Just finished a 7-day Southern Caribbean cruise on Carnival Destiny and it was not a great experience. We are first time cruisers and had problems from the first day starting with wrong table sitting to smoke (cigarette and cigar) filtering into our room. I asked for a room change but was put off and then told it wasn't possible (although I know there were other rooms available). The crew (except for food servers) were indifferent and robotic and activities were almost non-existent. The shows were very entertaining but only three of the seven nights. If you don't drink or gamble there is very little to do on this ship at night.

I won the $500 bingo jackpot but did not get it because I tore off the free space tab although we were not instructed we could not do this that night. At later bingos they were very clear about the free space but not on the first night. I spoke to the pursers and cruise director but they did not see fit to offer even a token compensation even though I asked for an onboard credit.

Excursions were extremely expensive and we had some difficulty finding less expensive land transportation. You could easily spend another $200 a day which gets pretty expensive for 6 ports. We spent a lot of time shopping and trying to find a beach that didn't cost you $20 to get to. In spite of this, we did enjoy walking around the ports and talking with the locals. I would have liked to stay in a port or two later into the evening to sample some of the local nightlife but we left between 5:00 and 6:00 almost every evening. Our waiter told us this was so the ship could cruise to 25 miles off shore so they could open the casino but I'm not sure if he was joking. We picked Carnival because it was the best deal for the money. I can only say you get what you pay for. Really sorry I did not go with my first choice of Royal Caribbean--now I don't believe we will ever attempt another cruise because of this experience. Read more