First off I will say that I have cruised over a dozen times and have been on RCCL ( our line of choice), Celebrity, Norwegian, and Princess. This was our first and possibly only cruise on Carnival.
There was just so many things lacking on this trip it was enough to partially sour us on spending money with Carnival again. The service overall was pretty bad. I spent the money on the soda card and it was basically a waste there was never a bartender present to fill a cup for me not to mention they tried to sell me for $4.95 on top of the price of the card a reuseable cup ( what a waste). In the dinining room you would think after the first or second night that your soda's would be waiting at the table for you. The drink service was so slow it wasn't even funny. We prefer late seating and was at table 206 there was at least 2 maybe 3 nights that we didn't even see our waiter at all. The head waiter ended up taking and delivering our order. Never in all my years of cruising have I seen this happen before. To top it off the food was really not that good either all the sauces and soups were extremely salty and the desserts were hit or miss especially the Chocolate Melting Cake which my Wife and FIL ordered each night. It was a running joke to see what consistency the dessert would be which ranged from complete liquid to totally solid and overcooked as were the soft boiled ( arrived as hard poached) eggs I ordered once in the dining room. It is clear that the attention to detail and consistency isn't something Carniva Prides themselves on.
The ship is old and really shows her age lots of broken decorate items around the ship and faded carpeting. The ship is in a general state of needing a good sprucing up. Our Balcony was one of the smallest I have ever been on and we couldn' open the door without moving the chairs out of the way and both of us could not stretch out at the same time it was really tight and dissapointing.
The cabin was big but severely lacked in storage space. There was too much dead unsed space which would have been good for shelved or cabinets it was tight to store all of our stuff and the babies clothes including diapers.