My friend and I have been leaving our husbands home and taking an annual cruise by ourselves. This was her first Carnival cruise as we have been sailing on Royal Caribbean.
We booked the cruise late in February and she had some trepidation after the Triumph cruise nightmare the following week, and then Carnival Dream getting "stuck" in St. Maarten. I had no worries as I knew they would take care of us.
We were on a budget, but we flew in a day before the cruise, just in case something went wrong. Good thing!!! We missed our flight out of BWI and if we had flown the same day we would have missed the ship.
Great balcony, great cabin. Connecting cabin. Not under the galley so there was no noise problem.