This was our first sailing on Carnival. We have sailed twice on Celebrity twice before. We never started cruising until our son, Jordan Peterson, became a solo pianist/vocalist on cruise ships. He had sailed previously on the Celebrity Summit and the Century. He started this contract in September of this year and he had only been on the ship for a couple of weeks before we invaded him! We had a large group of 10 family members and friends traveling with us.

We arrived Friday evening in Miami from our flight from Omaha. We had a late flight and arrived to the Comfort Suites Miami Airport North just before midnight. We chose this hotel because of the free shuttle to the cruise port, which worked out pretty slick. There were MANY cruisers staying in the hotel, so needless to say, it was busy at the complimentary breakfast. Rooms were basically good, we got a good rate of $99, and we were not really going to be there long, so it was adequate. We boarded the shuttle around 9:45 a.m. and were at the cruise terminal in no time.

Embarkation was very easy as somehow we ended up in Group 1! Not sure how that happened, but we actually boarded the ship before some priority guests. I liked the embarkation process much more on Carnival compared to Celebrity. It seemed much more organized and the whole process was a breeze. Read more