This cruise was a girl’s trip-there were 6 of us in 3 cabins. Two of us flew into Orlando on the day of departure. Here is where the problem began-we landed at 8:45AM and had pre-paid for the Carnival transfer to the port. I have taken the Carnival shuttle from Orlando to Port Canaveral twice in 2013 and did not experience any problems. The lady checking us in at the desk said the bus will be arriving at 10AM. The bus finally arrived at 10:45-we had waited 2 hours in the airport by this time and were getting annoyed. My last two experiences with the Carnival shuttle I waited no longer than 20-30 min for a bus. The bus was not full at all-there were maybe 15 people on it. The ride to the port was uneventful, but when we arrived we had a very unpleasant experience. Tammy the bus driver would not let us retrieve our suitcases from the bottom of the bus. She had a really nasty attitude towards us and said the only people who are allowed to get their luggage were the crew members that were on the bus. We wanted to carryon our luggage and she would not open the door to where the luggage was stored on the bus. My friend and I are experienced cruisers and we know we can carry our own luggage on the ship if it fits through the x-ray machine. After a heated exchange, Tammy opened the door to where our luggage was stored and we crawled in under the bus to retrieve our suitcases. I’m not one to complain, but this experience was definitely not normal and we spoke to the lady who was checking us in at the platinum lounge. She said it is a huge liability to let customers crawl around the bottom of the bus and she gave us a contact number for Mears Transportation. Guest services contacted us while on the ship and basically said sorry. I was not impressed at all and I will not use a Carnival shuttle again.

We got settled into our room and went to the buffet for lunch. The weather in Port Canaveral was very cold for Florida, but that is the chance you take while cruising in January. I knew this cruise was going to have a huge party atmosphere, and I was right! We were celebrating 2 birthdays in our group, and we saw a lot of bachelor/bachelorette parties around. We went to the muster drill at 3:30-we met in one of the lounges and had the life jacket demonstration, then we had to go up to where the lifeboats were-it was very long and there were a lot of drunks making noise, etc. Our room was nice-we had an aft balcony and out room steward, Eddie was great-we always had fresh ice and he gave us some extra blankets because of the cold weather (there is no heat on the ship apparently).

We did Anytime Dining all 3 nights and it was hit or miss. Every night someone’s order was messed up or one person totally forgotten. We had to ask repeatedly for a bar waiter, despite a waiter walking around the dining room selling shots. We did the sea day brunch and it was pretty good. The buffet was typical Carnival fare. I thought the pizza was not as good as what they are serving on the larger Carnival ships. There were always very long lines for the poolside grill and Mongolian Wok. Read more