Main Shows: In this department, Carnival grades out at a rather weak �D-minus�. Perhaps it relates t

A fair warning that some of what I have to say may really upset some Carnival aficionados, but, again, I will be as honest and objective as possible. I know it will result in some bruised feelings, but, I really do have to call it as I see it. If it offends some of you, so be it. Hopefully, it will help others.
car rental faro portugal Dining arrangements: We typically prefer early seating car rental faro portugal dining (This ship has two seatings--6:00 pm and 8:15 pm--also some passengers are allowed anytime dining). We booked a little late in the game (we were a party of four), so we were confirmed for 8:15 and told the 6:00 seating was full. When we got to the ship, we went directly to the Maitre d' and he told us that the 6:00 was full but he'd put us on the wait list for 6:00 (of course, the computer already had us on a wait list, but he apparently car rental faro portugal had no information as to that). We had dinner that night at our assigned 8:15 table. The following night, we again went to the dining room for the 8:15 seating--and 6 new people showed up, making 14 of us at a table for ten! The Maitre d' came over to sort it out and told us that we had been reassigned to the 6:00 seating! It would have been nice, of course, if someone would have informed us! Any of us--by any means--We were two couples in two different cabins. Neither of us got a note sent to the room or a phone call or any other type of message. Being too late to do much else that night, we remained at that table--and moved to the 6:00 seating for the final night only. Interestingly, when we got there, our new tablemates told us that there had been 6 empty seats at their table the first two nights and that the next table over had no one sitting there the entire cruise!
Food: One of the high points for us was that the food was consistently pretty good. Selections were varied, presentation was nice, always some good choices on the menu. I think Carnival has improved significantly in this department over the years.
Service: This is an area where Carnival falls way short of other cruise lines. It is not the waiters themselves--they are hardworking, eager to please. It is more of a case of insufficient personnel working too hard, too fast to properly cover their assignments--classic understaffing. If one only cruised Carnival--or was accustomed to the typical service in typical chain restaurants on land, the service may seem excellent and the deficiencies go unnoticed--BUT--among the things we noticed were that:
**Whereas it is customary to take the orders from the ladies at the table first and to take orders from everyone from behind them, over the shoulder, on this cruise AT BOTH dinner tables as well as breakfast and lunch, the waiters generally just went around the table regardless of gender and sometimes took orders from across the table (I'll get to one of the reasons why later).
**The courses were often brought out in seemingly random order and not well timed--often, though four of us all ordered, say, soup and an appetizer, soup may be brought to one person while the other three had nothing, then two of us got appetizers followed by a second person getting soup, and so on.
**several times they just messed up the order. One night, I ordered a crab cake appetizer and never got it. Another time, I ordered sugar-free ice cream (I always made this clear, as I am diabetic) and received ice cream with sugar (yes, it's easy for me to tell the difference)--another time, at breakfast, they made the same mistake car rental faro portugal with my pancake syrup!
**I always order Iced Tea. On most cruise lines, they will bring you a separate glass with iced tea. On Carnival, they apparently make you decide between car rental faro portugal iced tea and water. Despite my requesting iced tea, they filled my glass with water and, when I told the waiter I had wanted iced tea, rather than taking away the water glass and emptying it--or bringing me a new glass for iced tea, she merely filled small wine glass with tea.
The dining room is far too densely packed. There are a great number of places where no one, and, of course, no waiter, can move between tables. This really impacts the service--not only is it densely packed, but ceilings are low--which car rental faro portugal affects the acoustics and makes table conversation harder.
The tables along the windows on either side of the dining room are, basically, cut off from any access whatsoever--the second row of tables are all booths (apparently placed to maximize the number of guests, but also causing service problems to those tables)--and there is NO break anywhere between the booths. The only way to enter or exit this are is THROUGH the waiters' stations at either end--and, most of the time, the waiters are there coordinating trays of food.
**There were two comedians onboard, Paul Lyons and JeRome. Both worked quite a bit, each doing a small bit in the opening night, then alternating shows, two or three each in the Queen Mary Lounge on subsequent nights--a car rental faro portugal family friendly show early, then adult shows later in the evening. Both were pretty funny though some in our party though Paul Lyons a bit crude. The only negative here was the amount of time each took to plug their own books or CDs which they were selling after the show--not that I haven�t seen this on other lines, just that it could have been done more subtly.
Main Shows: In this department, Carnival grades out at a rather weak �D-minus�. Perhaps it relates to my just getting off the Royal Caribbean Allure of the Seas with its spectacular entertainment, but I tried to ignore that and just compare it to other ships on other line--and, by any measure, there was just no justification for finding much redeeming here.
Night number One was the �Welcome car rental faro portugal Aboard� car rental faro portugal show. It started off with the band doing a number, �I�m a Believer� accompanied by a singer named �Kelsey�. Bad Karaoke at best. If this were American Idol, she would not have made it past the audition round--and she wasn�t helped by poor sound engineering with the band drowning out parts--or, maybe that was a plus. Then each of the comedians did a few minutes, just a bit or two, but, obviously saving their best material for their individual shows--based on this show, we almost car rental faro portugal did not bother seeing their other shows. car rental faro portugal Then the show ended with the cruise director, Jeff Branson, pulling people out of the audience and doing little interview bits with all of them--boring and worthless. I guess you risk that pulling in arbitrary cruisers--but, really, shouldn�t Carnival be able to pull together a show that is something more than �amateur hour�?
Night Two was a production show--�Eight More Seconds�. The show was all singers and dancers doing a collection of very uninspired Country Music numbers, a couple of which were even recognizable. Now, to be honest, I am NOT a big Country Music fan. I listen to it occasionally, know some of the more popular songs and am familiar with an artist or two, so I am not completely ignorant--but, you�ve got to consider your audience--and I am probably not atypical of the audience here--remember, this is not a ship sailing from Galveston, Texas. This is a ship cruising car rental faro portugal out of Long Beach, California--and 90% of the crowd is from California and the West Coast--and though, yes, they do play Country just about everywhere nowadays, that certainly would not be the first choice in music among most Californians. The comments we heard throughout the ship were a resounding �HUH?!?�.
Night Three, yet another production show--we all figured we�d survived Country Night, hopefully there�d be a change in theme. Well the show started off with some �oldies�--and then, uh-oh, MORE COUNTRY!!! car rental faro portugal Did they think we hadn�t had enough? About 25-30% of this second production show was more obscure country music. Then, they got into a Beach Boys medley, followed by some Motown. I guess they were trying to please everybody--they failed miserably.
First, note that there were only TWO vocalists, one male, one female--the shows had very little variety, very little production car rental faro portugal value. It�s almost as if a high school glee club NOT AS GOOD AS THE ONES ON �GLEE� all decided, �hey, let�s put on a show�.
The Showroom: This had to be absolutely the worst showroom we have been in on any ship. The best thing going for it was that the rows were very wide--perhaps to insure that the bar waiters could make it through. The bad part was that the seating on the lower level was abysmal�almost like sitting on benches. Deep seats with short backs that provided little back support and zero neck or head support. The seats in the balcony, or most of them, were more comfortable, with higher backs. The problem was that the view was obscured from most of them--the two largest obstructions were the lighting/technical booths, one left, one right, and equipment, that rose up above the sight lines from the seats and blocked the stage from the majority of the balcony--add in the railings and badly placed structural poles and there was little chance of seeing more than 50% of the stage from any balcony seat. Other parts of the seating, both lower and upper levels, were circular, lounge-type seating car rental faro portugal which does not suit a showroom well--many of the seats were oriented perpendicular car rental faro portugal (or worse) to the stage and cause some to be looking sideways into the back of the head of the person sitting next to them.
Activities: We really expected something billed as a �Fun Ship� to have a pretty good slate of activities throughout the day�especially on a �Fun Day at Sea�. We were extremely disappointed to find this wasn�t the case at all. With the weather being rather chilly and rainy, most of the passengers were driven indoors and there was just little on the schedule to keep anyone entertained. We tried going to a couple of the Trivia events�and I am a BIG TIME trivia person�but the trivia games were poorly run and largely unsatisfying. One, for example, was a cruise staff member setting out 20 numbered photos on a table and letting everyone go up and try to identify them, then reading off th