The wife and I have enjoyed two excellent cruises from Sydney with P&O previously (Jewel 2010 & Pearl 2011). This time we have just come back from trying out the new(ish) Carnival Spirit, sailing from Melbourne to Tasmania and back to Sydney, and we are so glad we did. We read the usual blogs which complained about there being too many kids, food wasn't great, unclean rooms, etc, but we can't agree. Sure there are lots of kids, as their cruises are well priced for families and the ship has water slides (so what do you expect) but there is a big adults only breakout area to get away from them. We thought everything else was great as well. Here's our scores out of 10 (remembering that this was a domestic cruise which may differ international cruises):

Embarkation - The quickest ever. We arrived at the preassigned time and we were able to board the ship immediately and have lunch whilst waiting for our rooms to be ready. Score - 9

Stateroom - We had an Aft room with extended balcony. We think it is comparable in size with P&O Pearl's mini-suites but almost half the price. Loved the balcony! The only con was that there is only one power outlet which is a bit tough with the world of e-gadgets (mobiles, camera, ipad, etc). Score - 9 Read more