We were a group of 11 travelling from Toronto, Canada and this was our first Carnival cruise. Previous to this, my family (3 kids - ages 6, 4 and 2) sailed on a short Disney cruise. This was our first 7 day cruise. The drive to Baltimore was fine - I would recommened staying in Pennsylvania (an hour away) rather than Baltimore. If you do travel straight to the port, I would recommend paying the $15 a day and park right at the port. I won't get into it, but when we returned from our cruise - our car was broken into at the hotel we left our car at - so never again.

Now on to the positive - the rest of the cruise was excellent in every respect. When we first got on the ship, we headed straight to the lido deck and there was free champagne (or ginger ale for everyone). Our rooms were ready by 2:30, luggage was a bit slow to arrive - but no big deal, we packed what we needed (diapers etc) with us as carry on. The rooms were very spatious, in fact all 5 of us squeezed into 1 stateroom and the other stateroom was used for storage. We never ran out of hot water (so nice long showers) and the beds were one of the most comfortable beds we ever had - and we have travelled a lot!

The boat was nicely laid out, everything was easy to get to and the food (main restaurant and lido deck) was excellent. I thought the shows were great - as cruise ships go - and all I kept saying to myself was I can't believe all this for what we paid!! This cruise goes on sale for $399 for the week .. what a steal! We used to do all-inclusives before the kids - but no more - we are hooked on cruises - food, entertainment, activities!! There was one day the water was rough and I felt pretty sick, but other than that it was smooth sailing. I read a lot of reviews about this ship before we left and I know Carnival typically gets a bad reputation - but trust me when I say for the money, it is worth it and more. There were of course minor problems that I think other reviewers on this site made a big deal about it - ie wait times, quality of coffee etc. but again for what we paid, you just go with the flow and be happy. Read more