My husband and I decided on Carnival based on a recommendation from our travel agent and also to go to the Western Caribbean because it offered the best combination of port days and sea days, so that we would get a mix of both. I have been on one cruise before with Carnival, but it was only a 4 night Baja trip. My husband had never cruised before. We're both in our mid twenties, no kids.

We flew into Miami on the day the cruise was leaving, 2/2/08, and American Airlines got us to MIA early along with our bag. We pack very light so we had only one big checked bag - less for the airline to potentially lose! We took a taxi to the cruise terminal and got there around 10:30 AM. The taxi was $24 one way. We waited outside the terminal for a little while before being admitted around 11:00 AM. Check in was very quick. We had booked an 4A inside guarantee and were thrilled to learn we had gotten up to 6E on the Spa deck, which is deck 11, in an outside room with huge windows! We elected to carry on all our bags onboard so we'd have them right away. We began boarding at about 11:45 AM and were in the first group called. We had lunch at the buffet on Lido deck and were into the cabin at 1:30 PM.

The stateroom itself was great, it seemed really big and had lots of storage space. The bathroom was big too, later I learned this was a "family stateroom" because the sofa could be made into a bed and there was also a pull down bed. We had just the two of us in the king size bed. This was very comfortable, a little firm for us but still we slept like babies. One morning we did hear some noise I think from someone setting out chairs on the deck above us. The room was very quiet at night, on this deck there are only about 25 cabins and the spa, so it's extremely private. Even though it was right below Camp Carnival and the kids pool we did not ever hear much noise. I liked the TV which you could always turn on for the ship's position and the speed you were traveling. Read more