Can you give specifics? I've often thought about doing the weekend Carnival cruises out of Long Beach because weekend cruises are easy for us to take and we live driving distance from the port. When I read trip reports on Cruise critic, it sounded like most of the Carnival fans didn't recommend those weekend cruises because they are party cruises. I still think about them, though. Just because other people are drinking and acting stupid doesn't mean I have to.
I recently did a weekend cruise on Princess out of San Pedro and thought it was great. There were a lot of loud drunk people in a couple of the pool areas, but there were also plenty of places to avoid them. I used to believe the spiel that Disney was much better than all the other cruise lines. After trying another line, I don't believe it anymore. Disney sails out of my home port and I believe they are the only line that does that at this point. So, for that reason, I still sail with them.
As I noted, I took the 4 night Carnival cruise out of Long Beach. Yes, I was a bit wary about it, but we found it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. We had a free week and booked it last minute and in California, we don't have a lot of choice.
The food was unevenly good/bad. Example, I had the chocolate melting cake twice, first time it was great. Second time it was underdone and barely warm. I don't care for the American Table menu format. You select your entree as well as the sides that go with it. The choices were often the same from dinner to dinner. I prefer a complete entree (main & sides) thought out and designed by the chef, with an eye to what pairs well together. I found the selection in the buffet much better.
Also, I found the music/noise level so loud at the pool area that it was impossible to talk to others. We like to play cards, and, most cruise lines, we find the only table large enough are poolside. We could play cards on Carnival, but we couldn't talk to each other while we were doing it. There were no tables anywhere else we could play cards on.
We also like piano bars. But not the ones on Carnival (well, at least the one on our cruise). The piano player seemed to cater to the lowest mentality. While I liked most of the songs (in their original form) that he played, he would change the words to the songs so as to make them more suggestive/raunchy. And encouraging lots of drinking and loud participation by the passengers.
As for the production shows - they were basically your Vegas-style review, and were repeated (yes on a 4 night cruise). They did the same 2 shows 4 times during the cruise. And the other entertainment in the main theater was the Hasbro Game show. Great for kids, but certainly not what I'm expecting for adult entertainment.
I realize this sounds like I'm "bashing" Carnival, but I did enjoy the cruise, overall and the details are the things that stick out in my mind. Our cruise was definitely not a full ship, and most of the people were quite laid back. In fact, at the pool, one of the events was the hairy chest contest (yes, really), and they had a hard time getting volunteers for it.
If you're going to do one of those cruises the 4 night Sun/Thurs cruise seems to be less a party cruise than the 3 night Thur/Sun one. Probably because it's more a weekday cruise, than a weekend one.
As I said, we'll probably do Carnival again, but not that cruise.
