This was my 13th cruise and only third with Carnival, the last carnival cruise I took was in 2006. I guess time had me forget what it was like to be on a party boat. Arrival at Galveston was a mad house, it seemed everyone was lost. So many people standing around waiting carrying cases of water and soda it felt a bit FEMA-ish. We made our way to the waiting area and I have never seen anything like it, hundreds of people waiting in line. We joined the line and walked back in forth for over one hour. Once we made it through all the hoops we were on board.

I was overwhelmed with the lights and glitter of the ship. Sailing on Celebrity, NCL and Royal Caribbean for the last nine years I have forgot the party bus feeling carnival offers. There was a DJ in the atrium and again tons of people. We made our way to our room which was ready for us. It was an usual set-up room 8469 balcony aft, which I was eager to see. I was quite disappointed the room was tiny, since I was traveling with a teenager this time and not my husband we needed the beds split. They had split the beds but because of the configuration this meant the bathroom door could not be fully opened! So we of course had to shift night stands and move the beds as well as a poorly placed table that we couldn't pass by. The balcony was huge as it was an extended balcony, we did enjoy the balcony when we could.

We explored the ship and went to the lido deck to eat. The lines weren't too bad and we went for the burrito stand. This was awful the guy preparing the burritos was rude and slow slow slow around 4 mins to make one burrito that could have been finished in 1 min. Off to explore the ship was so big, but where was everything? There were two pools both incredibly small but a huge water park area as well as ropes course, outdoor basketball area ( missing one hoop) and adult area. The over 21 area was the best part of the ship beautiful chairs and hot tubs with attentive service. I was very impressed with this area. The gym was very nice never busy and the spa area looked great too. However, that is where I leave my good marks. The dinning room staff was really unorganized we seemed to get wrong orders and the food was blah ( first cruise ever where I lost 3 lbs). There was no singer or live music in the dinning room. No music at all. The dinning room had zero wow factor and was just a dinning room. The menu offered nothing exciting all week expect the lobster which was a good. Read more