This cruise was a gift from my boss for the employees and their spouses from last Christmas. Out of 14 employees, only 6 actually went on the cruise. This I will never understand as my husband & I love cruising so much. We decided to upgrade to a window and also pay for our 23 year old daughter to join us. The last time the 3 of us went on a vacation together was 7 years ago when my husband & I got married on the Carnival Spirit.

We live about an hour south of Tampa so we drove the 3 hours to the Port of Miami. The drive was fine and we arrived at the Port of Miami around 11am. We found the parking at the port was a bit confusing as we hadn't had to park there for quite some time. The last cruise we used Cruise Connection. When we finally were able to get into the garage to park, there was no signage indicating if you were to pay before the cruise and place the ticket on the dash or after the cruise. We asked someone that was working on one the ticket machines and he told us to pay after, so we proceeded to the ship.

After dropping our bags off, we walked into the building where there was a VIP line and another line for all others. As we walked by the VIP line I told the attendant that we had 1 more cruise to be VIP and she told us to go through the VIP line. I told her again that we were not VIP yet, but she kept saying "this way". So that's where we went. Read more