My wife and my two kids have cruised 3 times now with Carnival. The first cruise was a short 5 day at Christmas in 2010 on the Fascination. An old ship but it was clean, food was average, service was good. The wait staff were much as my wife and I had remembered cruising to be from our time before we had the kids, attentive and hard working. During this cruise bad weather prevented the ship from docking at Half Moon Cay for a beach day but the captain went to Freeport instead and we all had a good time anyway.
The second cruise was with the Carnival Valor in August 2011 and while Hurricane Irene came up the coast, the cruise was great. Awesome service, great food and better ports. We had a stellar cruise with an energetic assistant cruise director named Eversen who always entertained. We even received a gold VIFP card that gave us a free cocktail party to thank us for being return customers.
This year we cruised on the Glory March 10-March 17 same ACD (Eversen) as the Valor. The check in was good, and as we are returning to Carnival for the third time we received a red sail card (not the Gold one). No cocktail party as this is for gold cruises only now. Seems we used to be valued as a gold customer but they have changed the rewards program which downgraded us to a Red card (not as important to Carnival anymore). If we ate in the dining room for breakfast or lunch, we could have a milkshake free once on the cruise. Thank you Carnival, we didn't use them.The cabins were clean, the cabin staff very good, the food in the dining room was excellent, the waiter and the staff were not very good. The Maitre D was rude and didn't greet people when entering the ding room. A simple hello or good evening is required but this fellow Suresh, didn't even acknowledge when you said hello directly to him. The wait staff at the table were forgetful or unwilling to get things like sour cream for a baked potato or horseradish. A single cup of coffee for dessert, no refill even after asking for one.
Room 8265 is a good balcony cabin in a very bad location. It is right outside the glass elevators and the live music in the lobby bar and the elevator chimes can be heard until midnight. If you retire before that time it will be very noisy.