My husband and in-laws just got back from our very first cruise on Carnival's Ecstasy of the Sea cruise ship.

We were so excited to be taking this cruise and from what our friends have told us about their cruising experiences we were more than ready to be pampered and well fed. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

Monday 2-3-14: We had an uneventful check in. Everything was quick and easy. We arrived at our inside state room and it was larger than we expected it to be. The room was rather "worn and out-dated" but we weren't too concerned because we were planning on spending our time on deck and in the pool. My husband turned the air conditioning knob located above the bed to give us some cool air and flecks of black grime started coming out. It was greasey and smeared our sheets and floor. We called customer service and the maintenance people came in about 20 minutes. They put a new filter inside and housekeeping changed the sheets and vacuumed the floor. We met "DD" our personal attendent who is in charge of keeping our cabin clean. He was very personable and called us by name. He never asked us if we had any requests such as ice in the room or another pillow, but in all fairness, he was taking care of alot of other people as well. NOT as personal as we expected, but what do we know. We shrugged this off. Read more