My review of our 10/27 Cruise on the Carnival Spirit is written from the viewpoint of someone who is disabled - two different accidents affected the structure of my knee, necessitating the removal of the kneecap and ultimately requiring two joint replacement surgeries. While I can walk, I can't go far, and I also can't stand or kneel for long periods. I use an electric scooter to get around, and it lets me live a fairly normal life. Best of all, I can travel without needing a lot of help from family and friends which is nice. I'm always aware of the looks I get from children and I often get them to try out my scooter's horn and talk with them about why I use it to get around not only to be friendly but also to relieve the fears so normal with children in this situation. My review is dedicated to one such young man who celebrated his birthday aboard the Spirit and who was always ready to talk with us and tell us about his day. Happy 7th Birthday again Dillon - we enjoyed meeting you - thanks for the ride!

It's also written for the Splendored Spirits, a group who's traveled together before and that we were lucky enough to meet through CruiseCritic's Meet & Mingle boards. When you see them onboard, it's hard to tell who's new and who's a veteran, but one of the best lessons you can learn from them is that what really matters when you cruise is the amount of fun you can have and what YOU can bring to the table as well. There were pre- and post-boarding get-togethers, a dinner for 25 +/- in the specialty restaurant, wines from "home" that were shared the first formal night (and you CAN fit a gazillion people into a cabin if you expand a bit into the hallway). There was a Bingo run, a Poker crawl (literally) and in between, you may have seen some well-decorated cabin doors. There was a simian stowaway named Spank who had a blow-up pal all dressed up. Of all the folks we've met cruising, they're the tops! The moral? Check out a meet and mingle group, even if the cruise line isn't paying. Hopefully, Spirits, you'll get to Italy to visit Tom and Wendy while they're there...and once my back gets back to normal, we'll catch up on the door decorating! Thanks for the great job you did with ours - we were able to earn quite a bit of extra cash running a 24-hour concierge service, and might even have rivaled Carnival's Aleksandar K - not hard to do! There may not be "Spirits" on your next cruise...but you never know!

San Diego: our daughter Wendy and her husband Tom lived in Vista, CA at the time of our cruise (they just moved to Italy for the next 3 years) and we fell in love with the area. We took two weeks for this trip, wanting to spend extra time with them. We were able to visit the big black Mouse in Anaheim, and also saw Celtic Thunder in concert there too; we were enthralled by the Pandas and the variety of unusual birds at the SD Zoo; and we spent a morning cruising around the SD Pier area - AMAZING! We followed it up with lunch at Filippo's Italian Market and Restaurant in Little Italy. INCREDIBLE! Wendy and I ate half our meals and took the rest home for Tom, who's well known for his prodigious appetite - even HE couldn't eat it all. (Absolutely the best meal we had, however was brunch at the Beach Break Cafe near Oceanside on Vista Way - try the Banana Crunch French Toast!) We were glad we got to see the Sea Lions on our tour of the pier, because a late sailing due to a medical emergency made it too dark once we actually left. Now down to business! Read more