We decided on a Carnival Cruise for our first cruise (our "babymoon"!), because it had ports that interested us the most, few sea days, and no stops at "private islands". I'm 29 and was 18 weeks pregnant at the time of the cruise. My husband is 31. We've travelled extensively, including in the caribbean, but had not been on a cruise before.

We booked our cruise on the internet and found it to be relatively easy. We also booked airport transfers through Carnival but later found out that a taxi would have been cheaper - a taxi was $22 each way whereas the transfers were $18 per person each way. We also booked all of our shore excursions online through Carnival before we left. The descriptions online clearly stated which excursions did not allow pregnant women (although even at 18 weeks pregnant I was much more fit than 90% of the people on the boat!).

The Carnival personnel at the airport were not helpful and were very disorganized. Our bus driver on the transfer was helpful and offered an informational talk. Once at the pier, we found the embarkation relatively simple and were able to get into our room right away. We had booked a window room but upon entering our room found we had been upgraded to a balcony with a partially obstructed view (lifeboat's roof was parallel with the top of our hand railing, very minimal obstruction). Our room was nice, comfortable bed, decent storage for 2 people. Read more