Well, let’s start from the beginning. The debarktion process was smooth. It seemed to be organized and my room was done quite early. I must say, I was expecting the ship to be cleaner and a little nicer. I know the ship is older but a little white paint can go a long way. The lobby area had lanterns hanging from the ceiling which had stains all over them. My bathroom shower was cracked. The ship was more run down than I would have liked to see. I’ve been on Norwegian and Disney cruises and this ship was NOTHING in comparison to those ships.

The food was okay. What made our dining experience amazing was one special waitress! Her name was Irvina. She was lovely. She went above and beyond for us every night. Her smile and warmth made us feel like we were at home. The girls at the coffee shop were also just as lovely. They always had a smile on their face and by the end of the cruise they new my fiancé’s order by heart. Our room Stewart Heru was extremely accommodating. We had family members who came down with a cold on this cruise. They were stuck in their cabins for a few days. Heru, did everything he could to make sure they were comfortable and had everything they needed. Overall, the cruise staff were great. The entertainment was awesome. Donkey our cruise director was hilarious. The casino was a huge hit. It was large and we did very well there. However, there is only one computerized poker table. My fiancé loves poker. He was quite disappointed with the computerized table. It didn’t stop him from playing, but he did say he would have rather had a dealer.

One of the biggest downfalls on this cruise was the drink package. First of all, my finance has MS and he is a hemophiliac. He is not allowed to drink. We were not able to submit a medical note to excuse him of purchasing the drink package. Since we were sharing the cabin and are both over the age of 21 we had to purchase the drink package if one of us wanted it. Which I found to be quite unfair. I understand why Carnival is strict with this policy however, my family and I chose Carnival because it was cheaper than Norwegian (who has an unlimited drink package including soda). So the drink package cost me an extra $860. Then to top it off I couldn’t order an extra shot on top of my pina colada or a double on my Tito’s and vodka. They literally measured out one shot per drink. They limit you to 15 drinks a day. Which seems a lot. However, if you wanted an extra shot that went toward one of your 15 drinks. Furthermore, if you wanted an extra shot in your drink you needed to wait 5 minutes and you could go back with your drink for them to add the extra shot. It was just extremely inconvenient. If I would have known that I was going to pay all this extra money and have this much of a hassle to have a decent drink on my vacation I would have chose to go back on a Norwegian ship in a heart beat. The ships are cleaner and there is NO drink minimum and they aren’t skimpy in pouring their drinks. Another thing that stumped me was my brother who didn’t have a drink package was able to pay 3 dollars extra to have extra alcohol added to his drink. When I asked the bar tender if I could just pay the difference I was told no because I had the Cheers package. It didn’t make any sense. When I expressed my frustration to the bar tender he tried to say its a safety issue. I didn’t understand and asked him to elaborate what he meant by a safety issue. He said they limit the cheers packages to 15 drinks per day because that is a lot of alcohol. So my answer back was but if I was to never have the drink package and pay per drink I could easily purchase over 15 drinks per day and nobody would ever know? So how is this a safety issue? Plus, I didn’t care if they deducted an extra drink for an extra shot in my drink. I wanted to actually have more than a tbsp of alcohol in my drink. This may make me sound like an alcoholic which I am NOT by any means. I didn’t reach my 15 day drink minimum any day I was on the cruise. It just was inconvenient the way they have this package set up. Read more