Well this was my first cruise. I mainly picked this cruise because it fell at the right time, and was pretty cheap. We flew into Ft. Lauderdale from Detroit the morning of the cruise. We found that flying into Ft. Lauderdale was over $200 cheaper, then flying into Miami. We had the Carnival Shuttle take us down to the port of Miami.

Embarkation, I thought was simple and fast. We stood in a line for about 20 minutes before having our tickets checked. We then proceeded through some hallways and went to a table to pick up our room key and sign & sail card. We then proceeded through some more hallways, and checkpoints, before we were finally on the ship.

I pretty much knew where most everything was, as I had researched the ships deck plains before-hand on the internet. Our first stop was the pool deck to purchase the fountain card for $22, for unlimited soda pop for the remainder of the cruise. After we got the card we went to have some lunch. After this we went to our room, which by now was cleaned and ready, and waited for our luggage, which took around 30 minutes to arrive. We then waited more until the Muster drill started. Read more