A bit of background: this is my 14th cruise, my husband's 12th. We've sailed Royal, HAL, Celebrity, and Carnival -- most recently, an eight-day on Legend's sister ship last fall, which was so impressive, we eagerly booked a Carnival cruise again.

Embarkation: we were travelling with a couple who had not sailed before -- and, we learned on the drive to Tampa, had not completed on-line check-in. By the time we got to Carnival's website on Sunday morning, they were unable to check in online. A call to Carnival's guest assistance team (at 11:15 am Sunday morning) had an employee put our entire party in a panic by stating that the 'incomplete' guests would need to be at the pier by noon to complete embarcation paperwork -- even though the embarcation team on the ground later affirmed that we had 90 minutes before sail time (4 pm) to complete such paperwork. Despite the unneccesary panic, embarcation was smooth and otherwise hiccup--free, and we were on board with access to our cabins by 1 pm.

Cabin: 4136 -- mid-ship interior with french door (an interior guarantee upgrade). We had a fine view of the lifeboat and a foot-wide strip of sea underneath -- but we could open both doors if we chose, and for what we paid, was certainly worth it. Hubby was very impressed with the new(er) showerheads and great water pressure: wife was unimpressed by the flat-screen tv with some contrast issues that could not be addressed by the remote. The interactive features of the tv also seemed somewhat clunky -- the only 'messages' we received were teasers for potential shore excursions, and would never reset the interactive screen properly, even if all the instructions were followed. We noticed that one of the lampshades in our room was visibly (and kind of ickily) stained -- not a big thing, but the first time we'd run into such an obvious lack of maintenance, and something of a trend (see below). Read more