Hubby and I haven't cruised in about 12 yrs. We decided it would be fun to take our boys, aged 5, 8, and 11 on a cruise. The last minute price was right--only $1,058 for all of us directly through Carnival. We drove straight down to New Orleans and parked at Machu Picchu--an offsite parking lot. I really liked parking there. It was very secure and we parked in a building and then he delivered us directly to the port--about a 5 minute drive. And, on our return, we just called and he came right away and picked us us. It was even a little cheaper to park there too, and we didn't have to fight all the crowd.

Then, we began our first wait in line of many, many, lines for the week. A man from Carnival saw that we had three kids and he put us in the VIP line, which was very nice. Then we had to wait for them to call our group to get on the ship. In the meantime, Carnival lined us up for a pre-boarding picture, the first of many, many, many, pictures. (It was completely ridiculous how many pictures they took of everyone--you could hardly walk through some areas of the ship due to all the photographers and backgrounds set up every few feet) Then, we had to wait in a very long, slow-moving line to get into the ship as they took an individual picture of everyone for security purposes. So, we then headed to the Lido deck for lunch b/c rooms weren't ready yet. There was mass crowds up there and long, long lines for the food. Not realizing there were many other areas with tables to eat at, I staked out the territory to finally snag a table. Felt silly about that later as I realized there really was many more areas you could go to and get a table towards the back of the ship and even upstairs. The food wasn't very good, which surprised me. But, it was early, and I wasn't concerned. Kids were happy with the ice cream cones from the 24-hr self serve machines.

Later, we could go to our room and I was horrified when I realized just how tiny it was. We were in an inside cabin and had five people. Two sets of bunkbeds at and "L" and then a little mattress that pulled out at night for the youngest one. However, it did work out for us just fine. There were three little closets and I had brought extra hangers. My room steward gave me a few more as well. There were three drawers and two shelves and a cabinet in the bathroom and a small shelf underneath the sink. I managed to get everyone unpacked and organized and the suitcases fit under the bed. Our room steward was unable to communicate very well with us and his accent was so pronounced that I could not understand him. I tried twice to explain to him that one of our children had a bedwetting problem and I wondered if they had waterproof pads to protect the mattress, but he did not understand me apparantly. (even though we have him wear pull-ups he still wets through sometimes) So, that part was a bummer as I usually like talking to the room steward. In his case, I gave up. Read more