My wife and teenage sons discovered cruising last Christmas (2012) when we sailed Celebrity from Ft. Lauderdale. The experience was so outstanding that I immediately booked a Royal Caribbean cruise for last summer. That was even better. With all we've heard about Carnival over the last few years - and knowing it was considered a "step down" from our previous lines - we all entered this experience with low expectations. Ultimately, Carnival gave us an outstanding trip that compared well to our first two experiences.

There's no way the Fantasy can compare to the Silhouette or the Freedom of the Seas. In short, the interior is kind of ugly. They could easily fix this by replacing the carpet throughout and turning the lounge into a theater. What we found however, was excellent food and all in all outstanding service from a very pleasant and exceedingly hard working crew of 900 people from 90 different countries. When I say they work hard on this ship, believe me. I've never seen such cleaning in my life!

i worried that a cruise at Christmas (we sailed 12/26 - 12/31) would be too crowded for a ship that had only one pool (yes, that's still hard to believe even as I type). But it worked! The water slides were great and of course, the hot tubs were always full. Still, it all worked just fine. Read more