This trip, I guess, would be considered a "girls" trip, and I use the word girls loosely! We sailed on the Carnival Celebration out of Miami on Sunday January 8th and returned Sunday January 15th. Our Party consisted of my Mother in law- "E" and her friend and my brother's girlfriend- "S" and myself. My MIL's cabin was a handicapped balcony room on the 9th deck aft and our cabin was a balcony on the 14th deck forward. All of us have sailed on Carnival before, E and I are both Gold level and E's friend was Diamond level, not sure of S's level but she had only been on one or two Carnival cruises.

The Port & Embarkation: We sailed from Miami, which was different for me as I live in the Tampa/Clearwater area and the last few times I have sailed it was from the much smaller port of Tampa. I drove over from Tampa on Saturday and stayed overnight at my brother's home. My MIL and her friend stayed overnight at a hotel in Miami that was close to the port as my MIL's friend has some mobility issues and it was better for her. On Sunday my brother drove me and S to the port. Our boarding time was 12-12:30, which was great. Boarding went smoothly, only glitch really was that I could not find anywhere on the website or paperwork which terminal to go to at the port of Miami. I knew that the port was huge, having driven people there in the past, and I also knew that Carnival had multiple terminals. I wound up calling the customer service number to find out where my brother had to drop us off, Terminal F. We actually got out of the car at the wrong building and walked over to where we could give our bags to the porter, no big deal, but if I hadn't called I wouldn't have known where to go. As I said, boarding was smooth and we were on the ship in no time.

On board: Once on board we went up to the Lido to grab some coffee and get our bearings. We were told that the room would not be ready until 2:30 or 3. The ship is huge and it takes some getting used to. None of us had ever been on such a large ship before, we definitely got our exercise that week! S and I hung out in the Lido checking out the sites, I went over to Shack's chicken to check out the line and it wasn’t' too bad so I got a chicken sandwich and S and I shared it. The sandwich was very good, so off to a good start! More on food later…. Read more