I had avoided booking a cruise my entire life because I thought I'd have that "held captive on board" feeling, but finally my friend convinced me to give it a try. I figured nothing awful could happen in 4 nights... I'm so glad we did this, and now we've booked a 7 night cruise for next April!

We flew into Orlando the night before, arrived at midnight, and checked into a hotel at the airport. The next day, we rented a car from Budget at the airport, drove it to Target to buy supplies that we couldn't put in our carry-on luggage (sunscreen, sodas, wine), then drove to the port. I dropped off the luggage and 2 of the family, and my son and I went to drop off the car. They shuttled us back to the ship, and we began embarkation (all within about 30 minutes or so). This was a lot cheaper than if we paid for the Carnival airport transfers, but it was a little bit of running around. Mainly we did it because we wanted to make the side trip to Target. Also, I originally thought that if the ship didn't leave till 4pm, maybe we could explore Cape Canaveral a little. Truly, you don't have any time to see anything, and if you get on the ship early, you get to start having fun early. The food, bars and pool are open (make sure to pack your swimsuit in your carryon, not in your luggage, since it takes several hours for your luggage to be at your cabin). You can get a let up on exploring before everyone is on board.

My family consists of my husband, me and 2 teenaged boys. We booked two adjoining balcony rooms on the Empress deck. At the time, we didn't give any real thought to which deck was what, but we were liked that on this particular ship, the Empress deck is also the main lobby deck and it's close to all the action, yet not noisy at all. I loved that my husband and I had our own room (and I always seem to need a balcony to make me feel connected to the outside). The door connecting the rooms would have locked automatically so we just kept one of the luggage mats in the door jam to keep them open and the housekeeping staff didn't move it. This also helped in that there has to be an adult registered to each stateroom, so my husband was registered to one room, and I to the other. They don't mind where you actually sleep, but the key cards (Sign and Sail card) is assigned ahead of time so my key only worked on one door, and my husband's on the other. If we didn't leave the adjoining door open, I wouldn't have been able to get into my room without my husband or one of the kids. Good to know, especially if you don't book adjoining rooms. The beds were VERY comfortable. We had ours made into a King, and the kids were in a twin each. The housekeeping staff was soooo friendly, and addressed us by name. Read more