We were on the Carnival Triumph for my Wife's Birthday Cruise. This was our first Carnival Cruise. In the past, we only sailed with Norwegian. We decided to try Carnival since we live in Texas and we can drive to Galveston for embarkation. The price was about $300 pp which is very reasonable for a 5 night cruise. We had a porthole oceanview cabin. The experience was great for the most part. Our cabin was clean and well kept. The water pressure in the shower was great. The only negative aspect of the cabin was that the air conditioning did not work very well and our room was warm most of the time. Our steward attempted to adjust the vent which helped, but it was still warm. The Steward's name was Wagyu and he was extremely polite and helpful.

The Main Dining Room was awesome. The food was great every night and our waiter--Emiliano was phenomenal. We tried the buffet a couple of times for breakfast/lunch and it was merely average. The buffet area was always congested and most of the food was similar in quality to what you would see at a Golden Corral Restaurant. Several people told us that Guy's Hamburgers were great, so we tried them one day for lunch. The burgers were good, but they really didn't live up to the hype. They were definitely better than burger king/wendy's but not as good as Fuddruckers/Red Robin. We also had lunch at the pizza pirate one day and we weren't expecting much. To our surprise, the pizza was very tasty. The crust was thin/crunchy and the pizza had great flavor.

Our favorite meals were in the MDR. The dinners and sea day brunches were flawless. The entertainment was very good as well. We watched one punchliner comedy show and a production show called Wonderful World. We enjoyed both shows. We really liked a country singer named Jesse and the Triumph Band that played the casino each night. Most of the bar staff were very fast and friendly. The best bartender was Luis in the EA Sports Bar. 90% of the staff were very courteous and helpful. The only rude staff members we encountered were the people handling embarkation/debarkation and a few staff members in the casino cage. Aside from the casino cage, the other casino staff were very professional. We loved the Craps Dealers! After the first night, we received a complimentary delivery of chocolate covered strawberries courtesy of the casino host along with free drinks for the entire cruise (we almost purchased the cheers package pre-cruise, glad we didn't after all). We will definitely cruise with carnival again in the future if the price is right. All in all, we had very good vacation.