We just arrived home today from the Ecstasy 5 day cruise. No propulsion problems, we made it to Progresso and Cozumel.
I loved Progresso, very quiet, very nice, sincere people. No one grabbing me trying to shove jewelry on my hand and leading me to the back of very narrow stores. I did not do well with shopping in Cozumel, however, the snorkeling was fun and the water is amazing. Actually I liked the contrast between Progresso and Cozumel. My husband and I would like to go back to Progresso for a week or two just to relax and enjoy the small, quiet town.
This was our second cruise. The quality of the food was not what it was several years ago, but it was not bad. My 11 year old daughter had a blast. The staff was very friendly.
My major complaint was the large amount of unsupervised children who were allowed to run all over the ship. The parents are more to blame, in my mind, than the staff. However, when stairways are blocked by groups of kids sitting on them, the staff should get them to move. Getting on an elevator was a nightmare as you would find 4 - 6 kids sitting on the floor, having pushed every button so it would stop at every floor. It was a nightmare. But worse than my annoyance with the inconvenience and rudeness of many of these kids, I could not believe that young girls 9 -10 years old were allowed to sit in elevators for hours unsupervised. Think about it a cruise ship is a huge hotel with tons of rooms, one of these young girls could have easily been pulled into a room and hurt. And then the parents would blame Carnival.
As a passenger who paid a good deal of money to cruise, I did expect the staff to make more of an effort to control or at least move these kids along. It is obvious most of the parents were not doing their job. More later, I am tired.