This was my second cruise, and for the most part a fair to poor experience. My wife and I invited my parents, and raved about how the trip was the year before on the Carnival Elation. Carnival Conquest did not measure up. Boy, was I disappointed.
Embarkation was fairly simple, we had our "fun passes" filled out prior to arrival. Luggage ended up at the wrong door at the other end of the ship, we carried most of it to our rooms before being helped with the last few pieces.
The room was nice sized with a window, small bath to be expected. The housekeeping staff for our room was no better than the Motel 6. Our last cruise we could not step out just for a coke, and the room would be cleaned or at least straightened. Our room this trip got made up once a day, and a mint was put on our pillow in the evening. This was very disappointing for my parents mostly because everyone that cruises raves about the room cleaning service. Not what was expected at all. Also, about the room. We were awakened the first THREE mornings of our vacation at 8:00 due to load banging on the side of the ship, and machinery running. I complained to the pursers desk on Monday morning and was told that they were washing the deck because of over night rain. OK I complained the second morning and was told high seas were to blame. The purser came to our room this time to listen. OK. Then the third morning, we were docked in Jamaica, I threw a fit in front of numerous other people at the pursers desk, and they took me to see the Chief Purser. She is a very nice person, and I told her in a very nice way that on vacation I like to sleep in, so please find me another room or something. She told me it was technical noise, and they would try to find some other arrangements for us. So I decided to do a little investigative work myself, and found the culprit. It was time to put new cables on the lifeboats. So every morning at 8:00 directly above my room there was a machine used to spool the old cables. WOW that was hard. So finally after speaking to numerous bosses of different things, we talked them into starting at 9:30 in the morning instead of 8:00, needless to say, the last 3 mornings were very pleasant and vacation like. So was the nice comp on the sail and sign card for my trouble.