First time on a smaller, spirit class ship and first aft balcony. Both were a huge success. As background, the family has sailed with Princess, Carnival and Holland America. Was hesitant to book the Western Caribbean as we had sailed the same itinerary last Christmas and it rained the vast majority of the week. This year, luck was with us and the weather was fantastic throughout the cruise.

As I mentioned, we all loved the size of the Legend. It was easy to navigate, nicely decorated (I know Carnival gets slammed on this topic, but I thought the ship's decoration was more tasteful than the Freedom, Liberty or Fantasy - our other Carnival cruises.) The service was wonderful, lines shorter and the staff seemed less harried than I've experienced on the larger ships. This does impact your cruise and we'll look at Spirit class itineraries first in the future. Didn't miss the big screen at all, especially as we found the sound to be almost unintelligible on our last two cruises.

I'd read so many reviews and threads where people wrote about "nabbing that aft balcony" -- so when it was mentioned as an option during our booking, I did go ahead and 'nab' it. Happy I did. While it wasn't the larger wrap around aft, it felt more private than our past mid ship balcony's and the larger depth (not width) did make your time outdoors more enjoyable. Sitting outside at sea and watching the wake was wonderful and relaxing and we didn't feel any more movement than we had in the past. Since I get sea sick in a rocking chair I was worried about this. No problem. You did feel some vibration, but that quickly became soothing vs an annoyance. We will 'nab' an aft again if it's available and the price is right. Read more