Support this website by joining the Silver Rails TrainWeb Club for as little as $1 per month. Click here for info.




24 Day Transpacific Cruise

From Los Angeles to Singapore
Hawaii, Guam, Malaysia & Vietnam
Carnival Splendor

Embarkation At
Los Angeles (Long Beach), California
Day 1 - Saturday, October 5, 2019

<<<PREVIOUS PAGE            NEXT PAGE>>>

If in this report you see any typos, misspellings, factual errors or other types of errors, please let me know. Please include the web address (URL) of the report in which you found the error. Thank you! Send your email to:

Click on each photo below for a larger image.

At The Cruise Terminal Waiting To Board


When we arrived at the cruise ship terminal we realized that something was terribly wrong with the boarding process this time. Carnival had a staff member out front directing people where to go. There was a huge line outside stretching from one side of the terminal building to the other. We were told there was also a pretty long line once you got inside the terminal building too. Normally Carnival has 4 lines for the Check-In Process: Diamond/Platinum Members, Faster To The Fun, Too Early, On Time, Too Late. The Diamond/Platinum Members as well as those who paid extra for "Faster To The Fun" get Priority Boarding. Each passenger is assigned a time slot for boarding. If you arrive at the terminal at your assigned time slot, you go to the "On Time" line and are usually processed and onto the ship pretty fast. That is how it went for us the last time we departed on a Carnival cruise from this terminal. If you arrive too early or too late for your assigned time slot, you go into one of the other lines and have to wait until all the "On Time" passengers have been processed.

This time there as no "Too Early", "On Time" or "Too Late" lines. There was just one gigantically long line of all the passengers that did not have priority boarding. Evidently something had slowed down the entire booking process and they were just processing people as they arrived regardless if they were too early, too late, or on time. Those that came "Too Early" actually got on the ship a lot faster than those that arrived at their assigned time slot. It really makes me consider coming "Too Early" next time instead of waiting for my assigned time slot. Priority Boarding wasn't as bad. There was still a long line for that, but no where as long as the regular boarding line. Almost half the passengers on this cruise are either Diamond or Platinum members. It is hard to give special and expedited treatment to your loyal cruise passengers when there are so many of them on the cruise.

Since my wife has been having a problem with and is receiving treatment for her legs she has been using a cane to walk. There was no way she was going to be able to make the long walk from the cruise terminal to the ship. She also would not have been able to stand in that long line for hours. So instead, we went to the "Special Assistance" booth to request a wheelchair. There was a long line of people waiting for wheelchairs and she was number 28 in line. It took about an hour before it was her turn for a wheelchair, but I think that was less than the wait in the long line. Because she was in a wheelchair she was expedited through the check-in process and security. From the time the wheelchair came for her and the time we got to our cabin on the ship was about another 30 minutes. So from the time that we arrived at our scheduled slot at 1 PM it took us until 2:30 PM before we arrived into our cabin. Overall not that bad.

Boarding The Carnival Splendor


Following my wife's wheelchair to the ship

An express elevator to lunch! I have never seen this before and it is a great idea since most people boarding the ship are heading right up to the buffet on the Lido Deck upon boarding. Maybe they've had this before and I just didn't notice it.

Birthday Surprise For Barbara


Barbara will be celebrating her birthday on October 21st on this cruise so I arranged for a birthday surprise. Actually she got a double birthday surprise. Just a couple of days before the cruise I checked through all my paperwork and I checked the Carnival website to make sure that I ordered the birthday decor and flowers for Barbara. I could not find an order for them anywhere! I figured I must have not completed my order and placed the order again. I made sure it was an order without a cake as Barbara and I are trying to avoid sweets. But when we arrived there were two of everything, except the cake! Carnival needs a better way to display everything that has been purchased to make it easier to double check what has and has not already been purchased.

Carnival Fun Times Daily Guide

Room Service Menu


Sorry about getting my feet in the photo.

Notice About Setting The Clocks Back

Fueling The Ship


I saw this big derrick out our balcony window and wondered what was going on. Our balcony cabin is on the port side of this ship, but the ship actually had the starboard side against the dock. So, whatever was out our side of the ship had to be out in the water. Going out onto our balcony I notice the above fuel barge was next to our ship and our ship was taking on fuel. This other tug boat came along side the fuel barge. I guess they use the tug boat to move the fuel barge.

Mystery Artwork

I remember the above artwork hanging above the toilet from our cruise in this exact same cabin on our Hawaii Cruise earlier this year. I remembered it as I was mystified as to what is going on in the photo. The entire ship has artwork depicting what looks like scenes from the 1930's or 1940's. Maybe could even be 1950's but no time period more recent than that as men's dress, hair and artistic styles changed quite a bit after that. So, what is the man on the left holding up to his ear? There were no hand held cell phones until at least the 1980's and this artwork is definitely not depicting anything from the 1980's or later. My first impression is that the man on the left is a pickpocket that just stole the wallet of the man on the right and he is holding that wallet in his hand. The man on the right looks like an unaware tourist carrying a camera bag and looking at a tourist brochure. The man on the left has an expression on his face like he just got away with a crime and the man on the right looks like a naive tourist oblivious to the theft. Your thoughts?

Hanging Wall Travel Case

I just purchased this hanging wall travel case from Amazon. It folds up into a relatively small pouch. It saves me from needed a lot of shelf space in the bathroom.

My Computer Setup


Plenty Of Desk Space


A compact non surge-protected T-tap with 2 USB chargers that I purchased at

Our Stateroom Steward

Your Time Dining At The Black Pearl Restaurant




The Restaurant Wine List

We ordered the above 2016 Duckhorn Decoy Cabernet Sauvignon from the restaurant wine list for $47. It was excellent! That is not a bad restaurant price for Duckhorn Decoy even though you can buy it retail for much less. I've seen it at restaurants for a much higher price. We used to order this wine at one of our favorite restaurants until they ran out of it. We go to a restaurant where the patrons seldom ever order wine. The patrons are more beer and hard liquor drinkers. Thus this restaurant had some pretty old bottles at Duckhorn Decoy at some pretty old low prices. We kept ordering it ever time we went to this restaurant until they ran out of their supply of this wine at excellent low prices. By the way, if you look at the above wine list you will see that they listed this wine incorrectly from "Napa Valley". It is not from Duckhorn's Napa Valley vineyards but from their Sonoma County vineyards. Duckhorn does have vineyards in Napa Valley, but their wines from the Napa Valley vineyards are much more expensive than the "Decoy" series.


The delicious appetizers that we ordered

Splendor Lobby

I don't know why Carnival just calls this the "lobby". That sounds so bland like it is referring to an entrance hallway or a waiting room. Most cruise ships refer to this as the "Atrium Lounge". Carnival should do something similar as this huge open atrium that extends all the way from deck 3 to the top of the ship is larger than the "lobby" of most ships. Even the glass elevators go almost to the top. Carnival has kept this open atrium and glass elevators concept on some of their newer ships, but on those the atrium and glass elevators only go up 3 or 4 levels, not all the way to the top of the ship.


Glass Elevators And Open Atrium All The Way To The Top Of The Ship
With Even Glass Windows Looking Out To The Sky!


Click the above photo to play the video.

I love watching these glass elevators go up and down while sitting in the atrium ("Splendor Lobby")! It is much more impressive on the Carnival Splendor where there are four of the glass elevators and they go all the way from Deck 2 to Deck 11 and you can watch them rise all the way to the top level. On other Carnival ships there are usually only 2 or 3 glass elevators, if any at all, and they usually only go between decks 3 to 5.


Click the above photo to play the video.

I also love the color changing lights that are all over the ship. There are thousands of them on the walls and ceilings in the Splendor Lobby. They change in patterns that make it seem like there are waves of color spreading throughout the lobby every few seconds. I have never seen that on any other Carnival ship though I've only been on a few Carnival ships so far.


Variety Music followed by Boogie Nights with
The Wrecking Crew & The Dynamite Horns

The Wrecking Crew is a great band and they played many of my favorite songs. They will be with our ship for the entire 24 day cruise. The Dynamite Horns are great also but weren't give a lot of play time. My wife and I are super fans of horns (sax, trumpet, trombone, tuba, etc.) so we were keeping an eye on how often they got a chance to stand up and do some playing with The Wrecking Crew. It wasn' that much. They would often just sit in their chairs waiting for their opportunity to join in. I hope there will be some performances where it is just The Dynamite Horns playing but I don't see any such music performances on the upcoming schedule yet. Unfortunately The Dynamite Horns are getting off in Hawaii. I hope they have some other horns or jazz musicians getting on this cruise in Hawaii or somewhere down the line.

Confiscated Wine

Originally we had planned to try to "sneak" 3 bottles of wine in our checked luggage in addition to the bottle of wine that we are each allowed to bring on in our carry-on luggage. It is not that we mind so much paying for the wine on the ship, but their selection of wine by the glass in the bars on Carnival is really bad. They had a great selection of wines by the glass, and reasonably priced, on our recent cruise on the Island Princess. So the main reason we try to bring more wine on board is to have better wine to drink in the bars.

Before we left our house we realized that our luggage was so full and heavy that we would forget about packing away any wine bottles in our checked luggage. However, I forgot that I had already packed away one bottle in one of my suitcases. In the past we've had pretty good luck bringing wine aboard on Carnival cruises in our checked bags and never previously had it confiscated. This was the first time and it was just one bottle. When I do bring wine in our checked luggage I always pack away the cheapest wines that we like, usually bottles that we paid no more than $15 per bottle. That way if it does get confiscated and disposed we won't be out too much money. As you can see from the notice, they will be returned the wine to us at the end of the cruise.

The ship actually does have quite a few good bottles of wine at a reasonable price, even some good wines by the glass, but those better wines are only available in the restaurants, not in any of the bars on the ship. I've already selected 8 different red wines from the restaurant wine list that look promising. Almost all of them are under $50 with several under $40 per bottle. We are going to give those a try. We'll probably continue to order the ones that we find that we like for the rest of the cruise.

Click on each photo above for a larger image.

If in this report you see any typos, misspellings, factual errors or other types of errors, please let me know. Please include the web address (URL) of the report in which you found the error. Thank you! Send your email to:

<<<PREVIOUS PAGE            NEXT PAGE>>>

ad pos61 ad pos63
ad pos62 ad pos64




Support this website by joining the Silver Rails TrainWeb Club for as little as $1 per month. Click here for info.