On the whole, a very good time!

For the most part, everything was good regarding both the cruise and the ship.  Nice cabin (I actually approached this part with some trepidation - we obtained our cabin through a BOGO promotion with an outside company, ended up on the lowest deck, as far aft as possible without getting wet, but we decided to give it a try as an experiment), GREAT service (cabin steward, main dining room team, Alchemy Bar).

We were not concerned when Carnival changed our ship (originally booked on Valor, which was sent to Galveston when Liberty's engines could not handle the longer distance) in November or even when they flip-flopped our port days (could have been for any number of reasons), since they even transferred our shore excursion to the correct day.  

Then we got an email notifying us that our shore excursion (a Bahamian Brewery Tour and Tasting) was cancelled "due to ." (not a typo, that's actually what it said!). One of our party called the brewery to see if we could re-book directly with them (thinking maybe Carnival had an issue with the tour people or brewery) and that's when we were told that the day of our scheduled excursion was Bahamian Referendum Day (basically, their election day) and they were not allowed to sell alcoholic beverages until after 6:00 PM (scheduled departure time - 5:00 PM)!  I called Carnival at that point to see if businesses in the harbor area were exempted from this (no) and if on-board sales would be affected (also no).  What surprised and bothered me a little bit about this was that there were no emails from Carnival advising passengers about this, there were no changes to the excursion booklet provided when we boarded, and no announcement of this fact was made until we arrived in Freeport!  I wonder how many passengers planned an outing to Senor Frog's and other establishments, only to find out no drinks were being served?

Long story short (I know, too late for that), this was really my only complaint (kind of exacerbated when I read that the same thing happened on Carnival Sunshine at a different port, again with no announcement until the morning arrival).  I just think Carnival should make passengers aware of this ahead of time.