A great boat, but lacking in some areas.

Cruises: 4-6 cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 29

Review summary

The boat is awesome. Of the 4 cruises I have gone on, this boat was the best. The main theater was 3 stories high and had stadium seating. This was a refreshing change from the low ceiling, flat theaters on other ships I've been on. The entertainment in the theater, was however pretty poor. It seemed like the performers (singers and dancers in the productions shows) were very new. They were out of sync on their dancing and there was really no storyline to any of the performances. There was only 1 male and 1 femaile singer...none of the other dancers did any singing or speaking. It was just a compilation of songs with (poorly) coreographed dancing. After the first few songs of each performance, it got very boring and more of the same. There was a comedy club where they had about 4 different commedians that performed nearly every night several shows. I only attended the family friendly shows, but none of them were "great". They each got a few good laughs out of me, but overall weren't very funny. One of the cool things on the boat was the Karaoke with a live band. That was a cool experience. The band was good and made the Karaoke experience much better than those MIDI players I've seen on other cruises. The buffets were all very poor. The selection was slim and none of the hot food was very good. Fruit also was not as fresh as other cruises I've been on. The food in the main dining room was good for dinner (again, not as good as other cruise lines, but still, I did not have any bad meals for dinner). Breakfast and lunch were just average. The service on the ship was good, but again not as "Outstanding" as say Royal Caribbean or others. Waiter/Attendants paid special attention to our young children, which was nice, and they were very accommodating with special food orders, but I've been spoiled in the past where waiters would seed the lemons they put on the table and just go the extra mile in about every aspect. This ship had the nicest, biggest staterooms of any cruise I've been on. We had outside rooms on floor 1 (about the cheapest you can get) and they were awesome. They had a king bed and a couch/bed. With my wife and 2 children, we were very comfortable in the room. We also sailed with my parents who got an adjoining room...this was awesome! The kids stayed in our room, but we kept the doors open between the rooms open when we wanted to go out and they could hear them if they stirred after asleep. This allowed my wife and I to go out without the kids at night and let Grandma watch them from the next room. I wasn't crazy about the itinerary. We had 2 days at sea, then 3 days in a row at ports, then another day at sea. I would have preferred 1 day at sea, 1 day at port, next day at sea, etc. It is true what they say, Carnival is targeted at the younger, party croud. Some of the production shows had only 1 showtime for the day...10PM. We didn't end up going to any of those late shows, because 1: The shows weren't that good, and 2: It was too late for kids or old people. We did see a lot of old people on the cruise, but I suspect it was due to the price or convenience of the port and they probably did not get to enjoy the full "Cruise" experience. Overall, this was a great cruise and I have no MAJOR complaints. We had fun, the room was kept clea, the ports were great.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

Entertainment

Children's Programs

Service and Staff

Ship Quality

Cabin / Stateroom

Ports of call

Cozumel, Mexico

Montego Bay, Jamaica

George Town, Grand Cayman