Background: Cast is DW: 46 DN: 7 and myself 35. We have cruise previously on NCL and DCL. This was our first cruise on Carnival. We decided to give them a chance despite the fact we had friends come off the Glory 4 years ago with bad review. We research quite a bit and the whole intent was to relax and get some SCUBA diving in.

Travel: Drove to Miami from Gainesville Florida. Having no kids of our own, traveling with a 7 year old was an experience. Never thought someone could talk for 5 ½ hours but they can. Every stop was punctuated by 'I want' and constant 'no's'. Also had to hop onto DN for playing his game before putting his seatbelt on. The kid is easily distracted and wants to do EVERYTHING.

Pre-Embarkation Hotel: We stayed at the Hyatt Place Doral, just west of Miami airport. It is a new refurbished, former Amerisuites. There was still CONEX containers in the parking lot. The lobby was well appointed. Attempted to use the self-service kiosk, but because I had recently gotten a replacement credit card with different expiration date, I had to go counter. All was fixed and keys issued in short order. Got settled into room and all was well. Went downstairs and arranged for shuttle to pick us up on the 25th to get us to port. The down side to the hotel was the fact the food services were not open and therefore no free breakfast. We also could not find the ice machine. Wal-Mart was not far. We parked the car at the hotel. I had to sign a liability waiver and get a permit. Read more