This was a mother/daughter cruise. As each of our children has graduated high school, we went on a family vacation. This time it was just myself and my daughter as my husband had obligations with the older children, which are grown now, and my son had school sports activities during spring break.
Based on our prior experience, we were really surprised with the menu in the dining room. The quality of the food was really lacking. There was never any steak on the menu other than a flatiron steak or shoulder tenders - both of which are just different cuts of chuck. No filet mignon at all. On our prior cruises we were presented with a menu that had a full 5 courses. The portions were sized so you could order all of them and finish them without feeling too stuffed. The menu on this ship just had a section called "starters" which put together soups, salads, and appetizers. There was only one new salad every night - all the other items were labeled "Carnival favorites" and were on the menu every night. They even rotated the "new" entrees - so there were repeats during the 5 night cruise. This was also true of the buffet on deck - there were 2 "American" days - with the same food.
Also the service in the dining room was terrible. We chose the "your time" dining which worked out great in that we could go eat whenever we wanted - and we never waited for a table. But once we sat down the service was really slow. They didn't even have a full place setting on the table - only one fork! I had to flag the waiter down to get anything from the bar. I like to have a glass of wine with my entree and after receiving the wine after I'd already eaten my entree twice, I gave up and quit ordering anything other than water or tea. There were no wine stewards. And on more than one occasion the busboy gave us water without asking if we wanted water or tea. We were never offered coffee with dessert, either. We had to ask, and again, I finished dessert before the coffee was brought.
The cabin was really nice - we were in U152. The room was an adequate size, and the window was nice. Our cabin steward was friendly and gave us good service.