PRE-CRUISE: We flew into FLL the night before the cruise and I'm glad we did! We arrived around 3 pm and rented a car and drove to Marriott North Ft. Lauderdale. The hotel was nice, clean and comfortable. They did not offer a shuttle from the airport or to the pier so that's why we rented a car. The hotel is not in a great location so anyone staying there would need a car to get to anyplace. From lack of sleep the night before and the traveling, we arrived exhausted and I had a migraine, so being able to get some dinner and just relax and get to sleep early was nice.

EMBARKATION: We returned the car rental to FLL and took the free shuttle to the pier. We arrived there around 12:30 and although the lines looked a bit long, they moved quickly and we were on the ship by 1:10! We requested the early seating dinner but received a letter stating that the early seating was in high demand and so we were given the 8:15 seating in the Posh dining room, aft table. That was fine with us, and it actually worked out quite well for us. We were told we could not go to the rooms yet so we went up to the lido deck and had lunch which was very good. After lunch we went to our room. We had an aft balcony room on deck 7. Room was small but plenty of storage (actually more room than we needed)...we put our luggage under the beds and headed out to explore the ship. Had muster drill at 4:30 and sailed away shortly after that.

Our first night to dinner we were seated at a table for 8 and only 1 couple showed up. Turns out they were our neighbors and had the room right next to ours!! I can't remember what we ate the first night, and I'll just review the dinners now and say they were all pretty good. I've been on 3 other Carnival cruises before however and I feel like this cruise was not as good in the dining dept as the past. Service was just average. The assistant always forgot we wanted iced tea, and hubby always wanted extra scoops of ice cream for desert. I don't even think he spoke english! Portions seemed less than past cruises, although adequate. Warm chocolate melting cake was just awesome! Show the first evening was the Welcome aboard cruise and was fun! We went to one of the comedian shows (not the adult one) and he was quite funny. We saw the cruise talent show and also the Beatles show which was pretty good. Also saw the marriage game which is always a fun thing to see. We did not do any other shows. Karaoke was fun...I love to sing even though I can't carry a tune! The singer at the piano bar was not good at all so we never went in there! The Captains party was nice...free drinks and dancing. Chair poolside were hard to come by. The higher the deck the windier it was as well. The gym seemed nice but I only went once to see it and didn't make it back to exercise as I planned.