We are a family of 4, with 11 year old twins, looking to go on a cruise for the first time. We wanted a budget priced 20th Anniversary/Thanksgiving cruise with a port we could drive to. So we ended up picking the Fascination out of Jacksonville, a 6 hour drive.

EMBARKATION - Probably the area that I have the most comments on, mostly negative. Jaxport is minimal facility not really designed to handle the crowds of a fully booked cruise ship. Take our advice - if you do not have your luggage totally organized and ready to hand over to the porters, skip the front of the terminal and just go park. Then, you can take your time without cars backing up behind you. Just tow your luggage over to the building. It's not that far. Once inside the building, the lines were long, but moved along quickly and the Carnival staff did a decent job getting people through. But, the biggest disappointment was when we finally walked on the ship. I wasn't expecting much, just a smile, a "welcome aboard" and some suggestions as to where to head to first. None of that. Just people milling around in the lobby of deck 3 trying to figure out where to go. I finally tugged on the arm of a Carnival employee and she said that we could go to our stateroom and then eat. Felt kind of like being herded like cattle.

STATEROOM - It was great! Even with 2 adults and 2 kids, we felt very comfortable in the space. Luxurious compared to our tent camping trips! The room was very clean and we had plenty of places to store our clothes and stuff. Nigel, our steward was very pleasant and unobtrusive and came by several times a day to straighten up the room. The kids loved the towel animals. Because of weather, we spent more time in our stateroom than anticipated and it felt very cozy. And we loved having a window - so much to see! Read more