Before starting this review I would like to say that I am experienced cruiser who mostly cruises with NCL, Princess, Carnival, and Royal Caribbean but I have cruised with other cruise lines too. I say this as not to labeled a malcontent because I really did not enjoy a lot about the Imagination. I have been on Imagination before and have taken two (2) other Carnival cruises within the last year (Destiny and Miracle)that were much better. Just a short time into the cruise it became evident that Imagination has slipped very badly. We got a very cheap price on this cruise so what can I say but cheap is cheap.

Embarkation was a royal pain and done on a machine where you actually scan your passport and credit card yourself. We found this process tedious and unfriendly. Once on board we headed for the Lido deck. The Lido deck food with the exception of the "New York" Deli and the Mexican Buffet is not very good. Pizza is like cardboard and you can literally smell and feel the grease at the hamburger and hot dog grill. Amazingly, people were gorging themselves on this stuff which was really downright nasty most of the time. The desserts were decent however. The staff on the Lido deck are obviously not making a career out of working on this ship, taking their time clearing tables and letting dishes pile up at the outside tables. Food was not available when it was supposed to be on several occasions, and their soft ice cream machines were frequently out of order and not maintained.

The adult area in the back of the ship was nice and would be even nicer if they actually kept the kids out of there. I saw passengers in the jacuzzi tubs with wine glasses (obviously shouldn't be done for fear of breakage) but there was never any staff to enforce these rules. The attitude of the staff is basically one of thoughtlessness. For example, they schedule their Read more