This was my 9th Carnival cruise, and as always, I enjoyed myself. I cruised with my mother and older brother, as this was his gift in recognition of his upcoming graduation from law school.

Embarkation at the Port of NO was a breeze. From parking to walking on the ship, it took about 30 minutes. We were all in one cabin - one of the family sized cabins on Deck 1 - Riviera. I was very nervous about us all being in the same room, but we never really felt cramped at all. The extra half bath was a God send. Tons of storage space with three 4 closets (one with shelves) 4 vanity drawers, and 2 drawers under the sofa after the bedding was removed, not to mention the other spaces available under the beds, in the nightstands, and under the safe. Our steward wasn't as friendly as on other cruises, but he was very nice, and there are no complaints about his actual work.

The ship itself was very nice - our first time on the Dream class. The ship never really felt crowded, and the extra space for the buffets was a big help to cutting down on lunch and breakfast wait times. We also never really had to search long for tables, especially if willing to walk to a different part of the lido restaurants. There were so many different options: pizza, deli, pasta (which we never tried), tandoori, burgers, hot dogs, sea day bbq, main buffet. The food overall was good, but not as good as other times, as I recall. Of course, we also made the glorious mistake of eating in the Steakhouse the first night. Now, this wasn't a mistake because of the Steakhouse - that was an amazingly delicious meal with exemplary service. The problem was we compared every meal we had from that point on to the Steakhouse, which is impossible to replicate in the main dining room. Still, nothing we had was bad (except the Lido desserts, and we've never really enjoyed those on Carnival, except for the chocolate chip cookies and a couple of the cakes). We previously cruised on the Liberty (post upgrades) and missed Guy's Burgers. Read more