We packed up and left for the cruise terminal around 10am (from the Westin Hotel). I wanted to do early check in. Cab ride from the Westin was only about $7.70. I gave him a $10 and didn't take change. I thought it was going to be about $18 to get there. I was pleasantly surprised. We left our bags with the porter and walked over to the Queen Mary for early check in. We got a glimpse of the ship up close and it was truly an amazing feeling to know we were going to be inside that in a couple of hours! Early check in was empty and we breezed through that. I left a credit card for the $200, but later when I checked my balance (it's a debit credit card), they had only taken $50, and it stayed that way for the whole trip until the last day when they took our whole balance. They told us to go hang around, do whatever, and they would be letting the early check-ins onto the ship around 11:30am. We only had an hour to kill, so we walked around a bit and decided just to sit on a shady rock under a tree and people watch. By 11:15 it was getting more crowded. A lady from Carnival came out and told all early checkins to start lining up and started the line. It was about 11:20 at this point. We went over and were probably about 30th or so in line. I would say the line only had about 100 people, maybe a bit more. Hard to judge. The regular check in line was starting to really grow. We stood and stood in this line for what felt like forever. I did notice a few people still straggling out of the terminal. Our legs were starting to hurt and people around me did not seem impressed at all. It was now 12:15 and we were still standing there. A lady beside me said she has been on 15 cruises and never seen anything like this. I didn't know any different. Finally, I think it was about 12:40-ish the line started to move. It took about 10 mins before we got to the security check in. Same as going through airports, take off your shoes, laptop out of the bag, etc. (but you don't have to put the liquids in the baggie). We were able to walk up to the ship now. We were sooooo excited! Someone told me they estimated some of the people out in the regular line might have a 2-3 hour wait with the way it was going. EEK! I was so happy we did early check in. We walked up towards where we would be going on the walkway bridge to the ship. They stopped us for a quick photo. Then as we got to the walkway and you could see the ship, another photo. We walked to the ship. It felt like a really long walk because of the anticipation of boarding our first cruise ship! Once inside they stopped us and took the security photo. That was quick and painless, and they told us to go to lido deck for lunch, and our rooms would be ready around 1:30. I felt like a deer in headlights when I first got on board. Just trying to take it all in, look around, find the elevators. It was exactly like the photos. I had trouble orienting myself at first as to where our room would be. We found the elevators and went to deck 10 (Lido). We walked through the big doors and out to the swimming pool. My daughter was flipping out when she saw the slide! It was bigger in person than we had pictured it. The pool was much smaller than we expected though. There were 2 hot tubs as well. The first one we saw was adults only, and the other one allowed children. There were lounge chairs and also white patio tables and chairs all over. At the end was the grill. We need to find a bathroom badly. It was now almost 1pm and we hadn't been since 10am at the hotel. We managed to find the bathroom and had a good laugh at the funny toilets. At first I thought the seats were up, then I realized that is just the way they are. We went to the buffet and on one side were Italian foods (good lasagna & chicken). I still felt a bit like a deer in the headlights. All I could see was food, more food, and then some food. I noticed the other side of the buffet had a longer line. I looked and it was other types of food, I think roast beef,etc. but I decided to skip the line. My daughter went straight for the pizza station. We got some iced tea and almost spat it back out  its not sweetened!! In Canada, when you order iced tea it is sweetened, and I had forgotten the US is not the same! We got fruit punch and it was really yummy. There was a long line at the deli at this point. We also each got a piece of cheesecake (our fave dessert ever!) and it was delicious. We wandered back to the main area of the ship to see if our room was ready. The doors to the hallways were all locked shut. We sat down and read some of the papers we had been handed about Camp Carnival,etc They opened the doors to the halls a couple of minutes later and at first we couldn't figure out which hallway to take! We were completely disoriented. We found the hall (we were in room E8  porthole room) and our room. We went into the stateroom and fell in love with it! It was so cute! It was larger than I expected. My daughter immediately ran in, jumped up on her bed by the portholes and into the little seat in the window. She loved it! Our tv was on the Carnival channel when we arrived. We checked out the beds, the basket of goodies in the bathroom (shampoo samples, lotion samples, toothpaste samples,etc), etc Our luggage was already in our room and waiting for us. We decided to organize a bit. We never really unpacked, as it was only 4 nights/5 days. There was enough room for one suitcase at the end of my bed and one suitcase against the wall beside the desk/makeup table. We still had tons of room. We got out our alarm clock, our power cord, etc and then looked over the capers. We decided to head up to the kids club and check it out/register. When we arrived there was only one other family in there with 2 very small children. It was not how I had pictured it at all. To me, the toys and stuff seemed very old and used, and it wasn't the bright happy place I was expecting. It looked like a barren daycare that was running on a limited budget. I registered my daughter and gave her self signing in/out privileges. The staff were not overly friendly or helpful. I hoped this would get better.

On our way back to the elevator, the spa was doing some demos and asked if we would like a free spa tour. We didn't really know what to do (still had the deer in the headlights feeling with the ship), so said sure. We were given little contest slips to fill out, and told to give them back in at the end of the tour for a chance to win a free spa treatment. You could choose what you wanted. I chose facial and my daughter chose the massage. They didn't even question the fact that she was not 12. She is only 10, but 4'11", and developing, so can easily pass for 12. Off we went on the tour with 2 other ladies. It was about 15 mins long and interesting to see the treatments. The prices are pretty outrageous and not in the budget for me on this trip at all. Quick note  don't book at the beginning of the cruise  the prices drop dramatically as the days go by&more on that later. After the spa tour we went and checked out the ship a bit and decided we wanted to hot tub. We got changed into our swimsuits and back to lido. The ship was pretty dead. Someone told me they had just got on board, and it was about 3:30pm at this point. They had been in line since noon! OMG! People were complaining all over about embarkation being a nightmare. So if you are sailing the Paradise, DO THE EARLY CHECK IN!! We hung up on Lido, hot tubbed, relaxed and noticed those cute drinks of the day in the clear carnival glasses with umbrellas. I am not a drinker at all. The last time I had a drink was in 2002 at a wedding, and it was a token glass of wine. I have nothing against drinking, it just does not like me at all. A glass of wine and I am under the table. For some reason though, I got caught up in the atmosphere and bought one of the $6.95 drinks. OMG it was yummy!!! Halfway through, I could feel my cheeks glowing and my insides were turning a bit. I decided that was enough for me. My daughter had a sip and said she loved it. I am sure she did! LOL! It sat in our room for the next 2 days and I tossed it. At least I can say I tried one fru fru drink! LOL! The ship was getting fuller and we went back to our room to change around 4pm, for the 4:45 muster drill. We were lucky, as our meeting area was the Normandie lounge, so we got to sit down with our life jackets on while they did the drill. It felt like it took forever, and there were so many people showing up late. Keeping in mind I have never done this before, I thought it was a bit of a mess and took much longer than I thought it should. I wasn't wrong, because I overheard a lady say That was my 25th muster drill and the WORST thing I have ever seen. We sat in the lounge for about 25 mins wearing these life jackets, then all had to go up 2 flights of stairs and stand on a deck. Some people had been standing out on a deck in the cold air for the whole time, so we were lucky. We stood on the deck for about 7 minutes and were then released. We were a bit hungry and had a hot dog from the grill. We are normally 5-6pm dinner eaters at home, but were assigned the 8pm seating on the ship, so we had to get past that 6pm hunger. We watched the ship sail away from the very back and it was really fun to do that. We went to our stateroom for a bit and put on the tv to check out what we could get on there, and finished getting ready for dinner and show. We had a 7pm showtime (early show for the late seating dinner). We went at 6:30, thinking it would be hard to get a seat. It was pretty empty. We sat in the 3rd row in the Normandie lounge. We had great seats. I was really looking forward to the shows on the ship. I am a musical theater fanatic, and so is my daughter. We love live shows. She is also heavily into dance, and was looking forward to seeing the dancers. They were just starting a bingo when we got there. This is not how I pictured the bingo at all! I had the mental picture of a room on board that they use with tables and chairs, bingo dabbers,etc and it lasting an hour or so. I am sure some of you experienced cruisers are having a good laugh right now. You buy a card for $10 with 3 bingo cards on it. Looks like dabber bingo, but it isn't. You just punch holes with your finger and fold it back somehow. I didn't have any cash with me, so didn't buy a card, but did watch. They were also selling scratch tickets for $1 each. I saw lots of people buying them, and no one seemed to be winning anything. Someone won the $250 on the bingo and then they got ready for the show. Quite a few more people came in and the lounge was about ¾ full. They said at the beginning of the show that during the show they would be tossing beach balls into the audience for people to bounce around, and to please be mindful of any drinks you have at this time. The show started, and to say it was pathetic was an understatement. My daughter was trying not to laugh. The choreography was pathetic. My 10 yr old could do what they were doing, and even more so. These are professional dancers and what they had them doing was basic basic stuff. It was terrible. A couple of singers came out, and while they could sing alright, they weren't anything amazing. I wasn't expecting amazing singing, but I guess I did expect more from the show. Again, this being my first time I thought maybe I had put my hopes up too high, but after talking to many others, they all said the ship entertainment was pathetic to say the least. Perhaps if you were really drunk, it would be a good show. They then told everyone to please hold their drinks, as the beach balls were coming. Out fly the balls. Everyone is bouncing them. One was coming close to us and the guy behind us (who was totally looped) took a nosedive for it forgetting he had his HUGE rum & coke in his hand. His rum and coke landed completely on us soaked the 2 of us. He had a huge mug of some sort just full and we were dressed for dinner. My daughter had on her brand new white shrug she had bought just for this trip and it was now brown. It was all in her hair (she has lonnnng blonde hair and it was drenched all down the back). My entire shirt at the back was soaked not just splashed, but drenched in rum & coke. We smelled like we had been out all night boozing. The guy goes oh nooooo my drink and ran off to get another. He came back and did not apologize, nothing. We got up and left. A Carnival employee at the back stopped us and asked why we were leaving the show so early. We turned around and showed her. I was pretty mad and she laughed and said Oh well some really get into the show, but we do have laundry on board. We went and changed, and part of us were laughing, as we were not injured or anything, but part of me was really choked with the employee's reaction. I wonder now if I should have gone higher and at least demanded our clothes be laundered, or just have left it, as we did. As I say, it was just an inconvenience, and no one was injured, and I didn't want to be one of those people complaining about a spilled drink. I had to quickly rinse my daughter's hair out in the sink and we dried it quickly. We made it to dinner at 8:05. Our waiter was Galin, from Bulgaria and was really nice and very attentive. We lucked out and had a booth for 4, but for the whole cruise we did not have table mates. I say lucked out, because I found that by the end of the day, it was nice to relax and have some one on one time with my daughter to chat about stuff and enjoy a quiet dinner together. If we had tablemates, it would have been fine too, but this was actually kind of nice for us. The first night I ordered the battered deep fried shrimp (to die for!), a steak and the warm chocolate melting cake (my most fave thing I ever had on the ship!!!). My daughter had chicken nuggets/fries from the kids menu. She also had the fruit cocktail and warm melting cake. She was in heaven with that dessert. Our waiter seemed surprised that we didn't order more food, but I told him we weren't starving, and it would go to waste. He said it was ok to take a nibble and send it back, but still, that part of me who grew up in a do not waste food type of home is with me and I couldn't do it! After dinner we went to the gift shop for a quick peek but it was closed. We realized we were exhausted and wanted to just go back to our room, put on our nighties and watch tv/hang out. I was surprised at how well we got some network channels and caught a couple of shows. Around 10:30 it was lights out and we slept really well.We awoke around 7:10 to the sound of the anchor dropping. It wasn't as loud as expected, and I probably could have slept through it, except I was so excited for the day ahead. We had quick showers and got dressed. We headed up to Lido for the buffet. It was typical breakfast buffet, and I didn't find the food all that wonderful actually. I have had better at the Old Country Buffet at the mall. It was enough to get us going though. The pancakes were not great at all, and were hard and tough. The eggs were ok and I am not a breakfast meat person, so can't comment on the bacon, sausage or ham. There were lots of cereals, fruits, yogurt, milk, pastries, bagels, etc etc etc available as well. No reason for anyone to go hungry, as there was something for everyone. I did hear an older lady complaining there were no prunes, but that was really not an issue for me. LOL. We wanted to get on a tender asap, as it was made very clear that if you didn't want to have to get a number assigned and wait, that it was best to be at the tenders between 8am-930am. If you were later than that, they assigned boat numbers on lido deck and you had to wait. After all the waiting in line the day before, we were not into that at all. We made the tender at 8:50am. Once on the dock, I immediately went and booked a glass bottom boat ride. There were tons of available times, and we chose 10am. It cost me about $24 for the 2 of us (1 adult and 1 child). We fell in love with Avalon! It was so quaint and so gorgeous and just the perfect little tourist trap, and made us really feel like we were on vacation. We went to a few stores while killing time and then back up on the dock for 9:50am. Carnival had set up a table with free hot chocolate for anyone that wanted it at the end of the dock. Keep that in mind if you are thirsty. We boarded the glass bottom boat and it was only about ¾ full. We went to lovers cove to look at the fish. The catch on this ride is that the fish will pretty much only come under the windows if you want to spend $5 on fish food to feed them. There are holes in the side of the boat and you put the food down there and the fish will come. We were sitting at the back of the boat and there were about 8 of us back there around the largest window. 4 people bought food, so we didn't bother. We were able to see all the fish with the food they bought. They did give us dirty looks for not buying food, but oh well. I was a bit disappointed because the whole 45 mins we were out, we only saw 2 species of fish. Its not the tour's fault at all, as they can't control what will be swimming by as we are there, but it would have been nicer to see different types of fish. It was still fun. Was it worth $24? Not really, but it's a tourist trap and we had fun. Some people on the boat had paid $24 each for this excursion, and the only thing they had different from us was an assigned time before getting off the ship. Save your money and book it on the dock. You can book all the tours here for half the price as offered by Carnival, and you are on the exact same tour and same tour company that the Carnival people are on. We wanted to rent a golf cart. This was something we planned to do. At the end of the dock if you turn left and go to the end of the street there are 2 places to rent from. One is quite busy, and the other one is across from a volleyball court and a bit out of the way. Its about another 1 min walk down, and you wont have a line up. This is where we rented front. There is apparently another place if you went to the right of the dock and down to the end. The price is now $40 for the first hour and $30 for a 2nd hour. You have to give them $70 total (Cash ONLY), and you get $30 back when you return the cart. You have to have a valid drivers license on you as well, so be sure you are carrying that. I signed a waiver and off we went. They give you a map to follow, and it looks easy enough, but we got turned around so many times! I am directionally challenged to begin with, so it was quite funny. They have a circle tour that if you do it properly, should take about 55mins to do. Well I messed up so many times. We were laughing so hard. There were always lots of other cruisers around to help though, and many looked just as lost as us. One part is going down the side of the mountain, with no guard rails, and can be a bit unnerving. I kept one foot on the brake and went slow. We had a blast! There are many great spots to stop and take good photos of the town and the ship from way up high. We got really turned around in town and didn't finish the tour. We made it back to the golf cart place (got a bit lost finding it again). We dropped it off and went shopping again. My daughter found a cute little tourist shop that sold a bunch of tacky kids tourist gifts she got a shell necklace for $1, a shell pirate ship for $2.50 and a shell jewelry box for $4. She was very happy with her little purchases. I thought it was a great little store. You can give your kid $10 and they can pick 3 or 4 little things to bring home. We decided to get a postcard and mail it to Gramma & Grampa and see how long it would take. We bought the card at a little drug store (keep in mind this is a great place to pick up anything you accidentally forgot for the ship, and much cheaper). The post office was just down the street. We mailed it from there, and it took exactly one week to the day for it to come back to Canada. Where the post office is, there is a little mini-thrift store and I noticed lots of cruisers in there buying stuff. We took a quick peek in it for fun (we love thrift shops!). We decided we were hungry and had enough, and took the tender back to the ship around 1pm. We had lunch at the grill and my daughter wanted to go to one of the Camp Carnival activities (People Bingo (like a scavenger hunt using people you find) & Mini-Golf tournament). I didn't really know what to do, so I went back to the stateroom and just relaxed. I ended up falling asleep for about 45 mins. I havent had the chance to nap during the day in years, and it felt so good. My daughter came back to the room and said she had fun. We went up to the lido deck and she used the waterslide for the first time. Up and down it for well over an hour. The salt water didn'tt bother her at all. I went in the hot tub for a while, had some ice cream and just sunbathed. It wasn't overly busy and finding a lounge chair was not hard at all. I never did see any of the saving of the chairs all day, and also never had trouble (even on the day at sea) finding one when I wanted it. Beach towels are by the pool and you can sign out 2 at a time with your sign and sail card. You have to have them back by 6pm. I noticed the lido deck pretty much shut down at 6pm. I did expect more entertainment up there than I saw. I don't really remember what else I did that day before getting ready for formal night. This is part of the problem I had with the cruise, is it seemed to be a real party/drinkers cruise. I think with it being a short getaway, it's a great cruise for 18+ to go party for a week, get a ride to Mexico and drink like crazy. Rarely did I see anyone not walking around with a drink in their hands. I think as a single mom, who is not a partier, there were too many dead spots for me, with nothing to do. I watched a movie in the cabin here and there and stuff like that. I also bought 60 mins of wireless internet time ($24.00). I would download photos from the day and resize them, then put them in an email and bulk email my friends and family back home an update of the day with photos. This would kill some time for me as well. I was very lucky, because our room is on the same deck as the internet cafe. I could get a decent wireless signal right in our stateroom if I left the door open. A couple of times I went down to the main lobby and used the couch and tables there just for a change of atmosphere, but most of the time I was able to do what I needed from the cabin. I also checked up on work quickly and stuff. I ended up using 54 of my 60 mins. The rest went to waste. I thought I would end up needing more minutes, but being able to write offline, then send, pop in my email, go offline, reply, then go online again, really works. We got ready for formal night and went to the shops to look around. She wanted to go to the Camp Carnival Name that Tune at 7pm. It was being held in the teen club, so double bonus, she got to play a game AND see the teen club! I decided to go try out the casino. I don't live near a casino, and have only ever been to casinos about 6 or 7 times. I love the slots. They had penny slots, which looked like a lot of fun to me. I played 10 cent pulls and on about the 8th pull I won $24.67! I decided just to cash out and be happy with 25 bucks in my pocket. Its not a huge amount, but was fun to win it. I went and looked at all the photos and found ours. Lots of people were taking digital photos of their photos, even though there were signs posted to not do it. I admit I did it a couple of times as well. I went to Club 02 to pick up my daughter and they were playing Deal or No Deal instead. I guess the counselor could not get the cd player to work. My daughter looked relieved to see me and almost ran out the door. They were sitting around a table bidding on the paper suitcases and she said she was so bored. The counselor had the personality of a dead fish and my daughter was not overly thrilled with her. I don't know if I should say this or not, as it is probably politically incorrect, but I think she was simply too old for this job. I pictured the counselors as young hip girls and guys in their early 20s, full of energy and ideas. She was probably in her early-mid 40s, looked less than thrilled to be working on this ship and it showed. She was just not into it at all. She also seemed very uncomfortable when parents were around. Almost very nervous of being watched. We went to formal night dinner. We stopped by a couple of the photo places, but I didn't plan to buy them. My daughter does professional modeling/acting so I have tons of professional photos of her, and really didn't need formal night ones. We just did a few for fun. Oh this is a good place to note how people dressed for dinner. I forgot about this on the first night. I saw jeans, sweatshirts, tees, etc on the first night. It could be that luggage had not arrived. Many looked very sloppy and unkept. On formal night I would say that about 75% of the ship participated. I wore a black pant suit and my daughter had a pretty crushed velvet dress on. I saw everything from nice suits and ties to tuxes and formal gowns. Lots of dark pant suits on the ladies and little black dresses. Dinner was good. I had a Caesar salad, prime rib (the potatoes were undercooked and terrible) and my daughter had a shrimp cocktail and lobster. She had never had lobster before and wanted to try it. She hated it! Our waiter actually took her plate and took the shell off, and cut up her lobster into bite size pieces for her. It was very sweet of him to do that for her. It was so funny because she felt bad that she didn't like it, after he did all that work, and she hid pieces inside her bun, under the rice and some under my unfinished salad. She left a bit out. He came by and said Wow someone sure enjoyed her lobster! and she said Oh yes, it was yummy! Thanks!. Too funny. He then told us he was not bringing us a dessert menu, that he wanted to surprise us. He came out with a tray full! He brought us chocolate cake, warm choc melting cake and another cake with warm sauce (can't remember what it was called). It was all so delicious. We went up to the late seating show and watched a bit. It was the Here's Hollywood show. It was terrible. We watched a bit and left. Again, I am sure if you were drunk it would have been a great show. Also that night, from 9:15-10pm they had color your own tshirt at camp carnival. She wanted to do that, so I left her there and she came back to the room at 10pm with her shirt. They use fabric markers on them, but they are all so old and running out, that it was really hard to actually color the shirt very well. They seriously need some new markers. We decided to order some tea and cookies from room service. We weren't really hungry, but I needed a cup of tea and we got the cookies for fun to see what they were like. The cookies are a basic sugar cookie, but probably made with brown sugar. They were ok but nothing I really wanted again. Also 2 brownies came on the plate, and even though we are chocoholics, we didn't enjoy them at all. We went to sleep around 11pm.

I heard the ship docking quite early, but managed to roll over and go back to sleep. I think we slept until almost 9am. Had breakfast buffet again (the French toast was very good). We went into Ensenada on the shuttle to downtown ($3 return per person). Just outside the ship is a decent sized market place where you can buy all the typical tacky tourist gifts that you find downtown. Prices were about the same as well. On the shuttle, the guide gave us a few pointers on what to do/not to do, what to expect, how to behave, how to bargain,etc They were good pointers. Also, one of the big highlights of our trip THE BLACK PEARL was docked beside the cruise ship!!!!!!! We are HUGE pirates fans and to see this in person and fairly close made our day. My daughter started shaking when she saw it. It was INCREDIBLE! I knew I needed to get photos later. We got off the bus in this really icky area. It was dirty and gross and I didn't feel overly safe to be honest. We walked around a bit. Went to Habana Banana, saw Papas & Beer, etc and we had had enough in 15 mins. Some gross guy came up to me and said Lady I give you $100 cash for your daughter to visit me in my room for an hour. EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW. At this point I wished we had a big strong man with us. I walked really fast and held onto my daughter. We went back to the shuttle area and got the next one back to the ship. Been there, done that and NEVER AGAIN. I asked if on the way back we could stop for a quick photo of the Black Pearl. What they did was let us off, and we walked back to the ship. It was about a 6 min walk and seemed safe there. So we got fairly close and got some great photos. This was incredible for us! By the time we got back to the ship, I felt so icky and gross and swear that we both smelled like dirty Mexico. We changed into our swimsuits and hit the pool/slide/hot tub. Awwwwwww now this is what I wanted! I went into the pool but did not like the salt water thing at all. I got a face full and almost threw up. Not for me. I was hoping to try the slide, but didn't like the water. I stuck to the hot tub. My daughter went to some sort of team races with camp carnival and I stayed back, uploaded photos and emailed them off. I had another afternoon siesta and then was kinda bored. There was really nothing going on. The ship was in port, so the stores were closed, the casino was closed I felt like I had nothing to do at this point. We watched part of a movie, had lido deck stuff for lunch (I believe it was Japanese cuisine that day for the speciality food at the buffet). We hung out at the pool some more and I read my book a bit, but I was a bit bored. My daughter did waterslide races, which turned out to be a total waste of time, as all the camp carnival kids did not have bathing suits with them, nor were they taken to go get them. My daughter and one other kid did the races. All the counselor did was stand by the pool and they counted as a kid went down the slide. The one who did it fastest won. This went on for 3 rounds and the counselor told the kids Ok its over, just play for a while, I need to sit down. She sat down and all the kids hung out by the pool and the other 2 did watersliding. Later was some spin art, which was painting. My daughter went to that and I decided to do laundry. We were heading to Disneyland afterwards and I had a feeling the day at sea would be packed in the laundry room. I just tossed in one load of everything and dried it. $2 to wash, $2 to dry and $1 for a box of tide. I had a couple of things that I handwashed and tossed in. I was quite bored at this point. My daughter came back after 15 mins of painting and said she was bored. We put on tv and hung out. At dinner time, we were not really feeling like doing the whole dining room ordeal. We just wanted to stay in our shorts, so we went to the lido buffet. I am so glad we did, because they had my daughter's fave food Turkey dinner!!! This kid would live on turkey year round if I could cook one every few days! So she was thrilled. I found lots of yummy stuff that night. At 7pm there was supposed to be a dance class. My daughter thought this could be fun because she is a dancer and would like to dance with them. It was cancelled because the girl who runs it was ill. I still wonder why they couldn't sub in another dancer???? There was nothing else to do on the ship. Everything was shut down because 80% of the people were off in Mexico boozin it up. We went to the show that night, and it was a comedian and a magician and it was actually really good. I was happy that we finally saw a good show and this occupied some time for us. Afterwards was candy art at camp carnival (filling a tube with powdered sugar) and we knew this would be another one of their activities that were advertised for a 45 min duration, but take 30 seconds. I took her up to Camp and told them she just wanted to make her candy really quick and leave. They said ok. I went to go in with her and they would not allow me in. I am guessing it's a security thing because of other kids in there. That was fine. So I said I would just sit outside and wait. They seemed kind of shocked that I was there doing that. I felt like I was not wanted there at ALL. Odd feeling. She made the candy in less than a minute and off we went. One recurring thing with Camp Carnival was the activities would be scheduled for an hour, and it was usually done in less than 15 mins and the kids were told Its PS2 time! and they sent them off to play video games. My daughter doesn't like video games and thank goodness she had signing out privileges. She said she felt the entire time like the staff didn't even want to be there. All they wanted to do was chat amongst themselves and make the kids play PS2. I can understand it's a long and stressful day, but this is the job you chose! No one put a gun to your head and said You MUST be a cruise ship camp counselor!. So buck up and do your job! We went back to the room and ordered room service  cheesecake and hot chocolates! It was very yummy! We fell asleep around 11pm that night. Read more