A couple of opening caveats: This was only my 2nd cruise, and both of them have been on Carnival. So my cruise experience is limited and I cannot compare it with other cruise lines.

About the ship: To say it's immense is an understatement. It is freaking enormous. It's very easy to lose track of where you are inside of it, at least during your first couple days aboard. The layout of the ship leaves a little to be desired, too, since it has some odd quirks. For example, Deck 3 has a huge blocked-off area immediately in front of the dining room; to get to any other part of the ship from there you have to go up or down one or more decks first. Second, there's nowhere near enough elevator capacity; at times (especially during disembarkation) the elevators basically cease to exist, they're always crammed and you can't get in. This wasn't much of a problem for me, but I imagine elderly folks trying to go up several decks had a heckuva time doing so.

Next, the food was fantastic. We mostly ate in the dining room (for reasons I will get to momentarily). The food was fantastic and the service there great. We never had a single problem with anything we ate; it was almost uniformly terrific. As for why we ate in the dining room all the time ... the Lido Deck buffets were exceptionally busy, often with lines, and they frequently ran out of things. Even when there weren't lines, though, there were an awful lot of people running around and it was so congested that you couldn't get around. After only a short time trying to deal with the madness that was the Magic Lido Deck, we all basically gave up. Read more