We booked the cabin knowing nothing about a Cove type and in talking to Carnival HQ no one there knew anything either. It was not a major shock, then, when we opened the door and studied our week-long home. The cabin itself was pretty basic, similar to most balcony cabins, but the balcony is considerably smaller and a bit frightening. It has steel walls that double as doors and cabin separators, but the seaside also was kind of a steel wall with the opening fair sized, but my impression was a little claustrophobic. There is barely enough room for two people to sit side by side and then the view is limited. The cabins are on deck 2 so really low on the ship which is a two edged feature. First, the balcony was almost always wet, but being low the cabin had little motion and rode nicely. Our last day was really rough but we felt little motion through the night. It was rough enough that the Disney ship stayed on its private island an extra day rather than head into the rough seas. Winds were gusting up to 50 knots.

The cruise was fine - food ok, service good and a really beautiful ship. I ventured into an art auction (first time ever) and bought some good stuff. On other cruises I had sneered at the auctions, but the young couple conducting the sales were entertaining and very educating. We are Platinum so our embarcation and disembarcation were great, no hassle. That seemed to be the only benefit to Platinum but that in itself was enough.

Our real complaint was similar to many of the newer big ships - too many passengers for the public areas. They seem to add plenty of new cabins, but keep the same public area decks with the ratios seeming to shrink with each new ship. We took a transatlantic on the Emerald Princess last fall and found the same, almost universal complaint.