This was our 7th cruise on Carnival, our third trip to Alaska and our first trip to Alaska with Carnival.

Embarkation - We arrived at the terminal around 1:30. The whole embarkation process ran very smoothly. Yes, there were lines, but everything moved with a nice efficiency. It took us about 45 minutes total to get on board, which isn't bad since it seemed like there was a large volume of people all trying to get on at the same time.

The ship was in great shape! We though it was laid out in a way that was easy to navigate. It never felt like we had to walk a million miles to get anywhere but I never felt like there was no where to go either. Just right. The layout was different than most of the other Carnival cruises we had taken. The Atrium and main areas (Casino, clubs, library, etc) were on decks 2 and 3 rather than 4 and 5. I liked it that way. Deck 2 was the Promenade deck where you could walk outside and it was covered. It's also the muster station area for the whole ship so there were no chairs to sit on out here, which was a bit of a disappointment as that is a favorite spot to hang out for us. Read more