As a past guest, I regularly get emails from Carnival, but when I saw a four-night cruise out of New Orleans for only $199, I had to go for it! We cruised during Veterans Day weekend, so we had an extra day off of work, which made it even better. Also, our hometown was cold and wet, and warm and beautiful Cozumel was calling me!

My husband, two-year-old son and I had an oceanview suite on the Empress deck. We originally booked on a lower deck and were offered the upgrade for only $20. It was a great buy -- Empress was close to everything and the room we had was designated handicapped, so the shower was extra-large.

We are from Mobile County, Alabama, so New Orleans was only a short 2+ hour drive. Parking at the cruise terminal was easy. The porter who took our bags was very nice -- and seemed to really appreciate the tip we gave him. The embarkation line was pretty fast, until we got to the counter. We spent at least 15 minutes at the counter because the Carnival check-in employees were apparently new and were in the beginning stages of being trained to check-in guests. Not only was this time-consuming, but I was embarassed for the new employees, who were older ladies and occassionally made mistakes and were scrutinized in front of us. I wish Carnival leaders would train staff behind the scenes, and only allow them to interact with guests when they are fairly well-trained. I understand the value of training in a real-world situation, but these ladies were clearly at the very beginning stages of their training and they did not have the basic building blocks of their jobs down pat yet. It was like Carnival had thrown them to the wolves! We tried to be very understanding wolves, though. Read more