We have only previously cruised with Disney so my expectations of Carnival were set somewhat low, considering this cruise was around $3000 cheaper than a similar cruise with DCL in the Med in a similar cabin. I was travelling with my 14 year old son and husband. We choose the cruise based on more value for our money and the ports. Unfortunately we lost Monaco and Majorca and had these replaced with Athens and Izmir, personally both of which I didn't rate much. But I guess for those who like their history, they will have enjoyed them.
We flew in the day of the cruise and arrived in Venice around 2.00 pm, following a delay with our flight. I arranged my own transfers with a company called Suntransfers. They were excellent, I have used them before. The only lines were where people put tags onto their luggage. I had already done ours, so they went straight onto the ship. We arrived on the ship at around 3.00 and headed straight to Guys.
I had booked cabin 8117, which was a balcony and was situated forward. Compared to DCL, the cabin was small, especially when the sofa bed was fully out; it was very difficult to walk around the bottom of the bed. However that said, we did get use to it. The bed was lovely and comfortable and my son who is nearly 6 ft tall slept well on the sofa bed. The cabin was lovely and clean and everything in it looked very new; plenty of storage, more so than DCL.
Forward, 4 cabins away from the bridge. Room nice and clean. Very quite location with hardly any foot traffic. Use the length of deck 8 to get to the Market Place as it's quicker than going through the pool area. Two flights of steps up the forward staircase and you can access the Senerity pool area. I liked the location, but next time I would choose aft to be near the waterpark and food areas.