My wife and I were looking for a short vacation to take before our lives got crazy busy for the next year. We decided a cruise would probably be the best bang for our buck, and we were pretty much correct!

We booked Carnival's Fascination out of Jacksonville, FL for 5 days to Nassau and Little Stirrup Cay. The trip itinerary was Day 1 - at sea, Day 2 - full day in Nassau, Day 3 - half day in Little Stirrup Cay, Day 4 - at sea, Day 5 - in Jacksonville.

We attempted to book through carnival's website, but found it not working well, so we called to book. The woman we spoke with got the task accomplished, but it was a bit pain-staking, slow, and repetitive. We were on a budget, so we booked the cheapest room, the cheapest package, and no insurance. We then checked in online 2 days before the cruise and were able to print our boarding passes, luggage tags, and setup the on-board account. We drove to Jacksonville, since we only live an hour and a half away, that morning and arrived around 1 pm. I know there are cheaper options for parking, but I chose to park at the cruise terminal for $75 simply for the convenience of having my vehicle as soon as I leave the ship, and the comfort of knowing it's in a secure lot on the port property. Once we arrived at the port we drove over to the terminal and unloaded our bags to be taken directly to the ship. We then parked and walked into the terminal and waited through the security lines, which moved fairly quickly. NOTE: cell phone and camera use is strictly forbidden in the terminal...don't even pull it out, they will tell you to put it away. Once through security it was on to the next line for the desk to get checked in and collect our room key/boarding card thingy. That line moved pretty quick too. Since I had already setup the account and put in all our passport info when I checked in online, we were out of that area within minutes. Next line was to have your picture taken, card scanned, then on to the ship! We had a room on the empress deck, which was very convenient because we were just below our dining room, on the same floor as guest services, and had a back stairway right on to the serenity deck (where we spent most of our ship-board time). Our room was ready immediately, but our luggage didn't arrive to later that night, so we tossed our carry-ons in the room and hopped up to the lido deck for some food. We spent the rest of the day walking around the ship to get familiar with the layout, signed up for a spinning class for the next morning, then went back to our room to wait for the 4pm safety drill. After that hung out on the serenity deck and watched the ship leave port until dinner at 6 in the imagination dining room. Dinner was good. I don't remember what we had, but there was a nice selection of food, the people we were seated with were all very nice and chatty, our servers were efficient and friendly, and overall dinner was a nice experience. The food was good, not super fine dining nice, but good none-the-less. After dinner we relaxed around the ship then went to the first show in the theatre. The show was really good, all the performers were very skilled. Read more