We cruised in July 09 to the Western Carribbean.We left out of Tampa after flying into the St.Petersburg/Clearwater airport. The hotel we stayed in on Saturday night offered free transport from the Tampa airport and to the port the next day. (it was about a $55 taxi ride from St. Pete/Clwtr airport.) Getting on the boat was no problem. We had booked the cruise through AAA and they had given us these pre-printed luggage tags for the boat.(we just didn't realize that we needed to have them on our luggage before we gave them to the guys at the port! We had registered online so I think that helped eliminate a few steps from the embarkation. We were in line for about 30-40 minutes getting on the boat. We had gotten our passports but I had had several people tell me that they just used their DL. (photo id) but I had kids with me so I decided to be safe than sorry! My husband and I are in our 40's and our kids are 16 and 8. Our room was great. We had splurged and gotten a balcony and I highly recommed it. It was only a few hundred dollars more and with 4 people in the room, it was nice to have a place to "escape" to. We had two chairs and a small table, plently of room so sit and read or have a snack. I was impressed at how efficient the rooms were. They were small, but we had plenty of room to put all our stuff. I will tell you that in our room, we only had ONE outlet! And it was in the main room in front of the mirror. Small problem when you have 2 kids with electric gagets that need to be charged! Plus curling iron, hair dryer etc. They did have a hair dryer in the room but it only had one speed and heat setting. They had shampoo and shower gel in the bathroom. We thought we were going to have open seating for dinner but when we got there, we had been given the 6 o'clock dinner seating. We thought about changing it but I'm glad we didn't. If you have open seating, you can eat from 5'45 on but you don't get the same waiters each night and that's alot of the fun. Ours were great, Antara and Mudi. Food was great and we were always full without being "sick full"! Great desserts-warm chocolate melting cake every night plus what ever else looked good! Enjoyed the shows at night, played bingo once (you have to pay to play 5-20.00)and you win money. I think personally, I would have rather gotten to play for free and been given carnival stuff as prizes! We chose to self disembark because we had an 11:10 flight out of St.Pete/Clearwater. We were ready at 7:15 and just decided to go on down. We weren't supposed to be on the 2 level deck, but were supposed to wait on 3 or 9. We were on 3 and noticed people already going down to 2 so we did too. There was already a line so we got in and we were off the boat at 7:45, grabbed a taxi (VERY simple)made it to the airport at 8:30. Was so worried we would miss the flight. Totally unnecessary! Very easy!