We had lunch at the Columbia (a historic restaurant in Ybor City), dropped our luggage and parked at a private lot with a shutttle. Terminal 3 has a conveniently long drive through, which circles around the Tampa Aquarium parking lot.
Embarkation was super-easy and quick. You board on Deck 7, which isn't immediately clear, so we were a bit confused as to whether to go up or down to find our cabin on Deck 6. Fortunately, the elevator buttons were well-labelled.
It's a older ship but clean and well-maintained with muted styling (unusual for a Carnival ship). By today's standards, it's a small boat, but it has to be to fit under the Skyway Bridge, and it helps if you have to walk it's length several times, as we did to get from a forward cabin to the aft dining room and then the forward theater for entertainment.