11/4/07 was the date of our first cruise. I have always wanted to go on a cruise, my DH hasn't. We have two teenage children (DD 16, DS18) and we were also hosted an exchange student in our home at the time (age 17). We let each of our children bring a friend along with them, so our trip was pretty interesting. We booked two cabins. My DH and the 3 boys were in one cabin and I was in another cabin with my daughter and her friend. Even though this was the first cruise for all of us, I had learned one important lesson from reading other CC reviews: the cruise was going to be what we made of it. We made it a great time. I was very pleased with our cabins. They were small but pretty comfortable. The beds were amazing and I thought our cabin steward did a good job. The kids (especially the girls) were slobs and he had to get around all their mess, just to get the beds ready each night. The boat was very rocky the first night and my son and I are both prone to motion sickness, so things got off to a rough start. The girls spent alot of time in the hot tub on the upper deck and amazingly they had it almost completely to themselves most of the trip. The first port was Freeport and like others have mentioned before, there wasn't much there. We did however love going to the beach and spent quite a few hours there. We did some duty free shopping but really didn't purchase much. That night we went to the comedy show and it was definitely R rated. Since all the kids were close to 17 or 18, we allowed them to go too. They thought it was funny, even though one of them was picked on by the comedian. It was all in good fun though, so we were all entertained. We ate in the dining room every night and our servers were great. They are the main reason we went there every night. We also had breakfast in the dining room on two mornings. The next day we docked in Nassau. Nassau is wonderful. Thanks to reading all the reviews here, I knew that it would be much more economical to book a room at the Comfort Suites, then to book a package through the cruise ship. There were 7 of us and everyone was considered an adult by the hotels so we booked two rooms. Right before we left on our cruise though, the Atlantis Resort had a great special and we actually ended up staying there instead of the Comfort Suites. It was right on the property, gave us all inclusive access and was even cheaper then CS. So, that worked out fantastic. I could have spent our entire trip at Atlantis and I hope to go back there again, some day. Last day on the ship was an at sea day. It was nice and relaxing. I played Bingo a few times, my husband gambled in the Casino a little and the kids just relaxed and soaked up the sun. All in all, I'd say it was a great experience. The food was decent to good (not great) and the ship was definitely old and a little run down, but I definitely felt like we got our money's worth. I would cruise Carnival again. I would like to try a longer cruise and a different ship next time though.