After much planning my wife and I decided on taking a cruise as a gift to each other for 25 yrs of marriage. I contacted Carnival directly and was able to book us adjoining staterooms with our friends who had decided to go with us. Our staterooms were on deck 5 with oversized balconies. In fact the balcony was big enough to hold 4 deck chairs and 3 tables for us. This was our first cruise and the 3rd for them. We all met up in Tampa on 2/23/08 and had rooms booked at the Westshore that included transportation from the airport to the hotel, from the hotel to the cruise terminal and from the cruise terminal back to the airport on our return. We liked not having to grab taxis for these services. Embarkation was very smooth. They had about 15 staff members waiting to check our paperwork over and issue us our Sail and Sign cards. From the time we dropped our bags off at the card to the time we boarded the ship was around 30 minutes. I do recommend you show up no earlier than noon. Any earlier and they may not be quite ready for you and there is limited seating. We actually timed it perfectly as we were told to go straight to the photo section right after getting our cards and never sat down to wait. The Legend was very ornate in their decore and more spacious than we had expected. By around 1 p.m. the announcement was given that we could go to our staterooms. We immediately dropped off what items we had with us and began to explore, and of course started enjoying the tropical drinks offered. By 4 p.m. we were sailing away from the dock and finishing up our muster lifeboat drill. By 6 we were sailing under the last bridge in the bay and heading for Grand Cayman. Monday was a full day at sea and we needed it just to get used to which way was which on this big ship. Tuesday we were in Grand Cayman where we had booked a private charter with John Michael for a sailboat, stingray city and snorkeling adventure. At the last minute John asked if we would rather take his 27 ft boston whaler as the winds were a little light and we would not have much time to see anything. We had no objections and we were off. Stingray city is fabulous and John showed us how to feed the stingrays and we learned how to get the gentle creatures to actually let us pick them up. My wife decided she would rather film the encounter from the boat after one brushed up against her. We then were taken to another area for some snorkeling and were the only ones in that area, fantastic. He then took us to a shallow area where we walked in knee deep water and found large bright red starfish we photographed and were surprised by a school of bone fish racing through the shallows. This excursion ended with a trip through the mangroves before heading back to town for some last minute shopping. Wednesday was Cozumel and here we booked a van to take us on a private island tour. We visited the ruins at San Gervasio, bring good walking shoes, and then traveled around the island to just see the sights and do a little shopping. Back by the docks is a shopping center where human statues, monkeys, parrots, and dancers abound for picture opportunities. All of these are for tips. Thursday, Belize. We had booked a cave tubing & zipline excursion through cavetubing.com. Our tubing guide was extremely information on the jungle and all the infinite uses for the many plants. If you go on the tubing trip do take good walking shoes. I wore my water shoes and the path is very rocky, boy were my feet sore. The tubing was beautiful, calm most of the time, fast a few times and just plane relaxing. We then went to the zipline and that was a blast. After all this the guide took us to a local restaurant for chicken, cole slaw, red beans w/rice and a drink. We definitely needed the food and it was very tasty. We even ran into a British military unit that had stopped in for lunch. Friday we docked at Isla Roatan. This turned out to be my wife's favorite stop on the cruise. Here we had booked an excursion through the ship and went on the Dolphin encounter and Tabyana Beach break. Our dolphin was "Fiona" and the more we applauded the more she responded. We hated to leave but the beach was calling. Tabyana Beach is simply beautiful and very well kept. We played in the surf, lounged on the chairs, I got a massage, and we had another good lunch of chicken, slaw, rice and beans. Saturday was our last full day at sea and we hoped somehow we could just turn the boat around and do it over again. I talked my wife into the newlywed/not-so-newlywed game. We had a couple that had been married the day before we sailed, a couple that had been married 50 years, and us celebrating our 25th. No winners or losers there, we all were given a medal, a bottle of champagne, and a ship on a stick. We are going to miss the evening meals and our two waiters Joe and Hamm. Each night they did something different, sing a song, dance, and one night they got us into a conga line with our friend balancing a plate on his head while we paraded around the dining room. The food was fantastic. I was still hungry on lobster night and immediately Hamm brought me a second lobster...as he would say "yummy yummy". I tried the quail one night and when he asked if I wanted anything else he brought me some prime rib. We are going to miss them and the food,,,yummy yummy. Our cabin steward, Julio, was always a step ahead of us. We never needed fresh towels. In fact when we put two bags out for them to clean up some of our clothes Julio combined them all into one bag so were would not get charged more than we should. Debarkation, on Julio's suggestion we did a self debarkation. We had just finished breakfast and the announcement came for anyone doing the self debarkation to head for the gangway. By 9:30 we were off the ship and on our way home. Our friends and us are already planning our next trip,,,,cruising is the BOMB!!!!!