On an eight night cruise round trip NYC, the on-board sickness appeared early. Since Carnival will never actually admit people are sick nor how many, you have to go by the "signs" of what they are doing differently. When the cruise director Malcolm started making repeated ship board announcements for people to regularly wash their hands, we knew something was amiss. The steward admitted there were 18 cabins sick on our floor (we are unsure whether this was only on the starboard side). Then they started preventing passengers from serving themselves in the buffet, only gloved crew members would handle the food. Then more announcements about using the hand sanitizer and washing your hands when going ashore. Finally for the last three days there was an officer standing at the entrance to the main dining rooms insisting on spraying the hands of those who did not use the sanitizers (very few people were in fact using them). By the end of the cruise, we counted 16 do not disturb signs between our cabin and the elevators at noon.

Yet, despite all of this, I was amazed at the following. During one of the evening shows, an entertainer while singing his first few songs, went through the audience row by row shaking the hands of every single person (over one hundred people). And we were at the second show. The cruise director was sitting up front on the far right watching this. I could not believe what I was seeing. With all the sick people on board, he allowed the worst possible thing you could do in a situation like this. BTW if no hands had been shaken the performance would not have been any different except safer. When questioned about this on the last day of the cruise, the CD repeatedly insisted that it was the responsibility of the passengers to wash their hands regularly. A policy that clearly didn't work.

About the comedy club There are numerous shows of two different varieties each night, early shows for family and late shows for adults (very packed and you have to line up early). Regardless of the comedian, 100% of the adult jokes centered on farting, defecating and masturbation. 90% of the family jokes were about farting and pooping. Well, maybe it’s just me..... Read more