It has been a shame to read some of the negative reviews on what we thought was a most fabulous holiday. When we got back to Barcelona airport for our return flight, we were behind three families from the US, who I could only describe as professional moaners! I don't think that they even bothered to find anything out about Europe before they came here, but managed to find fault with everything.

This was our first cruise and we have two children 14 and 13. We were apprehensive, as we didn't know what to expect. We landed and met Carnival Reps, who took our luggage and said it would be in our room the next time we saw it. Fantastic. We then went through embarkation. Yes, there was a queue, but Carnival had a lot of people on desks and we were through in around 30 mins. Not bad! We got onto the ship and were blown away by its beauty and elegance.

The kids had an absolute ball. My son made some friends and on most days was playing table tennis, football(soccer) or enjoying the brilliant Waterworks park. My daughter loved the daily quizzes and the karaoke in the evenings. Big shout out to Alex 'Minnesota' who was amazing, as was Taylor during the day! Read more