First let me start out by saying this review is based on my personal observations only. Of course, your own experiences may vary. I apologize in advance for the length of this review...but hopefully some may find it helpful. Where applicable, experiences have been rated on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being the worst and 10 being the best).
Background: My fiancEe and I are experienced cruisers with nearly 20 cruises between us. Our main loyalty resides with RCCL (I am a Platinum level and my fiancEe is a Gold level). We are also frequent cruisers on Princess and NCL. Up until this cruise on the Glory, we have always avoided Carnival for a variety of reasons...some through hearsay and some through direct experience (suffice it to say we have often seen some pretty "interesting" characters from Carnival ships at various ports while cruising with other lines). I'll never forget the oh-so-lovely view of Carnival Customers as they mooned the Grand Princess while departing Cozumel two years ago. Several of us on the Grand just shrugged and said "It's Carnival...what do you expect?" However, due to my fiancEes vacation schedule (as a newly hired school teacher), we were stuck traveling during peak season for the first time. After searching weeks for a bargain, Carnival was clearly the best price for a seven-day cruise in a balcony cabin. Rather than NOT go on a cruise I had my travel agent book the Glory. I took some comfort in the fact that fellow cruisers had mentioned seven-day cruises on Carnival's larger (Conquest and Spirit Class) ships were much less of a boozefest than their shorter itineraries on the older/smaller (Fantasy Class) ships.
Pre-Cruise: This cruise was originally supposed to have 3 ports of call (Key West, Belize, and Costa Maya) with the remaining days at sea. Less than a month before sailing I got notice from my travel agency that Carnival had revised the itinerary. The new itinerary eliminated Key West and added Cozumel and Nassau in its place. Normally this would not have been a big deal, but we had just finished planning a lunch at Sloppy Joes (one of our favorite Key West establishments) with some of my fiancEes family. I'll spare you all of the details, but needless to say Carnival was pretty rude when I called to inquire as to the reason for the switch and asked if it was possible to switch ships to one that was going to stop in Key West (my fiancEe was pretty upset she wasn't going to get to see her family). I spoke with several "customer no-service" folks at Carnival who refused to do ANYTHING for us except to say "we reserve the right to change itineraries at our discretion." Finally, my awesome travel agent was able to get them to offer a ship-switch to a fantasy class vessel, but only if we paid a 50% penalty...NOT! Rather than let this ruin our vacation before it even started, the future in-laws agreed to meet us at Port Canaveral for dinner the night before we sailed. Thankfully, all was well again. "Thanks again" to Carnival for all of the help (can't you just feel the sarcasm?)...before we even set foot on the boat it becomes obvious to us that, once you have our money, you could care less about providing good customer service when a situation occurs.