This was my DW and my 4th cruise and 3rd with Carnival. My wife picked this cruise because of the itinerary and I'm glad she did, as we thoroughly enjoyed all of the ports!

We did learn some valuable lessons on this trip. We were using points to fly to San Juan, so I'm assuming because of the holiday, we got the best deal flying in on the 3rd, which was the day we sailed. Because we didn't sail until 10PM, we decided there wouldn't be a problem. It wouldn't have been, if American Airlines hadn't lost my luggage! This was our first and last time to fly in on the day of sailing, from now on, we go a day early. 2nd lesson learned: don't pack all of 1 persons items in 1 suitcase. My DW packed all her clothes in 1 suitcase, mine in another, along with our bathroom bag and bathing suits and then we had our bag of snorkeling equipment. As luck would have it, mine was the one lost. Carnival handled everything great. Carnival gave us 2 complimentary laundry coupons, 2 small bags with toiletries, 2 drink coupons and a coupon for 20% off toiletries on the ship. AA finally got my bag to me on day 3 of our cruise, in Barbados. Didn't like going to formal night in jeans!

We had FTTF, so once we landed at 1:15, we got our luggage, went and filled out paperwork for the lost suitcase, then went and found the Carnival shuttle to the dock. Even with some traffic, we were checked in and in our cabin by 3:15 or so. The FTTF was definitely worth the money. When we arrived at the terminal, the line was huge, except for the FTTF line. There was 1 family in front of us. They verified our documents, gave us our S&S cards and we were on our way. We had an aft balcony cabin and it was very nice. Our room was clean as always and we had 2 regular chairs, a reclining lounger and a table on the balcony. Lino was our cabin steward and was always on top of things. Read more