We sailed Carnival Victory 12/16-23,2007. Overall the experience was great. We took a red eye flight from Portland to Atlanta then Miami which was tiring. We did not stay at any hotels in Miami. We took a taxi from the airport to the pier. It was $24 and very easy and quick. The driver knew exactly where to take us even though there were 5 ships there that day! The new terminal is very nice and the whole embarkation process was extremely smooth and took less than an hour. We explored a little bit while we waited for our room to be ready. The decor is a little gaudy but not as bad as I expected. The only thing that was really unappealing was the pink color in the halls. The pools were nice, hot tubs too. There is a retractable roof over the indoor pool which was often opened up. Our room was an interior stateroom on deck 6 fwd. It was over the theatre but we hardly ever noticed any noise. It was very clean and the bed was reasonably comfortable. I visited the spa and got a massage and facial. I was impressed with the service and quality. I think I was there a total of 90 min and paid $125 plus a $20 tip. It was worth the money! The food was not as good as I had hoped, however this didn't ruin our cruise, let's just say there was room for improvement. I even found a fingernail in my fruit platter at dinner one night. The pizza and deli were pretty good and were a good alternative. The activities on board were on par with our expectations. There were slot tournaments, bingo, contests on the pool deck and even scategories. The shops were OK on board, but we weren't really there to shop anyway. The cruise director-Malcolm Burns-was fantastic. Not corny or annoying at all. The service was good, almost great. Room service was not very accurate and not as good as we've had on other lines. The room stewards, wait staff, bar staff, purser's desk staff and shore excursion staff were all great. In Cozumel we went to Xcaret, we booked thru Carnival and had a nice time but it took up most of our day and we didn't get to shop in Cozumel at all. I think Xcaret would be more fun with kids. We booked transportation to 7 mile beach in Grand Cayman. This was not necessary. We could have taken the same bus for cheaper and gone to the same place without booking with Carnival. The beach was crowded but we walked about 200 yards away and it was quiet and peaceful. The water was incredible! We did a zip line canopy tour in Jamaica. This was fantastic! We loved it and would do it again. Contrary to what we had heard about Jamaica, it was lovely and the people were great. We didn't spend much time out of a guided tour and did get bombarded by merchants when we tried to shop but even so, Jamaica was our favorite port. The entertainment was good, but nothing too spectacular. We thought the comedian Allyn Ball was hilarious at his teaser at a regular evening show so we went to the R rated show. He was not nearly as funny and some of his jokes were nasty, not funny. We are not easily offended so this was kind of a bummer. There was a sword swallower, he was ok, but there wasn't much to it. We heard there was a pretty good magician, but we didn't catch him. All in all, this cruise exceeded my expectations for the money we paid and I would definitely cruise Carnival again.