Which Carnival ship was or is your best experience and why

That is a great place to eat.

My favorites were the Fantasy class ships. I thoroughly enjoyed the aft dining area outside the buffet every morning for breakfast. I'm an early riser and that space was perfect for me.

I can't wait you have just solidified my desire to go to alaska Sept can't come quick enough

We live on the balcony during Alaskan sailings, no matter the weather. We make use of the ship-provided blankets & binoculars and do major wildlife and glacier watching. The amazing things we've seen from our balcony are too numerous for this post. And yes, you can see them from the public spaces, but why when you can have an entire balcony to yourself w/no elbows, head blocking the great views, etc.

Of course, we were spoiled on our first Alaskan cruise, which also happened to be our first HAL cruise. They messed up the booking which resulted in us losing our cabin after we were PIF. So, they offered to move us to a corner aft suite (Neptune) with a wraparound balcony at no additional charge, gave us OBC and let us add a 3rd person at no charge (just taxes & port fees, of course). That also came w/priority boarding, Pinnacle breakfast, access to Concierge Lounge and all the other wonderful Neptune suite perks. Hard to go back to a regular balcony after that, but we have managed. And I went on a tangent..

Aft Balcony for Alaska if you can. If not, any balcony will be awesome, just be sure you use it, it will enhance your visit to God's Country.

Holiday was my very first cruise!! 1990s. Was on the ship Christmas day and New Years day. We had an Oceanview cabin down at water level- sat in the window watching dolphins play. It was awesome!!

No water slides, no race cars, no rock climbing walls - it was Heaven!

Carnival Legend- one of the smaller ships in the fleet but a dandy. Enjoyed everything about cruising on this ship and hope to cruise on her again one day.

It's Carnival Destiny. My first cruise and solo and I had plans to get up the morning of boarding, cancelling the cruise and spending a week with friend in the Keys. However, once I saw the ship, I fell in love with my first!

My first cabin was a balcony room and every cruise since has been a suite.

Exactly. We are on the opposite end of the spectrum, the smaller the ship the better for us. We both dislike flying, and hanging around airports; and not being foodies we eat in the buffet, (just about the only exceptions are if/when friends want us to come to the dining room...which we occasionally do under silent protest), we could care less about entertainment/casinos, yadda yadda yadda.

Our criteria are price/ports visited, and departure dates, all else, for us, is noise. Thankfully we appear to be in the minority which minimizes the competition.

First ship was the Festivale back in the 90s. Since then, I've been on the Holiday, Imagination, Freedom, Conquest, Glory, Sunshine, Liberty, Magic and Mardi Gras.

The best cruise overall has been on the Mardi Gras. Dining rooms that are typically extra cost were included at no charge, so we had a wide variety of venues to choose from for dinner. The quality of the shows in the secondary "center stage" area were truly outstanding. Also, the ship was so big that even after 7 days, we felt we hadn't seen it all. I can understand that the big ships aren't for everyone, but for us there's just no comparison between an Excel class ship and all of the others.

As far as cabin selection goes, we always book either an oceanview or balcony. The oceanview cabins on Carnival are a bit larger than the inside cabins. We book a balcony when we can get a good deal, but good deals on balconies have been getting difficult to find, often being double the rate of an oceanview.

I agree with everyone!. There are times that the wife and I book suites and want that extra space to include priority boarding, free washing, and drying, plus the view! On the other hand, we booked interior rooms because the cruise was short and the price was amazingly perfect. That comes from my wife's casino deals.