Embarkation - Miami is THE WORST port to go out of. It was fine getting to the port, but once we stepped in through the doors it was HORRIBLE! we have arrived at 1 o'clock at other ports and gotten to the ship no later than 30 min, last year at Port Canaveral we were on Freedom of the Seas in 20 MINUTES and that ship is 30 thou tons bigger!!! However, we know Miami authorities control the port, but Carnival has GOT to do something about this port. 2 and half hours it took!!! 2 and half hours!! That is unacceptable, and it ruined our day as we didn't get on until 3:45 and there was still at least 600 people behind us.

DOCTOR'S CAVE: If you can get over the fact that traffic is crazy in Montego and it's a very dirty place, once you get there it's a fabulous beach and worth every penny. If you are a strong swimmer and a good snorkler here's a BIG TIP!! Grab some dollar store goggles and if you have flippers bring them. They have a very large area to swim safely and the waters are calm. If you swim out a bit the coral and the fish are great! But you do have to swim out a bit so you better either have your own blow up life preserver if you are not a good swimmer or if you are a good swimmer save some energy to get back to shore. Be a good human being and don't touch the coral, you're more likely to get stung or worse poisoned if you are not familiar with aquatic life, and you mess up the preserve for others and our fishy friends. Bathrooms were clean and shopping was kinda sparse, but the food-EGADS!- the restaurant food was great, and the little shack that sells jerk patties for 2 bucks a pop chicken or beef, well we kept going back for more! The drive back to the ship was an eye opener. A lot of poor in this country, be careful! If you offered weed don't accept because you could find yourself in trouble real quick with authorities just watching and waiting to swoop in! I've read other reviews on this and I can believe it!

If you look to your left on the way back you'll see some of the rivers....they were filled with garbage and things I didn't even want to know what it was!! I nearly gagged!! Is this stuff going into their ocean?? are we swimming in it even though it looks clean?

ANOTHER big tip....bring small alcohol wipes-you can get them again at a dollar store or even the drug store in boxes of 50 or a hundred, easy to pack, and WIPE OUT THOSE EARS! Better that than a huge ear infection - it's happened on other trips with us before we learned our lesson, haven't had one since.

Day 4: Cozumel - We had been looking forward to this day for two months and it didn't disappoint. We reserved Nachi Cocom two months before and it was fabulous! Only a hundred people are allowed in a day. There's a lot of good places along that strip including Paradise Beach and San Francisco beach club (which are both great!) but our girls aren't young anymore they're young adults and don't want kids around anymore. This beach club included your drinks and food on the menu. The beach was clean and the water lovely. Yes it's not hoping with loud music and obnoxious people, and that's exactly what we wanted. It still had the jet skis and I paid extra for the para sailing ( a real must do) it cost us $65.00 bucks each but we got a good long time up there!

Puerta Maya port shopping: hopefully your cruise ship goes into this port and not the international one. Puerta Maya is really nice. Yes it is owned by carnival but it does have good pricing and my daughters did find some nice items there. If you want better pricing go into town, but be prepared for them to drop you off by international diamonds (did you know also partly owned by carnival) and pushy pushy pushy.

Day 3 - Grand Cayman - Carnival made this stop too short!! Grand Cayman is expensive enough without making us get back on at 2:30!! We already agreed to forget about Royal Palms this time, our girls want to shop and eat. It was scorching hot!! Worse than Jamaica with the humidity. But when we turned right off the cruise port (as we always do) we went far down this time to some of the better and more reasonably priced shopping. Soooo glad we did! I found the most amazing Caribbean dress!! for only 45 dollars! My daughters loaded up on outfits and trinkets. One store by the waters had sea shell pendants laced with gold trim for 3 bucks! I bought 5 of them - great stocking stuffers!

We ate at the Paradise Restaurant-oh man expensive, but we didn't go to Royal Palms for the day so we spent our money shopping at this amazingly great restaurant! Best Conch chowder I ever had!