My husband and I just returned from a 4 night cruise on the Carnival Victory. We got what we thought was a great deal on a balcony room. Turns out, we got what we paid for. This cruise left a bad taste in our mouth with Carnival and we both agreed we will not consider sailing with Carnival Cruise Lines again; rather stick to Norwegian.
Embarkation was OK. We arrived slightly after boarding began, only to find blocks of 200+ people awaiting embarkation. Overall, we waited maybe 30-45 minutes, which was fine.
Our room was great. Thankfully we upgraded to a balcony room and this was our saving grace. Without this room to escape to it would have been an even worse vacation - there's not enough deck space or room in the vessel's common areas for the large number of people onboard. To say the ship was crowded was an understatement!