Carnival Jubilee Cove Balcony Cabin 5234 + Cruise Deets in the description

Hubs and I cruised on the inaugural cruise out of Galveston December 23rd. The ship is wonderful and so large that we did not get to explore everything, but we were sad there was no library or card room. Other things I was disappointed with: very small elevators; very small cabin bathroom and a stained couch in our cabin even though we were on the very first passenger sailing. :-( Cove balcony 5234 is at the front of the ship, the first in the hall on the port side which makes for a very private balcony. The cabin is directly across the hall from the service room, so there is a fair amount of noise from stewards moving in/out with their carts and cleaning equipment; nothing too obtrusive. Our steward, Sigit, told us he had to throw a flying fish overboard that tried to hitch a ride the first night and landed on the balcony (poor fish didn't survive) which is just an example of how close to the water you are. The room was comfortable but did feel cramped mostly because of the set up. There's plenty of storage, and a huge plus is that the shower is roomy with a closing glass door (goodbye clingy curtain crawl)! There is a USB plug on both sides of the bed. The desk has 3 standard plugs and four USB. The balcony door is very heavy, so be careful with that door! Overall, our cruise was great, but Carnival still fails to organize a reasonable embarkation/debarkation (just shocks me every time when RCCL clearly has embarkation/debarkation mastered) and has work to do with timely dining and serving hot food in the main dining rooms. Priority embarkation was a complete disaster with no clear organized plan despite knowing there would be 3200 priority passengers sailing on the inaugural cruise. The priority lounge could not hold us all, and It was obvious they did little to properly prepare which left "priority embarkation" a complete joke for most...actually a free for all for everyone else with most platinum passengers boarding well after general passengers. What a mess! The Lido Marketplace buffets were great, and we had amazing food at Chibang, Cucina del Capitano, Guy's Burgers and Big Chicken! The line for Big Chicken was always long (it's that good) but I moved through in about 10 minutes. The casino was fabulously spacious with clear smoking versus nonsmoking sides. I loved that casino staff enforced the smoking rules and did not allow smokers to light up unless they were actually gambling (like the rules read) and the nonsmoking side of the casino was truly nonsmoking. YAY! There were loads of jackpot winners including at least five 10K winners and a woman who hit 50K twice (WOW! Right? I witnessed her first 50K hit on a $30 bet on the Dancing Drums Explosion machine on the end of the row facing the Buffalo Room right near the money claw.). Yet, bar service in the casino was impossible the first night while all servers (I only saw 3) seemed to be on the smoking side and was spotty the rest of the cruise. We were annoyed that we could not utilize our cruise offer the way it is advertised (free drinks while gambling) because servers were so scarce, and we even had to go ask a casino host for our earned wine rewards. I don't think we would have received our benefits at all if we didn't ask. We parked in the Express Lot, but be prepared to walk all the way past the terminal used for the Dream/Breeze to get to the terminal for Jubilee (still much better than parking across the street, though!) Be sure to drop your bags at the porters before you park. I heard $53 million was invested in terminal improvements for the Jubilee. Other than more and newer seating and a ton of video screens scattered throughout that were NOT on to show the ribbon cutting, that terminal still just feels like an uninviting warehouse to me. I was also annoyed to come across a "security" member leaning against a wall while we were boarding, clearly sleeping while on duty. Carnival needs to train their terminal staff better, because it was a mess both coming and going! On debarkation, once you get to the luggage area, they have you walk down an aisle to claim your bags then have you swim back upstream against the pedestrian traffic to get out. That's just crazy town and a prime example of Carnival's poor organization. Have a question about the ship or our experience on Jubilee? Just ask. UPDATE: Cruised out of new terminal again in Jan then Feb and had a smooth embarkation/debarkation both times! Carnival is listening and making needed changes.