Cabin Review

•Cabin - handicapped cabin 3103. I could not get Carnival to send me the form to fill out which would address whether I needed a handicapped room until suddenly, a week before the cruise, they wanted to know why I had not filled out the form. It was because I hadn't been able to get it.

The room is in the bow under the stage of the Liquid Lounge. There was some banging overhead in the evening, but it wasn't as loud as the banging the ship made when it ran into a wave and that went on all night when it was rough, which it was a good part of the time.

There was a safe which took a number code instead of a magnetic card, which is better for two people as with the magnetic strip card, you have to leave it someplace for the other person to use.

We had a refrigerator (which is good), but only four drawers and one of the drawers was taken up by what is for me a completely unnecessary hair dryer which is hard-wired in. One of the hanging closets was taken up with life preservers and had no hangers and the rod in there was loose and came apart. The little night stands have no drawers - just a cubby hole. ..Totally inadequate even for two, and our cabin has two bunks in the ceiling so it can be for four people. We had to keep some stuff in our suitcases under the bed. The worst storage I have seen on any ship.

The bathroom shower was big and very nice with nothing to step over or trip on. and there was a folding stool that I could sit on to take a shower. I couldn't figure out how to move the shower head holder down, but if I stretched up (fortunately I am tall and could stand up), I could take it out of the holder and use it as a hand shower. However there wasn't much storage in there either - four little narrow shelves on each side of the sink. No place under the sink to put stuff. The cabin steward kept putting the spare toilet paper and tissue boxes on the counter which took up room that we needed for our stuff.

The bathroom smelled like sewage when we first arrived, but we did not have that problem again.

There were two US plugs and a European plug with the two round prongs. However when I plugged in a converter plug and plugged a power strip into it (with nothing plugged into the power strip), when I turned the strip on, it blew all the lights (everything except the TV and the US plug where I was charging the scooter). Even if I just tried the converter plug, I got sparks. It made me somewhat unhappy to think that there was some problem with the electrical system.

We didn't have an ice bucket and they said they were phasing them out. They wanted us to call room service for ice. NOT convenient.