My boyfriend and I boarded the Carnival Breeze June 21st for our first ever cruise with a balcony. While he had cruised on Carnival a few times before as a child and the last time being on the Dream back in 2011; it happened to be my first time on Carnival. We are major fans of Royal Caribbean, but decided to give Carnival a try since we had an amazing interline rate!

Embarkation did seem a little scatter-brained especially when it came to the muster drill. It stated in the Fun Times that it would commence at 3:30 in actuality it didn't start until about 4:45ish. It just gave a bad impression overall on how unorganized it was.

The ship itself is clean and looks well kept compared to some of the other Carnival ships we have seen. I remember seeing the Sensation in Port Canaveral and how it's white paint looked so tarnished and how it just looked raggedy. Our room, Balcony Cabin 6441, was nicely kept and always clean thanks to our room steward. The only off thing we noticed is how we only saw him once during the entire trip and that was 3 days into it! We were used to the formality of Royal's stewards personally meeting you on embarkation day upon the rooms being readied. The cabin itself overlooked the lanai and although we heard some issues with privacy we never really felt like there was one. We had Fat Jimmy's C-side BBQ right below us and so we had the scents of pulled pork and roasted chicken wafting up to our chairs! Read more