First and Last Carnival

I chose this cruise because I hadn't tried the Carnival brand yet. I have cruised 37 times now, across 7 different brands.

I had been warned about the dark decor, and yes, the majority of the ship has dark decor.

There is a webcam on the midship Lido pool, that streams live into all the cabins - like the ship's webcam at the front. I thought this was VERY weird and unnecessary. It also meant that people avoided this pool, and the rear pool was busier.

The BEST thing about this ship IMO was the new dedicated arts & craft room "Soul Play". I've never seen a dedicated craft room on board a ship and it had some great activities and it seemed to be well attended.

I had a balcony cabin and it was clean and comfortable. Bathroom seemed a little more spacious than most cabin bathrooms.

Sadly the Maitre'Ds didn't enforce the dress code and we saw men in shorts and thongs, in the MDR on "Elegant". When MDR staff don't enforce the dress code on the 3-5% of pax who don't want to adhere to it, they are upsetting the 95-97% who do want the dress code upheld. Most cruise companies are guilty of this these days, which is a real shame.

Apparently the shows were by "Playbill Productions" but I think it actually may have been "Playboy Productions". I don't want to go to a show and see 4" of some dancers bum cheek, and then have her lean provocatively over a stage prop, basically flashing her vagina at the audience. After the first 2 shows I stopped going. And others at my dinner table did also. Other pax on my dinner table said they walked out of the comedy act one night, also.

Why does the CD schedule an island night on a sea day...? No one's been ashore to get their hair braided, buy a floral shirt, dress or coconut bra, from one of the local island communities who are so dependent on the tourism $$.

Late night deck parties scheduled before port days (twice), then just Dive in Movies, on nights before sea days.....

First cruise where some of the crew struggled with English. Atleast 3 crew I spoke with couldn't understand what I was saying, this included MDR crew.

The Spa was VERY noisy, so after paying top dollar for 2 treatments, I didn't bother having anymore. The good part about the Spa was only 5% gratuities on treatments.

On board shops were disappointing, as were the crew working in them.