Embarkation was okay, and boarding the ship early felt great after traveling. The interior of the Carnival Destiny was very dark in decor, giving the appearance of small space and poor lighting in most places. It is obvious that the ship is older, in spite of a refurbishment. The buffet dining area is set up so that long lines are inevitable--not good, especially at embarkation time. Buffet food was only "okay"--nothing special. I prefer ships with buffet restaurants set up with stations, which is much more efficient and pleasing to the customer. Certainly, most of the crew were friendly, but many were not particularly pleasant. Our dinner waiters were very good, even though the dining room service was slow--not the fault of the servers. They seem overworked, as if they are too few in number. Crowding was an issue everywhere, and we found that our fellow passengers were rude and pushy. We were very displeased with this fact. The food was not as good as on my past Carnival cruises. In the dining room, we rarely had adequate eating utensils, unlike all our past cruises where the silverware is over-abundant. As for entertainment, the Palladium Lounge revue show was average, and the females' costumes were terribly revealing (thongs) which makes no sense in a family show. From our seats, the view was very offensive when the female dancers were carried around by the male dancers in unflattering positions. Also, the show's singers were very average, at best. The comedian was hilarious, and the Motown show was excellent. We enjoyed the Cruise Director, Brent, who made everyone feel at home. Our cabin was spacious enough, although we have had better storage on other ships. The cabin was always clean, as was the overall ship. The negative regarding our stateroom is that the noise level was bad, and we heard next-door talking and tv all night long, in addition to noise from the hallway. The ship smells smoky in many areas, probably because the casino is in an area where its smoke penetrates a large expanse of that deck; also, the casino patrons paid no attention to the "no smoking" section. Going by or through the casino is necessary to get to other parts of the ship--I hated that. I was surprised that this ship is not pro-active about hand sanitizing. Stations are available, but no one encourages their use, even in this time of H1N1 flu. The cruise line I sailed on recently has a person stationed at eating locations and entrances with a spray bottle of sanitizer to spray each passenger's hands. Lastly, Carnival's claim as the "fun ship" line likely draws a clientele generally younger than our party, so we prefer a little different atmosphere. Even though I have satisfactorily cruised Carnival three previous times, I know that I won't choose Carnival for my next cruise.