Wouldn't Do It Again

Overall embarkment was fine! There were a few annoyances for example if you want to check your luggage the luggage handlers expect a tip, and got angry when we didn't have any cash to give him. Also, we did have to wait a for about 20 minutes in line because the ship had to be moved and the gangway reseccured, but that seemed like an unusual occasion. Overall it was totally fine, it's smooth, it was effiecent once the ship was back into position, and the staff was nice

The food was a major major downside for this cruise. On member of our party has to be gluten free and that turned into a major issue. Online carnival has a thing advertised called "menu mate" to help people with specific diets, we asked 5 different people, they had no idea what we were talking about. We went to guest services 2 different times to make sure they knew he was gluten free, they said it was in his profile and that was it. It ended up being such that every single time we got food they'd ask if we ordered the food ahead, instead of just being able to say: this is gluten free, this isn't. We specifically asked how we can order ahead, and they said to go to guest services, at guest services they didn't help. What's annoying is we even filled out paperwork before the cruise telling them we had someone with a gluten allergy, not helpful. Besides that (speaking as someone without a gluten allergy), the food is fine at best. It's very much a standard buffet quality, this is to say... it's fine. The "fine dinning" is a quality on par with any stardard chain resturant, maybe a bit less. I ordered the shrimp cocktail and recieved 4 small room temp pieces of shrimp. We ordered the "steak" it came out about the thickness of 3 credit cards and don't bother order it medium, or medium rare... you will always recieve well done. The braised pork ribs, is a crockpot roast. The "fine dining" is also terrible for groups of 2 people, as the tables are so close it's impossible to even have a conversation with the guest you're with. The tables of two are legitimately so close that we had to keep our hands on the table or in our lap because if we put them by our side we'd be touching the strangers on the side of us. One night we were going to do a "specialty dining" and get some sushi from the sushi place on the resturant, however, the crew member told us that they put wheat in the sushi rice (???), this is something that we've never heard of, so we unfortunately couldn't even pay extra to get a good meal. Regarding the drinks, the drinks in the "fine dining" resturant were good and better than most of the standard bars on the ship. The Alchemy bar drinks are fantastic and by far the highlight of the cruise! The Alchemy bar staff are true mixologists, they know what they're doing, how to make it, what alcohols go well together. It was absolutely fantastic.

We are not crazy activity people, and we were still really disappointed by this cruise. The pool and 2 hot tubs on the main deck were constantly body to body with screaming children. Like actually, we once counted 15+ kids in on hot tub, designed for 6 people at most and the pool was the same way. Luckily the adult only area had 2 hot tubs, which we were able to get into once. There were just a lot of areas we felt was lacking. For example, a cruise ship with over 2000 guest on it, has 5 umbellas total: 4 on the adult only deck- extremely sought after location that we got 1 day because we woke up at 645am and rushed to the deck, and 1 on the top kids water slide area. How is that possible? "Onbaord activities" include: a casino, a pool and hot tubs with body-to-body people, a small mini gulf area on the top deck in the baking sun, and 2 ping pong tables. The water slide area is clearly designed for children, so I'm not including that here. I'm not sure what other adults on the cruise did with their time, but overall we were bored by day 3.

The only thing that was good about this cruise was the entertianment. The comedians were very funny, and the performers are true broadway caliber stars. The shows were well developed, and rehersed and we had a wonderful time going to them.

The staff was pretty solid. They remember your name pretty quickly, when they're not busy they'll take some time to chat with you and they were very kinda. The reason for 4 stars and not 5 is only because we went to guest services many many times and there was constantly a communication issue which became very annoying.

The ship was clean and the staff did a great job keeping up on that. The ship design overall is less than ideal. It's quite guady and in desperate need for a remodel. Also the layout of 4 umbrellas on the entire ship, and minimal things to for adults is silly. To get to the adults only deck you have to either walk through passenger cabin hallways or sneak through the buffet. The main deck where they want everyone to hang out has huge dirty glass windows so you don't even feel like you're on the ocean and was never not disturbingly crowded.

The cabin was bigger than we expected and the tabin staff was nice and did a great job. Our cabin also had a terrible smell the entire time we were on the ship, randomly there'd be really loud noise (I think we were near the ancor maybe?). When we arrived our beds were separed so we asked to have them to convert it to the king instead of 2 singles. They do this by just pushing the beds together and putting a big sheet on it. This meant that in the middle of the night one of us would fall into the giant crack. I feel they should at least have some sort of topper that goes over both mattresses so this doesn't happen.

Disembarkment is fine but not great. Between people screaming trying to get off the ship, and being herded like cattle it was fine.