We took this cruise with my sister and her husband who were first time cruisers to celebrate our 30th Wedding anniversaries. We have cruised on the Conquest and cruised on the Freedom in May 2010. We choose the Destiny because the cruise best fit our schedule and since my sister and her husband had never been on a cruise, they weren't sure if they would enjoy a cruise more than 4 days. Needless to say, they thoroughly enjoy their first cruise and are ready to plan another in the near future. After reading some of the reviews about the Destiny, I was a little apprehensive, but since returning home I can honestly say we had a fantastic trip and did not experience any of the negative things mentioned in some of the post.

We drove down to Miami from Atlanta and stayed at the La Quinta Inn and Suites West, which was very nice and clean. Embarkation was a breeze. We arrived to the port around noon, dropped of the luggage and parked the car. Even though the line was long, it moved rather quickly and in no time we were at the kiosk and checked in. We were on the Lido deck by 1:00-1:15 enjoying lunch and checking out our cabins which were ready. Our luggage arrived before we left port around 4 p.m.. Hurricane Paula was churning around in the Gulf so we were unaware that Carnival had changed our itinerary, and instead of going to Key West on Friday, we had a sea day and went straight to Cozumel on Saturday, and then Key West on Sunday. The weather was fantastic after leaving Miami.

We had in interior cabin on deck 2 and since we usually have balcony cabins, we were quite surprised at the room we had...although we did miss having our private balcony. Regardless the cabin was sufficient for a 4 day cruise. We didn't see our room steward very much, but he did a superb job of taking care of our cabin. As far as the ship itself, like every other Carnival ship we've sailed on, it was impeccably clean and yes there was some wear and tear, but that's to be expected. Read more