This was my first cruise, and about the 6th for my mom who I traveled with. I was a little reluctant to cruise, fearing that I would suffer from motion sickness. However it was not that bad. Prior to traveling, I did some looking into the Carnival Destiny, and found out that it been recently refurbished. I also looked at many reviews and found mostly positive things, keeping in mind that you cannot please everybody.

Arrival in San Juan/Embarkation. We arrived in San Juan in the early afternoon. Given the number of cruses departing from San Juan, I expected chaos at both the airport and the ship. However, that was not the case. I can describe the airport as a well oiled machine. It was easy to find the baggage claim area, the bags came out quickly, there were plenty of cruise representatives, and it was very easy to get a taxi to the ship. I think we paid $20.00 US dollars for the taxi, and it took about 20 minutes to get to the ship. Pulling up to the ship took a while due to the number of busses and taxis there, but it was certainly less that what you experience in going to a professional sporting event.

We arrived at the ship at about 2:30 (our departure time was 10:00 pm), and while there were many people there, it was not total chaos. One thing I noted that if you used a porter, you are able to pass through the initial line much quicker. I estimate that it took about 15 minutes to reach the counter where you are given the tags for our bags. Thereafter, you proceed to the registration area. I think there were about 150 or so people in line at that time, but the line moved fairly quickly. Once we were at the counter, check in was a breeze. Thereafter, we proceeded to the security check point and then to our cabins. All told, the process took about 1.5 hours. Not bad!!! Read more