We've sailed 18 cruises on multiple cruise lines. On this cruise we traveled as a group of 5 adults in 3 separate staterooms. The ship was full, with over 4400 passengers, a record number of passengers for Carnival Cruise Lines. The embarkation went smoothly, less than an hour from top to bottom. Our rooms were ready when we boarded which is always nice. Being brand spanking new, the rooms more than met our expectations, they were balcony staterooms but with a some new features that made for a very nice stay.
The food variety and quality blew all of us away on both the Lido deck and in the Main Dining room. We had Your Time dining and generally ate at 8PM, our average wait for a table of 5 was about 5 minutes.
We ate breakfast and lunch every day on the Lido where we sampled the deli, pizzeria, tandoori kitchen, pasta bar, grill, omelet station and of course the buffet which we thought had some of the best food at sea. The Lido was particularly busy on rainy days (unfortunately we had 3 of those) but we never waited more than 10 - 15 minutes on line. Getting a clean table could be a challenge but somehow we always found one and held it while others in our group waited on line. The Mongolian Wok always seemed busy but with so many other selections available, we never felt it was worth the wait.