This was my third carnival cruise. Most of my cruises have been taken with Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) and I've always been very pleased with that experience. What made this cruise a no-brainer to go on was that I received a free-cruise casino offer where me and a guest could get a free interior cabin (just paying $118 in port taxes/fees) and it was right out of Baltimore, which is only an hour drive from my home. That definitely beats taking a 3 hour train ride to NY or flying to Miami. In any event, I chose to upgrade to an oceanview for a nominal fee.

EMBARKATION: I really enjoyed the embarkation process at this port. Parking was $105 for the 7 days ,and so it would be really easy for a group who drove together to split that fee. I chose to pay the $60 "Faster to the Fun" fee, so me and my guest were able to move to the very front of the line to check in. However, I may not get the Faster to the Fun going forward (out of this port), because the lines didn't seem that long anyway an dI didn't really get to use the benefit for the remainder of the ship....Our bags weren't delivered to our room by the time we got there, but they were good. I REALLY liked how you could drive up to the luggage trucks on your way to park and there were men standing there who actually lifted your luggage out of your car to put into the ship. That beat dragging our luggage around outside finding someone to check our bags.

PORTS AND EXCURSIONS: Read more