We sailed on the Destiny June 28, 2010 - 5 day cruise from Miami. We opted to fly to Miami on Sunday, June 27, staying at the Homewood Suites, Blue Lagoon, as recommended by Cruise Critic members. Really nice hotel - as there were 5 of us, we were upgraded to a 2 bedroom suite. The hotel shuttle will take you anywhere you want to go within a 3 mile radius at no charge. As I had read about the great Cuban restaurant not far from the hotel, we elected to go there for dinner (was delicious) and, as the Publix is there in the same shopping center, we walked there and picked up our shampoo, etc. to take aboard the ship. On the return ride to the hotel, our driver asked if we had reservations to take us to the cruise terminal (we didn't - were going to take a cab)so he called a shuttle service for us and we made reservations for a pick-up at 11:00 a.m. for $10 each adult and $5 for our grandson. Shuttle right there on time - pleasant ride - and dropped us off at the luggage drop off designation.

We stood in a constantly moving line for approximately 5 minutes to show our Fun Pass and passports (why people don't have this information out and ready is always a baffle to me) and then proceeded through security and into the first "holding area". The kiosks make check-in really quick - ours took all of another 5 minutes. One of our daughters could not check in at the kiosk as she was traveling with our grandson and the Carnival reps needed to physically see him. We went to another counter - picked up our Sign & Sail cards and up the escalator for the photo. Then, onto the ship. All in all, approximately 15 minutes - not bad. One other slight delay (but we had already set foot on the ship) was the photo for your sign and sail - a minute or two only.

As we were now on board and couldn't get to our cabins until 1:30 - we opted to go to the Lido deck for lunch. All the different stations were open and the wait time in line was maybe 10 minutes - and there were a lot of people already on board at this time - found a table for 5 and enjoyed our meal and a view of the harbor. The food was really good. 1:30 came and we were off to our cabins. Read more