This cruise review is based on the experiences of our entire group that consisted of my parents (ages 67 & 61), my wife and I (ages 43 & 41), my wife's mother (age 60), and our two children (a daughter age 15 & a son age 12). My parents have cruised over a dozen times on all of the major lines including Carnival before. My wife and I have 5 previous cruises on both Carnival and Royal Caribbean. My wife's mother and our children have had 2 previous cruises, both on carnival. At the conclusion of this cruise it was unanimous by all persons that this was the least enjoyable cruise we had taken. That doesn't mean that it was terrible but that it didn't stack up to previous trips. We all are avid cruisers but found this one lacking. We booked this cruise for its schedule, price and ports of call. None of us had ever been to Belize and most of us enjoy Cozumel, which made this a no brainer to book.

We drove to Cocoa beach the day before and stayed at a local hotel that offered a special that allowed us to park our cars at the hotel for the week and they arranged a shuttle to and from the port. We attempted to book with the Hampton Inn (which had a couple of favorable reviews) but found it booked. We settled on the La Quinta Inn, which is a mile or two farther down the strip. The room for the night cost $89 + taxes and included the week of parking, shuttle rides for everyone to and from the port and a mini breakfast served in the morning. Parking at the port costs $12 per day, which adds up to $84 total. If you are planning to stay the night before, I recommend one of these packages as they save a bunch of money. The La Quinta was nothing special from a facility standpoint but the staff was excellent and very helpful. The staff had us park right in front of the registration window with our cars in sight, this made us feel good about leaving our cars here for a week. The breakfast is primarily continental with a couple of hot items that you can warm or make yourself (warm up pre-cooked egg patties and sausage and cook yourself waffles). The shuttle was scheduled for an 11:30 am pickup and was provided thru Cocoa Beach Shuttles. The shuttle arrived at exactly 11:30 and the driver loaded our luggage. With one other stop to pick up another couple, we arrived at the port at noon. It was already busy. We unloaded our luggage with the porters (this is an additional cost of $1.00 per bag in cash only). You can only take small bags thru the port yourself, the same size that will fit as carry on luggage at the airport as they have to go thru the x-ray scan at the port also. I recommend that you take at least one bag as a carry on. You may not get your luggage until after dinner, so pack this bag with things you might need in the first 12 hours (toiletries, swim suits, sun screen, dinner clothes, etc.).

Embarkation: This was by far the worse embarkation we have ever had. The port building was simply overwhelmed. We usually arrive about noon and never have had a problem but this time there was a line to enter the port that moved very slowly and each stop in the port had a slow moving line. The line to get in was to have carry on luggage x-rayed; this was as slow as an airport security station. They only had one scanner at the entrance nearest to the porters. Later we found out that there are 2 scanners at the other end and they moved a bit faster. Then we entered the main line to check in. This lasted almost 50 min. We finally arrived on ship at 1:35 after over an hour and a half in lines. This cruise had over 800 children as it was over Thanksgiving and this added to the overall number of people. This cruise had a total of over 3400 cruisers and the normal number is about 2800. I imagine that Christmas cruises are also like this, you may want to plan accordingly. Read more