We drove from Georgia the day before boarding the Legend. We spent the night at the Tampa/Brandon Fairfield Inn. It was a very nice hotel with the most extensive breakfast I've ever seen in such a hotel! Then a short drive of 10 minutes to drop bags off at Pier 2, park the car and get in line to board. I had booked a balcony cabin, but only a balcony guarantee, and as of the day before we left for Florida the Carnival web-site was still telling me my cabin was TBA. In retrospect I'm sure if I'd phoned Carnival they probably would have given me the cabin assignment, but I kind of enjoyed the suspense. My luggage tags that I printed out said VIP on them which surprised me. I've only sailed Carnival once before. So when we entered the area for check-in I bypassed the long snaking lines and went to the VIP check-in. Two very nice ladies helped us and after giving us our cabin number and cards one of them walked us to the embarkation point. Walked on the ship at 1 pm.

Once I got to our cabin I realized that I'd somehow been upgraded to a suite. The room was lovely and it had a bathtub! I knew the balcony rooms only had showers. There were beautiful glass lamps in the cabin, glass bases and glass shades; they looked like Murano glass. The bathroom counters were granite or marble. There was lots of storage space. Our cabin steward was wonderful. I had purchased some wine from Carnival beforehand and he made sure we had a large bucket to chill our wine every day. He would come into the cabin at least three times a day and replenish the ice bucket!

We went up to the Unicorn Cafe for lunch. I have cruised on Holland America, Royal Caribbean and lots of river cruises. Carnival Legend had the best food I've had on a cruise ship and by far the best staff in the Unicorn Cafe. There were many tables for two, so many that we only shared a table once on the whole cruise. The staff clean the tables so fast that you never have to search for a clean table. The staff is so quick and dedicated that if you had some fruit for breakfast, the minute your bowl was empty someone would ask politely if you were finished and remove the plate, so when you went to get your next course you never had to look around to see where to put your used plate. A trolley with coffee, tea, lemonade, water etc. was wheeled around at both breakfast and lunch so you would not have even needed to get your beverage yourself if you didn't want to. I don't know if the space in the Unicorn Cafe was larger than RCI's Windjammer, but I do know the tables were cleaned so fast that you never had to search for a table. Read more