We booked this cruise as a late summer vacation because our 14 and 16 yr-old children had so enjoyed a Princess cruise we took over last Christmas. Our pocketbook was a little stretched so this was the longest cruise we could afford. We had been on Princess, Royal Caribbean, and NCL before so we thought we would give Carnival a try. We departed from Tampa after a short 2 1/2 drive from our home.
Embarkation: We used the valet service for an extra $15 which we read was worth it (it was). Embarkation was a breeze- we arrived at 11:30 and hardly had to wait in line at all. Since we were carrying some of our luggage (garment bag with formal clothes, etc), we had to wait until 1:30 to go to our room. We made our way to the Lido deck to have lunch at the Lido cafe (an extension of the Brasserie buffet). The food was passable but this was when we were first introduced to the "special drink" hard sell. Every 3-5 minutes a waiter would come by asking us if we wanted a "special drink". We are not drinkers and my 16 and 14 yr-old kids were, of course, not either. It got so bad that we had to develop a defensive technique to fend them off before they got a chance to ask us. Either my wife or I would put up the universal "stop" sign each time a waiter would drift into our area. This was the beginning of the intrusions into what we had hoped was going to be a pleasant cruise. We got to our room and deposited our carry on luggage. Our dropped off luggage arrived much earlier than I had expected, around 2:30. This was a pleasant surprise.
Our stateroom: We had decided to stay in one room as the Inspiration has a category of room with a king sized bed and two drop down single berths. I was a little worried that this would make the room very cramped but it turned out to be very reasonable. Whenever the kids needed to sit out of the way, they would pull down the bunks and sit in them. I did bump my head a couple times during the night but it wasn't too bad. The bathroom was bigger than I had expected and the shower was much bigger than the room we had on the Princess cruise. We always book inside cabins simply because we don't expect to stay in them very much. There was enough room to unpack two adults and two teenagers with some room left over. The room and the overall decor of the ship is showing its age but I understand the Inspiration will be going through an overhaul this fall. We had expected that the room would have a refrigerator but it didn't. We started to panic a little as my daughter's bleeding disorder medicine has to be refrigerated. It is very, very expensive (cost more than the price of the cruise). Had we been forced to stay without a refrigerator, we would have had to leave the ship. After some initial confusion, the purser and room service came through with a small refrigerator that did the job. We were very thankful for the help, but really, refrigerators should be standard.