My boyfriend & I took a 5 day cruise on the Fantasy to Calica & Cozumel, Mexico. We drove over 4 hours to the port a day early so we wouldn't have to wake up at the crack of dawn to hit the road. I booked a hotel room on priceline.com for $50 at the Residence Inn by Marriott. It was right off the interstate and close to numerous restaurants. Although we didn't need it, the room had a kitchen with a full refrigerator and microwave. The hotel was about 8 miles to the ship terminal.

Embarkation: Parking at the terminal is $15 per day. It took a while to get on. There was a lot of people and long lines, but that was no surprise. Once we made it to a rep, we were there for about 10 minutes. It was my bf's first time on Carnival, and they had to get some information from him and we had to set up our sail & sign accounts. It was about 1:20 pm when we made it on the ship, so we went to our room to drop off our carry on luggage and then go to lunch. Since we were early, we had to wait until 1:30 in the stair/ elevator area for them to open the halls that led to our rooms.

The room: It was comfortable. We had an interior with 2 twins beds that were converted to a king. There was plenty of closet space for us both, but there really wasn't a good place to put our luggage. There was a step up to get into the bathroom. Our cabin steward never gave us the chance to get the room dirty and was very attentive to our needs. The tv showed local news from Denver. Read more