Let me start by saying this is my first cruise. I read many reviews before going and I feel that it made me even more excited to go. We had a group of 10 people and 5 flew and 5 drove. Those who drove went from Charlotte, NC to Miami the night before we left and I strongly recommend anyone to fly rather than drive 12 hours. We arrived at the port and paid $105.00 to park our vehicle in their parking deck. There were plenty of staff available to get our luggage out of the vehicle so we started towards the line for embarkation.
Embarkation was a bit more painful than I thought it would be. It was a swift moving line through metal detectors and checking passports. I will give it to Carnival's staff for keeping the line constantly moving. Being and impatient person, waiting two hours before we were on the ship was a bit nervewracking. From what I now understand, this is acceptable and I will be mindful of that next time. We quickly realized that out of the 10 of us, we were seated at the same dinner time in the Washington Dining Room, but at 4 different tables. This was corrected the second night so again, kudos to Carnival.
I would like to take a moment to complain about the unsupervised children on board. I saw many parents just leaving their children to run wild and do whatever they wanted. It was nothing to see 10-16 year old kids still up and hanging out in groups of 10-15 people at 3:00 in the morning. Let's talk about the food on the ship. On a scale of 1-10, I would give it a solid 9. Everything I had was wonderful, I can only complain that some of the food at dinner never changed, especially the chocolate melting cake, which I believe I was the only person on the ship who was a fan. We had two VERY professional waiters, what they lacked in personality they made up for in their service. I never ate at Scarlett's restaurant so no reviews on that. I was a huge fan of the 24 pizza and ice cream. We did purchase the $46 fountain card on the first day which paid plenty of dividends. For those who don't know, like myself, you get charged for all cokes and juices, but if you purchase the card, you can have as many as you want.