This was our third Carnival cruise. We chose this date because it fell on our anniversary and we want to try cruising during more of an "off" season. Galveston is relatively close to our home, about 10 hours away so we made a 7 day vacation out of a 5 day cruise. This was also our first 5 day cruise, our past cruises have been 7 day. It was pouring down rain on our embarkation day which was pretty miserable. I felt worse for the folks disembarking to go home in that downpour! We drove up to the port to drop off our luggage. The porters were staying inside under cover, which is understandable, but we literally could not see any of the porters so my husband had to get out and find one. He got soaked. We had prepaid for parking at Park and Cruise and were in Lot A. The only slight issue there was the pouring rain and trying to figure out which shuttles were picking up and which were dropping off. We ended up in the rain a lot and got soaked again. However, once we dropped off by the shuttle everything was a snap! This was our first time to purchase FTTF and it was worth every cent in my opinion. We literally spent all of 3-5 minutes going thru check in and security. We chose a "checkin" time of 10:30 and we were in 2nd group called to board the ship.

My husband and I were sitting on the Lido with a Miami Vice and Guys Burgers at 11:30! Fantastic! They said our luggage would arrive at our cabin around 1 so we ventured up about that time. Our cabin was decorated for our anniversary, we had a plate of cookies, our 2 liters of water and a gift of a towel and photo frame waiting for us. We selected an Ocean View cabin this cruise as we've always had balcony's before. It was very nice but my husband wants to go back to balcony from now on. It's just nice to be able to walk out and enjoy the view and air.

The ship is nice. I wasn't overly excited about the decor but it was ok. I was absolutely shocked at how many older folks were on this cruise! I think I only saw 10 kids the entire week even though our cruise director said there were 350 there. Good job parents at keeping them away from me!! This was also the first cruise we've ever encountered any angry, hateful passengers. They were both older folks. Navigating the ship was pretty easy, other than finding the Washington dining room for breakfast. It's very difficult to find and I feel a lot of people just gave up and missed out on a sit down breakfast. We loved the Lincoln dining room! The wait staff was fantastic. We dined 4 of the 5 nights there with another couple. They even brought us a little cake on our anniversary and sang to us. We've done late night dining before and tried early dining this time. We liked it as it allowed us time to get to all the shows we wanted to see, especially the comedy club. Next time, we are trying your time dining and eating alone to see if we like that even better. There were strange times for the dining places around the ship. Some were only open from 11:30-2:00 PM, one was only open from 11:30-1 AM and pretty much all dining but pizza shut down by 6:00 PM. Read more