I felt the need to leave a review about this cruise because there are quite a few things that seems to have changed with Carnival cruise lines and I figured someone needed to say something. My hubby and I decided to take this particular cruise because we had a group of friends who were also going, and we like to cruise for family vacations simply because it's easier than most family vacations. That being said, this was our second cruise with our kids, who are 5 and 12. There were a lot of highlights to this trip which included the fact that we had an excellent cabin steward who was extremely attentive. Also, the room service was much more efficient than it has been on past cruises, with it being faster and having a better selection.

Our excursions were exceptional. We really enjoyed the Pirates, Monkeys, and Birds tour in Honduras! We even were able to add on an amazing ziplining portion at the end of the excursion for just $35! The ziplining was better than any I have ever seen! It included 16 different ziplines going through the jungle! Absolutely amazing! I definitely recommend this. We also did an excursion that we booked seperate from Carnival, through an independent cruise excursion company. This one was in Cozumel and it was located at a private resort and included a huge lunch with unlimited alcohol and private pool and beach access. This was awesome!! The staff was on point and the resort was extremely relaxing. The only negative was getting a taxi to and from the resort which was a bit expensive for a group of 6 ($35 each way--$75 total).

The areas that concerned me the most included, first, the Your Time Dining. In my opinion, Carnival shouldn't have even offered this option because they definitely do not have it down to a science. The dining room staff seemed to always be overwhelmed, sweating and hustling to take orders and deliver the food. This made the dinner service take an extremely long time. One night I sat for an extensive amount of time before I even received a glass of water!! There was very little personal service in this area and the server was always rushing to take orders and deliver them to the tables. I was especially unimpressed with the formal night where we waited for 20 minutes to enter the dining room and then we were told by the staff that we had waited at the right restaurant but wrong door for the Your Time Dining (even though there was a sign outside of that door that read "Your Time Dining". Read more