Arrival DW and I (ages 49) flew down to Fort Lauderdale from Minneapolis the day before our departure on July 3, 2010. We stayed at the Hampton Inn North Cruise Port in Fort Lauderdale. After picking up our luggage at baggage claim, the hotel was given a call and their free shuttle arrived within a few minutes. During the ride to the hotel the driver pointed out where the cruise ships were located, and said that upon arrival when we checked in at the hotel to sign up for a time slot to make it over to the cruise terminal the next day. He also mentioned their free shuttle service to a restaurant at the pier. This was very important as, other than McDonalds and a Subway, there isn't much to choose from around the hotel. The driver also informed us of the option to have transportation arranged for with a local company upon our return to take us to the airport. We did this and the cost was $16 total. I should note that adjacent to the hotel is a strip mall with a Winn Dixie, and a liquor store.

Embarkation When we arrived at the hotel, the earliest time slot available for transport to the cruise port was at noon. Later that evening I called the front desk to see if there was anything earlier and was told that 10:00 am was available so I made the change. However, in the morning there seemed to be some confusion. Apparently to drive into the cruise port area, one has to have a special sticker on their vehicle. Apparently the hotel's did not. Nevertheless, another transport van was there and the front desk more or less convinced this guy to take us. So about 25 minutes later we were on our way. The cruise port is less than 10 minutes away so we arrived while there were still people milling about whose cruise ended earlier that morning. Turns out we ended up being first in line in the non-VIP line and when the doors opened around 11:00 am we went through security, got our sign and sail cards, then had to wait in a large air conditioned room until our zone number was called. This went smoothly and at 11:50 am we were walking across the gangway and onto the ship. Once on board, we headed to the Lido deck and had lunch. At 1:30 we made our way to our room (2117) and changed into cooler clothes we brought along in our carry-on's. The luggage wouldn't arrive until around 3:30 pm. No big deal though. However, Carnival did manage to find one of our bottles of Scotch. There was a nice note in our luggage saying they found it and that we'd get back the night before we disembark. Not all was lost though as our other two bottles managed to get through. This was in addition to the two allowable bottles of wine. By the way, the bottle of Scotch did show up on our last night. The cabin steward was there to greet us but never introduced himself. We didn't mind that as long as his service was impeccable which it was.

The Room The room was plenty big considering that each of us had one piece of checked luggage plus a carry on. The room had two port holes, which was kind of neat and we were able to watch the Gulf lazily go by. We brought along an outlet strip, which is a must have if you have more than one thing to plug in at a time. The outlet strip will only plug into the outlet in the room, and not the bathroom. In fact, only things that don't have a polarized plug (such as an electric razor) will plug into the bathroom outlet. Night lights, extension cords, hair dryers, etc. won't plug into the bathroom outlet. There is no clock in the room so we're glad we brought along a digital clock, which we plugged into the outlet strip. There is a hair dryer in a drawer in the room - one of those kinds where you have to sit on a chair to use. It didn't seem like it had a lot of power so we were glad to have brought our own. Our hair dryer would have only plugged into our outlet strip. The ship has Direct TV and the Cartoon Channel, CNN, TBS, etc. and the four network stations out of Denver were available to watch. I have no idea why they chose Denver. The bathroom had plenty of storage shelves. I read about maybe needing to bring along a hanging shoe rack to store things. Don't bother. In the shower there are dispensers for shampoo and body wash. They also supply bar soap if you want. Towels are changed twice a day. We did not encounter any problems with the room whatsoever. The ship does have Cellular at Sea phone service. So if you're concerned about needing to be contacted while abroad, your cell phone will work on the ship. Don't have an idea how much that costs but we'll find out in a couple of weeks. This is a separate service from being able to make calls from the room phone which runs about $7/minute. Before we left I purchased an ATT Go Phone. Theoretically it was supposed to have coverage in our port destinations. This wasn't the case. It only worked in Cozumel and it was 25 cents/minute which I thought was reasonable. I called ATT when we got home to find out why it wasn't working in Costa Rica and Panama. Apparently only their Go Phones that have the "contract" service will work there and not when you choose to add money to your account and pay as you go. Read more