My wife and I take one or two cruises a year. This was out seventh cruise together, but our first Carnival cruise. At first I was a bit apprehensive about a Carnival cruise because of the "Party boat" reputation of the past. I tried to keep an open mind and booked it because of the great price.

We live in Georgia, so we drove down to Miami and arrived about 1pm on the day of embarkation. The line was long and it took us about an hour to get on board. It was expected because of the time we arrived. (We usually arrive by 11am and get right on at noon). The embarkation process was very efficient. We got to our stateroom by 2:15pm and all our bags showed up about 5 minutes later. We were very surprised at the size and cleanliness of the room (inside stateroom deck one). The bathroom was the largest we've ever had (I just knew that the shower curtain was not going to stick to my butt this time). There was plenty of closet space for our stuff. The room was set up the way we requested (beds together).

We dropped all our stuff and went to the Lido deck for a cup of coffee. The buffet was in full force. We just had coffee and some cookies. There was plenty of seating. Read more