We sailed on the 2/5 cruise on a back-to-back starting with a Havana cabin then moving to a regular cabin for this sailing, and it's like two different ships. With Havana, you basically have your own private pool shared with just a few other passengers, and two (!) large hot tubs that are rarely busy. When you're back in "general population" as we referred to it, you get to share two pools that are smaller than most other carnival ships, 4 hot tubs, and a lido area smaller than an old Fantasy class carnival ship with over 1,000 more guests than any other ship in the fleet - 4,000 total! It's absolutely insane that these areas would get SMALLER for this number of passengers. Do the math: 1,000 people per hot tub and 2,000 people around each pool - good luck!

Decor is underwhelming, but attractive. Amenities are plentiful, and entertainment was great, but the public areas on this ship are also surprisingly small. They even shrank the main showroom and combined it with the dance club to make a space that doesn't work well for either. All for what? An Imax theater I can go to at home?

On the plus side: CD Matt was awesome, entertainment was great, food was outstanding with many options when you get bored of the MDR, and plenty to do while on board. Read more