This was my 3rd short cruise. My first 2 were with RCI. My wife and I thought this would be a perfect way to test cruising with our kids. The Port is a short drive from home and being a "Fun Ship" the kids should be more at home than some of the more luxury ships. This was also our way to celebrate our daughters 16th birthday.

I started by checking out prices online. Come to find out that was our first mistake. I got a call from a vacation planner from Carnival which seemed great. She promised that she would get us great upgrades for free and make sure our group of about 15 would all be book under my account and I could share the discount for a large group with everyone. That never happened. Not only did that never happen but no one was booked under my group account like she said. After booking half the group in the first 24 hours of contacting us the second ahold had to wait a few weeks to a month to book. The representative called me, text me and emailed me between 5-6 times a day trying to get me to pressure my group to book. This lasted for 5 days. Once the sale she was pushing was over that stopped and everything else was ok.

Leading up to embarkation I found it hard to get any information like I was use to with RCI. I couldn't pre pay tips and had to hunt for information on how Carnival does things. I even called customer service and got repo des like,"I'm new so I really don't know". I booked a birthday decoration and cake package for my daughter. That was a very easy and convenient thighs to do. Read more