Background: My husband and I are both 29 years old. We both have been on 3 cruises thus far. Two with Carnival and one with RC, so we kinda consider ourselves expert cruisers, although one person on the ship stated they've been on 22 cruises...now that's an expert cruiser! We made up 10% of the cruise population, as we were the only few younger, thinner, Asian/Spanish decent cruisers on board. We haven't been on a real vacation since our daughter was born 3 years ago, so choosing a vacation that would allow us time to relax and sleep, but also allow us to visit fun and exciting locations was very important to us. I too felt that I owed this website a review, since I did spend 1 month reading other reviews to get prepared for my cruise. It was actually very helpful. Thanks to all that posted reviews.

We are from California, so it was really hard to plan a flight that would arrive to Florida the same day as the cruise...but I did find one, a red-eye flight from California to Florida, leaving California at 12 am on Sunday arriving to Florida at 10 am. I knew it was going to be exhausting, but I wanted to save some money from having to fly into Florida on Saturday and booking a hotel for a night. It actually worked out great b/c our flights were on time....no problem...we just looked like we had travel all day and night when we actually got to the ship.

Embarkation: This seemed to have gone very smoothly. We paid for the bus transfer offered by Carnival. Not sure if I would do that again, as we had to wait some time for others to join the non-air-conditioned bus and our luggage to be placed in the cargo area. When we got to the Miami port, guys in white hats advise us where to go, but also throw in a request for a tip, more like a command for a tip. They said "it would ensure our luggage would arrive to our cabin safely and on time". I personally thought it was rude for them to ask. We already knew ahead of time that we wanted to carry the luggage on the ship ourselves as we were light packers (two fully loaded carry-on and 2 personal items). Others followed us as well. Carrying your luggage on yourselves is the way to go. It ensures the luggage will get to your room, so you can un-pack and begin enjoying the day sooner...while others wait for their stuff. I think the overall embarkation process took about 1 hour. Read more