This was our first cruise with Carnival. Contrary to some of the negative reviews we read before we booked with Carnival, we rate the cruise overall at something less than "excellent", but better than "good." Our cabin was roomy, comfortable, and kept neat and fresh by our steward, Michael. The worst feature of the cabin was hearing chairs and/or kitchen equipment or carts scraping over the floor on the Lido deck above us at all hours of the night, often disturbing our sleep. Although the cabin was cleaned, we noticed formation of mildew in the corners of the shower base and in corners under the lavatory. Also the underlip of the lavatory was scummy, not visible when viewed from a standing position.

With very few exceptions, the food on both the Lido and in the Truffles DR was very good for quality, taste and variety. Our Truffles servers performed efficiently, and were genuinely personable. Suresh was friendly, dignified, and professional, serving us with style and without delays. Valentyn provided not only good service, but humorous banter that made the meal entertaining. He has an infectious sense of humor that we looked forward to every evening.

The part of the cruise we liked least were the hawker-style efforts to promote and sell products and future services. The sales events were conducted with excessive hype, offering great prizes that were actually much less in quality and value than described. The promotions presented in robot-like, impersonal fashion were ineffective to gain not only ours but also other's confidence. Especially insulting were the efforts at these events to generate excitement in the passengers to lead up to a climax that was anti-climactic. Building up customers' hopes for something alleged to be fantastic and then letting them down with a less-than-quality prize from a drawing will not fool thinking people more than once. After attending a couple of these events, we lost interest and ignored some of the later promotional events. Read more