Family Cruise

My family took this cruise as an anniversary celebration for my parents.  We had two balcony rooms and one suite adjacent to one another.  We traveled with a 17 month old who was the prince of the ship, all the staff were very accommodating to a toddler.

Rooms:

The carpeting in the room is a bit tired which can be expected I suppose with the number of people that will stay in the room after visiting a beach or pool.  We always walked around with our flip flops on.  The suite was by in large the nicest of the rooms, however our rooms were always kept very tidy by our amazing room steward.

Staff:

The staff were impeccable, they all were enthusiastic, warm and inviting and made our experience top notch.The staff at Carnival made this a vacation to remember! The dining staff totally spoiled us and made us feel special every night.

Food:

We typically dined in the dining room which I highly recommend.  The food was delicious and beautifully presented.  We did eat at the buffet a few times which was also nice and clean but I'm not a huge buffet fan just as a personal preference.  The pizza place was open 24/7 which had good thin crust pizza, the taco and burrito station was slamming :) and maybe I had just hyped up how good the burgers were going to be but they were just ok (and messy).

Entertainment:

With a toddler I was limited as to what shows we could go to so sadly I didn't see most of the offerings.  I did however get the opportunity to see the kids programming which was fun.  We went on a Dr. Suess parade, Dr. Suess story time and towel animal puppet show that were all very cute.  There is a casino as well if that is your thing but as Carnival allows smoking (yuck) in the casino I tried to stay as far away as possible.

Ports:

We went to Falmouth, Jamaica, Georgetown, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel, Mexico.  My favorite was Cozumel!  If in Falmouth, you will need to book an excursion if you plan on leaving the port, once you leave that area there is nothing that you will feel comfortable just walking to.  We did the jungle zip line and Dunn's river kayak which was great fun, we booked this through Carnival and hte company was Chukka.  The guides were young and funny, the kayaking was easy and the zip lines were FAST.  The jerk chicken lunch at the end was not only welcomed, but surprisingly good!  In Grand Cayman we took a cab to 7-mile beach which was inexpensive and a better deal than booking an excursion since we didn't know how long our son would last at the beach (1.5 hours...glad I didn't pay for a beach excursion).  While Grand Cayman is beautiful you should expect to pay more for goods and services without the opportunity to barter at this port.  Our last port of call was Cozumel where we took an excursion to the national park and I was able to swim with a dolphin.  This was an incedible experience and the park is great!   Not only can you swim with the dolphins but your admission also includes a sea lion show, lagoon access, pristine beach access with chairs and umbrellas, a pool, a tequila factory tour, a wild life reserve and restaurants.  You can spend ALL day at Chankanaab nation park and I highly recommend that you do!

Overall we had a wonderful time. The ports all had something to do but I do recommend booking excursions and taking advantage of what each port has to offer fully.  I loved having the balconies that connected to each other which provided my family with an outdoor living space.  Even though Carnival has the reputation of being a party ship we were able to enjoy quiet family oriented time together and truly relax.