This was my second 3-day Carnival cruise and my husband and I enjoyed ourselves throughout. We had originally booked an ocean view room but got a call a few days before and were offered a deal that was too good to pass up for a Jr. Suite, so we upgraded. The VIP treatment at embarkation was excellent.
We found the ship to be in good condition. Our room steward was excellent and introduced himself right away. We were very happy with him. Service in the dining room was just so-so. We had Your Time dining and every night around 8:00-8:30 we had to wait and get a beeper. The servers were adequate but pretty overworked so we didn't see them very often. I was not a fan of the "steakhouse" items being an additional $20. The first night it was lobster and filet mignon and one other premium steak. The next night lobster was on the regular menu. I would have been ticked if I'd purchased it for 20 bucks before. The food was not great. Ours frequently arrived room temperature instead of hot. I didn't find a lot that I wanted on the main menu.
We had one port--Ensenada. It was, well, Ensenada. I wasn't thrilled with the shuttle service boatside. On my last cruise, we just hopped on one of the white shuttles that was parked there and it took us to a central location. This cruise we did the same, except the shuttle took us way far away from the center of town--a good 7 or 8 blocks through what seemed like an iffy neighborhood--in fact, if we had just walked from the boat it would have been closer to the middle of town. The whole way there, the driver tried to sell us their tour to the blow hole thing. I was pissed that we'd been let off so far out, right next to the highway, and we even walked past the shuttle stop that I'd taken on my first cruise, so there must be two different shuttle companies that park by the boat. It would be nice to know that.
We had originally booked an ocean view room but were offered a great deal on an upgrade to a jr. suite so we took it. I was completely shocked to find that people could see directly into our room. We were the second suite from the aft end and there's an observation deck that juts out to the side. Anyone standing on the observation deck has full view of the balcony and partial view of the inside of the cabin. Are you kidding me??? I was laying in bed reading and made eye contact with a guy on the observation deck. Because of this we were unable to enjoy our room with the curtains open and the balcony was just like being on the pool deck in full view of anyone. If I'd paid full price for this cabin I would have been livid. I would avoid V3 at all costs.