🛳️ Carnival Cruise Conquest SEA Review
SEA program is a winner!
Cruiser Profile
We are an early 60s athletic couple who dance and enjoy music and shows, but don’t drink, don’t gamble, and generally don’t participate in organized activities like game shows. The ratings categories show what’s important to us. Your mileage may be different.
Cruise Profile
Ship: Carnival Conquest, first sailed 2002. 2,980 passengers. Learn About the ship at bottom.
Sailing: 13 days in January out of Miami with 5 port stops - St. Thomas, Aruba, Bonaire, St. Lucia, Barbados. This was a specialty cruise due to a drydock schedule change under the SEA adults-only program. The sailing was not available via retail. It was marketed directly to Carnival casino and VIFP loyalty members, and quickly sold out.
Interesting fact: about 500 parties (30% of passengers) were on back-to-back cruises with the Conquest. There was a 12 day cruise immediately prior to ours. So that’s almost a month at sea for them!
Review
4.0 Average rating. Carnival put the emphasis on the food, which helped make up for the shortcomings below. We had an excellent cruise and recommend the long SEA cruises if they fit with your lifestyle (and you don’t bring the kids!)
Ratings - 1 to 5 (high)
5 Intangible - An adults-only cruise is the way to go. It was relaxing and mostly quiet, not like short sailings. The service was very good.
5 Value - The price was amazing - under $1,500 for the 13 day cruise oceanfront cabin. It worked out to $122 per day … for two. This includes the Vacation Steal wholesale discount, which saved another 9%. We essentially got almost a two week cruise for the price as just one, comparable to a heavily discounted repositioning cruise.
4 Ship/Room - The Conquest is an older ship in excellent shape and easy to get around. We saw little evidence of its age. It didn’t have the many frills of the megaships. But it was more than sufficient for us.
5 Food - The SEA program boasted an elevated menu. This sailing did not disappoint. Lobser was on the menu almost every night. Many dishes were world-class. Service was excellent.
4 Gym - Good selection of newer machines and weights, better than most resorts.
3 Dancing. “Showtime” - the crew dancing during dinner was great fun, especially if you get up and join them like we did. The disco was fair. We’re there to groove to music we know, not be “educated”. There are literally a thousand hit songs to choose from over the past 50 years. Why would you play B-sides or unknown groups?
3 Jacuzzis/Pools. There are 2 swimming pools and 5 jacuzzis (not enough) that were somewhat available (it would have been much worse with children).
3 Entertainment. Includes shows inside and rides outside. The entertainment was uneven with no big productions. There was just one slide.
What is Carnival Cruise SEA?
Carnival Cruise Line’s SEA (Sailings Exclusively for Adults) program offers 21+ adults-only voyages featuring enhanced casinos, specialized entertainment, and 5-star dining, debuting on select 2025-2026 itineraries. These, often invitation-only, sailings include themed parties, extended casino hours, and targeted perks for gamblers, running on ships like Carnival Dream, Glory, and Conquest.
About the Carnival Conquest
Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
When it was launched in 2002, Carnival Conquest was the largest ship in the Carnival fleet – a stretched version of the Destiny-class that now includes Carnival Sunshine, Carnival Sunrise, and Carnival Radiance.
Since then, the ship has undergone a number of refurbishments and refreshes that have left if in excellent condition, even if the décor onboard is decidedly “Old School Carnival” – and we’re OK with that. Then-lead designer Joe Farcus crafted Carnival Conquest’s interiors to be a feast for the senses, and they certainly are that, from the upscale confines of Alfred’s Bar to the absolutely retina-shattering décor in the Blues Piano Bar (which does look better at night).
Carnival Conquest was scheduled for a refresh after this cruise. Prior to that, it most recently refreshed in 2022, expanding the Tahiti Casino and adding Carnival’s new Adventure Store on Deck 5 (where Pixels Photo Gallery used to be), along with a new Dreams Photo Studio on Deck 3 (where the Art Gallery used to be).
Additionally, soft furnishings throughout the ship and cabins were replaced: our spring 2024 voyage featured brand-new carpeting, shower curtains and blackout drapes in our balcony cabin, plus new bedside lighting with much-appreciated USB power outlets – a must on these ships, which have always been notoriously short on in-cabin power.
The result is a ship that feels new and modern – even if some minor wear and tear is apparent around the vessel, crewmembers are always hard at work replacing decking, repainting, and cleaning 24 hours a day.