My husband and I and 4 kids (20,18,15 year twins) just got back from cruising our first time with Carnival. We have previously gone on RCCL 3 times in the past and loved it but wanted to try ports we hasn't seen or a new line to see what we might be missing!

Embarkation-went great, same as RCCL. Very smooth and quick. Agent was wonderful. We left out of Port Canaveral.

Ship-very dark, closed in feeling, lots of little rooms, and not easy to navigate at all. Cannot get across the ship on most floors so must go up and down all the time to get to where you want to go. Got lost at times and ended up at the end of a hall with no elevator! One big thing for carnival is that they have more elevators in 3 areas of the ship so there is very little waiting though we all took the stairs 90% of time, never saw people waiting like RCCL. I had always heard how colorful and bright the ships were, this one is not. Gives you an old feeling as well.The SPA was wonderful, the girls and I each had 2 treatments and service was great. Workout room was packed most of the time and very hard to get a machine to work out on. We would go back and forth several times trying to get in to work out. Need to enlarge it. Read more