This was our eighth cruise with Carnival and have really enjoyed each of our cruises with them. This one however has some room for improvement. This is my first reveiw for Cruise Critic so please bear with me. We stayed at the Long Beach Hilton and found it to be very convenient getting to the port. They have a shuttle that is used to transport people who have bought their park and ride package but since we flew in the package didn't make any sense for us. So we spoke to the valet who told us that if they had room for us we could catch a ride to the pier. We went down around 11:00 and had to wait for about 30 minutes for the van to return. We were able to find room for four and made our way to the pier. We arrived at about 12:00 and were able to get processed very quickly. They told us that we would have several hours before we could board. After about an hour the terminal began to look like chaos but the terminal employees seemed to keep it somewhat organized and get people through the lines quickly. One thing that confused me about embarkation was that we did all of our processing outside when there was a very nice and big terminal. It was a nice day so no one seemed to mind. When it came time to board we went through the terminal and boarded very quickly. We made our way to the Lido deck and sat down to have a drink. We heard some music start and I looked at my friend and said; "are they starting karaoke already?". The two guys they hired to play music on the Lido deck were so bad that we thought they were allowing passengers to step up to the mike. We made it to our balcony room and found it to be very clean and in good repair. We did however ask for a sharps container due to me wife being diabetic. After asking the room steward for it again we never did receive it. We were getting ready for bed and had to call room service to please bring us one and after a few minutes a gentleman (not the room steward) brought it to us and didn't seem very happy to do so. I found the food on the Lido deck to be good and the common areas to be very clean. We found that the lay out of the tables in the Gold Pearl Dining Room made it very difficult to get to the back side of the dining area. The food was very good and didn't encounter anything that didn't meet our expectations. Breakfast however was a little different. The first day we went to the dining room for breakfast we got a cup of coffee and once our food was served I never got my coffee cup filled again. My wife ordered scrambled eggs that came out so under done that she couldn't even start to eat them. One of our friends ordered poached eggs and they looked more like hard boiled eggs cut in half. I pointed this out to the receptionist and the service and food drastically improved the rest of the trip. Our dinner time waiters were AWESOME! They remembered our names and always had our glasses filled with ice tea and after dinner had us a cup of coffee. We all thought that the singers and the dancers on the Splendor were some of the best we had seen. That however was the extent of what we could say for the rest of the entertainment. The cruise director was probably the biggest disappointment for all of us. The only time we got to meet him was at the farewell party. The ONLY time you saw him was on stage and when I did get to meet him on the last day it seemed like I was bothering him. All of the other cruises we have taken with Carnival you would find the cruise director out among the people visiting at various time throughout the cruise. The best stop we had was at Cabo San Lucas and we only got to stay a few hours. This is a tender port and that shaves off the amount of limited time you have. We had a meet and greet on the ship at the aft bar area for all the Cruise Critic members. We have tried this in the past and it never seemed to work out. So I came up with the idea of wearing name tags saying Cruise Critic and our on-line name. This worked out great. I wore my name tag and hung out by the back wall when everyone began to gather. Overall I was disappointed with this ship's staff. I think I'll continue to cruise the Caribbean and will give Carnival an opportunity to reestablish my great confidence in them.