We decided to book the Legend for a second time and were not disappointed. We drove to Tampa the day before our cruise and stayed at the Fairfield Inn & Suites Tampa Fairgrounds / Casino. They had a package that allowed you to park your car there for the duration of the cruise. The hotel is mostly new and very nice. Staff service was excellent and the hotel shuttle not only takes you to and from the cruise port, they also take you anywhere within a six mile radius of the hotel. Throw in a free breakfast and we thoroughly enjoyed our stay. Tampa is one of our favorite ports. During embarkation, we experienced the typical long lines but the lines moved fairly quickly and check-in was a breeze. Debarkation in Tampa was also quick and easy. It is truly an efficient port that we enjoy cruising from.

We found our cabin once we got on the ship and headed to the buffet. Carnival seems to have cut back on the food selection since the last time we cruised on the Legend. We didn't notice any difference in food service on our Elation cruise in 2010 but this cruise was different. The buffet seemed to serve what the dining room served. That's not necessarily a bad thing but we avoid the dining room when the menu doesn't appeal to us. To go up to the buffet and find the same food was a little disappointing. The buffet selection also seems to have diminished. The first few days I thought it was my imagination but I realized that it was not me. There really was less food to choose from. This is one of those mixed blessings I guess. One of the reasons we enjoy cruising is for the wide variety of food. But, having fewer options helps us eat less. So, I guess I can't complain about this too much. The food was still good and that's the most important thing.

The staff on the Legend was overall very friendly. We had a wonderful steward as usual. Milagros was our first female steward and she just doted on my 2.5 year old. He loved it. He had a different towel animal every night, some we'd never seen before. We chose anytime dining and this cruise convinced us to go back to assigned seating. We also had anytime dining on the Elation and did not experience any of the issues we had on the Legend. Probably because it's a smaller ship but good service is a basic expectation no matter how busy a restaurant is. We had one really good waiter, Carlos. He was truly good at his job. Even though he had so much going on, he was attentive, prompt, and entertaining. We had one so-so female waiter who managed to get our orders right and dote on my little one. Service was slow though and I'm not sure who's to blame for that. Our third waiter was pretty bad. It took forever for that team to acknowledge our presence, took forever to get our orders, they brought the wrong things, and I never got my after dinner cappuccino. They didn't interact with us outside of introducing themselves and taking our orders. Read more