Sailed Carnival Fantasy July 9 - 16 on a 7-day itinerary out of Charleston, SC. Our group of six included me, my wife, 17-year old daughter and one of her best friends and 15-year old daughter and one of her best friends (that's right - me and five women . . .) We picked this sailing because it included ports we've never seen and the 10-hour drive to Charleston from our home in suburban Philadelphia sure beats the 17-hour drive to Canaveral or the 24-hour drive to South Florida. This is the 5th Carnival Cruise for my wife and I and 9th cruise overall. We tend to cruise Carnival with the kids and have gravitated to other lines when it's just us. So here is the good, the bad and the ugly from our Fantasy cruise. As always, this review reflects our opinions and experiences on this sailing; others on the same sailing may have had a completely different experience. Here goes:CHARLESTON. Just a quick note about Charleston. We spent a full day ahead of our sailing exploring Charleston and what a great city it is! We purchased a treasure/scavenger hunt map from Brass Pirate that led us to many historical sites during a 3-hour walking tour. Charleston is a beautiful city with many ties to the Revolutionary War and Civil War and we were really glad we started our vacation this way. As a reward for me dragging them through all the historical parts of the city, my girls got to do some shopping later in the day. The Almighty only gave me daughters so he must have wanted me to learn to shop. I'm not there yet.EMBARKATION. We read several posts about how confusing things can be at the Port of Charleston but found embarkation to be a breeze. We arrived at the port at around 10:30 a.m. (I'm pathologically early for everything) where we unloaded our luggage onto carts and were told to come back around 11:15 when the gates to the parking area would open. After heading out for a quick coffee, we returned at 11:00 a.m. (see?) to find the gates just being opened. The port area is really just a collection of old warehouses - nothing new or built with cruise passengers in mind. Parking is in old warehouse buildings near the pier so your car is not baking in the sun all week - that was a nice bonus. After a brief mandatory shuttle bus ride than goes no further than 1/4 mile to the pier (an obvious job creation program,) we were inside the terminal building. There were literally no lines for check-in and we were on the ship less than one hour after driving through the gates. The Lido Deck buffet (Windows on the Sea) opened just as we arrived and we grabbed some lunch until our rooms were available at 1:30. Embarkation Grade: B+.We had no trouble bringing aboard 6 bottles of wine, though 4 of our party are not yet 21 years old. The security people at the port don't work for Carnival and couldn't have cared less. We also had a couple Rum-Runners in our checked bag for happy hour drinks on the balcony, but don't tell anyone.SHIP. Fantasy is the oldest ship in the Carnival fleet and while we enjoy much about the smaller ships, we were a little worried about what we would find. Many reviews lament the ship itself. We found little reason for concern. The ship is in great condition and shows almost no sign of over two decades in use. You will not find many of the features on the new mega-ships, but you will also not find wear and tear or decline. The ship is in great repair and maintenance was evident throughout. There is always somebody polishing this or painting that. We did not miss things like the upgrade restaurants, etc. that are not available on Fantasy, but others might find the absence of things like that to be a bigger deal. Take that into account when deciding.Two things about the ship we did not like. First, the lifeboats hang from Deck 11 (the "upper seating" deck over the pool area.) This means that while sitting overlooking the pool, you do not have a view of the Caribbean Sea, you are staring at a bunch of lifeboats. This is a design problem it would be really difficult to correct, but it just makes no sense. Second, there is only one pool since the rear area of the ship was converted to a kids water park in the refurb several years ago. During a summertime caribbean Sea Day when it is beastly hot, one pool just isn't enough for 2500 people. Too often we all stood in the pool like a bunch of popsicle sticks trying to cool off. Ship Grade: B.CABINS. Our cabin (U69) was a "grand suite" with a balcony. On the older ships there are few balcony cabins but we like the balcony when travelling with a larger group. When we arrived in the cabin, we were surprised to learn it was a handicapped-accessible suite. We booked our trip through Carnival and they never mentioned that this would be the case. This meant we had no jacuzzi tub (which we never would have used anyway;) instead we had a roll-in/walk-in kind of shower with just perimeter drains. It also meant that our cabin was over-sized to accommodate the needs of a wheelchair-bound guest. This cabin was by far the largest and nicest of any our our cruises - Carnival or otherwise. The cabin itself was huge and the bathroom was comically large. We could not possibly have used all the storage space and if the bed was not against one wall there was plenty of room for a jogging track. The balcony easily accommodated four chairs. It's often said "we don't spend any time in the cabin anyway" but we sure enjoyed not spending time in this cavernous room!Our kids were in a four-person interior across the hall. It was what you would expect and they were free to use the suite as a place to hang out when they needed the time. The cabin steward for both cabins was Aurellio. He was friendly, efficient, remembered our names and did a fine job throughout the cruise. Anything we needed he made sure we got. We made sure he got a little extra reward at the end of the cruise. Cabin Grade: A+.FOOD. There are two distinct parts to food on a cruise: Dinner, which is a daily event all to itself, and all the rest of the food. We were pleased with both.Our dinner seating was the late seating (8:15) in the Jubilee Dining Room. We found the MDR food to be surprisingly good - far superior to our Celebrity cruise last fall. We did not have a single meal where the food was anything less than good - often it was very good. Every night we could find something on the menu we enjoyed. There was plenty of daily variety and the "everyday" offerings were also quite well done if you did not like the daily features . I had one meal that I did not like (a seafood dish) only because it had too much saffron for my taste, but it was well prepared, had tons of shrimp, scallops and mussels and was really high quality. The fact that I didn't necessarily care for it doesn't mean it was bad, it just wasn't to my taste. My youngest ordered a vegetarian enchilada one night and while it was very well prepared and seasoned, she said it needed meat!! Our waiter noticed that she wasn't eating her entree and immediately replaced it with a shrimp dish she loved. Our waitstaff team (Rolyn, Cesar and Yustian) were terrific. They new our names by the second night, were attentive and efficient and a lot of fun besides. The daily show by the waiters is corny and hasn't changed in years, but all our ladies danced with the waiters every night. If our experience is any indication, MDR dining will not disappoint. MDR Grade: A.One complaint about the MDR, though. Carnival continues to relax the attire standards in the MDR and doesn't enforce the minimal standards it has. Formal Night has now been replaced by Elegant Night and I didn't mind not having to wear a suit to dinner. But this shouldn't mean we've devolved into "Anything Goes Night." Many passengers still dressed nicely for dinner as we should since we are eating a four-course meal with linen napkins. But jeans, shorts, t-shirts, sneakers and flip-flops are now common in the dining room and passengers who find it perfectly fine to dress that way are not our cup of tea. It seems to me that wearing your new Margaritaville t-shirt to dinner probably isn't a big-boy thing to do, but it happens often now. This is a topic of much debate, but the trend is definitely downward and we won't be surprised to see bare feet and tank tops in the MDR if Carnival doesn't get ahold of this at some point. As it is, this caliber of guest will keep us sailing other lines when we cruise without the kids. The buffet was just fine. We don't expect haute cuisine in a buffet setting and the buffet was always passable. Plenty of variety. We ate in the buffet each breakfast and always found a decent meal. There is also plenty of variety at lunchtime since it includes not only entree selections with a different theme each day, but a hot grill option and a mongolian grill (the Szechuan sauce is a killer - made my eyes water and my nose run!) There is also always pizza. The sushi offering each night was also generally very good and we enjoyed that daily. Buffet Grade: B-.PORTS. We had not been to Half Moon Cay and found it to be a very nice slice of beach. We opted for the Cabana rental and it was only a nice-to-have. By that I mean we wouldn't necessarily do it again since we're not certain the value it provided was worth the price. If you have the $$ by all means rent the cabana, but don't think missing it will wreck the day. My wife and I walked to the far tip of the beach (over one hour there and back) and saw several sand sharks and a barracuda at the far end of the beach. The grill lunch was basically the Lido grill moved ashore and it was fine. We found the tender process to be very slow and tedious (not to mention unbearably hot) but tenders are always a pain in the neck. Half Moon Cay Grade: B.Grand Turk was definitely our least favorite port stop. There simply isn't much to do there unless you like the overpriced manufactured party at Margaritaville (we don't.) We walked down the beach to Jack's Shack based on some suggestions on the cruisecritic boards. It's a very laid-back little spot with reasonably priced drinks. Jack is a laconic kind of character and we enjoyed visiting with him. The beach was clean and nice and we spent several hours there. I bought a Jack's Shack t-shirt but resisted the urge to wear it to dinner . . . Grand Turk Grade: C+.In Nassau we did an independent excursion to Blue Lagoon where our girls swam with the dolphins. It was a real highlight of our trip. Interestingly, by booking directly with Dolphin Encounters instead of through Carnival, were were able to do the Dolphin Swim for the same price as the less-intense Dolphin Encounter. The trainers were terrific and our girls really enjoyed being in the water with the dolphins. We also spent a couple of hours on the Blue Lagoon beach and enjoyed that a great deal, too. After returning to the ship for a quick shower, we wandered around the shopping area near the pier because you can never be asked about hair braiding often enough. We finished our Nassau day on our balcony by watching the extraordinarily intoxicated dock-runners attempt to make it to the ship before we departed. The yards of beer at Senor Frogs apparently achieve their purpose. The passengers on the Norwegian Sky docked alongside also enjoyed this spectacle, though the Carnival security guys were clearly less amused. Nassau Grade: A.ENTERTAINMENT. There is always plenty to do on a cruise ship and this cruise was no exception. There are dozens of things to do each day and if you're bored you just aren't trying hard enough.The music options were definitely below par, though. Poolside music, which should start the party, was simply awful. The reggae band is now down to two players with recorded music making up the difference. These guys were just not very good. Their musical selections were odd and the breaks between songs were often over 60 seconds as they tried to figure out how to start the track for the next song. If seems that if Carnival is going to use that much recorded music, it would probably make sense just to bite the bullet and go with a DJ or simply an MP3 player that provides tunes to the bathers. One other musician named Justyn Time also played at the pool. He was a solo guitar player, again with everything else recorded. This guy should still be playing children's birthday parties. One of his poolside "sets" was interrupted by an announcement by the Captain. I swear there was a collective sigh of relief. On the plus side, Michael at the piano bar knows how to get a party started and we enjoyed him a great deal. And the four-man Music Boardwalk is simply excellent. They played everything from the Everley Brothers to Lady Gaga and made it all sound good.We are not much for production shows, though we did attend the Opening Night show and the Beatles tribute. God bless those hard working performers and more power to you if you enjoy their work. We found it dreadful. Don't be mad - we gave it a try, we just don't like that kind of stuff.The entertainment staff was hard working and did a fine job. Initially we didn't care for the cruise director, Risa Barnes, but she grew on us. The Newlywed Game was a hoot as always. My girls loved the Deck Party and Mexican buffet. It's gotta be hard to be "up" for these activities week after week, but the entertainment staff gave it a good effort.DEBARKATION. We decided to carry our own bags off the ship just to avoid having to find them in the terminal. After a quick breakfast, we departed our cabin at 7:30. Carnival has this new "no announcement" debarkation system where you just leave your cabin at a specific time which is posted on your TV. After leaving the cabin at 7:30, we were in our car at 8:03 a.m. Safe to say debarkation was a breeze. Grade: A.ONE OTHER COOL THING. My wife and I took the "Behind the Fun Tour" on the last sea day. It was simply great. In fact, it was so good that my wife (who agreed to join me on the tour for reasons unknown) actually said it was the best part of her cruise. We were escorted to many of the crew-only areas including their mess hall, crew lounge, crew gym and training room. We also got tours of the ships laundry, food lockers, liquor lockers, freezers, galley, environmental room, storage areas, dancer's dressing rooms, backstage areas. The Chief Engineer gave us a 15-minute talk in the ship's Engine Control Room telling us how the ship works. Despite a really thick Italian accent, he explained in basic terms what makes a cruise ship go. He was also hysterically funny. The Captain also gave us a 15-minute talk on the Bridge telling us who controls the ship and how it gets from place-to-place. On the particular day of this tour, the ship was racing to Port Canaveral to debark a passenger with a medical emergency (we were supposed to be going from Nassau to Charleston; instead we went Nassau-Canaveral-Charleston.) The Captain was clearly distracted by this, but did a fine job of spending time with our group and was personable and pleasant. Also included on the tour is a picture with the Captain, hat, lanyard and some chocolate covered strawberries delivered to your room. If you are someone who just likes to know how things work or what is behind that door you're not allowed to enter, I can't recommend the Behind the Fun Tour highly enough. It's not publicized; go the the Excursion Desk early in the cruise since the tour size is limited to 16.So there you have it. On the whole a very nice cruise that we enjoyed a great deal. We would recommend this itinerary and Fantasy to anyone who asked.