My husband and I took our son, 18 and our nephew, 16 on this cruise to celebrate our son's graduation from high school. This was our 3rd cruise with Carnival.

First, we sailed out of Tampa. We have sailed out of Port Canaveral, Jacksonville, and Tampa. Tampa is by far the WORST port to sail from for us. We will stick with Jacksonville from now on, if possible. It was so confusing and stressful to get our luggage out of the car. It was crowded, hectic, and I was a nervous wreck by the time I parked the car, found my way back to my husband, and made it into the terminal.

I had read that when you take a case of water, you just have to put a preprinted tag on it and they will deliver it right to your room...WRONG! I had a heavy case of water and was told by the porter that he couldn't take it! I was surrounded by cars, exhaust, and then a bus pulled up! My choices were to 1)leave the water, 2)unpack one of my suitcases and try to fit it in there, or 3)lug it with us onto the ship and then keep up with it until we could get into our room! We decided to take it with us. To add insult to injury, when we went through security, the security guard opened the case of water (to check for alcohol smuggling) and then left it like that for us to try to balance along with our luggage!!! I can understand that they have to check for alcohol, but why put us through that and not even tape it back? I thought the attitude of most of the staff at the port was lacking and not very friendly. Read more