Our family embarked on the "Vacation movie" Griswold Family vacation aboard Carnival Conquest. Anytime we get together it's sure to be madness and mayhem. Poor Carnival folks! (smile) We had two grandparents, three siblings and their spouses, and three grandchildren in our group and it was a lovely cruise.

Parking Sunday morning we arrived at the parking lot where we had booked advanced reservations online. We were a bit irritated (okay A LOT irritated) at the lack of organized bus service to and from the ship. Whenever a bus arrived it was mobbed like a Twinkie at a Weight Watchers convention. No thought to who had arrived at the lot first, but merely who was closest to where the bus came to rest. After about 45 minutes baking in the sun our number finally came up and we pressed on.

Embarkation Embarkation was relatively easy. After reading a number of reviews about embarking at Galveston we were prepared for the worst. But smooth sailing for the Griswolds and we were on the ship in no time. However, the cabins weren't ready so all that time we saved was spent milling about the extra 30 minutes waiting for the nuclear-bunker blockade doors to open and access to the staterooms made available. Stateroom The cabins were clean and well organized. Storage space was plentiful, unlike so many ships I've been on. Kudos to the Carnival designers! Our cabin steward Tina was wonderful and so attentive to every need. Two of the four staterooms had terrible air conditioning (apparently the 3rd and 4th got our allotment because they froze!) and after a fruitless visit by maintenance Tina delivered two LARGE box fans with hurricane-force winds that more than compensated. Bring your own hair dryer for the ones provided are awful. We all thought they were broken (because you had to hold the button down) until we compared notes. There was also occasionally a strong sewage smell in the hallway that gagged you if you were unfortunate enough to be forced to walk any length of the ship. We sprayed air freshener around our door because I surely didn't want my neighbors to think someone had died in our cabin. Read more