Having traveled on our first cruise on Royal Caribbean the week prior to this cruise, we were very excited to cruise again and experience another ship. Overall, we were disappointed by the food, cleanliness, service, and atmosphere of this cruise. We travel often and can always find things we like about everywhere we travel so, our trip was not a bad trip because we have a positive attitude and met some fun people. This trip; however, could have been much improved by just a little more attention to detail and less worry about the bottom line.

Overall, the worst part of the trip was the food quality and standards in all eating areas. We are not big eaters, but we eat healthy foods and enjoy flavorful and ethnic foods. This cruise to Ensenada and Catalina did not offer any of the above. We tried all foods from formal dining to the casual buffet, and none of these meals met our expectations. This seemed to be so for many of the passengers with which we spoke. If you enjoy fast food--hot dogs, fried chicken, French fries, hamburgers and foods of this sort, then you would probably not be disappointed. We also tasted and saw some very strange food combinations in an effort to use the food that was not eaten from the night before. For example, potatoes were served with a strange combination and sauce that were clearly left over from the formal dinner the night before. If you enjoy a healthy and fresh salad bar with many choices--which we found each night on our Royal Caribbean cruise, then you will be very disappointed. Food was often over-cooked (the lobster was very tough at the formal dinner as was the chicken and meats at the dinner buffet) and over-processed. As I stated before, we kept seeing the same food show in soup, egg dishes, etc. It was a drag to see this and the taste was the same.

For us, the worst part was watching the servers in the buffet clear tables but NEVER wash or wipe the tables before others sat down to eat. Also, we witnessed children putting their hands in the salad bar and picking at food (while service people watched) and we even watched as one teenager licked the ketchup bottle to catch a drip of ketchup--R.C. had packages so this kind of thing could not happen and they had many people supervising the buffet area and "assisting" passengers that were attempting to do such things. It was very much the cafeteria atmosphere and cafeteria quality of food. If you figure that most of your expense on this cruise goes toward food, Carnival came up very short. Read more