My husband and I (married on 3/29) had a 2 part honeymoon. 1 week in Riviera Maya, Mexico and a 7 night cruise. I must admit that I was worried about choosing Carnival because the line is bashed pretty frequently, but after speaking with a travel agent who told me to come on hear to get reviews, we decided to give Carnival a try. We picked the Legend after she told us the the larger ships attract more children than the smaller vessels.
We purchased a pre stay package for $80 per person to stay at the Embassy Suited Downtown. The hotel was lovely but the $20 mandatory valet parking was a downer. It was NCAA women Final 4 weekend so it was extremely busy but since both my husband and I are both basketball fans it was kind of exciting for us. We arrived about 1pm but check in wasn't until 4pm. The front desk manager told us that our room wasn't ready but as I come out of the ladies room witnessed him check the 2 people in behind me. My husband and I stood right back in line and then was told that our room was now ready. We asked him what to do while in Tampa and he didn't give any suggestions (we found out the next day while in the taxi that the pier was just down the street with several things we could've done. We decided to rent a car for the day to take care of last minute things so that worked out great. HOTEL GRADE A+ The front desk manager gets a D
Because we got the car we weren't sure how we would get to the boat the next day. I called Carnival about our transportation to the pier. I told her that we had purchased transportation to the pier but it was from the hotel and we needed to take our car back to the airport. I was told that instead of being picked up from the hotel, we could drop the car off and catch the shuttle at the hotel. When we reached the airport, I spoke with a very nice Carnival man with a list of names who found me on the list but told me that I didn't purchase transportation and would have to pay $36. He advised me that taking a taxi was only $22 so we should do the taxi instead. I called me travel agent who told me that the Carnival lady on the phone had given me the wrong info and also advised the taxi.