This was the first cruise for both my husband and I. We booked an Early Saver fare through the Carnival website. We were on the Riviera deck, we booked at an inside cabin rate, but we were able to choose a cabin in the category at that rate near the bow/starboard side that actually featured two porthole windows. We enjoyed these very much and got some great pictures through the portholes, some of them using the portholes to "frame" the picture.

Thanks to reading posts on Cruise Critic we arrived at the port about 11 a.m. and we were able to use the early check-in on the Queen Mary and we were given "zone 1" for boarding and told where to go outside the dome to wait to be called for boarding. Boarding started about 11:30, with the VIP members being called first to board, then zone 1. We were about the 10th person to board! We had our picture taken and were on board and eating lunch in the Paris restaurant by 12 noon! It was great getting on board so early and having the ship almost to ourselves for a short time. We ate lunch and then left to explore the ship a bit. About 1:30 we went down to find our cabin and our luggage was already there waiting for us!

At 3:30 we went to the Normandie Lounge for the Travel Adventure and Shopping talk with the cruise director Jeff and the Shopping Specialist Lise. We got some good information from this talk and right after it we coincidentally had our lifeboat drill in the same lounge. Immediately after the drill we stayed on deck to watch the ship pull away from the dock, watching them casting off the lines etc. Read more