We just got back from a 5 night Western Caribbean cruise with 96 of our friends sailing with us. We had a large group and we had a great time, but I was disappointed with a few things. I have cruised numerous times before, but this was my first Carnival Cruise. I have been on RCI and Disney. I thought the food was horrible. We ate in the main dining room 3 times for dinner and the food was inedible. NO one in our party ate the dinners. One of the appetizers was goose liver mousse, for example. A lot of the choices for entrees were along these lines, and even the ones that sounded appetizing, roast turkey was our choice on our last night, was terrible. They roasted the turkey in curry, and I can tell you it was really bad. The kids were very unimpressed with the food, and most of our group dined on the pizza bar for a lot of the cruise. RCI's and Disney's food is much better. Also, we were told we would be able to order lobster and steak at any of the dinners. This is not true. Only at formal night can you have lobster and steak. The maitre'd was rude and non helpful when I inquired about this.
Also, as the group coordinator, I had arranged for the guests with birthdays to be celebrated on our 3rd night. They celebrated them on formal night and no one from our group was there. When I brought this to the maitre'd's attention, he said it was too bad they missed it. I was not very happy. Our waiters did sing again that night to them, at my request.
On a positive note, I enjoyed our group's cocktail party that Carnival provided. They did a very nice job and everyone in the group enjoyed it also.