Cabins: We had two cabins 2371 & 2369. 2371 was a Cove balcony which was a first for us. I now prefer the cove balcony to a regular balcony. The cove balcony has more shade and privacy and less wind. Two doors down is a "service" area, but that is only used to load and unload luggage on embarkation and debarkation days so it is quiet. 2369 is an interior upper/lower room. The configuration of this room means that there is no couch to sit on our coffee table. There is also less closet, desk and drawer space. There is only a stool to sit on. It is awkward to sit on the bed since they are bunk bed style. There is more floor space even though the cabin is smaller than standard, but that is because there is so much missing furniture and the beds are upper/lower and not side by side. This room is only good for people who do not plan on spending any time in the room other than sleeping. Both rooms were very quiet despite being by the elevators. Having the dining room above us turned out to be a big plus from a noise perspective.

Food: I thought the food in the main dining room was generally very disappointing and the Lido Marketplace was worse. Fresh fruit or vegetables selections were extremely limited. I would avoid the main dining room except on lobster, filet mignon and prime rib nights. We did enjoy the nightly parade of waiters and napkin waving and dancing in the dining room. I would recommend specialty dining for dinner for some nights, the Vista dining room for breakfast (eggs, yogurt parfait, chia banana pudding were our favorites), and for lunch we liked all of: the pasta restaurant (free at lunch). Mongolian Wok (free at lunch), Pig & Anchor (free at lunch), Guy's burgers and the Cantina (also good for huevos rancheros in the morning). For dessert they mostly had cakes - most of which were OK, not great. My kids also liked the pizza, but I didn't try that. The only desserts that we thought were really good were the ice cream and gelato. Note that the "chocolate extravaganza" just means that the cake station at Lido Marketplace (the buffet) only has varieties of chocolate cakes.

Carnival Kitchen: We did the cake decorating. It is a great concept, but they need to refine the class a bit. Assigning the station you go to needs a new process. It took too long and there were many confused people (understandably). Be aware that it is 2 people per cake so if you go solo not sure how you "share" the cake. They should just eliminate the instruction on how to bake a cake because watching someone pour ingredients into a kitchenaid mixer was boring and not part of decorating. There is almost no instruction, but it was fun. The cake tasted pretty gross. We didn't eat ours. Read more