This was my first cruise, and I enjoyed it very much. My boyfriend and I are in our early twenties, and travelled with another couple of the same age. We chose the Carnival Glory mainly because of its itinerary and size (and because we could use our Southwest credits for a free flight to Orlando!). I didn't find out about Cruise Critic until a couple months prior to the cruise, and was relieved to find many positive reviews about the ship. Here we go:

The cruise departed on Sat, March 4. My boyfriend and I flew down from Chicago on Southwest the evening before and arrived in Orlando around 8pm. We took the hotel shuttle to the Hilton Garden Inn to spend the night there. We met up with the other couple who had arrived the previous day so they could spend Friday in Animal Kingdom. The guy had rented a car (Avis) and we went to the grocery store to get some last minute items (i.e. water, soda, and alcohol that we didn't feel like carrying on the plane). Saturday morning we left the hotel around 9:30am, arrived at the Avis station in Port Canaveral around 10:15, and shuttled to the port by 10:30. The Glory had arrived late that morning, so people were debarking until around noon. Since we were so early, we got right through the security line, the check-in line (where they check your passports and take a credit card for onboard purchases), and the sail & sign card line, and then we were 2ND in line to get on the ship. Granted, we did have to wait about an hour there (bring a deck of cards if you go early), but we didn't mind at all. We finally started boarding around 12:30. We dropped our carry-ons off in our room (luckily it was open, our friends' room wasn't), and went up to the Lido deck for lunch - straight for the Fish & Chips!

Since I had been doing my Glory research for awhile, I had the deck plans almost memorized, so we worked our way around the ship and explored pretty easily. Our stateroom was a balcony on the upper (6) deck and it was great. Plenty of room. Our luggage was already there when we got back. We checked and found all of our liquor, made some drinks, and sat out on the balcony. Pure bliss. Not a care in the world. We took our drinks and went all the way forward on deck 6 to the "secret deck." It was pretty cool. Then since we figured all the crew would be busy, we snuck down to the crew deck using the stairs to deck 5, then deck 4, and we were at the very front part of the ship - as far as you can go. If you're going to try this, definitely do it the first day. Read more