I must admit that I was skeptical about sailing with Carnival (given that I'm not a party person), however in the end I was pleasantly surprised with how good it really was. The booking process was relatively easy however note that if you book through anyone besides Carnival directly then they (Carnival) will not provide any support for your booking but will rather forward you back to your travel agent.

Embarkation and Initial thoughts

The embarkation process was relatively organized and the whole process took about 45 minutes. (Be sure to check-in online before hand though! This will save a lot of time) Once on board we proceeded to the Red Sail buffet and found the food to be cold and relatively bland. The room (midship balcony-Cat. 8B) was relatively clean with a few pieces of paper under the beds, a dirty rag left on the balcony and no soap in the bathroom. It needed some TLC as the balcony lights did not work, there were deep dents in the walls, TV remote never worked properly and some other light switches were broken. Dinner was alright, service was poor and it took 20+ minutes just to get water, not to mention that there were very limited choices for vegetarians and the wait staff didn't seem to care or offer alternatives...but the Chocolate Melting Cake for dessert was fantastic and made up for the poor main course and service. Afterwards I did speak with the maitre'd and he apologized for the poor service, promised to make sure we would have a different wait staff and offered to make a customized meal for me every other day of the cruise. Read more