My wife and I are retired educators, I was in college administration and my wife was an early childhood consultant.We have cruised on HAL, NCL, and Princess for a total of five cruises. These cruises were to the east, west, and southern Caribbean and with our favorite being the Alaskan cruise. We decided to give the Carnival Ectasy a try. This was not one of my better decisions.

Living across the state from Port Canaveral, we drove the 135 miles to Cape Canaveral. We had booked a Park and Cruise package with the International Palms Resort in Cocoa Beach, Florida. This hotel has nice accommodations at a reasonable price. The Park and Cruise package includes a twenty dollar food certificate for their restaurants, free parking for the duration of the cruise, and a shuttle to and from the cruise terminal. We were quite satisfied.

The embarkation went smoothly. The ship however was unable to get a timely departure because of other ship traffic and it departed two hours late. We did make our first port on time however. Read more