We were booked on this cruise as part of a 3 cruise package, the other two cruises being on Caribbean Princess and Cunard QM2. We knew Carnival had the reputation of being a party ship but we had no idea of how bad the whole week would be. First some good things: the staff are amazing and cannot do enough for you; our cabin was nice, spacious and comfortable; dinner in the Black Pearl was good every night, service very attentive and we enjoyed the waiters dancing. Now for the bad: the ship is tackiness personified. Think 1980s 3rd rate Las Vegas casino hotel. There are not enough pools for the number of passengers. The two pools filled with people standing in them drinking buckets of beer and the water looked disgusting very quickly. It was not what you wanted ever to swim in. The noise around deck 9 was unbelievable as were the crowds. The musicians played at top volume and it was made worse by groups of passengers with boom boxes playing hip hop. The buffet was horrible. Awful organisation that ensured lines for everything. For instance you had to queue through salads to get to hot food; you had to queue through fruit to get to hot breakfasts;, just awful. Plates were not cleared nearly quickly enough from tables. Disgusting.

The cruise director MarkQ was very good and worked very hard but the Carnival shows are abysmal, just amateurish in comparison to other cruise lines. There is only one large venue so not a good variety. The lifeboat drill was a shambles. Everyone had to stand on deck in high heat in rows four deep for about 45 minutes. Why not do them in the lounge/theatre/restaurant like everyone else??? why treat passengers like this? And why have any sort of dress code if you're not going to enforce it? Plenty of people ate dinner in vests and shorts even on "Elegant" nights. The internet (which we paid a premium for) was almost unworkable. We were given a refund and a weak excuse about the satellite being hidden from view...

We spent more time in our cabin and in the Serenity area of the ship than on any other cruise we have ever been on, and we've been on quite a lot. We would never ever go on another Carnival ship after this.