This is our 5th cruise (second this year)and 2nd with Carnival. We went with my mother and step father and for them this was 1st cruise. Overall Carnival is good value, however our next cruise will probably be RCCL again. Also I would like to say THANK YOU for everyone who posted reviews on this ship earlier, they were VERY helpful. Now let's move on to details.
GETTING THERE. All 4 of us flew in on AirTran to Ft Lauderdale from BWI - uneventful early Sunday morning flight. I absolutely love FLL for their excellent cab/van/private car service at the curb. My husband talked to the dispatcher curbside and in 10 minutes we had a nice big car that fit all our suitcases (3 big 2 small total) and 4 of us very comfortably. The ride was $64 to port of Miami.
EMBARKATION. Absolutely the worst I have experienced. We have filled in the "SailPass" online that is supposed to make embarkation easier. Let's just say that this was a waste of time. All other cruiselines have a separate embarkation queue for people with complete SailPasses and the only thing you need to do is show your documentation and give the credit card for imprint. Not here! Same line for everyone and they still asked all the questions from the SailPass (airline, hotel info, etc.)even though ours was complete and they should have had that info! So it took literally almost 2 hours to get on the ship and we were at the terminal early (around 11:30 am)! Also, nowadays Bahamas require you to fill in the short customs/immigration form for every passenger and of course they were not included in our travel packet (as embarkation stuff insisted they should have been) and we (and virtually everybody else) had to fill them in standing in line.