ARRIVAL IN PORT: We took a direct flight into San Juan out of Chicago on the day of embarkation, Sunday Jan 18th 2009. Fortunately, the weather in Chicago was fine and we got to San Juan at about 3:00PM with no problems. We purchased Carnival's Airport Transfers (to the cruise ship terminal) for $30 per person, and found a person holding a "Carnival Transfers" sign at the baggage claim. This was not a Carnival employee, but a local agency hired to complete the transfer for Carnival. The man had everybody line up and he looked through everyone's papers. His English was very poor and it was hard to understand what he wanted. After about ½ hr., he started pulling people out of the rear (why? I don't know. Those people had gotten there last) of the line and sending them through the baggage claim checkpoint. It was very confusing as to what was going on, but we all eventually met outside where our bags were loaded onto a big cargo truck and the passengers were loaded onto a bus. Alert: Make sure you have your Carnival Victory Boarding Pass or FunPass with you at this point and not in your bag. You will not see your bag again until it is delivered to your room aboard the Victory. There was a couple that had boarding pass in their bag and did not realize it until the cargo truck had taken off. Not sure how they got on the ship, but they were very worried. Nobody from the transfer service tells you this either, so make sure your documents are on your person. We then boarded the bus and proceeded through San Juan to the cruise ship terminal. What should have been a 10 minute ride turned into over an hour as there was some kind of festival going on in SJ, and every street was gridlock. The bus was very old, gross, dirty, and smelled like a stale locker room. My wife was deathly afraid to touch anything. To make matters worse, there was no air conditioning (except for the driver), and it was hot and unbearably stinky. Not off to a good start. We were first time cruisers, so at this point we were a bit nervous.

EMBARKATION: We finally got the cruise ship terminal and checked in and received our Sail and Sign cards and got our security picture taken. It was a breeze and we were in our cabin in about 10 minutes. The cabin was great. We were midship and up high with a great view of the San Juan harbor. The cabin was clean and stocked with complimentary toiletries (razors, toothpaste, soap, shampoo, body wash). We got settled in and went out to explore the ship a bit. The 9PM muster drill was very hard to take. It was hot, steamy, sweaty, and they have you packed in all against each other like sardines. Very uncomfortable and we couldn't wait until the necessary evil was over. We then went out on our balcony for the 10PM departure and enjoyed pulling out of the harbor under the stars. It was warm and breezy and romantic, just perfect.

THE SHIP: The ship is lovely and very clean. It's very glitzy and reminded us a bit of Vegas. The color theme in greens and blues was great. There were constantly people scrubbing, painting, cleaning, etc. They obviously take pride in their maintenance. We thought the ship was a bit difficult to navigate at first, but we got used to it after a day or two. Decks 3 and 4 do not go completely through because of the Atlantic Dining Room, so if you are trying to get to one end of the ship from the other end, you will have to use levels other and 3 and 4. Read more