Not For Us

As far as Carnival goes this boat was nicer than the other two times we gave them a shot.  That is to say the boat itself was "nicer".  For mandatory tipping and having paid for a suite the crew (other than wait staff) was just good enough.  Half of the evening shows were good the other half (especially the country show) were horrible.  I swear some big shot in NYC or MIA knew the boat would be made up of at least 50% from TX, OK, MS, AL and thought they would poke fun at good folks who like country. 

I could never finish a meal in the dining room (not from size but quality), although the Indian, Burrito and Burger places on Lido were good. 

When my son heard that we are forced to tip the kids club staff, he was horrified and mentioned they don't do anything other than stand at the entry and complain how loud or crazy it was in there.  He was in the "sharks" group, my daughters group had more structured activities.   Although, both kids enjoyed being in the clubs. 

Rude patrons don't acknowledge your existence and save lido deck chairs even though they never come back for hours on end.  I would think the cruise line would prefer a customer who will pay for drinks sitting in chair rather than an empty chair. 

Our cruise had some weather problems, but Carnival did a good job handling the rebooking of excursions and communicating what was going on.  On the other hand, there were some less than classy patrons who became very angry and rude to both other patrons and especially the Carnival staff.  In my experience on differing cruise lines this (other patrons lowering the overall experience of the cruise) has happened more on Carnival than other lines, just my experience though.