Getting to Miami: We flew out of Halifax, Nova Scotia on Friday, March 28 at 6:20 am. We were a group of 3 couples anxious to escape a Canadian winter. We flew Air Canada via Montreal and arrived in Miami at 1 pm. We were promptly met by Carnival staff who quickly got us to our bus and off to the Miami Airport Hilton. We had cocktails in hand shortly after 2 pm. We made a trip to South Beach around 5 pm and we were back to the hotel around 11 pm.
Embarkation day: The weather on Saturday morning was beautiful. We had a lovely buffet breakfast at the hotel and then we gathered to catch the bus to the Port of Miami. We met at 11:30 am and we were on the road shortly after noon. We arrived at the new terminal, which I might add is much better than the old one. The new one is much less chaotic. Check in was very quick even though there was a lot of people. We were on the ship an waiting for our cabin at about 1:10 and our rooms were ready at 1:30. Our cabin was in great shape except for a couple of signs of wear on the carpet. Everything was is working order.
Our Cabin Steward: We met our room steward. His name was Herve. Right away and I gave him half of his tip up front. His service was awesome and he called us by name all week. My wife wondered if Herve actually lived under the bed, because everytime we left our cabin, it was serviced when we got back.