This was my 2nd Carnival cruise, with my first time on the Inspiration. We were 3 thirty-somethings on a girl's trip. It was The Hampton Girl's and my first girl's trip. It turned out to be a really relaxing cruise. We didn't party as much as I thought we would. I thought we'd be dancing every night, simply because Marathon Girl loves to dance. We never once hit the dance club. We gambled, watched the shows, drank like fishes and ate like pigs.

EMBARKATION:

Getting to Tampa was a little hairy. The girls decided to drive from Atlanta to Tampa the day of the cruise. We left at 4am praying that the wild fires wouldn't shut down I-75. To make matters worse, The Hampton Girl came down with a 24-hour stomach bug the afternoon before we left for the cruise (She threw-up for the last time a 4:30am before getting in the car to drive down to Tampa) and Marathon Girl was getting over bronchitis. Lovely. I was the only non-sick one to start the cruise. We drove the 6 1/2 hours to get to Tampa with no problems, I was worried about the fires closing down I-75, but we were lucky. The Hampton Girl slept the whole way there, poor sick chicky. Read more