A little background first. I'm 37 and my husband is 35. We are middle-class, easy-going, well-travelled and have been all over the world, including several times to the Caribbean. We have an 11 month old daughter and also brought my in-laws, who are in their mid/late 50s.  I've only been on one other cruise in the late 80s, as a teen, on Royal Caribbean and thought it was fantastic.  Of course, it was a different era and I was a different person. This was my husband and his parents' 3rd cruise altogether and their 2nd with Carnival.  Despite having an overall good time, they don't wish to go on another Carnival cruise again.

We just sailed on May 30th, 2009 for a week, to Grand Turk, Half Moon Cay and Nassau.

Embarkation went pretty smoothly and we arrived at 1:45 and it took less than an hour. Debarkation was a whole different story and took almost 3 hours. L Read more