Just some notes from my first Carnival Cruise, all in all I would cruise Carnival again. Packed 2 boxes wine, wrapped as birthday present, in 2 different bags for same cabin. One made it, one did not. Good enough. Cheers was not available to buy on first day, I think could buy it up until 3rd day. I bought it second day. Since I only drink on vacation, I think I did pretty good getting my money worth, but never hit the 15 drink limit. The waiter in Piano Bar pretty much made fun of us for buying Cheers package, said we wern't drinking enough and wasted our money.

With the above exception, service was excellent. Just awesome across the board. Got balcony room 7219, great room, below bridge and waves breaking below our cabin. Took Behind the Fun Tour, I guess it was worth $95, but I don't need to do it again. They had two unlimited internet packages, one "low speed" for $55, and "high speed" for $137. No explanation I could get of what those definitions were, but bought the "high speed" and it was barely adequate. I think one time I got 3mb download. We could each use our phones, only one could be on at a time. Google Voice great for texting and at least getting recordings of calls you receive.

Entertainment was OK, not great. 2 Production Shows were good, but others invovled some level of guest performing on stage. Lots of karaloke, but at least sometimes to live band from Showroom. Showband and Dance director both confirmed when Magic undergoes drydock and 2.0 upgrade, Showroom band goes away. There were 2 full bands, the Showband and a Filipino Band that played American covers very well. There was a Latin duo performing in Lobby but they relied heavily on playing to tracks. Piano Bar was good, Red Frog OK. When the upgrade occurs, the Filipino Band loses their job, and showroom band plays different bar venues. They said Carnival had already got rid of piano players for ambience in lobby and dining room, and Calypso Band. I was not at all a fan of DJ on pool deck, spent all my time on far end of Serenity Deck. Read more