I should start this by saying that my husband and I have cruised twice with Celebrity (2002 & 2006), twice with Carnival (2007 and 2008) and just got back from our cruise with RCCL's Serenade of the Seas. I also travelled on RCCL in the early 90s and enjoyed it very much, but I was much younger, and it was my first cruise, so I am not sure I can really compare that cruise to my more recent cruises. We travelled this time with my 4 year old, plus 2 friends. The two friends, my husband and I are 40ish, are not "partiers" and don't participate in most of the cruise-sponsored games on board (sexy legs contests, belly flop contests, "newlywed game" contests, etc.) We also don't enjoy a lot of loud music and dancing in the pool area when we are on vacation, we prefer to sit in a lounge chair by the pool and read, relax and talk with each other. The four of us almost 40 year olds all travelled together on this cruise as well as on the two Carnival cruises.

When we booked our Carnival cruise in 2007 (Valor), we were a bit reluctant. DH and I had been on Celebrity and were very happy with those cruises, and knew Carnival's reputation as more of a loud, party type ship, which was not what we are really into. We booked that cruise because it had a Western Caribbean itinerary that was very appealing to us, and read some good reviews about that ship. On that cruise, a hurricane hit the areas where we were supposed to visit, so the ship had to change its itinerary. We were disappointed that we couldn't hit the ports we had specifically wanted to visit, but you can't argue with a hurricane. We had a wonderful experience on that ship the food was absolutely wonderful, and the service and staff were top notch. We had more room in our cabin than we had had on Celebrity, and were kind of surprised that it compared so favorably.

Since we really wanted to do that Western itinerary, we booked another Carnival cruise with that itinerary 5 months later. We sailed on the Legend, along with another friend with the same age and outlook. Again all of us had a superb time, and found the food and service top notch. Read more