We've now been on 4 cruises. The way we have originally chosen cruises was price, destination, and where it's leaving out of. Now, we are at a point where we would probably start choosing the cruise based on the boat. Went out of Charleston to save on airfare. went to Bahamas and both port days were great. Chose the carnival cruise snorkeling excursion mainly because it's the only one that works with time you can get off the boat and have to be back. The catamaran sailing to the snorkeling site is wonderful and the snorkeling site was beautiful. Next day was Half Moon Cay and nothing bad to say, one of the most beautiful islands, it is just so hot to go in Aug. Rented a cabana, probably wouldn't do it again due to the price and we really were not in it. Now for the boat. It was clean. But we wouldn't go on this boat again after being on different boats, the Sunshine and Fascination were better. We didn't realize how now nice the serenity pool is on the serenity deck until you don't have one on the Ecstasy. And there is no special celebrity chef restaurant. We ate at Guy's hamburgers the entire time we were on the Sunshine and nothing like that was offered on the Ecstasy. Nightly entertainment was amateur. They were very energetic and good dancers, but not great singers and the costumes seemed so out of date. I'm wondering if you work up the ladder and get better entertainment on newer boats. However, the cruise director was wonderful. They had closed one of the dining rooms, for what reason we are unsure, and so dinner was a 3 hour wait 2 nights. Horrible, you felt like you were wasting so much time. We had an extended balcony room that we would not pay the extra money for in the future due to no breeze. Maybe a different time of year would be better, but in Aug almost too hot to even be on the balcony and enjoy it.