During December 2010, my wife & I took our second cruise together. The first being our honeymoon. Both of us had never cruised with Carnival, so we were not to sure what to expect. Carnival has had a lot of press over the years both positive & negative. Our cruise left out of Jacksonville, FL and was to visit Key West & Nassau. We drove there from IN since we were going to be attending a wedding in the local area after the cruise. Overall finding the port was easy from the highway and parking at their secure lot was easy. We then headed to the check in area, where I realized I had forgotten to print a luggage tag, but a friendly steward quickly made me a new one. Security scanning did take a few minutes because a lot of the passengers were arriving at the same time, but nothing too bad. Check in was quick and easy so we were quickly aboard the ship. I wasn't used the fact that Carnival keeps the stateroom areas closed to the passengers until the appointed time. So there was a lot waiting until we were cleared to go to our rooms. My wife & I were impressed with the size of our inside stateroom. It was bigger than we expected. There was plenty of closet space for our clothes, but they did have a extra bed folded up under ours so storing all our luggage was a bit difficult. The bathroom was nice and bigger than expected. The room was pretty comfortable but the mattress was hard for both our tastes. One thing we did notice after the first day is that our room was located under the show stage one deck up. So when shows and music were being done in the late evening it was difficult to sleep. Our stateroom attendant was great. Always very polite, remembered our names, going out of his way to check on us. I even bought some scotch which was delivered to our room while I was out. Our attendant was worried it would disappear so he had it taken to front desk for safe keeping(I think because there were a lot of college kids on the ship). Knowing the reputation of Carnival, food on the ship for the most part was okay. There were things that were bad, okay, and good. In general, myself and other people we talked to agreed you needed to stay away from anything with eggs in it and the extremely strong tea served on the ship. The pizza served on the lido desk reminded me of a college style $1 oven pizza, but the deli sandwiches were good. Breakfast was good with a nice variety of food. Fair warning if you like to sleepin and don't go until right before they stop serving the choices of food are a lot slimmer. Dinner was enjoyable for the most part. Our waiter was a bitty pushy especially with the ladies if they didn't like anything. The only style of food most people had problems with was the chicken dishes, but pork, beef, and fish dishes were well received by my wife & I & our table mates. Our waiter was always curious to know if we didn't like something and why. I tried the mango soup for dinner one night after his warning not to since it had proven unpopular. His recommendation was correct but he was surprised when I said that I could explain to him why I didn't like it. He had the head maiterde' stop by and have me explain to him what I felt was wrong with the dish. He took detailed notes and assured me he would talk to chef in seeing how they could improve the dish. Another great thing about our dinning experience is that Carnival seated us with 3 other couples of similar age to my wife & I. We all ended up spending much of our free time aboard the ship with one another and still stay in contact with one another. Activities aboard the ship varied for all different age groups. I found some of the activities boring and others very enjoyable. I even won the coveted "Ship on a Stick" playing celebrity trivia. My wife enjoyed playing bingo, we attended the talent show contest which had some really talented passengers in it. The art show was quite boring as were the different sales aboard. Our cruise director Jen and her 2nd Eli were great and extremely funny. Both were easily approached throughout the cruise. Eli even performed a stand-up routine at Carnival new Adult Comedy routines late at night. I found Carnivals on-board smoking policy was nice since it allowed pipe & cigar smoking inside at a specific bar. On my honeymoon, smokers could only smoke outside which was fine with the weather was pleasant. I found the bar very relaxing place to watch sports or read a book while enjoying a cigar or smoking one of my pipes. The ships decor was over the top like most other cruise ships. That kind of decor I do not really enjoy but my wife liked it a lot. In the end, we had a pretty good time even though the weather did not cooperate during the entire cruise which isn't Carnival's fault even though fellow passengers complained. Carnival did a good job, and better job than we were expecting. The ship's staff were always welcoming criticism & opinions on how to make things better. We would cruise again with Carnival in the future.