My Carnival cruise eras: What it was like sailing the Fun Ship line after 20+ years away

My first cruise ever was in the early 1980s on one of Carnival Cruise Line‘s first ships, Carnivale. I swear our cabin was actually a crew cabin. It was on Deck 1 and had four metal bunks permanently attached to the walls with a tiny desk and chair between them.

Everything else about that cruise, though, was dreamy. It had all the elements of what most of us want from a cruise — a beautiful ship, stunning scenery, memorable meals, engaging ports of call and onboard fun you’d probably never participate in on dry land.

More than a decade later, my husband and I tried to recreate the cruise magic on a shiny new Carnival ship. The late ’90s version offered plenty of fun but lacked the charm and grace of that first cruise. The ship’s decor screamed tackiness in orange and chrome. The food and service were unremarkable. It wasn’t my job then to write about cruises, so I simply tucked the experience away as a less-than-stellar vacation choice.

I didn’t intentionally avoid Carnival in the years that followed. I have friends and family members (including my mother) who rarely cruise with any other line. I’ve kept current with the line’s operations and worked with Carnival’s team to produce numerous informational stories over the years. The cruise line has even invited me to cover new ship launches, but my schedule and the stars simply never aligned — until this year.

Here’s how I finally ended up back on a Carnival cruise and, more importantly, how I found the experience 20-plus years after my last sailing. Was it as dreamy as my first cruise or as tacky as my second? Read on to find out.

Testing the Carnival Casino Player’s Club Fun Match program was a success

I’ve enjoyed complimentary casino cruises on Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises for several years and was curious how hard it would be to earn a “free” casino cruise on Carnival. The line has a popular casino loyalty program that gives players opportunities to earn free drinks, complimentary onboard perks and the epitome of freebies — free cruises.

For casino players loyal to other cruise lines and land-based casinos, Carnival will often match your complimentary casino cruise offers with one of its own in an attempt to win you over to its sailings. Go to the Fun Match website to register and show proof of offers from other casinos. Carnival will evaluate your offer and then choose to offer a comparable one-time offer match through its own casino program.

The Fun Match is not a status match. You can only earn Carnival Player’s Club status once you are on board and active in the casino.

Related: I don’t gamble, but I used a casino status match for a cheap cruise

I chose to try for a match using an offer of a free balcony cabin for two I had recently received from Celebrity’s Blue Chip Club casino loyalty program.

First, I had to sign up for Carnival’s cruise loyalty program, the VIFP Club. I was starting as a newbie because my two earlier Carnival cruises took place — gulp! — before VIFP started.

Once I had a membership number, I filled out the online form and uploaded an image of my offer from Celebrity. Within a week, I received an email notice of a matching offer of up to a balcony cabin on select Carnival cruises.

The line makes it easy to shop for offers of any kind, whether they are casino offers or VIFP discounts. Using my special offer code, I could log into the Carnival website and filter cruise choices to see only those that fit my casino promotion.

The Player’s Club is a popular program. It was easy to find multiple options for complimentary inside cabins, but finding cruises with available balcony rooms was a challenge. It took months to find a cruise with balcony cabins that I could book with my casino offer. It was a 15-night transatlantic sailing on Carnival Legend.

To book the casino offer, Carnival required a $100 nonrefundable deposit per person but promised a $200 onboard credit during the sailing to make the room complimentary. I would also have to pay port fees prior to the final payment date. The cruise line was to assign the cabin, which is always risky, but I booked it with my fingers crossed.

I needn’t have worried; the cabin assignment came through just after the final payment of the taxes. My husband and I were assigned to a midship balcony room on Deck 7.

Our offer also included “Drinks on Us” in the casino. Carnival casino offers sometimes include “Drinks on Us Everywhere,” which is a far better deal because it includes drinks from any bar that’s open or in restaurants, even when the ship is in port. The deal includes specialty coffees, bottled water and soft drinks.

Why didn’t we get the more inclusive drink offer? I searched online, and checked in with my mother and aunt who frequently cruise on Carnival casino offers. The consensus within social media casino groups is that casino offers are becoming harder to earn and skimpier in what they include. We did well to get the balcony offer we did.

Carnival Legend’s recent upgrades refreshed the entire ship

Even though Carnival Legend first entered service in 2002, the ship has been well maintained. The decor is rich and dark, with wood and granite accents amid a soothing palette of colors.

A few months before our sailing, the ship underwent an extensive dry dock in Europe. Besides cosmetic updates, Carnival upgraded several bars and lounges, added new cabins and addressed accessibility issues. In fact, the ship’s hotel director told me many of the added cabins were accessible rooms. The line also enhanced all guest cabins with motion sensor night-lights and bedside lamps with USB and USB-C ports.

Our sailing was under capacity, so it’s impossible for me to say if the extra cabins will create a more crowded feel on the ship going forward.

The only areas of the ship that looked dated were the cabin bathrooms, which had turquoise countertops and shower curtains rather than doors.

Without Carnival’s logos, this ship would be indistinguishable from most other mainstream cruise ships in service today. I mean that in a good way. The tackiness of the ’90s is long gone, replaced by a throwback nod to the grace and charm of the ocean liner era.

Carnival has found its fun people and knows how to keep them

Carnival identifies as the Fun Ship cruise line, and its guests excel at revelry. On our cruise, the overall vibe throughout the ship was fun-loving and unpretentious.

We encountered fellow passengers celebrating all the usual things you see on all cruise lines — anniversaries, birthdays, group trips and retirement. Weekends brought out college football and NFL fans, many dressed in their team’s colors. Nearly every elevator ride on Sundays involved friendly banter between Eagles and Cowboys fans or people wondering how to watch the games.

What we didn’t see were out-of-control celebrations. That held true even on Halloween, which fell during our cruise. The halls were filled with elaborate costumes, but it was all harmless fun. (The real question: How do you pack a giant beetle costume along with clothing for a 15-night cruise?)

Cruise director Jake and the ship’s Fun Squad promoted fun and games around the clock, from dance parties to games of giant Jenga. Even the captain injected humor into his morning talks on the public address system and in his team’s question-and-answer session in the main theater. My favorite daily dose of fun came from some of the best comedians I’ve ever seen on cruise ships performing twice nightly in the Punchliner Comedy Club.

Our passenger composition leaned heavily toward older, experienced cruisers with few children on board — not surprising on a longer cruise. What was surprising was that almost one-quarter of the passengers were on back-to-back cruises, including some who had done multiple sailings in Europe before the crossing.

A walk through the ship’s corridors highlighted numerous cabin door displays, with magnets and banners proudly listing past cruises. Some shipmates had 30-plus Carnival sailings under their belts! The displays told a clear story of passengers who started cruising with Carnival as young revelers and stayed with the line through multiple eras of their lives.

Carnival dining brought us full circle back to our first cruise memories

One of the things hubs and I remember most about that first cruise in the ’80s is the food and service. Order a banana at breakfast and the waiter would slice it tableside and remove it from the peel like a prized lobster tail. Dinner every night was an event, with singing and dancing waiters, napkin waving, flaming desserts, sparkly cardboard crowns to wear and food so fabulous we ate until we thought we’d burst.

Except for the banana slicing and the cardboard crowns, mealtime at Carnival has changed very little. Whether you are at the complimentary Lido Buffet or the extra-fee Fahrenheit 555 Steakhouse, every meal is memorable.

After two weeks on board, I’m convinced that the overall food taste and presentation on Carnival are better than on similar mainstream lines like Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Line — particularly in the main dining room. We enjoyed specialty dining on Carnival Legend but never felt it was the only way to have a fine dining experience. The main dining room food and experience were as memorable as on our first cruise.

Bottom line

I must admit, I was nervous about cruising for a third time with Carnival. Could any subsequent cruise live up to the love-at-first-sight romance of my first sailing when cruising itself was in its infancy? Would I be as disappointed with the experience as I was when I set sail on a ’90s-era Carnival ship that was as visually different from the line’s original recycled ocean liners as it could possibly be?

I shouldn’t have been concerned. Carnival Legend was as sophisticated as it was fun, and the cabins, dining and activities met or exceeded our expectations. Our fellow passengers were well-traveled cruise enthusiasts who unknowingly made me feel a twinge of regret for missing out on decades of Carnival cruises. I’m now looking forward to my next era with this fun and fabulous cruise line.

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