I went on this cruise with my Mom for New Years 2006/2007. We booked through our own TA with an 8C GTY and were upgraded to 8F. This was my 7th cruise (3rd with Carnival) and my Mom's 6th cruise (also 3rd with Carnival).

We flew in to Ft. Lauderdale on Air Canada (from Toronto with a connecting flight in Montreal) the day before embarkation and stayed at AmeriSuites 17th Street. It is a really nice hotel and the breakfast that's included is really great!! I recommend the waffles that you make yourself. It has a nice outdoor pool with lounge chairs. The room was nice with plenty of room for all of our stuff (we over pack every single cruise). The fountain out front is really beautiful. The best part about this hotel is that it is only half a mile from Port Everglades.

Embarkation Day/Cabin - We got up and had breakfast at the hotel. Then, we got into a van from the hotel and they drove us to the port. I loved Legend from the moment I saw her. She is stunning!! We got to the dock at about 11:00am. It was so fast and easy. We lined up outside (hardly anyone was there) and the lady checked our documents and Fun Pass, gave us our S&S cards then we waited briefly in another line. At about 11:30, they opened the terminal and led us through to some chairs were we sat for about 5 minutes. Then we went and got our embarkation photo taken, got our picture for our S&S cards taken and went aboard. The atrium is gorgeous. Lots of dark wood and gold paint. A few too many urns though. We weren't allowed to go to our cabin until 1:30pm so we went up to the Lido Deck with all of our carry on bags to have lunch and our 1st Fun Ship special of the cruise. We ate our lunch at the Unicorn Cafe which was really good. The food is excellent and it has really good variety. I would have liked more options at breakfast though since I'm not a huge fan of bacon, eggs, sausage, ham, etc. I did find some fruit and cereal that I liked though. I would be nice if they could have Belgian Waffles (my favorite - with strawberries or cherries on top and plenty of whipped cream). Anyway, back to embarkation day. When it was time, we went to our cabin to drop off our bags. Our cabin was aft on the Verandah Deck (Deck 7 -cabin number 7307). It was nice and roomy with a lovely balcony. I really liked the shelves in the bathroom as it made keeping myself organized easier. We were lucky as we had really nice neighbors on either side of us. After we checked out our cabin, we went exploring. The Legend is laid out really well and is extremely easy to navigate. It took us no time at all to find our way around. After exploring, we went to the muster drill. This was done very well and it took no time at all. Then my Mom went back to the cabin to drop off our lifejackets and I went up on deck to order our drinks and get a good spot to watch sail away. After sail away, we explored the ship some more then went to dinner. We had late seating in the Truffles Restaurant, upper level. I honestly forget our waiters names but they were very good. I won't go into what I had every night but the food was very good. The only complaint I have is that the steak wasn't rare enough (I like it as rare as it can be) but it had a lot of flavor and was nice and tender. I didn't have the Warm Chocolate Melting Cake that everyone is raving about so I can't comment on it directly but those at our table who did have it said it was very good (I'll have it on my cruise in September and report back then). I went to the piano bar after dinner called Billies Bar (we skipped the Welcome Aboard Show) and it became a favorite every night (Garth, the piano player was awesome!!) I went to the nightclub (Medusa's Lair) every night as well which was great fun!! I really liked that after everything closed at around 3am, I could go with my new shipboard friends up to the Lido Deck and have pizza and soda (Thank God for the Fountain Fun Card) every night!! Then I went to bed. The new Carnival Comfort Bed is truly blissful. I felt like I was sleeping on air with the ship gently rocking me to sleep. We had good weather this day with only brief moments of rain (this happened on a few days) but overall the weather was wonderful. It was nice and warm and sunny. Read more