Margaritaville at Sea Casino

The ship is small and older but is well taken care of and clean. The entertainment and crew are awesome! The casino is very small, several machines were out of order on the ship. Also, the new casino program is interesting. I played about the equivalent of about 4,000 points (all slots) on Carnival and only earned 10 points on the trip. To move even into the silver tier of their program you would have to be prepared to lose well north of 5k a year (considering the perks - not a great value). Had a few small jackpots over the two nights. Overall had a great time on the trip, just don't expect much out of the casino.

The crew are the BEST I've ever dealt with on a cruise. The ship is small enough to find everything but large enough to get lost if you want to. There are a lot of activities. I would do this again in a minute!!

I’m going to keep this review brief as I’m writing a more detailed one for my upcoming blog Pink Suitcase Lady. When I approached the ship there was a long line to get on. Luckily, I purchased the Concierge Package so I skipped the line entirely and had a personal porter escort me through security and into the waiting area. He handed me off to another employee and that is where the ball started to drop. Her instructions were to escort me the places i needed to be and the things I needed to sign up for. After making my dinner reservations she disappeared. I wandered into the area where a lot of people were sitting, apparently that was the safety briefing. No one was paying attention it seemed. I saw a roped off area with refreshments and decided that was where i was supposed to be. It was. I met the Cruise Ambassador Sule and she made sure that I was aware of the perks and activities that came with the package. Embarkation was easy and quick. The people in the lounge were the first ones on the boat. We were greeted with plastic leis. It was cute. Our rooms were not ready so i just walked around trying to get a feel for the ship. There were 5 floors that were accessible to the passengers. I stopped at the buffet and was so disappointed. I only had a salad and the meat that I thought was shredded was just cut up lunch meat. The bread was hard, the desserts were not fresh. Made my way into the casino and it was smaller than I expected. Not many games or variety. I expected, since this was the Margaritaville brand that they would have the slot to play. Nope. When I did come into play there were a few machines that needed serviced but somehow never got it. One needed paper, the other had a drawer open. Two simple, routine tasks that were not taken care of the duration of the time i was there. The pools were super small. I sincerely thought they were hot tubs at first. They also don’t have no lifeguards on duty. It’s small and shallow but that still feels like a tremendous oversight. I had a 25 minute back massage as part of the Concierge package. It was so good. It felt like the masseuse went over time and she really focused on my problem areas. One of the best experiences I had on the cruise. By this time the rooms were ready. I tried to find my room but there was some sort of issue. A porter went to switch it for me. It took about 15 minutes. When I finally got my room It was on par with the rest of the ship. I have no complaints. I see that I have made this review way longer than I meant to so I’ll sum it up. The food at the specialty restaurants were obviously buffet food with an occasional added sauce. I was beyond disappointed. I had an omelette that was missing key ingredients and was very obviously premade. I ended up abruptly leaving dinner because the food was bad. I went to the Grand Lucayan for my port excursion. I’m going to stay there next time. It was beautiful. The music and activities on the boat were ok I think this cruise is good for families and older people. It was not something I would take again, except maybe as transportation to the Bahamas.