Perhaps we've grown accustomed to Royal Caribbean, as this was our first Carnival cruise in 13 years. We arrived at the terminal around 11;00 am. Our baggage handler refused to check our case of water and the Capri Suns in with our suitcases. He said that they needed to be placed in their own suitcase and checked in with the baggage or carried on by us. (Usually I place a room tag on each case, tape them well with clear packing tape, and they are delivered with our luggage to our rooms.) I didn't have a spare suitcase, so we opted to leave the water in the car. After rearranging our carry on bags, we were able to fit the case of Capri Suns (From Sam's) into one of the bags. It was heavy, but it was something that we found necessary to bring since we were travelling with young children. There were no issues with security, the line moved fairly quickly. We were then directed to a lady that had to "inspect" our Capri Suns. She proceeded to rip open the sealed plastic packaging and tear open the cardboard boxes! We asked her why she was doing all of this, and she said she was looking for alcohol smugglers! I asked her how we were expected to carry all of these drinks since she had basically destroyed all of the packaging, and she just shrugged her shoulders. Luckily, my husband was able to find some tape at a nearby table and was able to tape together most of the packaging that she had destroyed. I have never been so insulted! We obviously had young children with us, and she was treating us like we were criminals. Not a great way to begin a vacation. We waited for a short time in the seating area prior to boarding the ship. We are accustomed to having ice water and cookies for the children while we wait to board. There was water available, but there were no cups.

Our cabins were ready much faster than expected, so we were able to begin to drop off our things after our lunch on the Lido Deck. I had prepurchased the Endless Bubbles soda cards for my older children and was told that the stickers for their Sail and Sign cards would be in our cabins when we arrived. (If they are prepurchased on RC, it is automatically printed on the Sail and Sign card.) Unfortunately, they are not left in the room, and I had to call Guest Services to find out how to get the soda stickers for the cards. I must have been on hold forever. Finally, I was told that I needed to go to the Coffee Shop on Deck 5 to retrieve them. It took me a while to find this place, being that I'd never been on the ship before and that only a few elevators were open at that time. (There are no service elevators, and some of the regular elevators were being used for luggage.) At one point, I asked a baggage handler/cabin steward for directions, and she just looked at me and didn't answer.

Our cabin boy was very friendly and efficient. I was very pleased with the half bathrooms with the bathtubs. It was a nice change from regular cabin bathrooms, and made it easier for bathing our little ones. Read more