We enjoyed our Carnival cruise but I will try to highlight the good and bad as I see it.

Embarkation: Excellent process, no long lines, got on board at about 12 noon although the rooms were locked and not ready until about 1:30 p.m. Went to the buffet and had lunch, no problems.

Cabin: We had two outside cabins on deck 4 (Rivera). The cabins were basic, functional and clean. We decided to switch our younger child to our cabin and this proved an ordeal because our room steward spoke little to no english and could not understand how we wanted the beds configured. He got it right on night three, but this was a small problem. Our rooms were kept clean. There was one big problem though, on two occasions our rooms were left open after our room steward serviced them in the evenings. This happened to my friend who was a few doors down too. The doors have a powerful magnet lock on the inside and if the room steward does not close it hard it will pop back open. Luckily nothing was missing. But I did consider this a safety hazard. Read more