This was our second Carnival Cruise. The 5 hour Drive down from N. Central FL on a Sunday Morning to Port Everglades was a breeze. The port was under a bit of construction but the flow was pretty well marked. Getting unloaded, parked and embarkation / debarkation went very smooth considering the number of people boarding. From our balcony room on the 8th deck we were afforded some great views of Port Everglades and all points in between for 6 days.

But while the cabin had great optics, that is pretty much where the "Fun" ended. Carnival makes no mention of the horrors that await you after midnight and they offer no special deals for cabin 8430 and those surrounding it (balcony 8424/36/38 and interior 8428/32/36/40). All of these cabins share the dubious honor of being position directly under the rear pool deck and Aft Bar ... but unlike any other cabin that may be under a public deck, these rooms are under the only all night eating on the ship - the pizza bar. The Teen activities on board boast events until 3am, so imagine the noise of kids, teens and late night dancers on un-carpeted deck floors and the constant all night long scraping of deck chairs back and forth as large groups of passengers visit the only food source all night long. While I cannot speak directly for the other cabins I mentioned above (except for 8434 - I spoke to them), I lump them in the problem area because these are the cabins that are positioned directly under the tables. The ones just in front and behind these are either under the pizza workers area or are under the bar tenders feet ... so they may be less noisy.

The only night we got any kind of relief from this was mid cruise when we complained 3 times in the same night to 3 different departments, finally getting a bit of resolve by tracking down the head person for that area. Calls to the front desk and house keep went nowhere. But finally they closed that section (there are tables and chairs available across the whole back of the ship that mostly go unused late night). Two days later we were called to see if things were better, but that night and again for the rest of the cruise the noise kept us up all night. Read more