This was a 6 night cruise which sailed from Ft. Lauderdale to half moon cay, Grand Turk and Amber Cove. This was our first carnival cruise only sailing with Norwegian previously. To start the first views of the ship from the outside compared to the others at the port was somewhat disappointing. It was absolutely the worst appearing cruise ship out of the other 4. Large amounts of rust was noted throughout the ship and below anchor. It did not have much of a wow factor.
Cabin: We had a balcony room on the 9th floor. The room was nice, beds slept great. I appreciated the bathroom seemed a little larger than a previous cruise I had been on. I requested a fan and one was delivered to the room the first evening. Our stateroom steward was great. Overall we really enjoyed our cabin.
Food & Drinks: Overall the food was great. The downside however pretty much any place you went had long lines. I had sailed on a Norwegian cruise before and enjoyed the several sit down dining options that came with your fare. I was unaware that carnival mainly has walk up dining. With the only sit down dining being the main dining rooms (2) I was really excited to eat at the Mongolian Wok thinking it was a sit down restaurant to only find it was a walk up place. Guys burger, guys pig and anchor, blue iguanna cantina, and the main dining rooms all had really great food. I however wasn't too impressed with the Lido marketplace. Food was bland and wasn't very many options compared to the buffet of a Norwegian cruise. We purchased the soda package but found it hard to get our moneys worth as you had to wait in the bar lines to get soda since there weren't any drink options at the walk up food places. So you would end up waiting in 2 separate lines for food and drinks. I also was somewhat surprised that our prepaid gratuities didn't go towards alcohol purchases.