My wife and I sailed on the Carnival Destiny in July 2007 and had an absolutely wonderful time. This time we decided to do the same itinerary so we could take advantage of lessons learned (more detail later) and just relax and check out places we saw last time but didn't get a chance to do because we had booked all of our excursions in advance.

I was pleased that the Carnival Victory had taken over Carnival's Southern Caribbean itinerary for two reasons: One was that there was one extra port instead of a day at sea, and the other was that it was a different, newer ship.

My first impression was fantastic. We had a late flight into San Juan, and did not land until 5:45pm, which was actually 15 minutes earlier than expected. Sure, in the weeks leading up to the trip I needed to take an antacid or two and cursed myself for leaving such a short allowance for delays (you need to be on board by 8:30pm), but there were no delays, and due to the late time, there was NO line for embarkation. From the time we checked our luggage it was less than 10 minutes before we were in our room on the 10th floor. The only line we had to stand in was 2 people going through the X-ray and 3 people who needed to get their pictures taken before us. If I ever take a cruise again, I'm going to fly into town the day before and take a cab over late in the evening and avoid the masses, I am so glad we timed it the way we did! Read more