March 31, 2007. My parents asked the family to go on a cruise for their 60th wedding anniversary. This was my first cruise and I was a little apprehensive. I am a sailor and I have sailed to the Bahamas before, so a cruise on a big ship was something quite different. After reading some of the comments, I told my parents "Just don't expect everything to be prefect, there is bound to be a few glitches".

I drove down the night before from Atlanta and stayed in a nice hotel on the water in Saint Petersburg. After talking to my sister that night, we realized we did not know where the cruise ship was docked. I thought it was in the Port of Tampa, she thought it was in Saint Petersburg, we were both wrong. It is more or less downtown Tampa, thank goodness for the internet.

After arriving in the early afternoon I decided to use the advice of these reviews and I used the valet service. It was a good bit easier and it was a lot faster when we got back. For $15 more it did seem to go a bit smoother. Getting on board was fairly easy, a good bit smoother than I thought. Read more