I've cruised multiple times on Royal Caribbean, Carnival and Norwegian cruise lines. This sailing was my wedding cruise, so I traveled this same ship ten months earlier for the repositioning cruise in order to assess if we wanted to advocate for our guests to join us on the post-wedding voyage. Had I not so recently sailed on the exact same ship, I wouldn't have had anything to compare it to and I likely would have rated it much higher. We were a party of 12 close friends and family members sailing following a wedding that had 70 guests. The sailing party spanned three generations.

Carnival is obviously very skilled at conducting weddings. Everything they handled was well above my expectations. They expertly processed my wedding guests quickly and got my groom and I onto the ship very fast. They were able to accommodate personalization that I requested for the wedding cake. Our stateroom had a lovely towel swan and flower petals on the bed when we boarded. The social host at our wedding reception went above and beyond trying to find music for our reception when we were having technical issues with the CD's we had burned. He also recognized us and always said hello throughout the cruise, even when we weren't dressed in our wedding finery and I wasn't coated in makeup.

Once underway, We and our sailing guests all had different dining times and they were able to coordinate us all for the same dining, reserving us the captain's table every night except the last night, when I heard someone barged in and seated himself at our table, refusing to leave, just minutes before we arrived at dinner. Our alternative wait staff on that final night was just as pleasant as our regular wait staff, although our regular waiter did stop by our table and Our waiter and cabin steward learned our names and I didn't have a bad interaction with any staff members. Read more