[Ghoulish Delight]

I've taken 2 cruises, one on Royal Caribbean and one on Carnival. I was a teen on the RC one, so my perspective was a bit skewed, but as I recall that one was relatively subdued, nothing particularly interesting going on (though they did a great job keeping us teens entertained).

The Carnival cruise was a blast, helped by the fact that we quickly made friends with the other couples at our dining table (one of whom happened to have snuck a couple bottles of rum on board). But we found a bunch of entertainment that we enjoyed (comedians, a magician, nifty piano bar) and there always seemed to be something happening. Often stupid (visa vis a "harriest guy contest"...and no I didn't participate), but always something interesting to laugh at. I thought they did a great job at keeping us entertained. We enjoyed the ports of call, but only because we chose the more off-the-beaten path excursions (Tequilla factory tour, open sea kayaking, as opposed to shopping and, umm, shopping), and once we were done with those, we couldn't wait to get back on the ship.