We used to cruise a lot before Covid. We are gold card members on Carnival. Our kids are 8 and 9 and this was their 6th Carnival cruise. We recently went on a Royal Caribbean cruise on the Independence of the Seas and had a great time, but we loved the Carnival kids club and had fond memories of cruising when our kids were much younger. They hadn’t been on a cruise since 2019 when they were 5 and 6, so they barely remembered, but we told them how much more fun they always had in the Carnival kids club. Lately, they seem to be slipping. The Elation is already a small ship with only 1 pool and 2 very small all ages hot tubs and only one hot tub is functional. The pool was freezing cold the entire cruise (not their fault), but they had absolutely no urgency fixing the other hot tub. We spoke to a crew member who informed us that it hasn’t worked in months. We usually spend a lot of our time in the water on cruises, but because of their lack of maintenance 10-15 kids were jam packed into the only tolerable body of water on the entire ship at all times, so we were lucky if our kids could even get in there occasionally. Besides that, everything was decent, but Carnival is definitely falling behind their competition. A big storm hit on day 3 of 5 and because the ship was so small, it was rocking like nothing we had ever experienced. Cupboards were opening, glasses were breaking and they issued puke bags to everyone all over the ship. My 8 year old daughter got nauseated and informed the kids club manager that she was getting seasick. They have no way to contact parents, so when we picked her up 2 hours later they gave us a medical form and informed us that she could not come back to the kid’s club until their doctor signed off on her. He said “no big deal, just protocol. If you can’t go tonight, just go in the morning and they’ll evaluate her and sign”. That was not the case. The doctor explained that the kids club manager filled out the form incorrectly and because he checked the wrong box, she could not sign off for 24 hours from the time he handed us the form and of course, 24 hours from 9pm is 9pm and the medical bay closes at 5pm. They both acknowledged that the form was filled out incorrectly, but apparently even if they make an error they cannot “override the computer system”. There went our plans for the evening comedy show and casino. Suddenly, we realized that we enjoyed Royal Caribbean much more and looking at all the new ships such as Allure and Star of the Seas. We probably just sailed on our last Carnival cruise.