Background info: This was my second cruise. My first was a 7 night to Alaska on NCL. I am a 30 year old female and I traveled with my coworker/cousin.

Booking: We booked our cruise on carnival.com about 6 weeks before leaving on the trip. The best time I could have booked would have been about 3 months prior to the cruise or in the 2-3 weeks before sailing. . We paid $189 per person for interior rooms. The cheapest I saw those rooms go were about $129. With taxes and fees, our cruise was $224 per person. I booked our flights out of ND on my own. We flew in/out of LAX. Our round trip flights from Fargo, ND to LAX with all fees and baggage ran about $210 per person. The best site I found to compare flight prices was bing.com; however, the one airline we took home, was not included in the bing.com searches (Allegiant). We did book the transfer from the airport to the port thru Carnival. It was $26 per person each ride. The carnival rep found us as soon as we grabbed our luggage and the shuttle was comfortable and safe. We also made a point to pay our gratuity at booking. I was hoping booking our cruise thru carnival.com and paying for our cruise, shuttle transfers and gratuity up front might help s get a free upgrade, but it didn't.

Embark/Debark We made point of doing as much paperwork on carnival.com before the cruise. This helped the check-in process go smoothly for us. I used my birth certificate and my friend used her passport; both worked just fine. Getting into the building and onto the ship was about 15 minutes, it goes much quicker than you expect when you get there and see everything. Getting off the ship took a little longer, but there is such a large window of time in which to get off, that can vary greatly. Read more