I am 35 yrs old, this is my 5th cruise.  I have sailed Royal Caribbean twice, Norwegian twice, this was my first (and last) with Carnival.  My husband and I were planning on a relaxing getaway unfortunately, this cruise did not meet our expectations.  The ship itself was nice and clean, nice layout, with friendly staff.  Our cabin was in a great location, very spacious and the steward was very accommudating.The food was ok, the dining room food was better however, the service was extremely slow, every dessert no matter where we chose to eat had absolutely no taste.There was nowhere to sit on deck in the evenings due to the crew stacking the chairs early evening.  You had the choice to sit in the "common area" where there were loud, mostly irritating children's movies playing, not my idea of relaxation under the stars in the middle of the sea.  The shows/entertainment were pretty pathetic, I think my high school productions put on a better show.  The cruise director was pretty annoying - it seemed as though every hour he would announce something over the intercom, which was EXTREMELY loud (I heard other's complaining of this as well).  If you payed attention to your cruise newspaper (which is delivered to your stateroom daily) you would already know what was going on without him constantly having to shout it out - again, not very relaxing!  The excursion desk staff did a poor job of explaining the excursions, and where you needed to report to, the excursions were pretty much planned in the middle of the day, not leaving you enough time to enjoy the Island - by the time you got back you had to wait in an extremely long line to board the ship.  Which brings me to lines....there was allot of that going on this week.  We stood in very long lines to eat, get a beverage, get on and off the ship, look at pictures, order pictures, take pictures and the lines continued to go on and on.I will cruise again but never on Carnival - it without a doubt is a different caliber, and not in a good way.  I would recommend Norwegian or Royal Carribean - they are alittle more expensive, but then again, you get what you pay for!