We sailed 2/27/11 out of San Juan and visited St Thomas, Barbados, St Lucia, St Kitts, and St Marteen. Our group consisted of my 80 year old father, myself (nearly 40), my younger brother (38), his wife and their 2 children (ages 2.5 years and 6 months). This was my 14th cruise, and 3rd cruise for my brother and his wife, but everyone's 1st time on Carnival. We usually cruise Princess, Celebrity, or NCL. Overall, I'd say I'm unlikely to choose Carnival again. There were definately pluses to the Carnival experience, but the minuses came in areas that were important to me. So, here goes...

Arrival was easy. We flew in same day direct from Boston, and even after a delay due to the SNOWSTORM (Ahh!) we made it in plenty of time. I was excited to wander around SJ b/c despite sailing into and out of this port twice before, I'd never had the chance to actually see it. I really didn't get a chance this time either b/c I chose to wait for my brother's family to come and everything w/ two young children takes 10x longer than with a normal adult, so we had about 45 mins to walk around town which meant we saw all of about 2 blocks.

But our first impression of the ship was good. Embarkation was fairly easy, though after breezing through check in, we were held up for quite a while at security, and though I am pleased to see they have ramped up cruise security over the years, I think they could have used more than the 2 x-ray machines because it caused a big backup when we were already tired and hungry. Read more