Big fan of Carnival, but they have some improvements to make.

I rate the cruise 3 1/2 stars.  I'll start with the major improvements needed and work my way down:

1 - La Romana is not a great port of call.  It is not very well organized and you felt hassled at every single turn.  I did not book my excursion with Carnival, based on some other reviews I found online, I booked an excursion with Seavis Tours.  The excursion itself was excellent, but coming back to the port from the beach was just nuts. Between the kids asking for money and the pushy vendors it was beyond annoying.  A lot of people missed out on seeing this beautiful island, because they were afraid of the port.

2 - I don't know much about how the ports work, so this next issue may be out of Carnival's control: time in Aruba not long enough.  We were scheduled to be docked in Aruba from 8 - 3:30.  I had an excursion booked with Carnival so I had to wait in the theater for the group to be organized.  By the time we left the boat, boarded the bus and waited for a ferry, we didn't get to De Palm Island until about 10 and we had to leave at 2.  Four hours is really not a lot of time for De Palm.  There is a beach there, water slides, a lunch buffet, snorkeling, sea trek, snuba.  Tons of activities and no time to do anything.  I wasted a good 40 minutes on lines for lunch and drinks (it was not organized at all).  There was one person behind the buffet serving hundreds of people.  Comparing the time in Aruba to having 9 hours in Curacao - huge disappointment. Aruba is spectacular and should get more time.

3 - Pushy, pushy, pushy photographers.  Being constantly bombarded to take photos bugged me.  I understand they want to make some money, but considering how much they charge for one photo, they need to back off.

4 - The entertainment.  The singers were ok.  They need to step it up a notch.  We went to a Motor City (Motown) Revue and my husband walked out because the singers were not hitting notes and messing up classic songs.

5 - The buffet.  I thought the selection was adequate, but the food was not hot enough.  We paid extra for a night at the steakhouse.  Totally worth it.  Everything was superb!

Now the pros:

The length of cruise was great.  Ample time to explore and enjoy the ship.  The skycourse is amazing - albeit terrifying :)  There are plenty of things to do around the ship to keep everyone in your family happy.  Carnival is a fun ship.  People are there to have a good time and we certainly did.

The crowd was a nice mix and people really went out of their way to be social.  Another favorite of ours was the sushi restaurant.  Again, this is something extra but worth it.  The food was delicious, well prepared and the servers were so likeable.  The lines weren't too long for anything except the comedy shows.

I definitely recommend the cruise.  The boat is lovely, most of the crew are fun.  Our cruise director Matt Mitchum was so funny.  One of the cruise activity directors (is that even what they are called?), Orlando was hilarious. Every event that he hosted we tried to attend. 

It was enjoyable.  Some things better than other cruises, some things worse.