You can view photos of our cruise here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=80217&id=1071103743&l=6bece1909c

My wife and I cruised last week on the Carnival Legend to the Western Caribbean and enjoyed it very much. Embarkation on Sunday at 1PM was fairly easy after standing in a few lines at the terminal. We had arrived in Tampa Bay the previous evening and stayed at the Holiday Inn Express at Rocky Point for $84. It is located very close to the airport on part of the bay and offered nice accommodations. The hotel drivers gave us fast and easy rides from the airport, to the ship the next day, and even to the airport when we got off the ship a week later. Once aboard The Carnival Legend, we found our balcony room on the Empress deck to be very clean and comfortable. The food was great the entire cruise. Carnival's staff was very friendly. "Wee Jimmy" the Cruise Director was very entertaining . The ship's photographers were everywhere and did a great job. It was great to always be able to track our position by watching channel 14 on the TV in our room which showed where we were on the map. We attended some of the seminars on the ship which were informative like the "Future Cruise / Travel Talk" and "Ship 411" meetings. The entertainment was great on the nights which musical and broadway style shows were performed in the Follies Theater aboard the ship. We were aware that Carnival would automatically charge $10 per day per passenger for tips for the ship's hotel and food staff on our "sail and sign" card account. They work hard and deserved it.

Although we had a great time overall, nothing is ever perfect in this life. So, here are some observations to help you deal with or avoid some of the challenges we experienced. We did not like the fact that the ship's general store was only open part of the time. There were several instances when we stopped by only to find it was closed. The internet service aboard the ship is extremely slow and the minutes are very expensive. I only checked my email and ended up spending about $40-50 doing so. We were interested in a tour of the ship's engine room and working areas but learned that Carnival charges $95 per person for such a tour - and it only happens once a week. I skipped it for that price. We wanted to cancel the post-cruise transfer service with Carnival because the hotel offered it to us. But, we were told the bus service fee was "non-refundable" which was a bummer. The people who stayed in the room next to us were smokers - which we are definitely not. Thank God they were down wind from us. But, some of the odor still wafted our way once in a while, especially when the boat was docked. Thankfully, we were able to close our balcony door to get rid of the smoke and any noise as well. A note of caution: the casino is smoke city as well... Read more