We chose this cruise because of itinerary and price. Embarkation and disembarkation went very smoothly. We were a little hesitant about the cabin because it was the bottom deck in the back but it turned out to be fine. The ocean view cabin was larger than expected. The food was good. The service in the dining rooms was excellent. The entertainment is pretty bad (especially the towel animal theatre), but you can always go to a movie at night. The shops are nothing special, and the sales there are minimal. Service overall was pretty good and very friendly. The adult pool was very nice.
My complaints are with communication. Anytime you call for information it takes forever before someone picks up. It took 15 minutes one day to reach room service in the middle of the afternoon. Unlike other cruise lines there is no physical message boards where you can leave message for other travelers. I wanted to find mahjongg players but there was no way to contact anyone. I also had issues with gifts that were sent to us (as it was our 40th anniversary cruise). My brother was told they could not find our reservation although he had all our sailing information. Gifts we received from other people were mismarked or not marked at all (we were served wine in the dining room, but not told it was sent by my friend-we thought it was from Carnival for our anniversary).
I would recommend that they have some other food available mid-afternoon. When you return from ports you can get pizza, burgers or sandwiches, but not just some fruit or a few cookies. Cookies were a sore point on this trip. They served them the first day and they were excellent, but were invisible the rest of the cruise except from room service (which I only discovered on day 5).
Cabin was adequate-large compared to other lines. There was a lot of closet space, and you could actually move around in the shower.
Fun port for shopping. Go out of the area by the cruise line, and take a $2 cab ride to the beach. The shopping there is cheaper (bargain for everything), there are great massages available on the beach and you can use the beach and beach chairs free if you just buy a drink or some food (which is very cheap). We used a hotel beach and it cost us $3 for a beer and $2 for a coke-which I later found out was expensive-some people paid $1 for their beers on other parts of the beach.
Been here before. Shopping is very expensive compared to other stops. Took a bus to the public beach. Nothing special.