Carnival Triumph, April 22, 2006. Our flight out of Buffalo on fri the 21st was uneventful (a good thing). We arrived in Ft. Lauderdale mid afternoon and rented a car which was much cheaper than a shuttle or taxi. Had a little trouble finding our hotel/ condo in Miami. We stayed at the Fortune House overlooking the bay for about $169 for the one night and the place was absolutely beautiful and I would highly recommend it for a pre cruise stay. It was a condo with 2 bedrooms, a full kitchen, washer and dryer in room, 2 balconies (1 off the living room and 1 off the master bedroom) a huge walk in closet and 2 bathrooms. The place was extremely clean. It has a nice size workout room and a very nice pool with attached hot tub. not much for midpriced dining within walking distance but that is why we had the rental car.

Returned the car to miami airport and took the free shuttle back to the port (Thrifty) the total time from hotel to airport and back to Port of Miami was about 45 min to 1 hr.(very smooth).

The embarkation went very smooth with fairly minimal waiting times. We did have some sizable lines but they did keep moving right along. We were on the ship by about 1230. Rooms were not ready yet so we just ate and scoped out the ship a little. Once the rooms were ready we did not have our bags until about 430- 500 pm. Tipped our room steward $20 right off the bat and that ended up backfiring a bit (will explain later). We went to the Camp Carnival welcome talk the first night and that was pretty brief and informative. Our 4 yr old took to Camp pretty well and seemed to really enjoy his time there every day. We got to see our 12 year old once in awhile as he made friends very quickly and spent most of his time in the arcade and went to a few shows. Read more