We decided (me, my sister, my oldest niece and my sister-in-law) to take a short girls only cruise mainly because it was my sister-in-law's birthday and she has been under a lot of stress lately caring for her sick mother. Since I have sailed on the Conquest before (actually last year), we decided to take the 5 day cruise to Grand Turk and the Bahamas. We left Atlanta and spent 2 nights in Fort Lauderdale at the Holiday Inn Cruise port on 17th Street Causeway. I highly recommend this hotel. The front desk staff are very friendly and have a lot of information. The hotel itself is in an excellent location. We rode the trolley and the city bus (an experience in itself) and walked a lot.

Since we had made arrangements with Infinity Limo Service to pick us up at the hotel to take us to the port, we didn't have to wait for a van on Monday morning. Our driver was right on time and the vehicles from Infinity are very nice. We rode in a Suburban on the way to port and from the port to the airport we rode in a Mercedes van. We really like doing the private transportation to and from the port. We have been on several cruises and we do them every time because we don't have to wait for a bus to fill up or for a van to stop at other locations. We got to the port about 11:30 on Monday, September 21 and we were actually able to get in our cabin by the time we got on board at 12:30. We dropped our stuff off and went up stairs to the Lido deck for lunch. We had no problem finding a place to sit for the 5 of us and our food was good.

We have no complaints about this cruise. The ship's crew was different then when sailed on the Conquest a year ago and they seemed a little less experienced but it was still good. We were constantly busy eating, going to shows, playing trivia, etc. I had just recently sailed on a Royal Caribbean ship two weeks prior to this cruise and the Carnival ship had far better food and entertainment. The two comedians were good and the production shows were excellent. We played Bingo every time except the last one because it was during our dinner time, which we thought was a little bizarre but we chalked it up as saving money. One of the Bingo sessions we went to was messed up but it was no big deal but a lot of people got mad. We were very happy with all of the service we received. Our cabin was on the 8th deck and they were always working on something on that deck (hopefully it was the air conditioner) but it didn't bother us. The air in our room worked but it seems like it wasn't that great at night. The ports were great as well as our excursions. We have nothing to complain about but we almost never do anyway because we are on vacation.