What made the trip: First and foremost: Carnival Fascination Staff = AWESOME! You folks are a great bunch and many do not realize how you work your absolute tails off for your passengers. You can tell your company takes good care of you. The ship was clean, I felt safe at all times, and there were plenty of activities onboard for all ages. Entertainment staff, housekeeping staff, customer service staff, crew, dining staff, you can tell your heart is in the game and you love your job. Take that element out, and it would have turned a mediocre trip into an extremely poor one. Also, taking away the fleet-wide massively wasteful midnight buffet was a good move. On my first cruise when I saw this, sure I was amazed, but I was unable to keep the twinge of guilt from surfacing. There are other ways that the cook staff was able to show their culinary prowess.

What I found dissapointing:

It's one thing to offer an attractive price to sail on these ships. It's another thing to make it so obvious that as a company, Carnival is getting overzealous with their stingy cost reductions in order be able to come out smelling like roses in their financial reports. If prices are being reduced this significantly, please don't pretend to offer the quality of food and service that you claim you do. Passenger dissapiontment has been the result. The portions served with dinner were slightly above meager. My suggestion to counter this: Order more than one type of appetizer (like a salad with shrimp cocktail). The dining staff completely understands this and is more than happy to accomodate. Granted I do appreciate not being over-served, Carnival has gone too far into the meager side of the spectrum. Read more