So this was my very first cruise and I was told by several people that Carnival isn't that great and to not get my hopes up. On the reverse of that I had several people tell me all the great things about cruising and due to that my expectations were exceptionally high. I got more good information than bad so I tried to stay positive. I made sure to have an idea of exactly what I wanted to do and I wanted to make sure I would be able to do all of these things. My biggest things were to eat as much as humanly possible, to never not have a drink in my hand, see EVERYTHING the boat has to offer, take some time to sit back and relax, and enjoy the ports that we were heading in to. I can safely say that I met all of my goals and then some.

We arrived at the Port of Tampa around 11am to start the checking in and embarkation process. We made it thru security and checked in, in a very reasonable amount of time and were on the boat within 90 minutes with a little bit of waiting before they actually started boarding.

Upon boarding I was amazed at the fact that it was literally a hotel on a boat. The Atrium was absolutely beautiful and I was ready to explore and see everything and get my first drink! Our stateroom wasn't ready yet so we walked around the boat a bit and tried to get some of my bearings. My group brought me up to the lido deck and to the buffet and we got our first drinks and continued walking around and exploring I was absolutely blown away at everything on board. Read more