Good fun but most food was disappointing

My boyfriend and I took this cruise as our first vacation together. He had been on a cruise in his 20's but this was my first cruise. I will start with the disappointing aspects and then move to the good parts of this cruise.

We really enjoyed the late night sessions at the comedy club but the sing-along piano bar was disappointing. We have a dueling piano bar where we live and we take people there for special occasions a few times a year. The singer in the piano bar did his own renditions of songs so it was hard to sing a long to and he also kept calling up this one guy and his family to sing with him. I wanted to be chosen to sing along to the point where I said out loud "oh, this is MY song" (and we were sitting at the bar right next to him) and he called up a teenage girl who had just walked in after we had been the second group to enter the room that night.

We ate in the dining room only one night of our cruise and that was the formal night or what we knew as the captain's dinner. The dining room was beautiful and we were greeted by name as we sat but upon looking at the menu I noticed that steaks and surf and turf items said that they were $20 extra. I asked the waiter about this and he confirmed and I asked if that was even the case for the captain's night dinner and he again said yes. I ordered the scallops and although they were supposed to be sea scallops, they looked more like bay scallops because they were so overcooked. So the scallops were very chewy and there was also only 5 of them. We had late dining and it seemed like the food was cooked for the early diners and microwaved for us. The food on the buffet was better than the dining room but the burgers and pizza were the best part of the cruise! This is probably because they were cooked fresh and you could taste the difference.

We had some difficulties with the shore excursions with one of ours being cancelled but it was refunded and we were given a small discount on the next one we booked. The guest services reps were a bit rude with each encounter I had with them. I understand they deal with difficult things in their job but they do not have to be rude to paying guests who have questions about charges. 

The cruise director Donkey, was awesome! We knew that anything he was hosting was going to be good after the first night. From his dance parties to the variety show to our favorite- the love and marriage show- everything he touched was gold! You can tell he has a love for his job and we thoroughly enjoyed all shows on this cruise.

The 24 hour pizza (I hope those guys get the tips I paid instead of the dining room staff) and 24 hour soft serve were our favorite part. We were in an aft facing room so both were close to us and we enjoyed staying on that side of the boat. We also took advantage of our Nassau excursion starting later by going to the mini golf, basketball/volleyball, and slide when there were very few people on board. 

Overall, we had a great time on this cruise but besides the pizza and burgers, the food was disappointing. We will likely not travel Carnival again because it was very clear why the prices for this cruise line are so low. You may pay less before you get on board but you will pay a great deal on board (with Bingo and other "tournaments") if you aren't very careful.