This cruise was an anniversary gift from my wife, our fourth cruise together, all aboard Carnival Cruise Lines, and all leaving from Galveston, Texas. She chose this cruise because neither of us had ever been to Key West or the Bahamas so the destinations were high on our priority list. They cancelled the Key West stop a few weeks before we left. I know it wasn't Carnival's fault, but it wasn't ours either, and Carnival did nothing to mitigate our loss. We were extremely disappointed as we had a parasailing excursion booked and that was a bucket list item for us. Of course we got our money back, but it's not always about the money.

We had a balcony stateroom on the Spa Deck and it was fantastic. The room was great, it was our first time with a balcony and now we may never not get one again. We had room service every morning and drank coffee, croissants, and Danish on the balcony, it was wonderful. We love a great Spa and the Cloud 9 Spa may have been one of the best we've seen. The saunas, steam rooms, aroma therapy rooms, and whirlpools were our favorite part of the cruise. The Spa staff were friendly and knowledgeable, and the masseuses' were very good. My wife had three separate massages, I had one. Of course it costs more than the massage down the street in your town, but your on a cruise, don't forget to pamper yourself a little bit. Our steward's name was Bridgette, he deserves a medal. I graded him an A+. (I should add here that we only had a bad experience with staterooms on Carnival Lines once, because the bed was too hard.) The bed in our room was really great, I slept great almost every night.

The food was very good throughout the ship, I give it an A-. We enjoyed going to dinner in the Crimson. Made, and his crew treated us like gold. I also enjoyed the buffet as you can get the same food as in the Crimson each night but it's less formal and much more relaxed. Guy Fieri's burger Joint was fantastic, I had one almost every day. Fieri also has a BBQ stand on board and it's very good as well. It seemed like they were hiding the pasta restaurant, but we found it and were glad we did, be sure to get lunch there at leas once, a solid A. Read more