Being my first cruise, I was not familiar with what things to look for; lets start there. I had a specific time frame in which I could travel and I live in the Tampa Bay area, so I decided to go with Carnival Paradise. I quickly learned after speaking with people that is was an older ship but I had read reviews and despite this, the mostly positive reviews gave me hope.

I was very disappointed to say the least. My family of four only goes on one vacation a year, and I am saddened that this was my choice. The boat was to be desired. The pools were so old and small (and the five day cruise, there was one pool closed for maintenance or the slide wasn't open for some reason throughout the days). The one day that they were all open, my family was up on the top deck and OIL from the top engine area sprayed out and showered all the guests, forcing them, to once again, close the entire top deck. This was disgusting....along with the water that came out of our room faucet on one day that was the color of dark urine. The water provided at the drink stations on the Lido deck often had a brown color to it as well. There were several buckets with caution tape around the ship from leaking areas as well as the bench that was around the pool breaking the last day and again, having caution tape around it. I could go on and on. The boat is dated and known to be dry docked in February of 2018 I believe, but it really should be dry docked now, as it was a complete and utter disappointed and I am beyond disgusted that this was my annual vacation of choice. I wish I could upload photos that I have of the water in our room and other disturbing photos but they are on my phone and I do not have that linked to this computer