This was only my second cruise and, overall, I was pleased.

The ship is beautiful and spotless. The cabins were large enough and well organized. The food varied from good to very good with the exception of the desserts which were definitely below par. Boarding went well and was quite organized. There were a lot of activities on the ship. The Cruise Director was amiable enough and definitely earned his salary. The room stewards were very polite and attentive without being obnoxious and we received exceptional service from them. Our waiters for dinner were efficient and pleasant, not as personable as on my first cruise. The wait staff in the other dining areas ran the gambit from courteous to downright rude. The Casino staff were outstanding. The gal that ran the Casino was the essence of how cruise employees should be. Fun, helpful and available for any questions. The shows were outstanding. They offered varied acts and had something for everyone. We enjoyed all of them.

Now the unfortunate part. We were advised by the Cruise Director that due to bad weather we would be late arriving back in port and for those of us who wanted, we would be able to disembark with our luggage to save time. He made it appear as though Customs had granted us this privilege and it was a one time occurrence. We came to find out, much to our chagrin, that all Carnival ships now do this and it has become their standard policy. We were unlucky enough to be involved in the second week of this chaos. There was no order to the procedure. There were passengers from all decks crowding stairways and elevators, dragging voluminous amounts of luggage and converging on the only exit. People were stuck in elevators because there was no room for them when they reached the deck with the gangway. Once you exited the ship entering Customs came to a standstill because people were backed up due to a broken escalator, which, we came to find out, had also been broken the previous week. We waited in line for 1 1/2 hours to get off the ship. You could not change your mind and try to disembark at a later time because there was no way to turn around and go back to your cabin. In addition, they kept roping off areas which added to more congestion. People were tired, hot and angry. It was not a pleasant way to end the cruise. We walked out with VERY negative feelings and a belief Carnival was just using the passengers to lug off the luggage rather than the Carnival crew members. Hopefully this has already been corrected.