We are in our early and mid 30's and this was our 9th cruise (7th with Carnival). We were traveling with my in laws who are in their late 50's and early 60's, platinum Carnival cruisers and their 14th cruise.
We were scheduled to cruise on the Eastern Caribbean itinerary to St. Thomas, Grand Turk, San Juan and Half Moon Cay. We were switched to a Western Caribbean cruise Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Belize and Roatan Isla, Honduras, at 4pm the day before sailing due to hurricane IKE. WARNING: If you ever book during hurricane season and there are active hurricanes don't DEPEND on Carnival or your travel agent to notify you of changes. ENSURE you check the Carnival website for changes. We were told by Carnival repeatedly that they would notify is of any changes and that NEVER happened.
EMBARKATION: We booked our own flights thru Delta from ATL to Miami. All went well. We took a taxi for $9 pp to the pier. Our luggage was taken and tagged and we were on our way to check in for our cruise. My in laws get VIP check in so we parted ways and to our surprise they didn't get checked in any faster than us. We arrived at the pier at around 1pm and were on the ship by 1:45pm. NOTE: Don't show up to the cruise terminal before 12pm. The lines are way too long and you wont get into your room before 1:30pm anyways so save time.