Our family cruised with Carnival about 10 years ago and chose this line again because we really enjoyed it. This time we noticed that many things had changed, much to our dismay. We boarded at Port Canaveral, just as before. The agents here were very rude. We were excited, being on vacation and they did not start our trip on a positive note. I traveled with my husband and two adult sons. After finally getting on board (it seemed to take much longer to go through the embarkation process this time) we were treated to Guy's Burgers (Guy Fieri from Food Network) which were delicious! We were able to get into our cabin, but our luggage had not arrived. Several times over the next few hours we went back to check on our luggage. There was a huge pile of suitcases in the lobby of each floor, but delivery was extremely slow and even though we had clearly tagged our luggage, several pieces ended up going to the wrong floor. We were seated for early dinner at 6pm, but were told our luggage would likely not arrive before 7pm! We finally went down to the lobby, located our luggage and just took it back to our cabin.

Our first night in the dining room we were disappointed to see that we could no longer order steak from the regular menu. There was a flank steak which my sons ordered, but it was not a great cut of meat. The portions were very small as well. You could order filet mignon or a T-bone at a $20 surcharge. They did however have the melting chocolate cake, which is superb!

We all really enjoyed the Serenity Deck for ages 21+. It was nice and quiet with two hot tubs and ample chairs and hammocks. Read more