Carnival Destiny Review
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We were a group of 11, and chose Carnival because we were traveling with older teens and young adults and wanted to cruise with a younger crowd. My family of 5 has been on 3 previous cruises, two with Celebrity, one with Royal Caribbean. We arrived at the terminal early, around 11, and embarkation was a breeze. A quick stop at the liquor store in the terminal, where they told us we could bring alcohol onboard as long as it was inside our carry on, (surprise, that's not what I'd heard) and we were ready to board.
Since our rooms wouldn't be ready till 1:30 we headed up to the buffet. My first disappointment. The lines were very long, very slow. The selection was poor. The plates were very small, and there were no trays?!? The food was ok, the cafeteria style eating area was stuffy, noisy, hot, the windows were filthy. After a quick walk around I was disappointed that there was no attractive place to eat outside either. (More dirty windows.) Couldn't help remembering our first buffet on board the Celebrity Galaxy, where the trays were lined with crisp white place mats, minimal fast moving lines, delicious food as far as you could see, and waiters there to help you carry your tray to a clean table outside in the shade overlooking the Port of San Juan.
After lunch we were all eager to check out our rooms. We found them to be very spacious. There was more than enough room to store everything, and we loved having a balcony and ended up using it more than we could have possibly imagined. On that first day though the toilets weren't flushing, and the shower overflowed. I noticed toilet bowl brushes beside every toilet (cabin and public) on the ship and I found this quite disgusting. Also, looking at the toilets, some of those brushes weren't used nearly enough. Some luggage didn't show up till nearly 10 p.m. which meant some of us had to eat dinner in the clothes we had left home in over 24 hours earlier. We were disappointed when told that 11 of us couldn't sit at one table in the dining room. After listening to a horribly off key band by the pool side at the sail away party we fell into bed exhausted. Needless to say our first impression of the Destiny wasn't good.