Originally we were scheduled to sail on the Carnival Triumph out of New Orleans. Due to our daughter getting a Disney Internship job in Florida, we switched ships and sailed on the Carnival Paradise out of Tampa.
Check-in went fairly smooth. We purchased the "Faster To The Fun" package which I do recommend. It got us onboard a few hours before everyone else and there were some other perks during the cruise. The only issue we had was that I bought a Carnival gift card to use as spending money. I called Carnival previously to see if this could be put on our onboard account and was assured that wouldn't be an issue. After about 30 minutes and several people later, they figured out how to add it to our account. They were very pleasant so we weren't too upset.
The ship is one of Carnival's older ships, but it wasn't too bad. It was clean and well-maintained. I had read that there was a smokey smell on another review, but we never smelled it. A few days before we left for our cruise, Carnival called and asked my husband if he would like to upgrade to a junior balcony suite for an extra $350. At the time, we had an ocean view room, so we decided to upgrade. it was a nice room and the balcony had a great view, but their definition of a junior suite is a bit exaggerated. The room wasn't really any bigger than other rooms on the ship, but it had a balcony so I'm not complaining.
Cabin was clean and had a nice balcony, but not what I expected for a junior suite. It was relatively small, but did have a lot of storage area and cabinet space. The shower was awesome and had great water pressure.
The port isn't in the nicest area of Tampa, but we had no problems finding it and the port was nicely run.
Beautiful city and lots of shopping available. We were only in town for a couple of hours so it is difficult to fairly review Grand Cayman. What we saw was nice.
We only got off the ship for a couple of hours to shop. A lot more crowded than Grand Cayman and lot of shopping available.