I couldn't believe it could be this bad. Friends had told me about the Carnival Ecstasy but after reading the reviews after it was refurbished in September I thought it may be alright. If your idea of a good time is being drunk, loud and stupid for four days straight then you may like this cruise. Let's start at the beginning. Embarkation, they had about 40 lanes for check in, well 12:00 comes around and we send all but three to lunch. They're about 300 people in line to check in. Get on the ship and enter the "Grand Atrium" it goes from deck 7 to over deck 11. Area wise it's not grand, so let's put a bar in the middle of it to take up more space. We find the forward elevators and take them to the lido deck to get lunch. Figured we'd do the grill for something easy. If you want a burger they'll give you fries. Don't hold your breath for the guy to give you fries so you can self serve a hot dog, he'll never understand. We grab a silverware roll and a drink and find a seat. The cloth napkins were so old the fuzz was falling off. Finish lunch and go off to explore the ship.

I'll get more into the average person on this cruise but this is just a taste. Go up on the sun deck, one up from the lido. There are signs everywhere that say no smoking. They're two 48' tank trucks on the dock fueling the ship. The entire ship smells of diesel. So what does bubba do? Walks 10' past the no smoking sign, looks over the edge at the trucks and lights up.

Safety briefing was suppose to start at 3:30. They didn't start making announcements until almost 4:00. You know the part about don't bring food or drink into the muster station? That doesn't apply because we're from Texas. The briefing is just starting at 4:30, Mario the captain says the heck with it. Doesn't care we haven't completed muster drill yet it's time to go, so he pulls out, people still in the show lounges dining room and other muster stations. The only ones that got to see the boat leave we the lucky ones who's muster station out on the top deck. Read more