I picked this cruise for several reasons: because my grandma was turning 100, I knew I was gonna be in south Florida anyway; I'd not yet had a chance to see any of the Western Caribbean ports; Carnival's low rates were a bargain even for someone traveling solo; and since I was most interested in having the best chance to make it more than a hundred miles inland to see the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza, I looked for the longest possible port call in the Yucatan. Carnival's itineraries, with 17 hours in Cozumel, fit the bill. Because of the special birthday celebration beforehand, I had the trip booked about nine months in advance. I didn't want to spend 13 hours on the Chichen Itza shore excursion, though, which is what it would take by ferry & bus; (3/4 of that would be spent just getting there & back) I wanted to fly. After going around & around in circles on the internet, where much of the "information" proved to be outdated or incorrect, it came down to Aero Ferinco, the only airline offering flights out of Cozumel. But their email systems weren't working too well, and by the time I actually reached somebody at their Cozumel office on the phone, it was only 8 or 9 days until I was due to be there. I naturally worried I'd put it off too long and that they'd be sold out. To my astonishment, I was told that I was the first person to make an inquiry about that date-- and they sure weren't gonna send up a flight just for me! I resigned myself to "Plan B"-- a shore excursion Carnival was offering to the coastal ruins at Tulum, which are less than an hour's bus ride once you ferry over to the mainland at Playa del Carmen.

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I'll do this pretty much chronologically, starting with departure day, Sat Nov 29: After various birthday/Thanksgiving festivities, my brother dropped me off back at the Fort Lauderdale airport (I had pre-purchased bus transfers to and from the Port of Miami through Carnival) at about 12:15. Along with dozens of other cruise passengers bound for several ships, I waited about 35 minutes until the Triumph group walked out to our bus; this was the last point at which people had to drag their heavy luggage around. About 35 more minutes passed as we boarded the bus and collected a few stragglers before pulling out for the drive to Miami. Just as we pulled up pierside, at 2pm, a black cat crossed the bus's path...(hmmm!) Once inside the pier, some 40 minutes in line remained for security and check-in. The lines were long, but moved pretty quickly; Carnival must have had at least 30 people staffing the check-in counters to deal with the 3000 or so passengers boarding this huge vessel. I was onboard by 3pm; a Polish string trio playing classical music in the lobby greeted boarding passengers. I grabbed a bite at the buffet to tide me over until late-seating dinner. The Triumph was under way pretty much on time, shortly after 4pm. The day's high was only in the mid-60's, down about 20 degrees from the day before, and with 20-mph winds. As we sailed by the Keys the temperatures grew milder, but strong winds would continue to affect us for most of the week. This was my 6th cruise, but my first with Carnival. I'll leave most of my overall impressions of the Carnival product for the end, but at this point, let me mention a few design features of their 100,000-plus-ton Destiny-class ships which I appreciated: --Good use is made of her too-wide-for-Panama breadth-- even the corridors outside the cabins are wider, and these ships don't roll too much in rough seas. --Unlike many ships of recent vintage, there are multiple open decks facing forward, both above and below the bridge. (The bow and the deck above that are for the crew.) --Because the lifeboats are loaded before being lowered, from special emergency accesses on deck 4, the teak promenades along the sides beneath the boats (on deck 3) serve no safety function, and so, unlike other new ships, are lined with comfortably padded steamer chairs, as on the transatlantic liners of yesteryear. Nice! --These promenades are on the sides only; because they don't wrap all the way around, the cabins below aren't plagued by joggers banging overhead. (There's a track for joggers topside.) --The handsome Washington Library overlooks the lobby. It's usually open, although someone to open the bookcases and check books in or out is only there for a few posted hours each day. It also comfortably accomodated card players, because the former cardroom has vanished; see below. (Irritatingly, the key that locks & unlocks the bookcases had broken on the first day. The bookcases now couldn't be locked, except for one, which now couldn't be opened; naturally, that bookcase was the only one with stuff in it that I really wanted to check out. I was amazed that they not only didn't have a spare key, but that even though the crew can maintain and even repair diesel engines the size of a house while at sea, they evidently couldn't cut a new key.) The only design drawback is that the smaller of the two bi-level dining rooms, at the center of the ship, is generally closed until dinner; you have to go under or over that room, and the long galley area behind it, to reach the aft dining room or the popular Oxford cigar bar & internet area. (That bar used to have a card room off it, but a couple of months before my trip, it was converted into a golf simulator-- gotta bring in that onboard revenue!) I'd booked a minimum-priced (category 1A) cabin, for which I paid about $685 as a solo traveler, of which about $170 was port charges & taxes. On the Destiny-class ships, some of the 1A's are slightly-smaller-than-standard insides with an upper berth, others are outsides at the bow or stern. Mine (2217) was up near the bow, and was the same generous size that's one of Carnival's strong points, (about 185 sq ft) but with one bed rather than a pair in addition to the usual convertible sofa, and with two portholes in place of the usual picture window. The ride was smooth enough despite some strong winds, although any passenger not accustomed to a cabin up in the bows should expect some noises: the whining of winches and the roar of bow thrusters every time you dock, (an early-morning alarm clock that can't be shut off or ignored!) not to mention the disconcerting BOOM! that echoes through the hull when the bow comes down on a big ocean swell. "Good Lord! Did we just run over a yacht?" Apart from that, I hardly heard a peep from neighboring cabins, there's loads of storage space, and the bed was wide and comfy. When setting up my Sign & Sail account for onboard charges, I asked that I not be billed automatically for tips; I preferred to dispense cash myself, the old-fashioned way, so as to be sure that the people for whom it was intended were getting every penny of it. My next order of biz was to meet my cabin steward, (an Indonesian gentleman delightfully named Mr. Yayah) tip him up front, and urge him not too work too hard on my account, since I'm not fussy, and the cabin wouldn't seem like home if it were kept TOO tidy. At the shore excursion desk, I asked if I could post a little note, in hopes I could rustle up a few more people interested in that flight to Chichen Itza-- but they wouldn't allow it. (Y'know what every cruise ship needs? A bulletin board, that's what!) In addition to more pre-dinner classical music, there's also an excellent jazz trio performing nightly in the Oxford Bar-- which, alas, is the ship's only all-smoking venue. (Elsewhere onboard, in those areas where smoking is permitted, it's the usual shipboard setup-- "smoking to starboard, prohibited to port"-- which works fine for me.) I found I'd been assigned a table all the way at the back of the aft dining room. It was hot and crowded, everyone else was part of some huge group that had been taking vacations together for years, and none seemed much interested in conversation. And of course, the pitching of the ship and propeller vibration were at their worst back there.

Sun. Nov. 30: a day at sea; seas running 6-8 ft. Despite plenty of intellectual firepower, foremost among them myself, (he said modestly,) the men lose the morning's "Battle of the Sexes" trivia challenge, which the staff members conducting it inform us always happens. Usually, male-vs-female trivia contests are a slaughter-- in favor of the men. What on earth is going on here? Maybe that black cat... After lunch in that kinda bumpy aft dining room, (I give a Bonine to a tablemate who's turning a little green) I ask the maitre d' if any seats are available in the smaller midships London Dining Room; he arranges a new table for me at the late-seating dinner. In the afternoons on days at sea, in addition to Chopin from the self-playing lobby piano, the classical trio plays in the Oxford Bar as the staff dispenses afternoon tea, tea sandwiches and pastries. Luckily, the smokers are nowhere in evidence; I think the staff has even hidden the ashtrays away for this crowd. General announcements are made in English & Spanish, but special announcements are made occaisionally in German, Italian and Portugese for groups onboard for this cruise. Not exactly what I expected from Carnival! (I later learn that there are over a THOUSAND non-U.S.-citizens on this trip-- which winds up causing disembarkation delays on Dec. 6th.) That evening, I meet my new dinner tablemates: Sue & Roy from Ohio, Carnival veterans who are taking back-to-back cruises on the Triumph (next week, the Eastern Caribbean itinerary.) They dress up for dinner EVERY night, no matter the posted dress code for the evening. Roy's a crusty, conservative, taciturn ex-marine & retired cop. Sue is a real character-- a casino-lovin', cigarette-smokin', three-margaritas-before-dinner-sippin' gal who, though you'd never guess it to look at her, has 10 children, (youngest: 24) 27 grandchildren, (oldest: 23) and 3 GREAT-grandchildren, with a couple more of the latter on the way. A typical Sue comment, when I bring up a certain seasickness remedy: "Oh, I won't wear those Sea-Bands-- they'd clash with my jewelry!" We take turns buying wine as the cruise goes on. Sharing a table with them makes dining a fun occaision every night.

Mon. Dec. 1: Lots of wind, out of the north (across our beam;) and the day begins with a noisy bow-thruster serenade as we tie up in Cozumel. I wish I could phone up Aero Ferinco's office & ask if they'll be sending a flight out to Chichen Itza today, but they won't even open until an hour AFTER the ferry carrying Carnival's shore excursions to the mainland has left the pier. I decide I'd better forget about that slim possibility and go with the sure thing. I run up to the shore excursion desk and get a ticket ($79) for the tour of the Mayan ruins at Tulum, then up to the lido to grab a little breakfast to anchor my stomach. As we board our ferry a little after 8, a Carnival staffer is waiting by the gangplank holding a box of Bonine that looks big enough to soothe the stomachs of the entire population of Cozumel. And a good thing, too-- six-foot swells are a lot worse on a 90-ft ferry than on a 900-ft liner. I stand on the upper deck for the 45-minute crossing, with my eye on the horizon and the wind in my face, and manage without medication. Once over in Playa del Carmen, we meet our guides, who lead us to the ranks of coaches that will take us down to Tulum. Our coach is scented with rosewater, but I notice a cockroach (he must subsist on the crumbs that fall from the included snack packs) scuttling out from the seat pocket in front of me. Resisting the urge to sing "La Cucaracha", I quietly squish him underfoot as our guide begins his lecture on the Yucatan and its ancient cultures. It's less than 40 miles on a good highway to Tulum. About halfway there, we stop for a bathroom break & shopping at a big roadside store. I buy a nicely illustrated Tulum guidebook, and watch with admiration as onsite craftsmen on the portico create some of the traditional Mayan stone masks and figurines sold inside. (Also between Playa del Carmen and Tulum are Xel-Ha and Xcaret, a couple of coastal ecological/Mayan culture theme parks centered on the underground rivers and cenotes, or sinkholes, that are common on the Yucatan peninsula. There wasn't time to do this and the ruins on the same excursion, but the parks are very popular tourist draws. For that matter, there's a similar park, called Chankanaab, back on Cozumel island.) What the ruins at Tulum might lack in scale, they make up for in their gorgeous clifftop/beachfront setting. Our guide really seems to know his stuff; he walks us around for about 45 minutes, then we have a similar amount of time to wander about on our own until we head back to the parking area. There are more restrooms-- as well as loads more souvenir stands-- available here, as well as an exhibition of that spectacular stunt in which four traditionally costumed dancers, hanging upside-down, slowly spin their way down from a tall pole to accompanying drums & music. (I distinctly recall being thrilled by this act as a 5-year-old at the Mexican Pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair!) After our bus ride back to Playa del Carmen and another churning crossing back to Cozumel, I opted to stay onboard as most people got off at the piers where most of the cruise ships were docked; the ferry then continued 2 or 3 miles up the coast to the center of Cozumel's only sizable town, San Miguel. (The Norwegian Sea was tied up there-- oddly, so was a U.S. Coast Guard cutter!) I dropped by Aero Ferinco's offices, and just as I'd suspected, they had not sent a plane out to Chichen Itza that day, so I'd made the right decision in going to Tulum. It amazed me that despite close to 10,000 passengers in town for the day on 5 big cruise ships, plus who knows how many thousand more who came by air, there weren't even ten people (half a planeload) interested in flying out to see Chichen Itza. (If I try a cruise that includes the Yucatan again, I think I'll look for one that calls on Progreso, a port that's a much shorter drive to Chichen-- no need for airplanes.) I wandered around San Miguel for a couple of hours more, until about 5pm, and was impressed by one beachfront shop that stocked 300 different kinds of tequila! Thank God they weren't giving out free samples! It began raining, and I took a cab ($6) back to the Triumph's pier, where I picked up a new belt just before reboarding. I guess Carnival's main reason for the exceptionally long port call here had less to do with any shore excursion than with entertainment: they had a local Mexican folkloric troupe come aboard to put a show on in the big theater. I missed it at the time, but it looked and sounded great when shown later on in-cabin TV.

Tues, Dec 2: At sea. Last night was bouncy, abating a bit for a sunny morning, then building up to 30-35mph winds and 10 ft seas. I'm glad to be on a ship this big & beamy, which handles it so well that I never even needed a ginger cap, let alone a bonine.

Wed., Dec 3: There's a region of extremely deep (5-plus miles) ocean right near the Cayman Islands, which cools the surrounding waters just a little, which apparently has the effect of diverting westbound hurricanes to the north or south-- the last big bad hurricane to blast Grand Cayman was in 1932! However, that doesn't mean there can't be a nice stiff breeze: by 4 or 5am, the in-cabin TV says we're up to force 6 winds and 8-12 ft seas. I figure they won't even be able to tender people off the ship (Georgetown, Grand Cayman has no pier.) But by the time we reach port, we're in the wind shadow of the western shore, and by using the ship as a further windbreak, loading will be no problem at all. However, the area known as Stingray City is not so sheltered, so all the shore excursions to see these beautiful creatures, Grand Cayman's biggest tourist draw, are cancelled due to winds & waves a bit too high for safety or comfort. I'd planned to skip the stingray mob scene and stick to land anyway. Despite the cancellations, people began lining up outside the big show lounge a good half an hour before 8am, when the doors were opened and the staff began distributing tickets to board tenders on a first-come first-served basis; I got one for group 3, which was called at 8:45. There are 3 other huge liners visiting, but we got here first and are anchored closest to the ferry dock, just a few hundred yards; once the ferry is full, it's a two-minute trip. The local information booths direct me a couple of blocks to a nearby square where minivan-buses assemble to take on passengers. As is common in the Caribbean, they stop pretty much any safe place they can pull over to let someone off or be flagged down. The #3 ($2.50 each way) takes me east, letting me off a 10-15 minute walk from Pedro Saint James, a seaside historic house ($8) with a good film and sound & light show that's a blend of house, family and Caymans history. The house itself looks a lot bigger than it really is-- it's almost all porch! There's a cafe & museum onsite as well. I found this an interesting and worthwhile stop. It's incredible how poor, mosquito-eaten, and close-knit the Caymans were just a short time ago, and how quickly things changed, beginning around 1960, when tourism & banking began to drive a rapid rise to their current prosperity. After returning to Georgetown for a little strolling & browsing, I head back to the ship for a late lunch, then a misguided trip down the famous twisting, turning 200-ft waterslide. The kids look like they're having such fun! I feel like I'm close to the sound barrier as I round the last turn, then splashdown, cramming about a quart of saltwater up my sinuses. No wonder I later come down with a headcold! That evening, they have to draw lots to see who'll perform in the talent show-- something like 13 hopefuls for eight slots. Most of the singing talent is exceptional-- people who sound like seasoned pros-- and I get an ovation for my poem about seagoing weight gain that the 800 or so attending seem all too able to relate to. All participants are awarded a bottle of bubbly and a gloriously tacky gold-toned plastic ship trophy.

Thurs, Dec 4: The weather's looking gloomy, but I'm up and out early after we dock at Ocho Rios, Jamaica, best known as the home of Dunn's River Falls (another reason I chose this itinerary.) We're the only ship in port-- not that there'd be room for more than one megaliner in this tight harbor. A taxi for the short ride to the falls would be $22, but I hook up with a group of 10 or 11 boarding a small bus, which will run each of us $5.50 roundtrip. Admission to the falls is $10; it's a few bucks more to rent grippy waterproof footgear for the climb. The falls are lovely, though smaller in scale than I'd expected. From the beach where guides start leading human chains up the falls to the exit point is about 160 vertical feet by my estimate. I stuck to the staircases & viewing platforms to one side of the falls to snap pictures of my fellow passengers making a splash. When you're done, after reclaiming your personal valuables from lockers (I think they may charge a little for that, too) and turning in the rented climb shoes, you can go straight back out the exit, or detour slightly to exit via an onsite "Craft Market" area, where the salespeople will practically grab your arm to drag you into their stall. Feel free to decline politely, or haggle if you see something you like. There's a stand to buy some Jamaican food as well. Our bus driver said he'd be back for us two hours after dropping us off. He was about fifteen minutes late. Just before he arrived, we had to take shelter, because it started pouring rain-- and it kept up for an hour. It was a good thing I got out to the falls as soon as it opened, or I'd have gotten as wet on the sidelines as the people who went in for the climb. As it was, I got a good drenching in the 30 seconds between the shelter and the door of the bus. But the weird event of the day was what happened before the rain started, as I waited for our bus to come back. I'd heard that many visitors to Jamaica are approached by natives wishing to sell them a bit of the local smokable non-legal vegetable product, but I was offered something of a more animal nature. There was this guy who I think was working as a cab and/or bus dispatcher in the Dunn's River Falls parking lot who was VERY persistent in trying to sell me some "pussy". "No, thanks; I'm good." But he just wouldn't stop: "Oh, come on, mon, don't you want some fine Jamaican pussy? Look at these beautiful girls, mon!" He was waving his hand at some attractive female parking-lot co-workers, as if they were part of his wares for sale! (They never said a word, just sort of rolled their eyes, which made me think he must say this sort of thing right in front of them all the time.) I just nodded & smiled weakly, but I felt like shouting, "Sweet Jesus! With that mouth you kiss your mother?!!" After the bus drops most of the people in our group off at Taj Mahal, one of the two big tourist shopping complexes in Ocho Rios, I tell our driver about Mr. pussy-propositioner back at the parking lot. He explains, apologetically, that there's a house of ill-repute right across the road from the shopping areas, and the guy who accosted me must have been moonlighting as a tout for the place. It's about 1500 ft from the little pier building to Triumph's front door. Even though I have an umbrella, it's raining & blowing so hard that I wait another half-hour before venturing out. One of the pierside shops helps pass the time by offering samples of the local bottled rum-and-cream concoctions, flavored with coffee, coconut, etc. Yum! The weather still looks so dicey I decide to forego a pricey cab hire (to see Fern Gulley and Shaw Park Gardens) for an onboard lunch and some trivial pursuits (Win, Lose, or Draw, followed by another version of Battle of the Sexes, which the men manage to lose AGAIN.) Naturally, as we pull out at 3:30, the sun has broken through, and it's sunny. Oh well... I guess I'll just have to come back to see more of this beautiful island. This is the second & last Formal Night. The ship's photographers are out in force-- I learn that there are 13 of 'em on this ship! That night, there's live music in 6 or 7 places going on simultaneously, as well as one of the big production shows in the main theater.

Fri, Dec 5: A calm, sunny, beautiful day at sea. The only dark spot on my horizon: reports of blizzard conditions blanketing the northeast. Will it take me days to get back home to Massachusetts? Will I need to call my kitty-sitter to let him know I'll be delayed? That evening, my tablemates Sue & Roy invite me for some pre-dinner cocktails in the lobby, then it's in for a last amusing dinner-- half due to Sue, half due to the surreal nightly waiters' dance routine. The standout of these spectacles is a wildly uninhibited little guy I've dubbed "Johnny Swivel-Hips". Then I'm off to pack up and hit the hay.

Sat, Dec 6: With our ship tied up pierside back in Miami, I head for the dining room and order a big breakfast-- I figure I'm gonna be waiting around airports all day. Carnival sensibly uses the same color-coded luggage tags they send out in your ticket package to disembark people by group at cruise's end. They also allow passengers who are capable of taking all their luggage off with them to leave the ship first, as long as they're also U.S. citizens and don't require special customs processing. I prefer to take advantage of this, because I don't have to have my big bag all packed up & placed outside my room by midnight, and I can get off the ship early, and not have to worry about finding my bag among 5000 others on the pier, or having it squashed under ten others as it's moved. I'm among the last of these "self-propelled" passengers off, just after 9am. Because of system-wide blizzard-related delays, my 2pm flight from Fort Lauderdale left around 4 o'clock. Luckily, I was scheduled to have a 3-hr layover in Philly, and made my connection without any problem; also luckily, the Hartford airport stayed open through the snow, so I landed pretty much on time. But I was troubled by what happened after I left the ship in Miami. Even though it didn't spoil MY travel plans, which I'd deliberately made with plenty of wiggle room for possible delays from weather or whatever, others were not so lucky. The experience left a bad taste in my mouth: Once ashore, I wind up waiting in my Fort Lauderdale Airport-bound transfer bus for more than two hours. For most of that time, it's just me and another couple from the Triumph. The bus won't be let go until it's at least half full. A bus dispatcher explains: until that huge number of foreign passengers, about a thousand, is processed by Customs, none of the remaining U.S. passengers will be called for disembarkation. While I hear that some passengers were told that any flight leaving after noon would be no problem, I'd been told 2pm, and booked accordingly, so I have nothing to worry about. But that other couple on the bus have a 12:30 flight, and then another couple boards (after the hour-and-a-half customs delay is over) who have a flight leaving at 12:10! As minute after minute ticks by, these poor people are sweating bullets! The situation grows more chaotic; at one point, somebody, either the driver or a luggage loader, decides there's not enough room in the hold for all the bags and starts pulling some back out onto the pavement; one guy almost has his bags left behind! by the time we get enough people on the bus that the dispatchers are willing to let us go, it's about 11:15, and we don't reach the first terminal at the airport until 11:50! I'm just asking: what's the use or value or meaning of a pre-purchased transfer from the cruise line if there's no spare bus? Should passengers who've alrady paid for their transfer have to shell out an extra 75 bucks for a taxi to make their planes? It's not as if Carnival didn't know about how many foreign passengers were on board this sailing; it's not as if the Customs delay couldn't have been anticipated. What a lousy last impression for them to make!

Some other suggestions, observations, gripes, or "Quibbles & Bits":

--There was almost always a long line at the information/purser's desk. Some people have financial transactions that must be handled in person, but maybe some other way could be developed of helping people who just need a question answered? Jotting it down & dropping it into a box, or typing it into a computer terminal, and coming back to read the answer in an hour or so? This could cut those lines way down.

--The "Please Make Up Room/Privacy Please" cards could easily be placed the wrong way or get turned around on the long cabin door handles, leading to confusion. Consider replacing it with two separate cards, in different colors.

--For those who love jazz but not tobacco, maybe one corner of the Oxford bar could be set aside for non-smokers.

--I found the lack of trays at the buffet a bit inconvenient, but I bet Carnival does this because it cuts way down on wasted uneaten food, so I'm not complaining.

--On World's Way, the main drag connecting various entertainment venues on deck 5, there's an art-nouveau-style Vienna Cafe where you can buy pastries & espresso. It's a nice place to sit & sip & read & chat-- or would be, if not for Underground Tokyo, the video arcade just aft of the cafe, from the open door of which comes a continuous stream of audio mayhem. Please, keep that door shut so that passengers can relax without having to listen to all the screams, car crashes, explosions and machine-gun fire?

--And as I've mentioned, a bulletin board for passengers wishing to share a taxi ashore, or connect for activities onboard, would be a great help.

Finally some comments about the Triumph and Carnival overall:

SHIP CONDITION: First cruising in the summer of '99, the Triumph is well-kept, although some wear & tear shows in a few heavily-trod areas like stairwell carpeting. The gym was spacious & well-equipped, with "weight" machines that use continuously adjustable hydraulic resistance, but of the ones that required seat belts, most had broken belt locks, which made those machines difficult or impossible to use with more than a little resistance. The man responsible for the decor of all Carnival ships is the infamous Joe Farcus, "the Morris Lapidus of naval architecture," as I call him. (Farcus would probably consider this a compliment; Lapidus designed the Fontainebleau and other cheesy overblown Miami Beach hotels in the 1950's.) There's a jarring jumble of "theme" styles, and plenty of neon, and colors rarely seen in nature-- and on these Destiny- & Spirit-class ships, his work is actually more restrained than previously! It's still a bit like being inside some vast floating pinball machine.

CABINS: Much larger than those on most other lines-- WAY larger for the money!

FOOD: The wine list is lengthy, with quite reasonable prices, and some really fine vintage bottles for a special-occaision splurge. With the exception of the last formal night's Grand Buffet, where the chefs try to pull out all the stops, the day-to-day buffet fare is where Carnival suffers most in comparison to its competitors. Much of what's set out doesn't even LOOK interesting, and much of what does look interesting enough to try disappoints when you actually taste it. Desserts at the buffets run mostly to mousses & mousse cakes, which look pretty but lack flavor. The always-available pizzas have toppings that are varied & tasty, but the crust is mass- produced/premade. But in the dining rooms, I was pleasantly surprised: there's plenty of choices, and I found the offerings to be at least as good, and sometimes better, than what I've been served on Princess and NCL. (Celebrity remains a cut above the other moderately-priced lines; their catering operation raised the bar for the rest.)

ENTERTAINMENT: I can certainly see why everyone says this is Carnival's strong suit. The only weak point was in-cabin movies. With the repeats, I think there was an average of one per day on offer gratis, and hardly things most people were rushing out to see when they first came out on the big screen. As for the movies you could pay to see, they included-- I swear I'm not making this up-- "Gigli"! If nobody wanted to shell out nine bucks for that turkey on land, why would they want to at sea? Instead of the usual CNN, Carnival gives you ABC, CBS, & NBC. It was a nice little luxury to be able to curl up in bed and enjoy my favorites like CBS Sunday Morning, and the late-night talk/comedy shows. From classical to jazz to rock 'n' roll to a big-band sound, the variety and quality of live music onboard was the best I've seen at sea. I never bother with those big production shows with all the dancers, but just the staging and sets looked very impressive when I peeked in. There was even an onboard sketch artist! I think Greg Hutson, the cruise director, is a better standup comic than the comics who were billed as such, with a great gift for improvisation and accents of all kinds.

SERVICE: The ratio of hotel personnel to passengers is stretched thinner than on more upscale lines, so you might wait a bit longer in the dining room, for example, but despite most passengers opting for the convenience of the automatically billed tipping, I hardly met one staff member who wasn't friendly and eager to please. And even though I asked my room steward not to bother doing much cleaning on my behalf, he kept surprising me with various charming towel animals, including a sea turtle for the Cayman Islands.

YOUR FELLOW PASSENGERS & ONBOARD ATMOSPHERE: As I mentioned, this was my first cruise with Carnival. While I knew that they'd toned things down from their earlier "floating frat-house party" atmosphere of years ago, I also knew that Carnival still does things a little differently, the choreographed "waiter floor shows" being a prime example. Other cruise lines may have a little Baked Alaska parade on the last night, but the waitstaff leaping up onto the silverware-storage cabinets to go-go dance and leading conga lines of passengers through the dining room on a nightly basis is something else again. It can be fun if you relax and let yourself get into the spirit of absurdity. Another holdover perhaps from Carnival's earlier years is a certain undeniable "slob factor". I'm far from the fussiest or most fashion-conscious guy, but some of what passes for "dressing for dinner" left me shaking my head in wonder. And it's worse during the day: shirtless guys can sometimes be found wandering around the elegantly appointed main lobby, or in the casual Lido buffet dining area. Look, buddy, I'm glad you placed so highly in the Men's Hairy Chest Competition, and I'm sure that's a very nice nipple ring-- but I'm trying to EAT here! Now, put something on, f'Chrissakes!

Still, despite sometimes uncooperative weather, "a good time was had by all"-- myself included. I went on this cruise already knowing that Carnival's not exactly my style, but with the right itinerary and price, I might well be a repeat customer.