Cruise on Carnival's Legend a Wonderful Way to Vacation

Some Aspects of the Cruise Were a "mixed Bag"

We embarked on Carnival’s Legend on October 23rd for an eight-day cruise to the southern Caribbean. We looked forward to a vacation filled with drinks adorned with umbrellas, days lounging at poolside, shopping and sightseeing in exotic islands and locales, St. Maarten, Barbados and Martinique and, food, food, food!




I had been under the impression, based on “conventional wisdom” that Carnival cruses were aimed at younger guests, perhaps those in their 20’s or 30’s, either in couples or, perhaps, with young children or teens. I had noticed that, in recent commercials, there were now a few images of older couples, not old but certainly more mature. But, still, there was that image in my mind.




My wife, Joan, and I, in our very early 70’s, had been on cruises with Celebrity, Norwegian Cruse Lines and Princess (a Carnival-owned company). The cruises were uniformly wonderful and cruising swiftly has become our favorite kind of holiday. Still, the demographics bothered me to some extent. According to Carnival, 30 percent of its passengers are under the age of 35, 40 percent are between 35 and 55, and 30 percent are over 55.




However, the son of two close friends (whom I’ll call “Lida” and “Roy”, primarily because that’s their names) works for Carnival and arranged for tickets for the four of us. So, on Sunday, we slept at our friends’ home and left early for Fort Lauderdale to begin our adventure.




We boarded the ship early on Monday and took the opportunity to explore and find our way about.




Legend is a magnificent ship. Our cabins were on the Panorama Deck, the eighth of twelve decks and the highest deck with staterooms. Above us were four decks with pools, spas, exercise tracks and enough restaurants, snack bars, and regular bars to ensure that no passenger died of starvation or lack of fluids! Unfortunately, as I will explain, our cabin was directly beneath the 24-hour pizzeria! But on this first day, we spent the time to familiarize ourselves with the ship and some of the public lounges and dining rooms.