We were a group of 12,mid fifties, and all had been on cruises before. My wife and I have been on six cruises before this one,this is our third Carnival cruise. We flew from DFW TO San Juan non stop arriving at the airport around 2:45, we caught a cab to the terminal and arrives about 4:00. EmbarKation was a little hectic as there was no one directing people into lines so there was a bottleneck entering the terminal, once inside things got a little better and we were on the ship about 5:00. We had an oceanview on the Riviera deck and the room was clean and a good size, in fact it was bigger than our friends balcony stateroom. We did want a balcony as we feel that this is a waste of money in the Caribbean. We had read many reviews of the condition of the ship and were pleasantly surprised at how well it looked, We sailed on the Triumph and Conquest when both were less than a year old. We have been to the Western Caribbean twice and the Eastern Caribbean once so this was mostly new stops we had not seen before, I can say that we have seen enough of the Caribbean and are ready for Alaska. We thought that going in September most kids would be in school and the cruise might not be full, we were wrong on both counts,Carnival had dumped alot of tickets to locals and they all brought their teenage kids, the only real downside to the cruise was the noise at night went on for hours and the majority of this was from the teenagers running wild all the time. Now to the rest of the story, We all felt that the food while not spectacular was for the most part quite good and our waitstaff could not have better, We at in the Universe Dinning room each morning for breakfast except 2 days and had dinner there all 7 nights, the Lido deck was a disaster the 3 times we tried to eat there,long lines and so so food. Our first port was St. Thomas, we had planned to go to St. Johns and Trunk Bay Beach but our excursion was cancelled, not enough people signed up so we did our own thing, shopping downtown and a cab to Coki Beach for snokeling which was great and the beach was clean and not very crowded.

Next was Dominica, we booked a Whale watcher excursion, do not do this, no whales and Carnival oversold the boat and we had to stand up on the rear of the boat for 4 hours in the sun. All that went on the Wackey rollers tour said it was great. Wed. we were in Barbados, Beautiful water and the Tiami Turtles and beach were wonderful, our skipper even waded out where we were swimming with cups and rum punch. Thursday were took the cruise critics advice and book a tour with Cosol, I cannot say enough about how wonderful Cosol and his drivers took care of us it was the best excursion that we had, DO NOT MISS THIS. Friday we again did our own thing and we took a cab to Long Bay beach, snorkeling was terrible but the beach was nice, chairs and umbrella a little expensive, bathrooms out of order and food high, I would recommend somewhere else. We spent Saturday relaxing and getting ready too disembark. The entertainment on the ship was pretty lame we only saw the magician on Friday and the show on Thursday, Vegas style show, all the rest did not interest us. We chose to do the self disembarkation and we were lined up on the Lobby deck at 6:55 and off the ship and in a cab to the airport by 7:35 very smooth. In review the ship was older but in good shape, the crew did a great job, too many loud locals and way too many loud unruly teenagers.