This was my 6th cruise (5 on Carnival) and 2nd cruise for my teenage boys. HOTEL: Riptide Hotel on the beach in Hollywood FL - great rate of only $99/night but our room was not one of the renovated ones they advertise on their site - moldy, old shower and 70's bedspread. It was a quaint, small hotel where they know you by name. SHIP: Clean and modern with 3 pools, but all were too small to suit my teens. All 3 of us were in a balcony stateroom (Rm 7285) which was surprisingly roomy. We were in the rear third of the ship so there was some vibration.#7285 - Larger than average - held 3 of us with a pull down bed and still had plenty of walk room. Standard balcony. Bathroom was fine - plenty of space. Lots of closet space/drawers in this room - unloaded 4 suitcases easily. This room is in the rear third of the ship so there was some intermittent vibration which was only noticeable when trying to sleep. ACTIVITIES:  Basketball court, shuffleboard, mini golf and waterslide SERVICE & FOOD: Dining room service was our biggest concern - late seating but still missed the shows following due to extremely slow and sometimes inaccurate service. Our section seemed to be the only area affected. Our waiter changed after day 2, but no improvement. Seems they were short-handed because our servers were always running. The food was above average however. Bar service in the dining room slow too.Pool service was consistently good. The food outside of the dining room (buffets, Chinese, pizza, etc) had good food but the lines ridicously slow, held up by the few people wanting an omelet or something off the grill. They should have asked us to form a separate line for items that were not on the ready-to-eat buffet and that would easily solve the problem. Our cabin steward was in stealth mode - we hardly saw him but everything was in order. ENTERTAINMENT: Missed the big shows but the poolside entertainment was the standard silly games. The 20 ft jumbotron tv above the pool could have been used more, and when it was used, strange choices - kids movies at midnight and a couple of old concerts during the day (Tom Jones and Marvin Gaye). The live music/one-man shows around the ship was average and repetitive, but I find that cruise standard.SUMMARY: This was the first cruise where no one called me by name or learned our preferences on the ship. Those things can add alot toward personal service, however, as with most things - it's all in your attitude. We remained flexible, learned to eat shortly before dinner to accomodate slow dining service and rolled with the flow. The ship was clean and updated, the food was quite good and we had good port experiences.