I have sailed on 7 cruises, including 4 with Carnival, and last week's trip on the Dream, while not a nightmare, left much to be desired. Here are the more serious problems we enountered:

Just minutes before we were scheduled to land at Mahogany Bay in Honduras, the captain announced he was diverting us to Port of Roaton, 15 miles to the south. The Mahogany Bay beach was the main reason we booked this cruise. I and many other passengers were disappointed with this change. Another Carnival ship, running behind schedule, already was in the Mahogany Bay pier and the captain claimed windy conditions made it risky for us to pull in alongside. We passengers did not notice anything above a moderate breeze (about 25 km) with no whitecaps. At the least, Carnival should have given us more advance warning (like the night before) and provided free shuttle buses so we could reach the Mahogany Bay beach quickly and safely.

I was traveling with a friend plus 16 of his relatives. When my friend booked the trip directly with Carnival reservations, he specifically asked for us to be seated at adjacent dining-room tables as a family. When we arrived on ship, we found the rest of the family had been assigned to the Scarlet dining room, while we were put in the Crimson dining room. I immediately went to see the maître d before the cruise started. He explained there were no seats left at the family's tables. He moved us into a table of 4 in the Scarlett on the other side of the dining room. The next day, he managed to reassign us to a table adjacent to the family tables (but we were still separated from them by partitions of an alcove.). The lesson we have learned is not to trust Carnival’s reservations dept. and instead use the reliable travel agent used many times by my brother-in-law. . Read more