My wife and I decided on this particular cruise specifically because its home port is a 12 minute drive from our home. We had recently made three 8-10 hour (each way) trips with our 2 and 3 year-old kids and were looking for a vacation that didn’t include two days of driving to get there and back with two toddlers.

Carnival produced a great sales pitch for us… A kids-only water park, Camp Carnival with all-day activities for 2 to 5 year olds (as well as after-hours "camp” for a nominal fee), a "resort style” pool, miniature golf, etc., etc. All before you consider the other aspects of Caribbean cruises ''" awesome ports of call, night life, etc.

The reality of the situation was that Camp Carnival is, essentially, nothing more than supervised play with toys and coloring, and had pretty restrictive hours (opening at 10 on a day when the ship ports at 9; closing between 3:45 and 7 on a day when the ship leaves a port at 6; schedule showing opening at 8 on one evening, but no one showing up ‘til 8:30, etc.) that inhibited us from most of the mommy and daddy activities we’d planned. We weren’t able to take an excursion at either port of call ''" unless we were willing to let our kids go hungry) because you had to retrieve your kids from Camp Carnival to feed them lunch (no food provided by the camp ''"leaders”), and the only excursions the kids could participate in (glass bottom boat tours) were cancelled because of the weather (we didn’t bring car seats for driving around the island). Read more