This was our first Carnival cruise. I never thought I could afford one before but since I collected $500,000 in an accident settlement, I thought maybe I can finally go for it. I did what  thought was my due diligence and researched all the reviews and details and selected Carnival Splendor. I was excited about sailing on a new ship. Would I be able to smell the fresh paint?

Pre-Cruise-

We arrived in Long Beach a day early and decided to sleep in our car. It was pretty scary in the neighborhood. The least that Carnival can do is to make sure the neighborhoods around the Terminal were safe and pleasant. There was not a bathroom for at least a mile and when I found it, it was an outhouse at what looked like an abandoned construction site. Gross! Knowing that we did not want to pay the outrageous parking costs at the terminal. We decided to haul our luggage about 4 miles and left the car in a Best Buy parking lot.  It would have been nice if Carnival would have had someone to meet us so we didn't have to walk so far. Read more