and HAL still remain our favorites, though.

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