My wife and I, while taking a RCCL cruise decided that we needed to take the kids on their first cruise. We have three girls 12, 10, and 7. We were basically looking for the cheapest cruise out there just to get them on a boat and have the cruise experience.Getting there:We flew into Miami from Atlanta the day before the cruise. We ended staying at the Airport Hilton for $79/night through "name your own price" at Priceline.com. We would highly recommend this approach.Embarkation:The cab ride from the Airport Hilton was $26 and about a 15 minute ride. Upon arrival we were met by a very rude porter who did not like the amount I was offering him. I asked him if he wanted to give me the money back, which he did and my family very easily rolled our bags ourselves to security. He tried to tell me they wouldn't allow us through with large bags, but that was a lie. Upon entering the terminal, we were told to fill out the standard paperwork and were pointed towards the kiosks. That was a crowded mess, and we detoured to the opposite line which led to the live person counter. This is a must! We breezed through embarkation , and the rest was uneventful.Cabins:We had two inside cabins on the Riviera deck 4. Our cabin (as opposed to the kid's) was adequate with two beds pushed together and a slightly larger than expected bathroom. The shower was twice as large as the one we had on RCCL, had plenty of water pressure, and the curtain didn't try to accost to me. In the cabin there was no hairdryer and only one outlet. We had to share this outlet to charge our cell phones.The lack of temperature control in the room was a bit bothersome. You basically have one vent above the bed with a dial that controls the amount of air let in. If that's not enough air or it's not cold enough, too bad. The kids' room was a completely different story. The smell from their cabin hit us like a wall as soon as we entered. T'was a very musty, dank, dirty smell. The kids didn't seem to mind, but I wouldn't have stayed in there. We left it alone because after the porter we were tired of confrontations, and wanted them next door to us. We saw our steward once officially. I didn't really get his name or his assistant's name and he didn't really make an effort to introduce himself properly. His job performance though was adequate and timely. We just missed having someone who we felt was treating us like family as we had experienced on RCCL.The Ship:I guess the best we can say about the Imagination is that it was clean. I almost began to think that they had people staged about to look like they were cleaning just to make you feel good about being on an old ship. I don't blame them. The ship looked dated but we expected as much. My main question was would it really be that hard to take down the cheesy neon in the atrium? The choices of things to do were limited at best. Do not choose the late dining. While they do perform two shows each night for the dining schedule, most of the fun things to do are during the late dining time. Our kids missed out on a lot and when we requested a change they told us to talk to the Maitre d. We never saw the Maitre d and didn't feel it was worth the effort. We would highly suggest choosing the "Choose your time" dining option. We were a little shocked by the hard selling of pictures. Every night the Promenade deck was covered in small "studios" where multiple photographers ask you over and over to take your picture. It became annoying. I guess if you want to pay $11.99 for the cheapest photo, that's your thing. It was not ours.Our youngest enjoyed the water slides for about an hour and then it was boring. As others have said, the one and only pool was extremely small and packed. This pool also was 4'9" deep. This was too deep for small children especially with that many people in it. Overall we didn't expect much from the ship itself. It's old. We knew that coming in. Give credit to Carnival for keeping her clean and in good (if outdated) repair.Food:Let's just get this out of the way. The lunch buffet was bad. Very bad. The pizza was bad. The desert was bad. The sandwich deli was decent. The fruit and salad bar had decent choices. The breakfast buffet was actually pretty good. Their French toast was very good although I did get a pint of spoiled milk on the last day that my wife and kids found hilarious. Now for the good. The pool grill was good since it's pretty hard to mess up hamburgers and hot dogs. We lived there for lunch. My wife particularly enjoyed the cheese fries.Dinner. One word. Excellent. With the exception of the seafood pasta, almost everything was good. Our dining staff was nice but there were several mix ups with drinks and such. Also there was that lack of personal touch. We enjoy becoming friends with our wait staff. This time they were just the wait staff.Camp Carnival:Our youngest generally loved it. The use of the Wii was a stroke of genius on Carnival's part. The arts and crafts they did were also creative and fun.Our ten year old went once and generally felt left out. She felt she was in between the young kids doing kid things and the teenagers doing really fun stuff. She didn't go back.Our oldest loved Circle C. She made new friends and really enjoyed the freedom of being away from mom and dad in a safe setting. It was nothing to let her stay out until one in the morning even though we had reservations about this in the beginning.Key West:Love, love, love this place. We weren't there very long but we would highly recommend the Old Town Trolley Tour. This is the tour trolley that will take you from the ship into town. When you get off the trolley Rocky will be waiting to give you a free map and info on whatever you'd like to do. If you've got kids the tour they offer was excellent. $30 for adults but kids 12 and under ride free. This was perfect for us and much better than just renting a golf cart. Our driver (April) was super informative and funny. After the tour, we ate at the Cuban restaurant (El Meson de Pepe) just off the square. It was excellent (if a little pricey) and our waiter (Alex) was extremely nice.Cozumel:Hot and touristy. If you're going to do an excursion, do it here because otherwise it's just a tourist trap with overpriced trinkets. We spent a couple of hours walking around, bought our trinkets, and got back on the ship. We didn't do an excursion because it wasn't in our budget and any good excursion would have been an extra $500 for a family of five.Entertainment:The shows were corny. Sorry. Not good if you've been on other cruises. The first show was bad, the second was ok, and the third they made good through sheer break neck speed. The R-rated comedian we saw (there were two) was funny. Not side splitting funny but more "raunchy shock" funny. This guy was really dirty but we were ok with that. The reason we didn't see the other comedian was because after 10pm Camp carnival charges $6.50/hr + 15% gratuity per child. We decided to only do this once in order to see the one comedian. Karaoke was fun and had a decent selection of songs to choose from.Debarkation:Do the self-assist if you have an early flight. While being well organized, we would have gotten off much sooner if we'd used the self-assist. Also, we found that while they call you down to leave by the number on your bags, if you decide to get in line early and get off, they just swipe your card and pass you through. In other words, it does well to organize the debarkation, but there is no enforcement to the rules.Final comments:Even though we have sailed on Carnival in the past, I don't see us sailing with them again unless it is on a larger boat at a heavy discount. It was an enjoyable experience for our kids, but we will probably pay the extra in the future to sail with RCCL. They basically spoiled us with their hospitality.