Well first I want to say thanks to everyone on this board for all of the fantastic advice that I received before my family and I went on our 1st cruise, we just returned yesterday and the tips and info I got from Cruise Critic were a HUGE help! So the least I can do is leave a review of our trip.

We departed from Pittsburgh to Tampa early Sunday morning (Me, my wife, 18yo son and twin 15yo daughters) and arrived about 9:30a. We had reservations at the Best Western Bay Harbor and called for their shuttle after we retrieved our luggage. The shuttle arrived in about 15 minutes and was a newer van. The driver was very friendly, greeted us, grabbed and loaded our luggage and opened the door for us. After we were underway he also offered to stop at the grocery if we'd like on the way to the hotel, which we declined. We arrived at the hotel and he offloaded our luggage and let us know that our rooms wouldn't be ready yet. We then went into the hotel (which looked very nice and clean) they told us that the rooms weren't ready and probably wouldn't be until 1:30 (listed check in time was 3pm). We asked where we could get changed (we chose this hotel mostly due to a nice looking outdoor pool) and where we could store our luggage. They pointed us to the lobby bathrooms to change and to a door next to the check in desk with our luggage. This was one of two frustrations with this hotel, we waited for a few minutes for someone to meet us and when no one showed I asked again at the desk and was then told to "just go in and take care of it ourselves", when I opened the door to a very small room, it was crammed with luggage and had very little space. We moved things around a bit and made space but I was frankly uncomfortable moving others luggage and with the fact the room was completely unsecured and unsupervised. When I came back in from the pool a couple of hours later, all of our luggage was out of the room and sitting in the lobby while another guest was retrieving their luggage. In the end there weren't any problems, but there is huge potential. The property is very nice and reasonably priced ($135/night, water view). The pool sits right on the bay and they have plenty of lounge chairs, etc. There's a bar to get drinks, lunch, etc. My wife and I had a couple of beers that were reasonably priced. The hotel shuttle also took us to dinner and back, all at no charge (I of course tipped the driver), they apparently service about a 3 mile circle around the hotel. The only other negative was that the night that we were there, was a "foam party" that attracted a very young and very drunk crowd. I'm far from a prude, but when we walked into the bar that night my wife was instantly uncomfortable, and I got there pretty quickly myself, so we left. Once you left the bar you could not hear any noise from the bar in the hotel and I do believe that this particular party was a fairly rare event. Overall, we were very happy with the hotel, and frankly would stay again without hesitation.

Monday morning we took a cab to the port, the fare was $25 + tip for 5 of us, far less expensive than any of the shuttles. We arrived at the port at 10:30,a porter took our luggage immediately and we went through 1st level security (hassle free) and then inside and upstairs, through the metal detectors, and around the corner to the registration. There we were greeted by a few hundred people in line ahead of us, but frankly the line move quickly and we were through registration in about 25 minutes. We then went to the waiting area. After about 15 minutes boarding started and about 15 minutes after that we were on board! We came onto the ship on the Empress Deck, which is where our rooms were; we couldn't access them yet so found out way to the Lido deck and something to eat. Good basic hamburgers, hot dogs, etc and by the time we were done eating our rooms were ready. I have to take a minute hear and say that the size of the ship and finding our way around was a little overwhelming. I know that this ship is on the small size, but it was a fun challenge to figure things out. Read more