We were on the 5 day itinerary out of Tampa to Grand Cayman and Cozumel. Itinerary had to be adjusted for Tropical Storm Fay - more about that later.

EMBARKATION: Based on other reviews, we arrived at the port early (around 11:00 AM) and were pleased to see that there were not too many people there. You drop off your luggage right where you enter the terminal (plenty of porters around to assist you) and then drop the car off in the parking garage (if you are travelling by car - which we were). Parking is $12/day ($60 total) in a garage across the street. We then moved through security and checked in (no line). We were assigned a group number to board the ship (ours was 7) and then waited about 20 minutes to get on. By 11:45 we were on the ship having lunch at the buffet on the Lido deck. We arrived early so it was not crowded but by the time we left it was quite crowded - as really eating lunch was what most people wanted to do. You are not supposed to access your cabin until 1:30 PM - it was never clear whether it was OK to drop carry on luggage in there before that - so we didn't do it. In fact, when we went down at 1:30 PM the cabin was still not completely ready - but we left our carry on luggage in there.

CABIN: We had R183 and R185 - oceanview cabins on the Riviera Deck, the lowest one with passenger cabins. Our cabins had a folddown bed from the wall so they could accommodate 3 people (there were 6 in our group). They were very nice and spacious with plenty of storage. Being low in the ship there was no discernible motion. There was some hum and vibrations from the engines but this did not bother us. Cabins were close to the aft elevators - but we never noticed any noise from that. Bathrooms were nice with the showers and sinks having very hot water (be careful) and plenty of pressure. There was no unpleasant smell in the bathrooms at all. I would recommend these cabins. ITINERARY: The order of our port calls was swapped due to Tropical Storm Fay (we had Cozumel first instead of Grand Cayman). This resulted in a shorter time in each port (about 9 AM - 3 PM). We had pre-booked shore excursions with Carnival and these were changed around to accommodate the schedule change with no problems. Other than this, we did not notice Tropical Storm Fay at all - we had great weather with plenty of sunshine and glassy seas - no one got seasick on this cruise! Carnival did a really good job keeping everyone informed of what was going on. We did the Snorkel and Kayak in Cozumel and the Stingray/Hell/Turtle Farm in Grand Cayman. We enjoyed everything very much except for "Hell" - there is really nothing to see there unless you just have to have a T-Shirt that says "Been to Hell" or something like that - it is just a rock formation which is not very interesting. I wouldn't make an effort to see it unless it is on a tour you want to take for other reasons. Read more