I chose this cruise mostly because it fit into my very short Christmas break this year. I am a teacher and I have a 14 year old who is also in school. We also have never been to Belize so we pick this cruise. This is my 5th Carnival cruise so I moved up to gold status. It was also my favorite ship. Nicely done... not tacky with weird color schemes. They did a wonderful job celebrating Christmas. Lots of holiday decorations including Hanukkah. The food was spread out throughout the ship so lines were long at all I wish the of the specialty food sections were open longer or in the evening. If you went on an excursion you missed some of them. The entertainment was okay at first but got better. The last show America Rocks was fantastic. I wish they had more activities beside trivia. There were no line dancing or other dance group lesson like all the other ships I have been on. Wish there were more live music dancing bands.
I always pick the same cabin area... star board side near the glass elevators either deck 8, 9 or 10). It is close enough to check quickly what is happening in the atrium but high enough and far enough not to hear the elevators or the loud parties downstairs. Plus I can always find my room quickly because I know it is near the atrium/ glass elevators. I love having a balcony. Nice to go out in my PJ's first thing in the morning and watch the sun rise. and vise versa in the evening.
We just walked around. My son loved the pool activities there. We liked the free wifi there to check on family and the snow storm we were getting back home.. making sure the house had power and no pipes froze.
We took the sky chairs to the beach and hung out there for the day. My son loved all the things there but they did add up in cost.
This was the fastest and easiest getting on and getting off the ship every!