This was our first cruise ever so we were not exactly sure what to expect, however it was helpful consulting with Cruise Critic prior to leaving. This was a family adventure as there were 18 family members in all, with plenty of kids along so we tested most of what this cruise had to offer.
Pre-Embarkation: We had come to the Rome Airport several days in advance to stay in Rome for a few days to visit the sites with our kids. This was well worth it as it allowed us to adjust to the time change (in our case 9 hours) and to be able to visit the sites in Rome without feeling too rushed. We stayed at a Bed and Breakfast in the ancient city area and this was fun. The other advantage is that in case your flight is late or if luggage is a problem you have a few days to get this corrected prior to the cruise. We used a prior transport operator from the Rome Airport to our Hotel, with the same operator from our Hotel to the Ship (about an hour outside of Rome) and from the Ship back to the Rome airport. The name of the outfit (we found on the internet) was Airport Shuttle Services. All three stretches combined cost us about $420 Euros. By comparison, the Carnival transport would cost about double that.
Embarkation: We got to the ship about 1pm and the process was pretty straight forward as we had pre-loaded much of our information via the internet to Carnival. The most important information that Carnival wanted (aside from our passport information) was our credit card number, particularly as they related to our children's expenses. From the time we arrived to the point that we were in our rooms was less than an hour. As the afternoon continued and more buses arrived it was clear that it took a little more time to get on ship. Luggage was brought to our room within a few hours. Some of the folks who came directly from the airport came without their luggage (the airlines had misplaced it). There were a number of people who went for a good long while before their luggage caught up with them. From what I can see, Carnival was on top of this and tried to facilitate the reunion of owners with their luggage. They also went out of their way to not discriminate against people who had no luggage during the formal dinner events.