My husband and I, professionals from Houston, TX in our mid-20's, just returned from a one week cruise on the Carnival Destiny (July 15th Sailing). It was just the two of us and we had an amazing time.
BOOKING THE CRUISE: We booked out cruise and our flight online. It actually was a good experience at first. We moved from Tennessee to Texas between the time we originally booked and the cruise, so we had to change our airline tickets. It was an easy process and we really didn't loose too much money on it. When booking we were told we got a "Deluxe Spa Gift Basket". We never received this. We spoke with Carnival and basically just got the run-around.
PUERTO RICO and EMBARKATION: We had a late flight coming into Puerto Rico. We didn't arrive until about 4:30 that afternoon. On our previous cruises we have booked everything through Carnival, but this time we booked the cruise and the flights separately. We took a taxi from the airport to the ship port, rather than using the Carnival shuttle. We saved about $10 doing that. It was a set fee, so we didn't feel like we were going to get ripped off and taken for a ride. By the time we got to the port it was pretty empty, so we had no problem checking in. We breezed right through and were on the boat in no time. We went straight to our room to drop our carry-ons and then it was time for the open seating dinner in the dining room. It was casual and very good. When we got back our bags were there waiting for us. Of course muster was awful, but that's to be expected. Sail away was pretty typical too. It was nice, however, that there was a carnival going on near the port and we could see and hear the live music from our balcony.