We were interested in taking a cruise to Mexico for our honeymoon and Carnival seemed to be the only cruise going there on the dates we wanted. The only other cruise we've ever been on was Celebrity Solstice and I thought every cruise would be like that. But was I wrong. The Carnival Triumph was way too crowded and way too noisy. I know it's supposed to be the fun, party cruise, but the ship is small and it's hard to get away from the noise when you need to. It was noisy even in our cabin, which didn't seem to have any soundproofing at all. We could hear everything going on in the next cabin, plus what was going on in the hallway - kids running and jumping around, moms yelling at them, even just a basic conversation outside our door was too loud. We were woken up multiple times in the middle of the night by mysterious banging and people yelling.
We're non-smokers and getting away from the cigarette smoke was hard. There was smoking allowed in the casino inside and on two different decks, which seemed like a lot for such a small ship. The smell wafted into other parts of the ship.
The one good thing about the ship was the food. We mainly ate in the buffet which had an okay variety of food. But there were always long lines and it was small relative to all the people trying to move about at the same time. If you wanted seconds you had to be prepared to wait in the long line again or just do without. We did utilize the dining room one night for dinner, but even that took longer than it should have to be served our different courses.