This was our 15th cruise and our 3rd with our 12 year old grand-daughter. Lots of pros for our trip and actually very few cons. First I have to say that embarkation was an absolute nightmare, but homeland security as it is i really didn't want to complain. better safe than sorry. once on board we went to our room to find it in very neat order and very clean. 220 square feet was very comfortable for the 3 of us. we then went to the lido deck for a bite from the buffet and were surprised and pleased with the variety and quality of food but carnival needs to staff the buffet better. we did have to bus our own table several times during the cruise.

We ate our evening meals in the platinum dinning room and had Udi and Dwi as our servers and they were the best we have ever had. the food in the dinning room was also the best we have ever had on carnival. i'm glad to see they have addressed the food thing because it has always been only so-so. as for the art auctions i would have to say stay away. carnival no longer uses park-west but have a do it themselves attitude and it was awful. the auctioneers are social hosts that haven't a clue the difference between picasso and tarkay! very very disappointed that park west was gone.

Onboard activities were diverse and i even won a ship on a stick trophy for my knowledge of useless trivia! ports of call were all very nice and shore tours were always available. shore tours were also very very expensive, we book online with the individual company's and saved way over 50%. all in all we had a wonderful journey and even having to share the ocean with tropical storm arlene our last day out wasn't to bad. overall, Carnival still needs to address some issues but have addressed others and this cruise was wonderful. next summer we plan to to the eastern Caribbean on the glory.