We had long heard about Carnival and that it was a "party" boat. We had cruised on other lines, Celebrity and Holland America (a Carnival company) and were very happy with those cruise lines. We thought that Carnival probably wasn't for us.
Then the Splendor fire happened.
Once the passengers from Splendor returned to shore and started telling stories about how both the crew and the company behaved and I read John Heald's incomparable "Smoke of the Water" blog, I told my wife "I want to cruise with this company and crew."
Nice room on the aft corner of the ship. It has an extended balcony of close to 35 feet in length. We could occasionally hear the Club Rio but it wasn't enough to bother us.