My husband and I went on our first Carnival cruise recently due to urging from our friends. We were a little hesitant because of the large size of the ship but we agreed. We left Miami during one of their cold fronts, so we were wondering if we would enjoy warm weather in the Caribbean. Not to worry, it was fabulous. In Miami, we stayed at the La Quinta Inn west and we would recommend it to anyone as it was beautiful, clean, and offers breakfast. We took off on a Sunday morning and check in was pretty easy, only to find that one in our group had forgotten her passport and had to get back on the plane and go home. On board, it was a zoo! We went up to Lido deck to the buffet lunch, which was not as good as I expected it to be. But it was food and we were hungry. After lunch, we went down to our cabins and got settled in. We were on the 1st floor, mid ship, and it was ideal - quiet and very little motion. Our cabin was surprisingly spacious and comfortable and we had an oceanview. We attempted to secure a spot on deck to watch as we sailed away, but there were too many people in our group to all sit together. The wind was chilly. One big disappointment: as we sailed away, there was no Caribbean music! NCL made a big deal of the sail away and Carnival did nothing but put a stupid football game on the big screen. Anticlimatic.
Dinner was in the Platinum dining room. Our waiters were ok, not stellar. The food was fabulous on the whole cruise but I grew tired of the richness of it by midweek. Too much! Portion sizes should be decreased because there were an awful lot of obese people on the ship.
We quickly found out that Belize was taken off our itinerary due to something to do with the tenders. We were all disappointed since we had scheduled an excursion to see the Altun ruins. Instead we signed up to see the mayan ruins in Costa Maya, Mexico.
We had a nice oceanview cabin. King size bed, pretty firm mattress but we slept alright. Nice chair and couch with a table to put stuff on. I thought it was quiet down there but I use ear plugs to sleep and people near us said it was really noisy when the elevators brought people down. The storage spaces were excellent. Bathroom was roomier than expected.