My wife and I are loyal Princess cruisers. However, based on the itinerary, date, and price, we thought we would give Carnival a try since it would be on their newest ship. There was really nothing wrong or bad with the cruise, but there were several things that we have really come to expect and enjoy on Princess that we didn't experience on Carnival.

We stayed a night in Barcelona at the Hilton after we arrived from Atlanta. We have done the Mediterranean on Princess before out of Barcelona, so we were already familiar with getting around. The embarkation was very smooth. However when we got on the ship about noon, the rooms were still unavailable, so we had to drag our carry on to the buffet lunch with us. The stateroom was nice but offers no privacy other than the bathroom. The food in the marketplace buffet was average. There is no beverage service in the buffet area like on Princess. They don't do anything extra in the evening to make dinner a little more special. The line for stir fried was always long and wasn't worth the wait. We bought a coke pass which was too expensive. $66 for a 9 night cruise. And it didn't include the drink tumbler like on Royal Caribbean and Princess. In hindsight, we shouldn't have bought the drink pass because we didn't come close to drinking $66 worth. Also, they only serve can drinks. We prefer fountain drinks on Princess. We were surprised that there wasn't an opening night show on the first night. We had dinner most nights in the your time dining area. The service was fine, but the cruise director interrupted our dinner every night for ridiculous announcements or letting us know someone hadn't made it back on board. Who cares! let's go to the next port. They'll only miss the ship one time before they'll learn. Also, every night the staff in the dining room had to do a song and dance routine which I suppose for some people, that was cute, but for us, it was an interruption to good conversation with fellow passengers.

The complementary pasta bar at lunch in the Italian restaurant at the back of the ship was good but it was right under the basketball court. So during lunch you heard constant banging of players and basketballs while you ate. They says the basketballs are not available in the evening during dinner, but you still will hear kids running around. Could have been a better way to isolate the noise. Read more