I just returned on the Inspiration for a 4 day Mexico. Some things you need to know...I have cruised a lot on Princess and with the Cyber Monday sale I decided to try out Carnival as I have heard good things about Carnival. You will see my comments at the end comparing Carnival to Princess. Prior to my cruise I did a lot of research and used Cruise Critic to ask questions. I booked an Inside Guarantee to get the best price. I was ungraded to a porthole, U7 forward on deck 6. My cruise started from San Francisco to LAX. Once we arrived we were met by a Carnival Rep who took us out to the shuttle bus stop which arrived soon. We purchased FTTF which gave us priority boarding and other perks. It was well worth the extra $ since we could go to our stateroom as soon as we boarded the ship. After being processed, the line was short, we waited until the boarding started. We were one of the first groups to board while other people waited in a long line. We boarded around 12 noon. Crossing over the ramp was a challenge for me because I'm afraid of heights but I made it OK. My traveling partner had cruised on many other Carnival ships but this one was a new experience as the ship is laid out different than other Carnival ships that they had been on. Once on board, after dropping off our carryon's and taking a few photos of the stateroom it was off to the buffet.

Note that their are many stations inside and outside the buffet near the pool area. There is different water slides, a trademark of Carnival, the large one being about 4 stories up. I found that on the Carnival Buffet, unlike Princess, there were no teams walking around to take your drink order. You had to get the drinks yourself. Once you got to where things were it was easy to get what you wanted. I purchased the Soda Sticker for $27 which allowed me to get unlimited drinks but you needed to fine the bar to make an order.

I found the food in the buffet to be excellent plus they had a sandwich station where you could order a sandwich any way you wanted. They also had a Mongolian Wok outside the buffet. If you wanted anything like poached eggs you had to go to the MDR. They also had a Omelet station in the morning where you could get omelets of fried eggs plus they had the egg substitute available. Their was also tables outside for eating. Read more