On this trip was myself, 25, and my boyfriend Dan, 25. It was my third cruise (Inspiration 2004, Western, and Valor 2005, Eastern) and Dan's first cruise. We were anticipating going to the Western Caribbean, to all the ports I had visited on the Inspiration. We were a bit disappointed with getting our itinerary changed as we had already booked our excursions for Western and were really excited about what we had chosen. In the end we were just happy that we were still going on a cruise, and found cool excursions to do in the ports we did go to.

We started the trip on Saturday the 18th, flying from Boston to JFK then to Tampa on Jetblue. Both of our flights that left from JFK were horrible. Well actually, just waiting on the runway for 45 min and 80 min and arriving over an hour late to both destinations was horrible. I will never go to JFK again.

We stayed at the Renaissance Tampa Hotel International Plaza. It's a beautiful hotel, with good sized rooms, extremely comfortable beds, and beautiful bathrooms. We would definitely stay here again. It had free airport transfers (just call then when you get your baggage and they'll pick you up). It took only 3 minutes after we called the hotel for the shuttle to get to the airport to pick us up. They will shuttle you to anywhere within three miles. Unfortunately, the Port was more than six, so we had arranged for Carnival to pick us up at the airport. Read more