Brief review of 6/5 sailing of Paradise

I joined my oldest daughter, her hubby, and inlaws on this cruise, my first on a Carnival ship. (I have done over 20 cruises on Princess.)

Pluses:

Overall it was a nice little cruise getaway. Embarkation moved along pretty quickly ... faster than I expected given the large number of people in the terminal. My oceanview cabin was nice and bed was quite comfortable. The linens and towels were decent quality. The shower stall is a nice size. The service was good by both my cabin steward and the Elation dining room staff. The steward, Wayman, was very good about keeping the ice "bucket" for my bottle of wine filled! The food was tasty, and there was enough variety in the menu that I never had any trouble finding something appealing to eat. The only entertaining thing we went to was the Newlywed game, and it was fun.

"Meh"s:

It may seem petty, but that silly little wastecan in the bathroom that is well hidden and attached to the wall beneath the sink is ludicrous! One almost has to do a headstand to "make a basket"! One that sits on the floor would be much more functional ..... or at least it could be moved to a wall that is more accessible

It was of my choosing, but I opted for having the twin beds put together as a king size bed, not knowing there is that that "box" in the corner where life vests are stored,so my access to the window was blocked. At my age, crawling across the kingsize bed to get to the window to look out or to adjust the curtain was a real chore. If I were to go on that ship again, I would leave the beds separated into twins.

During the daytime, the music on the Lido deck was ridiculously and painfully loud, and the bass so booming that one could feel the vibration inside their own chest! Way too many decibels, and potentially damaging to ears. I even heard young 20-somethings complaining!. It was impossible to sit anywhere up there and carry on a conversation.

Definite minus:

Disembarkation was NUTS!! Even with it broken up into a number of disembarkation times, there were throngs of people packing the stairs, some dragging large suitcases, and a few holding baby stroller overhead! Lots of pushing and shoving. It really was terrible, and on the stairs it had the potential to be unsafe. If someone had fallen they could have been trampled by the impatient passengers!

Come on, Carnival, there HAS to be a better way!! Princess disembarkation used to be similar to your mess, and then they developed a MUCH better system. You need to check out their method and use that as a guide to improve yours.

While I am an avid Princess cruiser and probably always will be, I would not rule out doing one of these quickie getaways from the local port.

Do you recall who checked you in at the embarkation counter?

Do you recall who checked you in at the embarkation counter?

Not the name, but she was very pleasant and informative.

Thanks for the report!

Thanks for your report/review.

Keith