Carnival really messed this one up. For starters the serenity deck was anything but serene. The 3 levels of the serenity deck faced the tiny swimming pool that was full of children yelling at the top of there lungs. While Carnivals policies prohibited children on the serenity decks, those policies were not enforced. Young mothers had their infants in the pools and whirlpool tubs. Needless to say, I didn't take advantage of those offerings for fear of being exposed to the children's potty accidents. By the end of the cruise the pool and whirlpools were cloudy. Previous cruises the pools were drained daily and cleaned.

The buffet offerings were nothing more than an attempt to mimic the menu at a Golden Corral restaurant. I prefer to go there, they have more of a menu. We went to dinner on the cruise elegant night, our food came back cold to luke warm, we were seated at a table the surly was meant as a walk way between the main dining room and the crews ingress to that dining room, elbows kept hitting a fellow diner in the head as the servers had to squeeze past us. The Capitano pasta bar and JiJi Asian restaurant were our go to choices for lunch. 15 dollars were charged for diners wishing to eat there for dinner. Seems if you want to have the better food one would need to pay extra for it.

Smokers were relegated to a small corner on deck 9, a small corner in the casino at the bar and one side of deck 3 where you would constantly be barraged with the sea spray. While siting in the casino playing a slot machine, one member of our party was asked to put out his cigarette because there was children in the casino, since when were kids allowed in the casino? Read more