We are veteran cruisers but had a bad experience with Carnival many years ago,so  we avoided them. This time it was a wedding in Jacksonville that made up our minds to try it. We were very surprised with the overall improvement. The food was excellent and the service was fine. The ship was small enough to get around in. We spent many hours in the Serenity (adult) area. There were 2 hot tubs there and was generally quiet enough to read a book. Sure the hot tubs attracted groups of social drinkers later in the afternoon. The shows were good and there were 2 comedians that used some pretty raw language and sex was the dominant content. If you are drinking I suppose it is funny? There seems to be a bar in every public room ,so it is the party ship. Most of the passengers were from southern states,so most of the music was country-western. We prefer to do some quiet dancing before and after dinner. No way on this ship! In summary, we enjoyed the cruise.We were really surprised to see how much Carnival improved. Would we go Carnival again? Maybe, but from a different port. We were told that the ship Fascination will be replaced in April 2016  

The Cruise took place over the Easter /Passover break so there were many families and about 300 children. The kids were everywhere. It was expected.

The Ship was well maintained. The food was good (escargot every dinner).The stage shows were OK. They usually had one headliner(not a variety show). The staff was excellent. We had been to the ports before but we did find things to do. Remember it was a holiday weekend ,so some stores were closed.. By the way there was a priest and a rabbi on board for services. Look, we wanted a convenient port and sun. We got it. We thought the music was great. The Rosario Strings played heavenly music!! Royal Caribbean tries really hard to please. Leaving from Baltimore,the first and last sailing days are seasonal in temperature  but there are ways to keep entertained. That's about it. There were 2100 passengers on the ship and 1,100 were Royal Caribbean repeaters. That sums it up