In the past, two of my favorite things about Carnival cruises were the Deli, where I looked forward to having a great pastrami sandwich every day for lunch, and the adult entertainment, which always made us laugh out loud. On Carnival Sunrise, the deli was average at best - went there on the first day for my pastrami sandwich but never went back. The sandwich was dry, the bread was dry, the service was blah. We did get to go to the adult entertainment, which was very good, but not because we always wanted to. Sometimes it was our only choice.

The redesign of the ship, which made room for more cabins, took away a significant amount of public spaces. There is very little space in the theatre – no way it can accommodate even ¼ of the people on the ship. And despite what it says in the marketing materials, there is no internet café so you better bring your own tablet or laptop. There is no library, which is truly sad because on a 14-day cruise you will most likely read one book and head to the library for another. And there is really only one area on the ship where you can sit and read – it has about 25 seats.

During our 14-day cruise, we got to see the crew talent show only once. Why? Because our late seating dinner got us to the theatre too late -- all of the seats were taken -- all of the time. And it wasn't just because of our choice of late dinner. Scheduling activities on the ship was horrendous. Often there was something (like a game show) in the theatre right before the crew show - so folks from earlier dinners went to see it and just never left. When we realized that the only way we would get to see the show was to sit on the stairs, we would rush to the Limelight Lounge to try to catch the adult comedy show. And sometimes that too was filled to capacity – no seats. Another issue with the Limelight Lounge was finding it/getting to it. If you came out of the restaurant you could walk 25 feet right into the lounge. But for some dumb reason, they would rope off the area and make you go up a flight of stairs and through the casino to get on line for the Lounge. The smoke from the casino permeated way passed the casino – you could smell smoke in the elevators and for quite a distance on the adjacent floors. They also did not offer even one night of non-smoking in the casino. Read more