This was the first cruise my husband and I had ever been on. My husband is 25 and I am 24. We scheduled it so that it would coincide with our first anniversary. After reading numerous reviews, tips, and tricks, we left for our first cruise on July 27, 2008.

I had booked our flights through Jet Blue and we arrived in Tampa Airport at about 11:15 am. Originally we were supposed to get in at 10:45 or so, but our flight out of JFK was delayed one hour. In the future we will either fly in the day before or simply leave from New York. Flying in the morning of was too much stress, worrying about if we were going to miss the ship or not.

Once we got to Tampa, it was a quick $25 taxi ride to the Port of Tampa where the Carnival Legend was sailing from. Embarkation was, for the most part, painless. We did get scolded by security; however, 'because my husband's passport reads "Christopher" and our Carnival reservations read "Chris". This was because "Christopher" does not fit in Carnival's online reservation space, and I thought "Chris" was better than "Christoph". Regardless, they let us through. We waited in a line for about 30 or 35 minutes and then were allowed to board. Read more