My husband & I took our first cruise - celebrating our 10th anniversary. After reading lots of reviews on Cruise Critic and other sites, we were not sure what to expect but were looking forward to the experience nonetheless.

After an early morning 3 hr flight to Miami, we arrived at the Terminal around 11:30 am - and there was already a fair-sized lineup waiting to go through security. We were not expecting to stand in line for another hour, barely moving! There was no feedback from any Carnival employees or Security staff as to the delay. It seemed like the security staff either went on a break or their lunch, and noone was available as backup! We finally got through Security and headed to the next room, which was full of people waiting to check in. Here - we waited for another 1.5 hours. After being up @ 5 am in order to catch our flight, needless to say we were getting tired of standing around. We did get an apology there from a Carnival employee, with the explanation that it wasn't their usual terminal so that was why things were backed up. After it was all said & done, we arrived in our stateroom at around 2:30 pm.

Our stateroom was on Empress Deck, directly opposite from the elevators/stairs in the Aft of the ship. The only night this was a problem, was the last night of the cruise - lots of people seemed to be pulling an all-nighter! Room was a good size; king bed with sofa alongside. Bathroom was also a good size - only thing in the dish for complimentary samples was a pkg of toothpaste. Nothing else was added for the entire cruise. It was nice to have shampoo & body wash in the shower, we brought our own just in case. Our steward, Andre, met us in the hallway as we were heading to the Lido deck - he introduced himself and immediately asked if there was anything additional we needed. He did a very good job all week of keeping our room clean 2x/day, our icebucket filled, and the nightly towel art/chocolates were a nice treat! Read more