I'll start with the booking process - we were booking very last minute, under 7 days pre-cruise. As first time cruisers we really wanted a cruise under 7 days just to ensure we would like it. Destiny was sold out, then became available again the next day, so I booked one of the last few balconies. The following day Carnival called and offered a reasonably priced upgrade to an Ocean Suite on the Empress deck 7, I bit and bought it. That brings us to the embarkation process:

Embarkation:

We arrived in Miami around 1100 am the day of the cruise, took a cab ride from the Airport $24 flat rate for both of us. Upon our arrival at the cruise terminal a nice porter helped tag our bags and advised that he would be scanning them, so I tipped him $10 to ensure my Rum Runners made it on safely (which they did!). At this point it was just just after noon and we breezed through the security screening with no issue. The scanner guy did stare at the image of my partner's bag for some time even after we walked away, but never did anything else. When we were asked for the boarding passes we were taken to the VIP lounge, a nice area with sofas where you can wait for personal check-in. This process took all of 15 minutes. If I had to do over again, I would've used the self check kiosks as they were much faster at this time of day, but alas I wanted to experience the full VIP treatment. We were advised our room wasn't available until 1:30 PM so we boarded, got our photo taken and made our way to Deck 9 (Lido) for the lunch buffet. Read more