I always keep a short journal(fill in the blanks) when I take a cruise, because after I get home, I will either remember the wonderful or the horrible, but I have yet to take a horrible cruise regardless of the weather, the shipmates or the ports. To me a day at sea is always better than a day behind a desk.

That said, ths cruise did have a few draw backs, but that only happened before we left the port.

I checked my roll call right before we headed out of the house to drive down to Jacksonville FL. Someone had posted on the roll call that boarding will be late, that the ship was going to be coming in late due to high tides. The Fascination goes under the Dames Point Bridge, and can only do that at low tide. So they say. And we were sailing with a full moon the week of 11-7 to 11-12, so the ship was delayed coming in. And we were supposed to start boarding at 2. No problem, a late lunch on the lido. Or take ourselves out to lunch. Which we ended up thankfully doing, because our hotel was instructed by Carnival to not even let the VIP people start boarding until 2. We are not VIP. And we were not even taken to the ship until 5 p.m.And once we got to the port,(a bus load from the Holiday Inn Blount Island) security instructed the driver to leave us off over in lot 4 and then have us trek or be shuttled back to the port. Our driver thought that was just about the craziest thing he had heard all day, he drove over to lot 4, drove around in a big circle, and then drove us directly to the port. We let the porters handle our luggage, and we got in line. We were in line from 5:10 until 6:45 when a very nice Carnival employee asked how our friend was doing, and was told EXACTLY how our friend was doing. (our friend who was going on her first cruise-had had foot surgery this past year, and the standing was killing her). Well thank heavens for her honesty, we were taken out of line and rushed through(my friend was in so much pain she was in tears). So bless that Carnival employee for noticing what was happening. We finally arrived up at the Lido deck at 7:10. We heard computers were down, we heard delays from machinery, we heard it was because of the late boarding-WHO KNOWS? Maybe Carnival, but that was the worst embarkation day in the four Carnival cruises I have taken. I had sailed from Jacksonville before, and it was great, so this perhaps was a one time thing. Read more