We chose this cruise for the New Years celebration and wanted to check out the new ship. This would also be our first Carnival cruise as we have sailed Royal Caribbean once and twice on Princess. Embarkation was fluid and the most organized part of the cruise. We scheduled to arrive at 2 but got there at 11:30 and they let us right on. Being our 4th cruise I felt like we knew what we were doing somewhat though it's been a decade since our last so things have changed. But there is so little information given and it seems the cruise line relies on you seeking information or already knowing what you are doing. I also felt the food outside the main dining room was pretty below average with the exception of Guy's Burgers, Blue Iguana and the Omelet Bar. I do not get the hype on the pizza, it is just globs of cheese on soggy bread with very little flavor to the sauce. Pig and Anchor free lunch is also terrible but the paid meal was alright. Buffet always looked gross with the exception of fruit or sealed items like the yogurt. The sandwitches at the sandwich station were all flavorless and just not very good. The premium coffee's weren't that great. The entertainment was great if you could catch it, but the fun times is so overwhelming that it is tough to really plan your day around it, so you just catch what you can. Emma is a great host though and had loads of energy the whole cruise, I'm not sure how she is going to keep it up for 9 months straight. The new year's deck party was kind of lame, even the countdown was somewhat botched. The new years eve eve party was actually better. They really struggled keeping billing correct. We were billed for laundry service we never used. We received a happy birthday gift card in someone else's name. We were double billed for a spa treatment. And we got charges to our credit card that exceeded what we were supposed to be billed for the final sign and sail total. The ports were great though, had the most fun in Cabo which coincided with the best weather we had the entire cruise. Puerto Vallarta was ruined by unseasonable torrential rain, not the fault of Carnival of course. And debarkation took forever. They start with people on deck 1 who didn't check luggage and work their way up. They got to deck 6 then started calling people who checked luggage. It took almost 2 hours to get to deck 9 and then another 30-45 minutes to get through customs. I'm not sure I'm cruising Carnival again, I think I need to cruise another line to see if the entire industry has gone down hill or it is just Carnival that is the problem. Or maybe it was just a product of a new ship and crew still learning? I hope that is what it can be chalked up to.