The December 8 sailing of the Carnival Inspiration was my eighth cruise and my fourth with Carnival; we took a 5-day round-trip from Tampa to Grand Cayman and Calica, Mexico. I'm a single man from Atlanta. This was my first cruise without a traveling companion, so I had the cabin to myself.

It was also my third cruise on one of the Fantasy-class ships. The last time (Imagination, 1998), Carnival had not yet launched the Destiny, and these ships were considered state-of-the-art. After three subsequent classes (Destiny, Spirit, and Conquest) featuring 12 newbuilds that have taken over Carnival's bread-and-butter seven-plus-day trips, the Inspiration and its seven sisters have been assigned to shorter cruises, often from homeports. But all those turnarounds and the sheer number of different passengers results in a lot of wear and tear. In addition, other cruise lines, as they modernize their mainstream fleets, are also assigning their previous generations of top-line ships to these markets.

Of course, with ages ranging from ten to eighteen years, these ships are "old" only in dog years; nevertheless, Carnival has decided to refresh these ships with a bunch of new features and upgrades called "Evolutions of Fun." The Inspiration was the first to go through the necessary dry dock. Anyone who remembers what these ships used to be like will appreciate the tremendous amount of work that went into the upgrades. The new features are a big success, adding some real class to this ship without reducing any of its way-out-there exuberance. And if they don't exactly turn the ship into a silk purse, well, neither did she start out as a sow's ear. Read more