Let me start by saying I have spent the last 20 years sticking up for Carnival. I would tell people I was going on a carnival Cruise for vacation and they would try to take a collection so I could buy up to RCCL. I figured it was fun and had great service, so I could live with the food being mediocre and the bed being basic......and then I had a much different experience. 18 friends on a Carnival 5 day at my recommendation. Mostly first timers. It started with the confiscation of our 8" fan which my wife needs to sleep. After 2 hours of standing in line at guest services and losing my temper, they retrieved the fan that they said couldn't be retrieved. You may think this is an odd carryon but at least 8 other people were standing n line for the same thing. You see, it isn't listed as a restricted item and I have taken the same fan on several other Carnival Cruises. My room steward stopped by while we were unpacking to set up a time for his one visit per day. They leave 1 towel per person, so if you shower more than once you are using a damp towel. On to the dining room where the waiter told me if I brought an open bottle of wine 1/3 of the way full, he was going to charge me a corkage fee......I poured it into a water glass and proceeded. The menu has changed as well and the items we used to look forward to are now an upcharge. Guys Burgers was good, the Taco place was good and the Pizza place was good but it always had a long line late at night. If you have a soda card, expect to wait until alcohol drinkers are served before you get yours. I actually was delivered a second beer before the waiter brought my wife's Diet Coke. The activities crew was good, Donkey the Activities Director was quite entertaining. Both Comedians were good and the port of Galveston did a nice job with crowd control. One more tip, luggage tags are no longer dropped at your room, if you want to check your luggage, you have to go to guest services to get tags Most of our group decided to self carry in order to get off the ship sooner. We were in group 18 for the checked luggage and beat them by 20 minutes.....