We flew from London to Tampa via British airways and stayed for 4 nights at hotel intercontinental Tampa which is close to airport and hotel offers free pick ups from airport. Hotel is opposite west shore shopping centre which has many departmental stores, cinemas and excellent restaurants. We got room on top floor facing the bay with brilliant views. As we didn't want to drive we used local buses from near shopping centre to downtown and other areas. They are infrequent (every half hour) but very reasonable. We paid only $4 for all day bus pass which was excellent value. Busch gardens is a must if you are into coasters and theme parks. We also visited Florida aquarium, Lowrie zoo, Ybor city, Tampa river walk and other areas in downtown. All in all we spent excellent few days in Tampa with great weather on most days except the day before the cruise when it poured for a few hours but dried up in the afternoon.

On the day of the cruise, the hotel was offering a shuttle for $10 per person to the port. We took the 11.30 shuttle and were in port in 15 minutes or so. After dropping off our luggage with the porters, we proceeded to check in and saw long queues but as were British, we were guided to another queue where there was only one family ahead of us. We were swiftly checked in and were in the ship in 10 minutes. Excellent embarkation!

We were asked to proceed for lunch in the buffet on level 12. Buffet was ok with usual lunch time food like burgers and fries, pasta, pizza, sandwiches, rice, desserts etc. However the buffet restaurant looked like a school canteen. It's a shame that when the ship was refurbished in 2015, this area didn't seem to get any make over. We had an all inclusive drinks package however it seemed more than half the ship was on the same package. Hence this led to long queues at the bars especially on the first few days. Read more