Overall it was a fun cruise, again our main goal was for the three 8-9 year olds we had with us to have fun. The 6 adults mostly sat in the chairs around the kid areas and visited, sunned, drank and kissed any owies that arose. This was my first Carnival cruise, I've cruised RC and Princess before. This cruise was more crowded, more hectic, just not as adult/formal as the others. I'd recommend this cruise/ship for kids, but pick another if it is just adults.
One other thing......we talked the ship person into letting us take an 8 year old with us off ship that was not attached to our room. Her grandparents were following, but they were 10 minutes behind us. We had her brother on our room, so he was "legal" and they stopped us and said she'd have to wait for her people before she could leave the ship. We talked her into letting us take her anyway. I'm glad because I didn't want to wait for the late grandparents, but I'm conflicted about why attach them to a room if you aren't going to follow the rules??? We had her brother and they look exactly alike, so maybe that was it. Again I'm glad we got her off with us so we could get our day started. The kids would have been said to be separated! We were careful after that to make sure that the kids were with their people when disembarking.
Embarkation
4 out of 5
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
3 out of 5
I felt that the buffet was only average with not that many picky kid-friendly items. How about chicken nuggets? The breakfast buffet had WAY too long lines. There has to be something that can be done about that. The omelette line was manageable though. The dining room was disappointing to me. With three 8-9 year olds and 6 adults, having a 2 hour dining experience was too long for all of us. There was too much wait time between courses. The food did not arrive at the table piping hot and I was disappointed in that. Butter would not even melt on the baked potato. Why bring the kids food even before we got appetizers? It just made the wait for them even longer. The Guy's Burgers and fries were FANTASTIC!
Onboard Activities
4 out of 5
The kids had a great time and as parents/grandparents that's what we wanted. The water park, the ropes course, the bags, foos ball, all of that was great.
Entertainment
4 out of 5
I wanted to have a little more kid-friendly entertainment--magician, acrobats, things like that. I enjoyed the song and dance shows and the piano bar. The middle of the day dancing around the pool was a hit with kids and adults alike!
Service and Staff
4 out of 5
Our room steward "Jose" was GREAT. I asked him on the first day for ice twice a day and he made sure I got it all week! LOVE THAT! The room was clean each day and I certainly have no complaints about him. The waiters in the dining room were friendly, but not nearly as friends and outgoing as on other cruise lines. Maybe it was just ours, but I wished they had been more jovial. The other ship personnel were fine!
Ship Quality
5 out of 5
No problem.... It's a long walk from front to back, but it is on all big ships! The elevators seemed to be pretty responsive too.
We went to the free pool area that you could walk to. It was a great day, we paid for an umbrella and then spent most of the time in the pool. But our stuff had shade.
We did a snorkeling cruise. We were all happy with this excursion. The time on the island made us miss dinner that night. Wish we'd have had an earlier arrival.
We visited the fort on our own. It was HOT and tiring, but just what we expected. We shopped and walked around alot. The kids couldn't wait to get back to the ship and the water park.
We walked off and waited for our floor to be called. However after 90 minutes of only the starting floors getting called and called again, we decided to go down and see if we could get off. No problem, just walked off. We should have done that an hour before. We try to be rule followers, but sometime a little delinquent comes out.
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