Arrived at JaxPort around 1:50 and didn't know we needed the ticket and ID to park at the port. We saw the $8/day parking and I would say we would much rather spend the extra $4/day to have the convenience of being closer. Dropped our luggage and paid to park. It was 2:05 after parking and we got in our first of many lines for the 5 day trip. It took roughly 20 minutes to get through security. The first thing I thought of when we got in this line is that the clientele of this ship is like that of Wal-Mart. I had read a review somewhere that it’s as if Carinval drove a tour bus to a Wal-Mart at 7pm on a weekday and the driver got out to say, “Hey, anyone want to go on a cruise?” And the whole store boarded. Those are the people you’re cruising with. At 2:25 we got in the check-in line. As anxious and hungry as I was, I regretted not purchasing the FTTF pass. If I could do one thing different, I would have done FTTF. We made it on the ship promptly at 3:00. This is where it sucked because the first announcement we heard was about the food lines closing due to the Safety Briefing. We were introduced to Reynoldo, our room steward. As with many reviewers, we were very pleased with his service. Always answered our questions and provided anything or support we needed. Our electric socket went out and he had maintenance to our cabin within 5 minutes.

At 3:30 the safety briefing was a well organized charade. After getting a bite on the Lido deck around 4:30 because of the massive lines, we headed to the Camp Carnival Orientation. We totally felt like camp carnival was a cluster F. Too loud at the orientation, we really just needed to know our kids were registered and found out that they couldn’t be in the same group even though they were 4 and 7. It turned out to not really matter, because we didn’t use it as often as I had initially planned.

Went to the water slides. We liked them and the kids had fun. There are 3 main slides. The big yellow one that curves over the ocean and the steep blue ones. Both of those you have to be 42 inches. Then there is the small blue ones for small kids. My 4 year old loved those and was on them the whole trip. My 7 year old liked the big blue ones but was afraid of the yellow one. I loved the yellow one. Read more