This was our 1st Carnival cruise which I was inspired to take after reading John Heald's blog. It was roundtrip from Tampa to Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Belize and Roatan. We flew in one day earlier and stayed at the Hyatt Regency downtown. Tampa airport is very nice. The taxi is a flat rate of $ 25 from the airport to downtown. I was a bit disappointed in Tampa, though. After reading port info on these boards, I was excited to see Ybor City and Channelside but there is really not a lot to do here. There are a lot of empty store-fronts. Lots of restaurants, though. The next day, we took the hotel shuttle to the pier at approx 12:15 pm. By the time we were onboard the ship, it was 1:30 pm ( when staterooms are ready ) so we freshened up at the stateroom and went to lunch. The lifeboat drill is at 3:30 pm. We were confirmed for early dining but upon check-in were given open seating which was fine with us. But we found the choices in the dining room are very limited. For example, there were only 3 desserts of which one was diet. In my opinion, the food was not as good as I'd read on these boards. One lady I spoke to said the food on the Glory was really good. They have the same ice creams daily: strawberry, vanilla & chocolate. They have the same sherbets daily: pineapple, lime and lemon. After 2 nights of this, we discovered that the Seaview Bistro on deck 9 serves exactly the same food and they have 5-6 desserts. So we ate there every day. At lunch, they have an Asian corner which has half a dozen entrees which are quite good. I found the presentation of food in the dining room really lacking. Eg you get one scoop of ice cream in a dish and that's it. No wafer to dress it up. We had dinner in the Golden Fleece Steakhouse. It was fabulous. The presentation was eye-popping. Also, there is no cinema onboard, though once or twice, they showed movies in the Firebird Lounge. The movies that they showed on tv were ones I'd never heard of. The singers & dancers only had 2 production shows. There was one balancing act which was excellent and the rest of the nights were comedians. Not even a magician ! You keep your watch on ship's time the whole cruise. There was one guest who won $ 16,000 playing the Mega Progressive Slots ! We took one tour in each port: Best of Grand Cayman - not much here except the opportunity to hold a turtle Cozumel Tulum tour - Angel, our guide was really informative Belize Bacab Butterfly tour - be sure to wear long pants and socks/closed-toe shoes otherwise the mosquitoes will feast on you ! You're not allowed to wear insect repellent as it will kill the butterflies. Roatan West side Island tour - includes botanical garden, eco-park to view birds & butterflies and 70 mins at a public beach ( too much time IMO ) Other people I spoke to said the Discover Roatan tour was fabulous. All the ports accept US Dollars. On disembarkation day, there are 3 methods of departure: Self-assist - you must take all of your luggage with you, must be US citizen, departure time 7:30 - 8:30 am Luggage express - you won't see bags until your home airport, departure time 8:30 onwards Relaxed departure - departure according to flight times. Our flight was at 1:30 pm. We were off the ship by 9:30 am and at the airport by 9:55 am The flat taxi rate to the airport is $ 25. In summary, we took this cruise for the itinerary. While the food was disappointing, we'll probably cruise Carnival again in the future.