We decided to fly out from Washington DC to Ft. Lauderdale the morning of the cruise instead of heading down the day before. If we had to do it over, we'd definitely get down there a day early. We found ourselves quite tired by the time evening rolled around and couldn't muster up the energy to enjoy ourselves on the first night.

Embarkation was a breeze. We somehow were classified as VIP's and bypassed security lines. We were also directed to a small comfortable room for check in. To this day, I don't know why we were VIP's, but it's not really something you stop them and ask about. Although I must say even if we were checking in amongst the masses, it didn't appear bad at all. We boarded the ship at about noon. We grabbed some lunch on the Lido deck and upon arrival at our stateroom, we were pleasantly surprised to see our luggage waiting for us. We were unpacking by 1:30pm.

The room was terrific. We had a balcony room. Had another laugh when there was a knock on the door and a Carnival staffer hand delivered us a bottle of champagne. The note was from the hotel director welcoming us. (Another of the mysterious VIP bennies I guess) In any case, we enjoyed the tremendous amount of storage space. The balcony was very nice- much more room than I imagined. I highly recommend a balcony room. It's so nice to be able to relax and gaze out at the ocean with a nice glass of wine on a beautiful night! The bathroom was a typical cruise ship bathroom. There were plenty of channels on the TV and we enjoyed seeing re-runs of some of the contests and games. Read more