I have been on five Carnival cruises and planned them for the entire group on my own online. I have booked trips for up to 64 people on Carnival and I have never had any issues. With this cruise I wanted to have something to compare. We have always had a wonderful time and I have been told that Royal Caribbean is a step up from Carnival and the food is also better. This cruise I planned for FIVE people. I had nothing but issues with the booking process. I took my 16 year old niece with this time and it was her first cruise. I would call the customer service number to make sure that I had all of the information needed for her since I am not her guardian and all of the sudden my booking, which had been paid in full for months, states that I owe over $500. I had to call them again and it took time but it was fixed. In the beginning I had called to ask a simple question and was put on hold for over an hour (while I watched the bachelor at the time) before the lady came back on the phone and told me that there is nothing that she could figure out and then she hung up on me. I was provided a $200.00 onboard credit by a manager which when on the ship, it was no where to be found. I went down to customer relations to ask about it and the lady rolled her eyes and said that she is not able to locate that credit. There was 4 other people standing at the desk and several people in line behind me. All five of us at the desk were all complaining about the on board credits being lost. They never were able to retrieve mine and basically I was out of luck. I talked to another couple that their son gave Royal Caribbean $300 for an onboard credit for their anniversary and additional $500 for a Christmas gift. When they were on board, the $500.00 was located but the $300 credit was never found. Another person told me that they had a cruise that was completely paid for that they were going to book for another ship and this paid cruise is no where to be found. WHERE IS ALL OF THIS MONEY GOING??? the shows are no good and the food is not the greatest. The employees are not happy to be there..... you are STEALING from the people that pay to have a great/memorable vacation and PAY for YOU to keep your job. You are STEALING what is not rightfully yours. Royal Caribbean makes promises and does not keep them in regards to on board credits. If you have an on board credit, make sure that it is in your paperwork and keep it with you on the boat because if they "Can't find it" then it was never there. Unless, it is listed in paperwork and you have it with you and you have not called or made any changes to your booking. We paid the difference for our upgrades and their final thought about the credit was it was lost when we upgraded. We paid the extra money for the upgrade.

The boat was beautiful for the most part. There was a few things though. There was a silver sticker on the inside of the elevator doors and it had bubbles in it and at times was hanging half way off. I upgraded to a balcony room and there was rust on parts of the balcony and it just seemed to be very dirty. The food service people were great, I have nothing bad to say about them. The food was not the greatest. I was always told that Carnival was the cheapest fleet you can go on and you pay for what you get. I would go back on Carnival ANY DAY OF THE WEEK. The food is better, the shows are better, the fun is better.... everything is just BETTER on Carnival.

There are basically NO shows on this ship. There is two comedian shows which kids really don't enjoy. The ventriloquist was funny but kids did not understand a lot of it. My 8 year old son and my 16 year old niece was with and they walked out of the Ice Skating show after me making them watch it for at least 10 min. OH..... the ice skating rink. That is one thing that they promote. Well it was only open twice the entire cruise. We just happened to stumble upon it the first day while walking the ship. My 8 year old son was watching in the cruise compass every night waiting to go ice skating again and it was not open again until the last night and there was so many people that they limit the people to 30 min sessions which are so jammed pack that you could barely even skate. They had ONE deck party and ONE party that was a 70s theme inside on the promenade which had so many people you could not even get close to it. Read more