My cruise on the Carnival Destiny, was my first cruise, and my first time ever in the Caribbean or out of the US.

Flight to San Juan from Boston: We flew into San Juan the day of the cruise arriving around 10am. Perfect timing. Caught a cab right out of the terminal for the flat rate $20 to the cruise port. Not a bad ride, took about 15 minutes.

Boarding: A+ to Carnival for this for those booked in suites or with VIP privileges. We found a nice older gentleman to speak to as we had no idea where we were going or what to do. He looked at our tickets, said wait here, came back with luggage tags, loaded them onto a cart, and pointed us up the stairs to VIP check in. VIP check in took about 30 seconds, had our pics taken and were headed onto the ship. We were told our rooms would be ready around 3, luggage delivered before 8. Once on the ship, we hit the buffet. (not realizing we would be having a formal sit down dinner that night- not a good idea. we were stuffed.) To our surprise our room was ready at 1 and our luggage delivered almost immediately after we discovered our room was ready. Read more