A little about us....we were a group of 9 in total. There were 2 couples with our 4 kids (ages 3, 5, 7 & 13) and my 75 year old mother. This was my 3rd cruise, but I haven't cruised in over 20 years (was on the Holiday and Jubilee when I was in my early 20's). My husband, mother and kids have never cruised. The other couple cruised 2 times before, but not with kids.

We would have liked to have flown in a day early, but that wasn't meant to be so we booked a 6:40 am flight out of Boston direct to Tampa. We arrived in Tampa at 9:30 am, got our luggage and hopped in a taxi to the port. It was a chilly morning in Tampa - only in the 50's, but it warmed into the 60's by mid-day. We had to take a taxi and a mini-van to the port because there wasn't a vehicle big enough for us all. There were 5 of us in the mini-van and it was approximately $30 for the ride. We were at the pier before 11 am. The whole embarkation process was painless. We filled out our Funpasses on-line and were through security in less than 15 minutes. We did have to wait in the "waiting area" for our number to be called for about 45 minutes - there was some sort of delay, but I'm not sure what it was. We were in group 5 and we were on board having lunch by 12:15 - this was a very good experience.

We headed up to the Lido deck and grabbed some burgers & fries and our first Funship Special. The food was good and there were very short lines at this point. We noticed the lines grew longer as the afternoon progressed. After we ate, the kids put on their bathing suits and we headed up to the Waterworks area. It was empty, but I don't think it was because of the temperatures, it was just fairly early. The kids went down the slides about 20 times each and had the whole place to themselves. Then we wandered down to the pool so they could swim there for a few minutes before we went to check out the rooms. Read more